All posts by Kevin in Dallas

2011 Season, Game Post

Game 2011.5: Tigers at Orioles

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JV looks to get to 1-0 on the season and continue his domination over the Orioles.  Over the last five years and covering 8 starts, Verlander is 5-0 with a 2.52 ERA and 1.10 WHIP against the birds.  JV had a ND in the opener against the Yankees.  Other than his 4 walks and 1 bad pitch to Teixeira, JV pitched pretty well.  Let’s hope he can keep his pitch count down and get into the 7th today.

Brad Bergesen starts for the O’s after their ace Jeremy Guthrie was hospitalized on Monday with pneumonia.  Bergesen’s stats look pretty average over his career –  4.33 ERA, 1.37 WHIP, but his FIP (4.70) and K/9 (4.48), suggest that he’s not all that great.  But I also thought the same about Jake Arrieta.  In his career, Bergesen has decent numbers against the Tigers – 1-2, 3.86 ERA, and a 1.19 WHIP.

Fun fact of the day – AJax led the majors in Ks entering Tuesday (8), but he also leads the majors in pitchers per at bat.

Tonight’s Lineup:

1. AJax – CF
2. Rhymes – 2B
3. Maggs – RF
4. Cabrera – 1B
5. Martinez – DH
6. Boesch – LF
7. Peralta – SS
8. Avila – C
9. Inge – 3B

2011 Season, Game Post

Game 2011.4: Tigers at Orioles

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Your Tigers look to get to .500 today, else it’s 1-3 with a dreaded off day tomorrow.

Porcello toes the slab for the Tigers.  Porcello was roughed up a little in spring training, allowing 29 hits and walking 11 in 27.2 innings for a 1.45 WHIP.  He struck out 17 during that time.

Jake Arrieta goes for the O’s today, after making the opening day roster for the first time.  Arrieta has four real pitches, throwing his curve, slider or change roughly 40% of the time, distributed almost equally.  Arrieta started 18 games for the O’s last year, posting a 6-6 record with a 4.66 ERA in 100.1 IPs.  He had a 1.53 WHIP and struck out 52.  Tigers should have their chances today.

The Orioles look about as good as you can after opening weekend, sweeping the Rays and outscoring them 12-3.  But I think their 3 game win streak ends today.

Fortunately, Luke Scott is not in today’s Orioles lineup.  Tigers look like this:

1 Jackson CF
2 Rhymes 2B
3 Ordonez RF
4 Cabrera 1B
5 Martinez C
6 Boesch LF
7 Peralta SS
8 Avila C
9 Inge 3b

2011 Season, Game Post

Game 2011.2: Tigers at Yankees

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Tigers looks to get to .500 today with Brad Penny on the mound versus AJ Burnett.  I believe that Penny is going to be a critical factor in the Tigers’ hopes to compete this year, so I’m really looking forward to this game.  Penny had a decent spring with a 1.34 WHIP in 25 1/3 innings, striking out 15 and walking only 8.  Penny gets a lot of ground balls, holding a 1.35 career GB/FO ratio.

AJ Burnett’s 2010 was…not good.  An article in today’s New York Post said it best: “After a strong start in 2010, nearly everything about Burnett’s season looked awful. He finished the year with a 10-15 record, a 5.26 ERA, 16 wild pitches, 19 hit batsmen, one lost fight with a clubhouse door, one mysterious black eye and just one postseason start after manager Joe Girardi deemed him untrustworthy.”  The article goes on to mention that Burnett’s 2010 was one of the worst statistically in Yankee’s history.

On the other hand, this is a guy with a career ERA just under 4, a 1.32 WHIP, and a 8.22 K/9 ratio over 12 seasons.  That’s pretty salty.  The boys will definitely have their work cut out for them today.

Boesch will be in left field instead of Raburn, batting sixth, and Avila and Inge will flip flop in the 8 and 9 spots in the lineup.

Check out this article that Joe Posnanski wrote on SI.com covering the 32 best players in baseball.  JV and Miggy made the list.

2011 Season, Game Post

Game 2011.1: Tigers at Yankees. For lo, the winter is past…

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Opening day.  Is.  Here.   Rejoice.

The voice of the turtle, the warmth of the sun, and the superflous bunting adorning every inch of stadium fascia.  Every team is in first place and hope abounds.  Fresh cut grass, crisp new uni’s, warm dogs and cold beer.  It’s difficult to imagine a better day of the year.

I’m working a full day today, but I’ll be sporting my Tigers cufflinks (they contain little pieces of seats from Tigers stadium) and wearing my home cap.  Thanks to AppleTV and mlb.tv, I’ll be streaming the game on the TV in our lobby.

Who is going to the game?  If you’re not going to the game, how will you watch and/or listen?

2011 Season, Links

News and Notes: Hip Hip…Opening Day

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Lots of chatter out there concerning our Tigers, here are a few good reasons to procrastinate today:

– Lynn Henning gives his player by player projections.

– Freep writers predict anywhere from a 1st to 3rd place finish for 2011.

– Brad Penny had this to say about Verlander – “That might be the best spring I’ve ever seen out of a pitcher,” Penny said.  (As reported by Tom Gage.)  This got picked up by Buster Olney on ESPN insider today.

– stltoday.com had a great, in-depth article about Scherzer yesterday.  At least one Czar thinks Scherzer is poised to become an All-Star this year.

Remember to like our posts on Facebook, let’s get the word out.

Three more days.

2011 Season, Managing & Strategy

Quantifying Ol’ Smokey

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Along with their player forecasts and team breakdowns, Baseball Prospectus publishes “stats” on managers long with a lengthy write-up…”Old Smokey remains one of the league’s better skippers…”

Generally, I think that day in/day obsession with the team grants us better insight then whatever stats BP can come up with, though it is difficult to argue with BP’s algorithmic brilliance and their ability to objectively quantify data, and only data.  Unfortunately, when it comes to managers, the numbers seem to be little more than obscure trivia answers.  With that in mind, I’ve posted some select “manager stats” below.  Pythag is the manager’s 2010 pythagorean expectation (a Bill James invention, read about it here or here), Avg. PC is the average pitch count per game, BQS is “blown quality starts,” REL is relievers used, and Rel w Zero R is relief appearances with zero runs allowed.

BP doesn’t list league averages, so I’ll post the rest of the division for comparison’s sake.

Manager Pythag Avg. PC BQS REL REL w Zero R
Ol Smokey -1 99.8 4 416 242
Manny Acta 0 96.8 4 468 305
Ron Gardenhire 1 93.7 6 465 315
Hillman/Yost 4 96.7 6 332 206
Guillen 2 99.5 11 406

265

Hard to really get much out of that, but interesting fodder none the less.

I do, however, have some more useful figures, courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.

In 19 years as a manager, JL is 1493 and 1518, for a .496 winning percentage.  (Don’t look for him to get to .500 this year.)  He’s won one WS (’97 with the Marlins) and 2 pennants.  As the manager of the Tigers, he’s fared significantly better, 424-387 for a .523 winning percentage. Sounds pretty good, right?  Not when you look at his second half numbers.  The numbers below reflect Tigers’ records after the All Star break under Leyland.

’06 – 2 games under

’07 – 4 games under

’08 – 14 games under

’09 – even

’10 – 10 games under

Thus, since 2006, Leyland is an astonishing 30 games under .500 after the AS break, and an even more incredible 67 games over before the summer classic.  Looking at one season, maybe two, you can point to player drop-offs or injuries.  But five years is hardly a coincidence.

Continuing, I was shocked to see that JL was in the middle of the pack when it comes to using relievers, part of that is due to his willingness to let Verlander throw so many pitches (I’m not necessarily against that).  Though I did not post it above, his hit & run frequency was also in the middle of the pack for AL Central managers.

So in the end, I’ll leave it up to you guys.  Is Leyland one of the league’s “better skippers?”   Or does he simply have everyone fooled but us?

2011 Season, Links

News and Notes: 3.18.11

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– In case you are not following along, Cabrera is mashing to the tune of .357/.391/.714 for an OPS of 1.105.  I’m guessing his OBP could be higher, but he’s swinging to get into shape.

– Benoit has looked very good with a .71 WHIP and 10Ks in 7 IP.

– Valverde has 4 BBs in 7 IP.  Not good.  Perry has 5 in 8 IP.  Schlereth had 4 in 4 batters.  That beard can’t be helping.

– Coke has looked pretty good this spring, but he’s concerned about the velocity on his fastball.  So am I.

– After the Porcello and Perry regressions, it looks like the Tigers are going to take it slow with Jacob Turner.  Good plan.

– Leyland has decided that Guillen and Zumaya will stay in Florida for the start of the season.  Anyone want to take the under on May 15 as the first date that either will appear?

2011 Season, Links

News and Notes: 3.10.11

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– That’s two days in a row now that young Tiger hitters have come up to the plate in the bottom of the 9th as the tying or go ahead run, both times with the bases loaded, and then watched 3 straight called strikes hum by.  (Worth on Tues, Sizemore on Wed).

– Fangraphs had an interesting post on the Tigers’ rotation a few days ago.   The author, Ben Nicholson-Smith, questions DD’s decision to add depth to the starting rotation.

– 40 IPs for Zumaya might be a little much, as it looks like he won’t be ready for the opener.  We’ve seen this before.  Beck posted some of Leyland’s thoughts about heading into the season without Zumaya in the pen.

– The Cabrera video has been released.  I’m staying away from it, but it’s big news today.

2011 Season, Previews

Baseball Prospectus’ take on the 2011 Season

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I picked up BP 2011 last week and have had an opportunity to review their outlook on the Tigers (amongst other things).  There’s no substitute for picking up the whole thing (it’s only $12.86 on Amazon now), but I wanted to pass along a few thoughts, and get your reaction.

First of all, BP is notoriously pessimistic, and their writers all seem to share the same cynicism and arrogance.  It’s funny in small doses, but gets tiresome after a while.  So while the information is amazing, and their projection algorithms are second to none, be prepared for elongated jabs at virtually everyone.

Anyway, there is a certain amount of nomenclature that is intrinsic to BP, so I’ll try not to focus too much on their less well known stats.  But in case you want/need a primer – here is a link to their glossary.

Also, win totals for superstar pitchers and HR/RBIs for superstar hitters always seem to be low, no? Does anyone know if BP calculates team win totals first, and then lets the individual stats follow that, or is it the other way around?  I’m guessing the players are forecast first.  They have probably posted an article on this in the past, if someone has seen it, please let me know.  I’m really curious to know if they have addressed before.

Team

In analyzing the 2010 season, BP gives high marks to the Granderson/Jackson deal, writing that “it was a bold and controversial move that wound up paying off in spades” citing the payroll flexibility and that “cheap talent is the life-blood of a winning organization.”  A-Jax, Scherzer, Coke & Schlereth combined for 8.9 Wins Above Replacement Player (“WARP”), while Granderson and Jackson combined for 5.9.  +3 WARP is pretty darn good.  Not to mention that Scherzer, Jackson, Coke and Schlereth combined for 26 years of team control when the deal was done (22 now), while Granderson & Jackson were at 7 (5 now) at the time.  More WARP + more player control + less price = great deal.

BP goes on to mention that the Tigers have a “core of young players who could form the base of a championship team,” starting with pitching talent.  According to BP, this is paramount because pitching talent is the most difficult asset to acquire in the open market.

BP feels that the Tigers have as good as anyone to win the Central.  Referencing 2010, the Tigers’ staff could be compared to that of San Fran (could) and BP reminds us that San Fran didn’t have Miguel Cabrera.

Hitters

I won’t go through them all, but a few highlights.  When I list slashlines, it’s Avg/OBP/Slg.

Cabrera projects to have another monster year (36 HRs 110 RBI, .948 OPS), but his projected WARP is only 4.2 (6.4 in 2010 and 4.4 in 2009).  Pujols, on the other hand, projects to an 8.1 WARP, and had a WARP of 7.8 last year, even though by most accounts Cabrera had a better offensive year (higher slugging, higher average, higher OBP). I know that Pujols is a significantly better baserunner but was he 1.4 WARP better?  And considering that Cabrera is 3 years younger, why the gross discrepancy in this year’s forecast?  Anyone at BP reading this?

Like many, BP was blown away by A-Jax’s 2010 .393 BABIP, and projects a still high but more reasonable .346 BABIP for him this year, which results in a pretty pedestrian .268 BA and .704 OPS (actually, pedestrian is generous; an OPS of .704 for a center fielder merits the bench). Jackson is going to have to develop more gap power and cut down on Ks (BP projects 152 of them, down from 170) to be a consistently good player.  .268/.325/.381

Incredibly, BP projects 478 PAs for Guillen, but also mentions that the Tigers’ hopes of Guillen making good on the final year of his $48M contract are similar to their “hope to capture and train a unicorn this spring.”  Still BP thinks Guillen will slug .771, which is great for a 2B, but not so good for a DH/corner outfielder.  .265/.346/.425

Raburn projects to a very healthy .806 OPS over 381 plate appearances. .266/.337/.469

Maggs projects to an. 814 OPS, but his low low fielding leaves him with only a 1.1 WARP. .293/.363/.451

VMart should be everything the club wants him to be; BP sees him batting .287/.357/.458, with 19 HR and a WARP of 2.9.

And because everyone wants to know, Inge projects to a reasonable 1.5 WARP, largely resulting from his fielding prowess.  .228/.309/.385.  stephen, please let us know how you feel about a corner infielder with a sub .700 OPS.

Pitchers

BP projects another huge year for JV, but only 14 wins, which says a lot about what they see behind him.  The interesting parts about their projection is that they think JV’s SO/9 will drop by 5%, yet his BB/9 will increase slightly (3%).  Regardless, he projects to a 5.5 WARP.  Highest on the team by a long shot.

BP sees Scherzer as striking out more per 9 than JV (8.8), but only projects him to 145 IPs, way less than 2009 and 2010.  BP knows quite a bit about injuries as they relate to workload, age & pitching mechanics, but I certainly hope that he gets to to 180 IPs or so. Interestingly, BP refers to Scherzer as a current “ace,” but they really do not get into the low IP projections.  Scherzer’s 2011 WARP projection is 3.6.

Porcello projects to a 2.3 WARP (which is great), but a 1.39 WHIP and 4.40 ERA.  4.4 K/9 like BP suggests just won’t do it.

BP thinks Zumaya will get into 40 games this year, but they project his BB/9 to 4.7 with a 1.45 WHIP an 4.12 ERA.

Finally, Benoit…”Because some teams don’t pay attention to the volatile nature of relief performances, the owner of a 4.47 career ERA with two good seasons in the last five years snagged a three-year, $16.5 million deal with Detroit.  That’s an expensive recipe for heartbreak.”  I still don’t like this deal.  BP projects 71 IPs with a 1.19 WHIP, 9.9 SO/9 and 2.95 ERA for 2011.  I can live with that.

BP also goes into great detail on manager analysis, I’ll save that for a separate post later this week.  Considering the polarizing nature of Ol’ Smokey, I think we’ll have plenty to discuss on that one.

Again, pick up your copy of Baseball Prospectus 2011 here.

2011 Season

How Will You Follow the Tigers This Year?

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Some of my fondest memories as a kid recall listening to Ernie Harwell on a summer night through an old mini-boombox (maybe even a dual cassette one!) or clock radio.  I loved hearing the same sponsors year over year.  There was something about listening until the game was over, and trying to stay awake long enough to hear the game recap.  Even if it was a loss, at least they’d talk about probables for tomorrow.  Then I would wake up and double check my memory via the box score, and look around the league to see who had a big night.

As a result, I’m a radio first guy, for all sports.  Even if I’m watching the game, I’m usually muting Rod and Mario in favor of the sweet melody of Dan and Jim.  I think some people may do step one without step two.

But I’m curious to know, how do you follow?

This will mark my 6th year of MLB.tv, it’s a must for any out of town fan.  I also have XM radio, which covers all MLB games, and then At Bat for the iPhone.  I’m even considering adding it for my iPad.  I know, its ridiculously redundant, but I want Tigers baseball at my every disposal.

Unfortunately, and to the dismay of commenters on its website, MLB does not offer package pricing.  So it’s $120 for MLB.tv, and then $15 each for the iPhone and iPad apps.  This sounds like price gouging, but I’m about to pay it.  On the other hand, $150 for a year of Tigers’ baseball (~$200 if you include the XM subscription during the season) through virtually every electronic medium I own?  Not bad.

I’m also considering adding a Roku or Apple TV into the mix, so that I can stream the game from MLB.tv through my TV (as opposed to my computer monitor).  I’d love to hear your thoughts if you are familiar with either.

And what about Twitter?  I follow Jason Beck, Dickerson, billfer and Det_Sports.  Anyone else out there hot on the Tigers?

Also, a little housekeeping:

1) If you like the posts/site, please “Like” the posts on Facebook.  You should see a button following the text for each post.

2) If anyone wants to contribute during the season, I’d love some help with the game posts.  I can always throw a quick thread up for comments, but I’d prefer to have a little background for each game and that’s a tough gig for one guy to handle.  billfer really did have a second, full-time job. See below for my email addy.

3) I’m always up for ideas for the site.  You can reach me at kmvela @ yahoo dot com.

2011 Season, Players

Yahoo! Sports Writer Takes a Shot at the Tigers

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Admittedly, the only reason I saw this was because I was browsing other Tigers blogs out there. But apparently, some guy named Jeff Passan over at Yahoo! sports has taken issue with the way the Tigers (affectionately referred to as the “Pussy Cats”) have handled the Cabrera issue.  You really should check it out.  Passan goes so far as to insinuate that Cabrera could “run a dog fighting ring or kill someone” before getting a reaction out of the organization.

Passan comes off as very Jim Rome’ish, (my guess is he’s been punked by guys like Jim Everett in the past), but he’s probably just writing to get a reaction.

As I wrote earlier, I wish the Tigers would have come forward sooner, but I don’t see it as their responsibility to punish Cabrera.  Get him help, yes.  But fine him or bench him?  The likes of Mickey Mantle & Jim Bouton would have never seen the grass if Passan had his way.

What are your thoughts?

2011 Season, Players, Spring Training

Cabrera, the day after.

11 Comments

(image courtesy of DetroitNews.com)

I’m sure that most of you have read the Freep and News by now, they are both loaded with Cabrera stories.

The central theme is that Cabrera is unlikely to report to camp tomorrow with the rest of the fielders, as the commissioner’s office and the union are involved in “the process.”  Looks like his next steps (rehab? admonition by the team? personal time?) are still up in the air.

I don’t think that alcoholism is novel to ballplayers, but Cabrera seems to have a depression problem.    I also think that DD is full of it when he says he was “shocked” to learn of the incident. I’m not blaming DD here, but I’m confident the front office knows their players better than that.  I think there was a better option for his reaction to the media.  Continuing, the Tigers need to support this guy.  In my limited, unprofessional opinion, drinking scotchy scotch scotch in front of the cops was a blatant call for help.  How did these personal issues get past DD, Avila, Cabrera’s agent, etc.?  Cabrera wanted this to blow up.

Predictably, Mitch Albom, was judgmental and belittling in today’s column.  (Question, Albom used to be awesome, but now he’s annoyingly holier than thou, no?  He and Skip Bayless look more and more alike every day; Dorian Gray anyone?)

The News actually took a pretty dim, and far-fetched view of things, with Wojnowski reporting that Cabrera’s “career may be on the line” and the Tigers are pondering “Miguel Cabrera’s future.”  Both of these vagaries can be loosely interpreted as either good analysis or ridiculous shock content, I fall in line with the latter.  His career is not on the line, and we need to rally around this guy.

Honestly, I don’t think this affects the season at all.  Cabrera needs to see about 3 pitches to be MVP caliber ready, so if anyone can show up to spring training late, it’s this guy.  He has the resources around him (we hope) to get the treatment/help he needs.  What befuddles me is that the organization has seemingly distanced themselves from him, rather than rallying around him. There is still time to do so, but it needs to happen, soon.  At least Leyland is moving on from it, saying yesterday that it “won’t affect the team.”  In fact, he was pretty emphatic about it, reports Ken Rosenthal.  I’m sure Leyland has seen a lot in his day, and I’m inclined to agree with him.

(I’m also a little concerned about the “3-4 knee spikes” into Cabrera’s thigh.  You’d need a lot of force to take the big man down.)