Leyland offered up his support to the Inge on the All Star team campaign. If he said it publicly he probably said it to Joe Maddon as well (Maddon only has 8 picks at his discretion and many of those go to insuring every team has a rep).
Lee looks at how lucky the Tigers were to have a winning month despite being outscored. Their last 6 wins have been by 1 or 2 runs, and going farther back, it's 11 of their last 15 wins. It isn't a sustainable pace, but the good news is they picked up wins when not playing particularly well.
Mike R looks at Alfredo Figaro’s outing through the eyes of pitch f/x. Good stuff. And this is no fault of Mike’s but I don’t trust the pitch classifications for the non-fastballs in this start. I tried working it over the weekend, and the change-up/breaking ball data made it difficult to separate the pitches in a meaningful way.
Henning takes a look at pending Tigers free agents and their projected Elias rankings (with a hat tip to Eddie Bajek at Tigers Thoughts who reverse engineered the formula). I’d like to see Rodney/Polanco/Lyon end up as Type B’s and have the Tigers offer arb to all 3.
Despite being freakishly fast, Josh Anderson now rates as a below average baserunner – and this is before accounting for last night’s 1st to 3rd bunt advancement failure.
A response to a Rob Neyer post that the Tigers have received no offense from their shortstops. Blake shows the production hasn't been bad compared to the rest of the league.
Great stuff from Dave Cameron about Granderson's season. The batting average is down, but homers are up. So far it appears it's because Granderson has become an extreme fly ball hitter- meaning more outs (and a lower batting average on balls in play) and more homers.
There are a number of Tigers who dip, and it doesn't seem to fall along positional or ethnic lines at all. It's just a baseball thing. If a player dips does it effect your opinion of said player?
I saw this a couple weeks ago and neglected to link it up. Deadspin refreshed my memory though. We do quite a bit of work with pitch f/x around here, so I find this demonstration of the visual effect of a curve ball to be fascinating and fun.
Lee is good at titles so there really isn't much more for me to add here. He breaks down the UZR to see how much the fielders are helping the pitchers.
A look at all the add-on fees that teams charge for tickets. The Tigers dropped their fees this year $2.75 and are among the cheapest. Toronto is towards the top. I was shocked to find out that even buying tickets in person at the box office still incurred fees.
Steve Kornacki speculates that Jeremy Bonderman may pitch out of the bullpen while he builds arm strength. I'm not sure how that would help him build strength and stamina. Also in the article he notes that Bobby Seay has been battling some back stiffness this week.
In case you missed this yesterday, the Rays screwed up their lineup card which resulted in pitcher Andy Sonnanstine having to bat in the 3 spot instead of Evan Longoria.
I've always liked Jamie Walker. From the time he talked about how he hated the Indians and White Sox and Twins and every Tigers opponent. And the time he bought cable for the VA hospital so patients could watch the Tigers. And when on his first day at ST for the Orioles he handed out summer sausage to everyone. Now he's publicly complained about umpire Angel Hernandez.
I love it when Lynn Henning gets rolling: "Perry is a different situation entirely. He has pitches that are utterly lethal. His fastball and slider are lightning bolts that hitters have had an awful time trying to center. Perry has allowed only four hits, which tells you a 22-year-old with an artillery piece for an arm has been in command of everything but the strike zone."
When Edwin Jackson walked in 2 runs the other night, it was the first time the Tigers had issued a bases loaded walk this season. They issued 4 at this point in the season last year, and finished the year with 20.
Using Baseball Prosectus's adjusted standings, where they look at component stats and adjust for quality of competition…the Tigers are the second best team in the AL right now.
Don't know if it's an economy thing or a performance thing, but there are a number of tickets available for Opening Day on Stub Hub for less then $100. You can sit in upper deck infield box for $70, which is pretty good compared to recent years. (fyi, this is an affiliate link at Stub Hub)
The Diamondbacks have said James Skelton won't make the team, meaning he goes on waivers. And if he goes unclaimed the Tigers can take him back for $25K. Or they could work out a trade with Arizona.
The Tigers made some minor league cuts yesterday. Most surprising was Darwin De Leon who used to be known as Edward Reynoso. Regardless he was a Venezuelan Dominican lefty who could really pitch. Something besides performance likely led to this decision.
For those time when you won't be able to eat for a couple days, just throw down this burger and you'll get a weekends worth of RDA when it comes to calories in one sitting…and a free t-shirt!
Mourning baseball writer John Brattain. John and I were barely internet acquaintances, exchanging a couple emails over the last couple years. Still, it is a very sad event when a father leaves behind a wife and two daughters at way too young of an age.
I've though this tag was largely overblown. That at one point he did struggle defensively, but as of late he'd been only slightly below average. I thought 08 was a step back, but that seemed to be an affliction for the entire Tigers outfield.