January

• Debunking the theory that long grass helped Trammell’s defense
• Curtis Granderson stops by for an interview
• Talking Tigers prospects with Jonathan Mayo
• Nate Robertson gets 3 year deal
• Miguel Cabrera becomes very rich
• Jose Canseco is scum ball, Ordonez gets implicated
• A look at the best defensive seasons ever - for Tigers
• Stuff about Brandon Inge

February

• Multi year deals continue to flow, this one for Grandy
• We scout Dontrelle Willis with pitch f/x
• I question why Santiago is a lock for the team. Santiago later responds with career year.
• Rick Porcello makes his debut

March

• People are going crazy for Tigers tickets
• More stuff about Brandon Inge
• Tigers linked to crappy relievers
• What was your best day in baseball?
• Do Jeremy Bonderman’s pitches fool umpires?
• Tigers set roster
• Game On!

April

• And there was much losing and a lack of highlights
• Francisco Cruceta finally allowed to immigrate
• The Yorman Bazardo era ends before it got started.
• Dontrelle’s knee does weird bendy thing
• Jim Leyland has seen enough
• And musical positions starts with Miggy and Guillen switching
• Granderson returns
• Verlander has arm angle issues
• Jason Grilli traded!

May

• Patience is a virtue and a technique
• The Jacque Jones era ends, unfortunately after it started
• Remember when Sheffield became the full time left fielder? Or when Guillen was, the first time?
• Leyland exercises his intentional walk fetish

June

• Can you believe that Casey Fossum was with the team since the begining of June?
• Tigers draft Ryan Perry and every college reliever available.
• Other scouts on the Tigers
• Bonderman is toast
• And the Tigers start winning
• Inge and Pudge platoon
• Dontrelle Willis gets optioned to A ball
• Rodney gets activated and shelled
• Inge wrestles pillow, loses

July

• Guillen is the only All Star
• Tigers use rally kitten to beat Indians
• Tiger Stadium starts to fall
• Candidate 1 for worst game of the season
• Todd Jones out as closer
• Pudge traded for Farnsworth

August

• Candidate 2 for worst game of the year
• Candidate 3 for worst game of the year
• Tigers sign Freddy Garcia
• Verlander and pitch counts
• Hey, Zumaya is injured
• Robertson kicked from rotation

September

• The 09 schedule comes out (yeah, September was a slow month)
• Jonesy retires
• Chuck Hernandez is fired
• Cale Iorg is going to be an All Star

October

• Leyland talks about stuff
• Rick Knapp is the new pitching coach
• A look at strike throwing

November

• Tigers increase ticket prices
• The Tigers defense and PMR
• DTW gets a redesign
• BA’s top 10 Tiger prospects
• Tigers set 40 man roster and leave Skelton unprotected

December

• Tigers almost trade for Jack Wilson, but don’t
• DTW Live debuts
• Tigers get Gerald Laird and Adam Everett
• Tigers trade kitten rescuer for Edwin Jackson
• Tigers WAR projections

Site Info

It’s nice that every year I get to write about how the site is growing. This year saw 395,316 unique visits to the site with 728,073 page views. This included the one millionth visitor in November and the 2 millionth page view will be served up in January.

I made 650 posts this year, which is way too much for you guys to have to read. This year also marked the debut of live chats and streaming video. Both are features I’d like to continue.

On those 650 posts, all you left 29,999 comments (for real, as of 5:27 ET). Three games topped the 500 comment mark, two heart breakers against the White Sox (both were candidates for worst game of the year) and a dramatic tilt against the Indians.

As for the most prolific commentor? That would be Sean C in Illinois, aka Smoking Loon. Combining his totals across his name amounts to 3405 comments. That is more than Mark in Chicago and Dave BW combined, and they were second and third respectively.

So thanks for everyone’s support this year. Thanks to Sean Baligian and Jamie Samuelson for the repeated mentions on the WDFN airwaves and the opportunity to participate in your discussions. Thanks to the other bloggers who linked here and provided inspiration for me to write on topics I probably wouldn’t have otherwise. Thanks to everyone who participated in the comments, and for those that just stopped by and read either on the site or in your feed reader. Have a great 2009.

For the projections I used the Marcel 2009 FIP projection for pitcher ERA (available at Fangraphs). In terms of innings pitched, I used some judgment. I penciled in Justin Verlander for 200 innings, and every other slot in the rotation for 180. Feel free to disagree with this, I won’t mind. But I think we can agree that the success of the team will largely hinge on the staff’s ability to stay healthy.

2009 Detroit Tigers WAR Pitcher Projections

You’ll notice that the 5th spot in the rotation doesn’t have a name assigned to it. I anticipate it will be some combination of Dontrelle Willis, Nate Robertson, and Zach Miner. As for the 4.77 FIP I chose, that belongs to Willis and it was the worst of the 3 which is why I chose it - to be a little conservative.

At least in terms of the projections for the rotation, it is fairly encouraging. While the Tigers lack a dominant top of the rotation, the projections show a balanced rotation that is fairly strong at the bottom. (I know, it felt strange to type that as well and I don’t entirely believe it myself)

With the bullpen situation not the least bit settled, things could change here substantially. At this point Fernando Rodney and Bobby Seay are the only knowns. Given the uncertainty everywhere else I considered the rest of the pen to be replacement level.

With the 24.9 WAR projected from the lineup, and the 16.1 WAR from the pitching staff, the Tigers on paper look to be about and 84 win team. That actually sounds a little too good and a little too optimistic to me. But if it holds that may be enough to keep the Tigers in the divisional hunt.

I’ll continue to update the spreadsheet as more become known about the roster make-up throughout spring training and the offseason.

For more on WAR the following resources may be helpful to you:

• How to Calculate WAR
• Win Value Explained (part of a series)

For now I’m focusing on the position players. What I’ve done is to use split the difference for the Bill James and Marcel projections for the 09 players for wOBA. Defensively I’ve used UZR/150 as the base, but in cases where there isn’t a lot of data due to injury or position shifts, I’ve made my best guesses. When in doubt I’ve left players as average defensively, like Guillen in left or Santiago wherever he plays. For playing time, this was entirely subjective and the area that you’ll most likely choose to disagree. That’s okay. This is one guy’s opinion and I certainly have no injury/effectiveness crystal ball. Heck, we don’t even know who the 5th outfielder and other utility infielder will be at this point.

The table below has my projections as of the time of writing. I’ve also built the same spreadsheet in Google Docs that I will update as more information becomes available. This one is just prettier and then anybody commenting will be working off the same initial assumptions.

2009 Detroit Tigers WAR Projections - Position Players

As for the calculations:
Batting Runs: (wOBA-.338)*700/1.15*Playing Time. This converts wOBA to runs by comparing it to league average and then factoring in playing time.

Fielding Runs: UZR/150*162/150*Playing Time. The UZR numbers adjusted to reflect projected games played

Position Adjustment: Position Adjustment*Playing Time. Not all positions are created equal. This accounts for that.

WAR: (Batting Runs+Fielding Runs+Position Adjustment)/10.5 + (2.5*Playing Time). This adds up all the runs and converts it to wins above or below average. The 2.5 is the win difference between an average player, and a replacement player.

If you are having problems, drop me a note on twitter (@billfer). I’ll also post updates with problems/status there as well.

I’m doing this now because traffic and news usually dip around this time of year. Hopefully it won’t be too disruptive.

Thanks for your patience.

UPDATE: It appears that everything is moved over and complete. Hopefully this speeds things up on the site a little bit, and resolves the downtime that the site has been experiencing. My former host said I had outgrown their site, and DTW was the site crashing their servers. I don’t get that exactly, especially on low volume days, but I’ve moved up from shared hosting to a virtual private server so let’s hope this works.

I’d like to get to 50 live users so tell your friends that after the Wings game and 30 Rock are done, to tune in.

Links from today’s show:

• Bless You Boys: Treanor the Tiger
• Tigerfest sells out. Stubhub availability.
• Turnbow interest
• Payroll info

TT: In the past, you have indicated that you take pride in your defense and that you have worked hard on that part of your game. Are you happy with the progress you have made in that area?

CG: This past year’s defense, I actually took a step back, so I wasn’t happy with my play in the 2008 season. I felt that being out with the broken finger and not be able to run while injured put me a step behind once I returned to the lineup and I never fully got back to where I wanted to be. So this 2009 season, I must get myself two steps ahead of where I want to be, and get back to playing the defense that I want to play.

It’s nice to hear a player admit when there was a shortcoming in his game. After each season Granderson has had one major area where he needed to improve. After 2006 it was cutting down on strikeouts. After 2007 it was hitting lefties. This year’s task is defense. His success on the other fronts and the recognition about his own performance is what makes me think 2008 will just be a blip.

Granderson signs autographs after last year's event

Official Tiger of DTW and Billfer, Curtis Granderson, will be hosting his second annual charity basketball game. The game supports the Grand Kids Foundation, which in turn supports Michigan’s Inner City schools.

Last year’s event was a great family night out. This year’s event will take place January 17th at 4 p.m. at Lake Orion High School. Tickets are $20 for adults and $15 for kids and are available from Grand Kids Foundation.

The roster for this year’s event is already impressive, and I’m sure Curtis is working to add more stars. On deck are:

2008 Miss America Kirsten Haglund and 2007 Playboy Playmate of the Year Sara Jean Underwood have committed to participate along with Project Runway Season 5 Designer Joe Faris. ESPN personality Dana Jacobson has also committed to play.

Fans looking to see a more above-the-rim game will get to see And1 Mixtape Tour star Jamal Nelson, a.k.a. Springs.

Former NFL stars Lomas Brown, Herman Moore and Tyrone Wheatley have also committed to play. Brown and Moore were All-Pro performers with the Detroit Lions and were named to the Lions 75th Anniversary Team.

Returning from last year’s game are UFC star “Sugar” Rashad Evans, Super Bowl MVP and Heisman Trophy winner Desmond Howard and professional boxer Andre Dirrell, who continues to work his way up the Supermiddleweight rankings.

Granderson will again serve as a coach, joined by celebrity coaches Lloyd Carr and Cheryl Ford.