Category Archives: 2006 Season

A heaping helping of Zumaya

There were several Detroit Tiger mentions over the last two days, and many of them included references to Joel Zumaya.

The Free Press had a piece on Zumaya’s new curveball/slider.

“My curve can be a slider,” he said. “If I throw it from over the top, it’s a curve with a 12-to-6 break. If I lower my arm angle, it has more of a slider movement. You’ll see me do that when the count is 0-2.”

His secondary pitch combined with the fastball has Buster Olney making Zumaya his Rookie of the Year pick. (Insider link)

Joel Zumaya has added a curve to his repertoire. I’m picking him to win AL Rookie of the Year. Based on what scouts are seeing in him, he won’t be in the Tigers’ bullpen for long.

Continue reading A heaping helping of Zumaya

Tiger Seasonal Previews

A couple of looks at the 2006 season from fellow baseball bloggers…

Simulation

The Replacement Level Yankees Weblog has run 1000 seasonal simulations using 3 different projection systems: ZiPS, PECOTA, and Diamond Mind. With each of the 3 systems, Detroit was projected in 4th place, with approximately a 500 record.

Diamond Mind was the biggest fan of the Tigers projecting the Tigers with a 81-81 record, and had Detroit making the playoffs in 11% of the scenarios.
Continue reading Tiger Seasonal Previews

Keep an eye on: Chuck Hernandez & the Pitching Staff

Over the last few weeks of spring training, I’ll be writing about the storylines that I think will be most interesting, or at least most vital to the team’s success. The first subject will be pitching coach Chuck Hernandez and how he sets the tone with Tiger pitchers and throughout the organization.

One of the least reported on changes this past offseason has been pitching coach Chuck Hernandez. Given the youth and potential of the pitching staff the topic seems especially relevant.

In the case of Kenny Rogers, I’m not all that concerned. At age 41 he’s probably his own pitching coach anyways.

It does become much more interesting though with the other 3 veteran starters – Jeremy Bonderman, Nate Robertson, and Mike Maroth. For those 3, especially Bonderman, the bulk of their professional instruction has come through Bob Cluck.
Continue reading Keep an eye on: Chuck Hernandez & the Pitching Staff

Tigers and Fox Sports announce broadcast schedule

The Tigers and Fox Sports Net finally announced the broadcast schedule for the 2006 season. FSN will broadcast 112 games this year, or two more than last year. There is no word yet on whether or not the Tigers will also broadcast games on an over-the-air channel.

For Tiger fans who have been anxiously awaiting the start of the season, they better get used to tuning in their radios. Only 5 of the first 12 games are scheduled to be telecast on FSN. The season opener will be broadcast, as will the Thursday night game against the Rangers. However, the Friday and Saturday games will not be broadcast. After back-to-back airings on Sunday(Apr 9th) and the home opener(Apr 10th), fans are out of luck until the following Sunday (Apr 16th).

The complete schedule can be found here. (Right-click and Save As)

Sickels Top 20 Detroit Tiger Prospects

John Sickels has compiled his listing of the Top 20 Detroit Tiger Prospects for 2006. Last year’s list was also headlined by Justin Verlander, but there aren’t that many similarities beyond that. Curtis Granderson, who was number 2 is no longer eligible. Many of the other players have either improved their stock or been pushed off by last year’s draft class. The average grade for last year’s top 20 was a C+, and Sickels offered this commentary:

Oh, boy, what a dismal system.

This year’s list comes in between a B-/C+.

I think Joel Zumaya at a B+ is probably a tad low, and Chris Robinson as a C+ maybe a bit high. Otherwise I pretty much agree with his rankings. Cameron Maybin received a B grade, but with some professional success should see his grade improve. If Jeff Larish, Kevin Whelan, and Clete Thomas continue to build on their impressive debuts they seem poised to move into the B range.
detroit tigers, baseball, prospects

Tiger Links

Some Detroit Tiger related links from the last few days that you might have missed:

  • Baseball Analysts on the Central: Aaron Gleeman and the Cheat join Rich and Bryan to break down the AL Central. The consensus was that the Tigers are probably the 4th best team in a pretty good division.

    Aaron: Right. Detroit doesn’t have any real stars, but I could see them being average or better at every position.

    Bryan: Seems to me the Twins and Tigers will be battling for having the third and fourth offenses in the division, but the Twins strength in pitching puts them way ahead.

    Cheat: I’d rate the Tigers offense ahead of the Twins, but your point still stands. The difference in pitching is too much to overcome.

    Bryan: It seems funny to say that in the AL Central that a good offense and mediocre pitching staff doesn’t have a ton of hope for third. That’s new.

    Aaron: Yeah. This Tigers team could have competed for the division title a couple years ago.

  • Love for Craig Monroe: Greg Eno is a big fan of Craig Monroe and would like to see him inked to a long term contract.

    So DD better stop fiddling around and keep Monroe in a Tigers uniform for years to come. He has the strength to muscle the ball over Comerica Park’s distant walls in left and left-center field. He doesn’t drop the ball with his glove, and can throw it with some accuracy and zip. He is also another rarity among Tigers players of late: he is not baseball stupid.

    Now I like Greg as a writer, and I like Craig Monroe, but I can’t agree here. Monroe’s production is fairly typical, not extraordinary. He has two more years of arbitration eligibility and there is no need to sign him to a long term deal. I love his work ethic, his attitude, and I have no desire to see him leave. However, he is probably also one of the more replaceable players on the roster.

  • Former Tigers, current Nationals: Jason Beck writes about the former Tigers who find themselves with the Washington Nationals. The contingent includes Robert Fick, Damian Jackson, Mike DiFelice, Andrew Good, George Lombard and Brandon Harper.
  • A Rockies fan bashes Detroit: Bad Altitude, a member of the Baseball Toaster family has been preparing Hastily Assembled Previews for various teams. He’s not big on Detroit to say the least:

    It’s almost besides the point to try and predict a record or finish for the Tigers in 2006, because for teams with no chance of contending records are looked to for signs of progress. If the Rockies win 75 games this year, that’ll be a nice little accomplishment and pats on the back will be due all ’round. If Detroit wins 75 games in ’06, or 84, or 64, who cares, because it’ll be the exact same story in 2007. And the year after that…and the year after that…. They’re duking it out with Baltimore for the coveted title of Worst Organization in MLB (Kansas City is disqualified as they haven’t been actively trying to field a major league team for some time now). I kind of wish they were in our division.

    Now the author qualified it as a hastily assembled preview, and if I tried to put quicly put together several hundred words about a team outside of the Central I would struggle. Still, I’m not impressed with the work here. He criticizes the Tigers for overspending on Rogers (which they probably did), for sticking with the mainstays in the rotation (Bonderman, Robertson, Maroth), and for rushing Verlander and Zumaya. I’m really not sure who he invisions pitching in Detroit. They can’t use their highly touted prospects, they can’t use the average, cheap, homegrown players they have, and they can’t sign free agents.

    Dombrowski and the Tigers are certainly open to criticism. The Rogers, Jones, and Ordonez contracts all fall in the category of excessive no matter what your criteria is. However, at least in the case of Rogers and Jones the length of the contracts don’t seem to prohibit anything else (spending, player promotions/development). If you want to call them the worst organization in baseball for the totality of the last 12 years that is fine, and difficult to argue. To base it on the last 2 seasons just doesn’t make sense.

  • BA’s Top 50 Okay, so you probably didn’t miss this one. In case you hadn’t heard, 3 Tigers made the top 50. Justin Verlander checked in at 8, followed by Cameron Maybin at 31, and Joel Zumaya at 35. I happen to think that Zumaya is probably ranked a little low, but at the same time I don’t know enough about other teams prospects to really complain to much. In any case, 3 players in the Top 50 is probably pretty good for one of the worst organizations in baseball.

The Big Three

John Sickels has a “Prospect Smackdown” with the big 3 righthanded prospects for 2006: Chad Billingsley, Matt Cain, and Justin Verlander. Sickels ranks them

  1. Verlander
  2. Cain
  3. Billingsley

He gives the edge to Verlander due to Justin’s fastball’s higher peak velocity, physical stature, and minor league performance last year.

All 3 pitchers are pretty comparable, and it’s really a matter of who you ask as to how they rank. Baseball Prospectus ranks them Cain/Verlander/Billingsley. On the other hand Baseball America ranks them Billingsley/Verlander/Cain. Meanwhile, Bryan Smith from Baseball Analysts has it at Cain/Billingsley/Verlander.

Whatever the case, it’s just nice to have a Tiger in the mix for a change.
prospects, detroit tigers, baseball

Playing with PECOTA part 2

I’ve already scanned the PECOTA projections for Tiger pitchers and highlighted what I thought was most interesting. Now we’ll do the hitters.

Curtis Granderson

Lee has already done the comparison of who PECOTA thinks should be starting in centerfield for Detroit. And it has been enough of a theme here that I think I’ve beat the horse to death. But PECOTA is a fan of Granderson. Some of his more modern day comps are Luis Gonzalez, Reggie Sanders, Mel Hall, Greg Briley, Leon Durham, and Bobby Abreu. PECOTA sees him peaking in 2008 with minimal fall off in subsequent years. While his value is probably slightly inflated by his small sample defensive stardom, the kid looks like he’s for real.

Nook Logan

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that PECOTA has Logan’s breakout rate at 41% and his improve rate at 63%. So the system does project that Nook will very likely be better next year.
Continue reading Playing with PECOTA part 2