Category Archives: Players

Managing & Strategy, Players

Jim Leyland on Neifi Perez

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Eric picked this up early on, and I saw the comments posted on MotownSports as well. Jim Leyland was interviewed today on the Stoney and Wojo show on WDFN. Mike Stone asked Jim Leyland, “what does Jim Leyland see in Neifi Perez that we as fans and media members don’t?” The response wasn’t the typical fluff you’d expect. Here is the transcribed version of what Leyland said.

Well that’s a good question because he played terrible. And what had happened was we got reports from our scouts, and I had known him from the past. We were kind of in a panic situation. We had lost Polly and we needed someone who could come in and play second, and play shortstop as well because Carlos needed some time off. And up to this point it looks like we made a mistake.

So Neifi’s going to have to prove us wrong this spring because has not been a good acquisition up to this point.

But that was my fault, and the scouts. And I like said we had to have somebody. And I hope Neifi’ll prove us wrong. I think he’ll be much better than what he showed last year because he showed absolutely nothing when he came over.

Now this reads like he was slamming Neifi something fierce. He was very gruff and matter-of-fact, but it’s a little softer when you actually listen to the interview (available on WDFN podcast page). And in typical Leyland fashion he was more than willing to take responsibility.

That said I thought this was a little bit much to call out a player like that in the media in January. I love that Leyland didn’t pull punches and was honest, but what did they really expect from Perez in the first place? Perez pretty much performed up to reasonable expectations given his history.

I’ve definitely done my share of Neifi-bashing in the past, but I tried to direct my frustrations less at Neifi and more at Jim Leyland’s insistence on playing him. Perez didn’t ask to come to Detroit, and it’s really not his fault that teams keep giving him playing time. I actually feel a little sympathetic towards Perez right now. Weird.

But the good news for Tiger fans is that it looks like the Tigers definitely aren’t committed to keeping Perez on the roster and that Infante will have a pretty good shot at making the team.

Contracts, Injuries, Pitching, Players

Dombrowski on the Big Show

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Dave Dombrowski was interviewed today on WXYT 1270. There were definitely more insights than you typically hear in a team executive interview. The 12 minute interview can be found here, but I’ll break out some of the highlights.

Zumaya is staying in the pen

Dombrowski stated very clearly that Joel Zumaya is not moving to the rotation. Prior to the season I would have been highly against this. I was all for trying Joel Zumaya as a reliever to get him some big league experience and take it easy on his arm at the same time. But I still thought at some point he should be given an opportunity to start. I’ve come around on this completely. Zumaya’s dominance combined with the continued strides forward of Nate Robertson and Jeremy Bonderman, the drafting of Andrew Miller, and the emergence of Zach Miner, Wil Ledezma, and Jair Jurrjens make me think this is the right move.

Zumaya likes video games

You remember that wrist injury that limited Zumaya late in the season? Apparently he’s a big fan of Guitar Hero 1 Bundle (with Guitar) and played it all the time. At least this is a correctable problem.

Inge isn’t moving to catcher

When Pudge Rodriguez is no longer catching for the Tigers, they aren’t going to turn to Brandon Inge. He doesn’t want to catch, and the Tigers don’t want him to catch, save for an emergency situation. He won’t be reporting to spring training early with the other catchers this year.

Extending Bonderman

Dombrowski said he’d like to keep Bonderman in the organization long term, but doesn’t feel a pressing need to get it done this season. I agree with this to a certain extent. That said, I’d love to be writing this winter about locking up Bonderman with a new 4 year/44 million contract with a 16 milliion club option for a 5th year with a $4 million buyout.

2006 Season, Contracts, Players

Inge gets a new deal – is he worth it?

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The Tigers appear close to a long term contract with Brandon Inge. The deal is believed to be for 4 years and $24 million. This certainly seems like a reasonable deal for the Tigers, even before taking into account the current free agent landscape. The Tigers don’t have anyone in the minors knocking down the door to play third, so he won’t block anybody for awhile.

Inge has posted OPS+’s of 108, 100, and 99 over the last 3 years. So he’s pretty much a league average offensive player at a position that typically is above average offensively, making him a little below average with the bat.

American League third sackers hit 269/338/442 while Inge hit 253/313/463 last year. I’d love more OBP, but he does compensates somewhat with extra power. He’s 29 so I don’t expect much improvement at this point, but given his body type and athleticisism I also think that level of production is sustainable for the length of the contract. While the article says the intention is for Inge to play third throughout the contract, there is also the added bonus that if the Tigers can’t find a replacement for Pudge Rodriguez, Inge is certainly equipped to fill that need as well.

But of course the lightning rod of Brandon Inge discussions always focuses on defense. Detractors will look at the high error total and say he isn’t any good. That he makes some spectacular plays but that doesn’t make up for the easy ones. Proponents of Inge’s defense – like myself – will say that even with the errors he still saves more than enough runs to make up for the minor deficiencies in his offense. And so we’ll do that again here.

Turning to the Probabilistic Model of Range, Inge ranked near the top of all Major League third basemen. (PMR looks at the rate at which fielders turn ball put in play into outs while adjusting for the type of hit, where it was hit, and handedness of batter and pitcher) Inge made 26 more plays than expected. This is includes all those errors on plays he didn’t make. Using a value of .80 runs for each play made means that Inge saved the Tigers 20.8 runs with his glove which is more than enough to make up for the slight deficiency with his bat.

As a little more proof, other advanced defensive metrics agree with Pinto. Inge came out on top in the AL in Chris Dial’s sytem. Dial had Inge saving 20 runs per 150 games played. In the Bill James Handbook John Dewan listed the +/- leaders at each position. (the +/- system involves people watching every single play and giving credit based on whether or not others had made a similar play, a +/- of 0 means you’re average) Inge led all third basemen here as well with a +27.

Whether or not Inge is the best third basemen in the AL can be debated. Whether he is one of the best can not. Inge’s bat didnt’ earn him the contract. But his combined value with the glove and his versatility certainly did.

Players, Roster Management, Trade Rumors

The Winter Meetings and Craig Monroe

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According to reports out of Disney World, Craig Monroe is the Tiger du jour in terms of trade rumors. Jerry Crasnick first mentioned Monroe’s name on Monday. Scott Miller indicated the Dodgers might be interested in Craig. Amy Nelson chimed in and reported that the Orioles asked about Monroe and that the Tigers asked about Nick Markakis.

Jason Beck got in touch with David Dombrowski and DD confirmed that the Orioles initiated discussions this morning, but he wouldn’t confirm it was about Craig Monroe. Basically the Tigers are listening but it sounds like they are pretty much set.

Here’s how I see it. The Tigers probably should trade Craig Monroe. I say this as a fan of Monroe. He’s a decent player, a really likable guy, and from all accounts a great teammate. I don’t really want to see him go anywhere, but he and Thames are duplicative. Marcus Thames won’t be a free agent until 2011 where has Monroe is a free agent in 2009. Both players are the same age but Thames has posted slightly better OBP and SLG numbers (316/491 vs 310/461) than Monroe, granted in a much less playing time. Monroe is faster and appears to have a better arm and cover more ground in the outfield than Thames. However, according to the Probablistic Model of Range Monroe was slightly below average while Thames was marginally above average. I’d say it’s close enough to be a push defensively.
Continue reading The Winter Meetings and Craig Monroe →

Defense, Offense, Players, Statistics

The problem with Sean Casey

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When Sean Casey was resgined I indicated I didn’t like the deal, but never really elaborated. My issue is that as nice a guy as Sean Casey is, he just isn’t very good.

Offensively Casey is at best an average hitter. His OPS+ since 2002 looks like this (OPS+ indexes a players OPS against the league average. 100 means the player is average, values above 100 mean above average)

Year	OPS+
2002	78
2003	98
2004	142
2005	104
2006	87

Over the last 5 seasons Casey has had 1 good year, 2 average years, and 2 bad years. Even if Casey can regain his earlier form, that merely means he is an average offensive player at a position where considerable offense is expected.

So for the sake of argument let’s assume that Casey gets back to be a league average hitter. That puts him slightly below average at his position. But what about defense? Continue reading The problem with Sean Casey →

Players

What to do about: Sean Casey?

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The Tigers have a handful of players whose future is in doubt with the organization. I figured we’d tackle them one at a time.

Sean Casey is one of 3 Tigers to declare for free agency which very much makes his future in Detroit in doubt, but that is just one of a handful of issues.

First there is the fact that Casey, while he did have his share of timely hits, just wan’t that good as a Tiger save for the post season. As Lee points out, Sean’s numbers during his time with the Tigers were worse than Chris Shelton’s awful July (which prompted the trade in the first place). During his stint with the Tigers Casey managed only a 286 OBP and he did it with out power. The lack of power isn’t a surprise really. Casey’s only had one decent slugging year since 2001. What was surprsing was an OBP 80 points below his career average over roughly 200 plate appearances.

Sean Casey has also proven to be pretty injury prone as he’s aged. We saw his calf explode against the A’s and he missed 6 weeks earlier in the season with back problems. We also know he’s had a bad hip, hence the leg raise thing. The older he gets, the more likely he is slowed by additional injuries.

So why would the Tigers want to re-sign Casey? It’s possible that he could come pretty cheap given all the above issues. He also could serve as a one year stop-gap in the event the Tigers can’t come up with another first base option. And by all accounts The Mayor is as good a guy as you’ll find in the clubhouse. He also had a very good World Series, but I’d hope Tiger brass wouldn’t be too swayed by his performance over 5 games.

Surprisingly, Sean Casey is a type A free agent. This means that should the Tigers offer Casey arbitration and if Casey were to sign with another team, the Tigers would receive the first round pick from the signing club (or 2nd round pick if the signing club is picking early) plus a sandwich pick between the 1st and 2nd rounds.

If the Tigers do offer arbitration, they have until December 1st to do so. Now why wouldn’t the Tigers offer salary arbitration? Because Sean Casey may accept. If he accepts arbitration the Tigers automatically have him signed to at least a one year deal (I say at least because the club and player can continue to negotiate a longer term deal). So they may be stuck with Sean Casey, and without draft picks.

Despite Sean Casey’s performance in the World Series, and the fact that he’s an easy guy to root for, I don’t see how the Tigers can resign him. He appears to have not much left in the tank, and that tank seems to be springing leaks with regularity. If for some reason he is signed, I would imagine it would be for a sliver of the $8.5 million he made last year with the understanding he would be a back-up.

2006 Season, Players, Playoffs

Exposure

With the Tigers being awful for a long time, and merely bad the last 2 year, they have accumulated a pile of players nobody knows about. That’s why it’s been neat to see some the exposure that the Tigers are getting. For one it’s nice to see them get recognition. Second, it’s nice to get an unbiased opinion. We’re used to seeing our Tigers, and we’re used to seeing bad Tigers. Up until this year, I often thought my ability to evaluate players was seriously skewed because of the team I was watching.

Baseball Prospectus has a profile of Carlos Guillen today. This run has done wonders for the “best player you never heard of” or “MVP candidate” talk with regard to Guillen. If he can replicate his 2006 performance next year (which means staying healthy) he stands a good chance to be in the MVP race, as opposed to someone filling out the bottom of tha ballots. (On another note, the profile was penned by Marc Normandin who also blogs at the wonderful Beyond Boxscores)

John Sickels has been running Prospect Retros of some of the more interesting stories in the World Series. It’s fun to look back at these players to see who beat the odds, and who never lived up to expectations. In the last couple days he’s done Tigers Kenny Rogers and Craig Monroe, as well as former Tiger and current Card Juan Encarnacion.

2006 Season, Injuries, Players, Playoffs, Roster Management

Tigers claim Matt Stairs

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The Tigers today picked Matt Stairs off of the waiver wire. Considering he was one of the names the Tigers were considering at the trade deadline, the cost of free is pretty appealing.

Stairs is 38 and is on his 3rd team this season. He typically hits in the 260’s with a respectable OBP around 350. Texas picked him up at the trade deadline and he was pretty awful in limited playing time. In 81 at-bats he hit 210/273/370 with 22 K’s. The strike outs were out of line with his career numbers.

Defensively he’s a designated hitter and shouldn’t be allowed near a glove.

The move doesn’t bother me in the sense that there was nothing given up, and this is as short term a move as you can make. He won’t be eligible for the postseason. However in the aftermath of the Neifi Perez trade I’m worried that Stairs will actually be used and either a)force Marcus Thames into another platoon situation or b)take away from the already limited playing time that Chris Shelton sees.

The good news is that Jeremy Bonderman won’t have to pitch against Stairs.

In another move, Roman Colon was transferred from the 15 day to 60 day DL. This just means the Tigers can make another pitcher eligible for the post season roster.

2006 Season, Players, Roster Management

Chris Shelton recalled

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The Tigers continue to expand their roster and today brought back Chris Shelton. With a southpaw starting tonight for the Angels, it wouldn’t surprise me to see Shelton in the starting lineup.

During his month with Toledo he hit 266/372/440 and he struck out 37 times in 109 at-bats. I don’t think his swing is all the way back as evidenced by his K’s and the lack of power. However he did walk 18 times so it would seem to indicate that at least his pitch recognition is on it’s way back.

2006 Season, Pitching, Players

Miller’s Debut

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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):