Category Archives: Pitching

Playoff Roster Set

Listening to the post game show on the way home from the game it sounds like Ramon Santiago is in over Chris Shelton and Zach Miner is in over Andrew Miller.

The Miller/Miner decision seemed pretty clear cut, even with Miner’s debacle on Saturday night. Miller hadn’t been that effective that he would warrant a spot over the other guys in the bullpen.

As for the last position player, I think this move is foolish yet understandable. Chris Shelton was given a few pinch hitting opportunities in the last week and he looked awful. If he does something, or anything positive in those at-bats and he makes the roster. Instead the Tigers take the Perez/Infante/Santiago trio of back-up infielders.

So the squad is as follows:

Infielders: Casey, Polanco, Guillen, Inge, Infante, Perez, Santiago
Outfielders: Monroe, Granderson, Ordonez, Gomez, Thames
Catchers: Rodriguez, Wilson
Starting Pitchers: Robertson, Verlander, Rogers, Bonderman
Relief Pitchers: Jones, Rodney, Zumaya, Walker, Ledezma, Grilli, Miner

It was also announced that Nate Robertson would start game 1 and Justin Verlander would start game 2. Interestingly, Nate Robertson was warming up and looked to be next in line if the game continued. And with Verlander starting game 2, I won’t have to finish that Rick Ankiel article I was writing.

Setting up the playoff rotation

Jim Leyland announced today that Justin Verlander wouldn’t be making his start on Saturday. This is probably good on a couple fronts.

First, Verlander’s velocity was down in his last start. He’s well eclilpsed his previous innings threshold and fatigue is certainly a reality. I can’t speak to how much a couple extra days will aid in recovery, but it certainly shouldn’t hurt.

Second, it sets up what will likely be the Tigers playoff rotation. I’m guessing it will be Rogers-Verlander-Robertson-Bonderman, unless Bonderman gets for his next start on Sunday. Each of the 4 would be pitching on normal or extended rest. The Twins losing at some point would certainly facilitate that.

Tigers Rotation Shuffle

According to Danny Knobler, it looks like Jim Leyland is using the 2 off days this week to realign the rotation for the Chicago series. Kenny Rogers and Justin Verlander will pitch in the Texas series. Instead of going with Wil Ledezma and Nate Robertson the first 2 games of the Orioles series, Jeremy Bonderman will be moved up. Because the Tigers are off on today and Thursday, Bonderman will be on his regular rest.

Presuming that Nate Robertson doesn’t have lingering effects from the line drive to the ribs, he’ll get the nod on Saturday followed by Ledezma on Sunday.

That leaves Kenny Rogers, Justin Verlander, and Bonderman to face the White Sox.

Now earlier in the season, the Tigers went to Minnesota to face a Twins rotation that was stocked specifically to match-up with the Tigers. Leyland kept his rotation intact and left Zach Miner to face Francisco Liriano (which worked out okay). So is Leyland feeling the pressure now with a rapidly shrinking lead?

In search of a little support

Normally when a team is slumping, you look to the next day’s starting pitcher to put a stop to the slide. It’s one of those things that people talk about when defining an ace. Well how much more can you ask for from a rotation that has put up these performances over the last 6 games?

Date	Pitcher		Opponent	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K
08/30	Robertson	At NYA		7	10	2	2	1	2	4
08/30	Ledezma		At NYA		5 1/3	2	2	2	0	1	2
08/31	Bonderman	At NYA		5 1/3	11	4	4	0	3	5
09/01	Rogers		Vs. LAA		7	4	0	0	0	2	2
09/02	Verlander	Vs. LAA		7	4	0	0	0	4	6
09/03	Ledezma		Vs. LAA		6	3	2	2	1	3	2
Totals					37 2/3	34	10	10	2	15	21
									
									
									
ERA	K per 9	BB per 9	HR per 9	K/BB				
2.39	5.0	3.6		0.5		1.4	

When the team’s worst effort is a 4 run 5 1/3 inning performance against the Yankees, I think it’s safe to say the starters are doing their job. Unfortunately, the team has only won 2 of those games. (And in what is rough luck for the starters, Kenny Rogers was the only member of the rotation to pick up a win)

I guess it is time for the team to rely on something other than Big League Chew to generate offense.

Miller’s Debut

There’s always something exciting about a new highly touted prospect making his debut. Despite some major nerves, Andrew Miller had a fine debut. He induced a lazy flyball, a chopper to third, and a roller to third. He also hit a guy but that just served to show off the break on his slider. He threw his 4 seamer in the mid 90’s, and his slider from the low 80’s to 89 MPH.

You can see the whole thing through the power of You Tube (hat tip):

Jamie Walker is Good

During his entire career as a Tiger, Jamie Walker has been quite solid in his role as a lefty specialist. Coming into this year, since 2002 he’s posted a 3.45 ERA while striking out 3.3 batters for every walk allowed. He gave up 1.3 homers per 9, which is a little more than you’d hope for, but it wasn’t bad. Over that time period, Walker held left handed batters to a .217/.263/.374 line.

Walker has provided considerable, if not dominant consistency, in a role that is extremly volatile. Jon Weisman created a table of the relief pitchers who were in the top 100 in adjusted runs prevented each of the last 5 years. Walker made this list in 4 of the last 5 years, which if you scan the list you can see is a pretty impressive feat.

But this year, at the ripe old age of 34, Jamie Walker is having a break through season. After pitching 2 scoreless innings tonight, he has lowered his ERA to 0.95. In 28 1/3 innings he has allowed only 19 hits and 3 runs. Those 3 runs came on 3 solo homers. The most amazing stat though may be his 23/2 strikeout to walk ratio.

What’s interesting is that in looking at Jamie’s splits, he has actually faced more right handers than left handers. Right handed batters have only managed 145/175/164 against Walker. Surprsingly all 3 homers he’s allowed have been to lefties, and as a result his slugging percentage against is .571.

Walker will be a free agent after this year. Assuming he wants to stay in Detroit, I’m sure the Tigers would love to have him back. But the price will be steep. Walker is having a career year, and is left handed. If he can keep pitching like he has been he will be a rich man this winter.

Rotation Rotation

The Tigers are keeping the same pitching rotation heading into the second half. Jeremy Bonderman will take the ball first though as Leyland treats Kenny Rogers All Star appearance as a start. Essentially Justin Verlander misses a turn which should help on conserving his workload.

Baseball Prospectus muses further on the Tigers potential for a 6 man rotation once Mike Maroth returns. BP astutely points out that the reasons team consider 4 man rotations are because it his hard to find 5 quality starters. Yet the Tigers are fortunate enough to find themselves in a scenario where they can run 6 productive arms out.

UPDATE: Things have changed. I was working off of the Game Notes from today. Since I wrote this Jason Beck reports that the new rotation will be Bonderman-Rogers-Verlander-Miner-Robertson. In terms of order, all that really has changed is that Bonderman and Verlander have flipped.

Keeping an Eye on… Predictions

Prior to the season I did a series of posts on items or storylines that I thought could be key to the Tigers success. Here at the break, I thought I’d Keep and Eye on my Keeping an Eye on series

Chuck Hernandez and the Pitching Staff

With the best ERA in baseball, I think it is safe to say that Hernandez has worked out okay as a pitching coach.

One of the stats I wanted to observe were K rates and pitches per plate appearance, as Bob Cluck was an advocate of pitching to contact to conserve pitches. Well, in the case of Jeremy Bonderman his strikeouts are at a career high 8.35) and his pitches per plate appearance are at a career low (3.52). Nate Robertson’s numbers are in line with his career, as are Mike Maroth’s. Interestingly, Verlander is allowing 3.77 pitches per plate appearance, which is more than Robertson or Bonderman, but striking out fewer.

In terms of the minor leagues, we’ve the the organization reward solid pitching performances with the early promotions of Jair Jurrjens, Jon Connolly and Humberto Sanchez. We also saw Jordan Tata jump a couple levels. The system has seemed to be slow to promote in the past (see Jordan Tata at Lakeland all year).

Finally we haven’t really seen or heard that much of Hernandez. Leyland seems to make more trips to the mound than Hernandez. Hernandez just gets the occasional trip to talk mechanics or scouting reports, but those seem to be few and far between which may be a testament to improved preparation.

Kevin Rand

Ah, the injury watch. The Tigers have been hit by injuries, but the training staff has done a good job keeping players on the field. The Tigers lost Mike Maroth for probably 2-3 months, and of course Craig Dingman and Troy Percival were lost before the season. Dmitri Young strained his hamstring, not to mention alot of other stuff that was beyond the realm of physical rehab. And Craig Monroe was sidelined for a couple weeks with an ankle sprain.

Yet the nagging injuries have been kept in check. Carlos Guillen had some knee pain, but didn’t miss significant time. Ordonez had a bruise that only slowed him for a couple games. Placido Polanco had a back injury that limited his performance but he was able to work through with out missing time. Marcus Thames had knee tendonitis but it didn’t slow him down.

The training staff and some well timed rest have kept the key cogs in the lineup. Now everybody find some wood to knock on it until your knuckles are bloody.

Productive At Bats

Jim Leyland called for more productive at-bats and better situational hitting. I’m not really sure the Tigers have improved in this area. In terms of strikeouts – which are for all intents and purposes are completely unproductive – the Tigers still whiff a ton. In terms of plate discipline, their ratio of 2.7 K/BB is the same as it was last year.

The biggest change in offense has been an increase in power. Their ISO went from 157 last year to 184 this year. They are also a little bit better at not making outs with the OBP going from 321 to 330.

But in terms of productive outs and manufacturing runs…it doesn’t feel any different, but I can’t quantify it one way or the other.

The Erie Seawolves

My thinking here was simple, a bunch of players who could help the team in the future (or in trade packages in the present) would be at Erie. The results have been mixed. Erie’s offense has been largely non-existent as Brent Clevlen (103 K’s, 319 SLG) and Kody Kirkland (109K’s) have struggled to make contact. Kirkland has decent power numbers (17 homers), but that is it. Tony Giarratano has been up and down and may now have a torn ACL. Jeff Frazier started off well, but has faded badly (231/272/339). This group has recently been joined with fellow 40 man roster-ees Don Kelly and Nook Logan who were struggling mightily in Toledo.

The pitchers have had more success. Jordan Tata who was slated to head to Erie instead went all the way to the pro’s and now finds himself succeeding at AAA Toledo. Humberto Sanchez (1.76 ERA, 86 K’s, 71 2/3 IP) did so well he earned a promotion and a start in the Future’s Game. Eulogio De La Cruz (3.75 ERA, 46 K, 57 2/3 IP, 1 HR) started the season getting shelled, but has calmed down considerably. And Jair Jurrjens who started in A ball has earned a spot in the Erie rotation and is having considerable success for a 20 year old in AA (3-1, 2.00 ERA).

Jeremy’s June

Everybody has been waiting for Jeremy Bonderman’s “arrival” for the last few years. Early in the season Bonderman vacillated between really good, and well, not very good. For a spell in late April and early May he was arguably the worst pitcher in the Tigers rotation. But with the arrival of the month of June, he hasn’t only been the best pitcher on the league’s best staff, he was amongst the best in baseball.

Continue reading Jeremy’s June

On the 6th Day…

Justin Verlander had a dominating performance today throwing 8 shut out innings. He was making a start on 5 days rest, and it wasn’t the first time he seems to have benefited from an extra day of vacation. In fact, in his 4 top starts (ranked by Game Score) 3 have come when he’s had more than 4 days of rest.

In listening to today’s game, Jim & Dan indicated that Verlander seemed to be throwing free and easy with more bite and velocity than he had of late. So qualitatively he seemed to benefit from the extra rest, but what do the numbers show?
Continue reading On the 6th Day…

Distributing the Runs

Last year Dave Studemund of the Hardball Times had a couple interesting posts taking a closer look at how many runs a team scores a game. This isn’t looking at average runs a game, but how many runs they score (and conversely allow) in each game. What Studes found is that consistency in scoring 2-6 runs is most important. At the time of the study, the White Sox average runs per game were a half run below average, but they very rarely were held to less than 2 runs. I found the study interesting enough to perform last year for the Tigers, and I’ll repeat it this year.
Continue reading Distributing the Runs