Category Archives: Roster Management

Pitching, Roster Management, Site News, Tiger History

Catching up and cleaning up

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Things have been lighter for the last week on the blog. Part of that is a lack of terribly interesting news coming out of Lakeland – which is a good thing. This offseason I’ve been trying to compensate for these lulls by cranking through some analysis. That’s kind of what I’ve been doing, I just have nothing to show for it yet. I hope the benefit will come once the season starts. All of this of course is irrelevant to you, but I still wanted to write it anyways. Mostly because I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time on the blog, but with very little actual content to show for it yet.

Also I want to apologize for some of the comments that came through this weekend. Late Saturday night and into Sunday a bunch of spam comments advertising the sorts of things you don’t expect to see on a Tiger website got through the spam filter. I took them down as quickly as I could, but I apologize if anyone was offended.

Moving on to all the stuff I haven’t been writing about…

The other LOOGY

Edward Campusano seemed to be gaining more and more of a lock on the job with each appearance. That is until he left with elbow tenderness. Never a good sign. While it seems that elbows are more fixable than shoulders, those fixes often require surgery after rest fails to clear up the problem. There’s been no further word so it’s hard to comment on the extent of it, but anecdotally speaking these things just never seem to go away on their own.

With that I was prepared to write how Bobby Seay probably had the best shot at that last bullpen spot. Seay has been quite good this spring allowing 1 run in 8 2/3 innings with a 7:2 strikeout to walk ratio.

But then Jason Beck writes that Leyland sounds likes he is comfortable going just with Ledezma – recognizing that Joel Zumaya, Fernando Rodney, and Todd Jones will be the guys called on to get the critical outs.

If Leyland truly is okay with one lefty, the best bet is probably an option-less Chad Durbin over Zach Miner who still has 2 options left.
Continue reading Catching up and cleaning up →

2007 Season, Minors, Roster Management, Spring Training

Tigers announce 10 more cuts

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The Tigers optioned Mike Rabelo and Brent Clevlen to AAA Toledo. There was some question (at least in my mind) whether they would have Clevlen repeat AA given his struggles last year. I wonder if this is any indication that they may be moving Cameron Maybin to Erie to start the year.

The Tigers assigned Craig Dingman, Dennis Tankersley, Joey Eischen, Brent Dlugach, Mike Hessman, Kevin Hooper, Cameron Maybin and Brandon Watson to minor league camp.

Don’t read too much into Maybin. He wasn’t going to make the team, and it’s about getting him more playing time at this point.

2007 Season, Roster Management, Spring Training

Tigers make first cuts

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The Tigers trimmed 8 players from big league camp: righthanded pitchers Jordan Tata and Virgil Vasquez to Triple A Toledo, righthanded pitchers Eulogio De La Cruz and Kyle Sleeth to Double A Erie and lefthanded pitcher Andrew Miller to Single A Lakeland. Additionally, the club assigned righthanded pitcher Jair Jurrjens and catchers Gabe Johnson and Dusty Ryan to minor league camp.

And as expected, Miller will be starting the year in Lakeland and will likely head to Erie when the weather warms up.

2007 Season, Contracts, Roster Management

Tigers wrap-up 40 man roster signings

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The Detroit Tigers today announced the club has agreed to terms with righthanded pitchers Chad Durbin, Zach Miner, Jordan Tata and Joel Zumaya, lefthanded pitcher Wilfredo Ledezma, infielders Tony Giarratano and Chris Shelton and outfielders Brent Clevlen and Marcus Thames. Plus they renewed Jason Grilli’s contract for 2007. This means that everyone on the 40 man roster has a contract for 2007.

2007 Season, Minors, Roster Management

Larrison outrighted to Toledo

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Preston Larrison – credit Roger DeWitt

Preston Larrison had his contract outrighted to Toledo today. He’ll be a non-roster invitee to the major league camp. Larrison was designated for assignment last week to make way for Yorman Bazardo.

As Brian wrote Larrison was out of options. He was a longshot to make the club which meant the Tigers would have had to go through this exercise sooner or later anyways. By getting it done now, it may have increased the team’s chances of keeping him. If he’s a late season cut maybe someone looking for help takes a flyer on him.

2007 Season, Minors, Roster Management, Trades

Tigers acquire Yorman Bazardo

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The Tigers today made a trade with the Seattle Mariners for right handed pitcher Yorman Bazardo. In exchange the Tigers have sent the Mariners outfielder Jeff Frazier.

Bazardo will turn 23 in July. Last year he had a solid season in AA with a 3.64 ERA over 25 starts. For his career he has a pretty meager strike out rate of 5.54 per nine innings but with decent control (2.31 BB/9). He had a solid winter pitching in the Venezuela. He appeared in 21 games with Aragua in the Venezuelan Winter League following the season, posting a 2-0 record, 1.78 ERA (30.1IP/6ER) and one save. Additionally, Bazardo saw action in two games with Venezuela during the Caribbean World Series, fanning six batters in five scoreless innings of relief.

John Sickels rates him a C+ and as the 9th best prospect in the Seattle organization.

Jeff Frazier is coming off a pretty brutal season for Lakeland in which he posted a 625 OPS. Prior to that he posted a nice final line in pitcher friendly West Michigan of 287/349/453.

To make room on the 40 man roster for Bazardo, Preston Larrison was designated for assignment.

Minors, Playoffs, Roster Management

Beane, Prospects, and Options

  • Athletics Nation interviews Billy Beane. Beane comments on the ALCS and the Tigers:

    Blez: You mentioned the series against the Tigers. I felt as though the Tigers changed their fundamental batting approach and sort of gave the A’s a taste of their own approach in being very patient with our starters. The Tigers weren’t exactly known to be patient hitters.

    Beane: I think that’s exactly what they did. They were coming off a pretty emotional win against the Yankees and they had a very talented team. They were swinging the bats kind of like when we played the Reds back in the `90 World Series. They had a lot of self-confidence and when they got down a run or two it didn’t seem to bother them. We caught them at a bad time. The better team won that series and that needs to be said. I don’t think anyone should’ve walked away thinking, oh we should’ve won that series. We got boat-raced.

  • Keith Law has his top 25 prospect list(insider). A big component of his list is proximity to the Majors and he also qualifies that players should have a full season of pro ball experience (so no Andrew Miller). Cameron Maybin comes in 15th with these criteria.

    15. Cameron Maybin, CF, Tigers
    More tools than Home Depot, but lacks the polish of Fernando Martinez or the discipline of Jose Tabata. With development, he could easily be one of the top three or four prospects in the game next winter.

  • Jon Paul Morosi notes that despite Zach Miner’s success last year his option years might keep him in the minors in favor of an out-of-option player like Roman Colon or Chad Durbin. Larrison is also out of options, but if he makes the team out of spring training I’d have to imagine things have gone horribly wrong. Morosi also clarifies a couple other option rules:

    Correcting an earlier item in this space, also relating to options: Infielders Omar Infante and Ramon Santiago each have at least one option remaining, but would have to clear waivers to be sent to the minors. (Reason: Three calendar years have passed since their first appearances in the major leagues.) Neifi Perez has options remaining, as well, but can refuse any minor league assignment because of his service time.

2007 Season, Roster Management, Site News, Statistics

Link fiesta

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  • The Alexis Gomez era is over. He signs with Denver.
  • I’m remiss on this one, but Lee has a new stat called RPE (Run Preventing Event). It is simply a rate at which pitchers do the things that typically are favorable for the pitcher (K’s, ground balls, infield flies). I really like the stat for it’s simplicity. While DIPS and FIP are more analytical and provide more information, this seems to be more readily digested by the general public.
  • Cameron Maybin will get a Spring Training invite to hang out with the big club. This isn’t a big surprise. Everything I’ve heard has him starting at Lakeland and moving to Erie this summer.
  • The Wayne Fontes Experience turns 1 year old today.
  • The Replacement Level Yankee Weblog ran a Diamond Mind simulation using CHONE projections. It has the Twins as the favorites in the Central and the Tigers making the playoffs 21% of the time. The projections have the Tigers pitching staff regressing from awesome to decent. THT has more on regression to the mean.
  • Retrosheet has the files for 2006 available now. I’ve downloaded them and just begun to poke around. Hopefully I can come up with some interesting stuff in the next couple weeks. If you have anything you’d like me to check into, let me know. I won’t make promises, but if it is interesting and easy enough to do, and I have the time, I’ll give it a shot.
  • If you subscribe to the RSS feed, or get the email updates, you may have noticed something new the last few days. I’ve incorporated del.icio.us links. I find that often times I come across interesting stuff on the web, and I want to share it with you. If I can, I’ll usually include it in a post like this one. Often times though, that won’t happen for a couple days, and many times they never make it in. But now, each day you’ll get all the stuff I bookmarked from the previous day. Some days there wont’ be anything, other days there’ll be a lot. I’m able to do this conveniently through Feedburner, which is why it will only appear in the feed and not on the site. It won’t change what I post here, but it is just another way to give subscribers some fresh and interesting content.
  • The 2007 Bloggies are taking nominations. This year there is a sports blog category. If you feel so inclined you could nominate your favorite sports blogs.
2007 Season, Roster Management

Gomez is out

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To make room for Jose Mesa on the 40 man roster, the Tigers didn’t tender a contract to Alexis Gomez. The Tigers can still negotiate with Gomez, as can every other team because he is now a free agent. Dave Dombrowski indicated that the Tigers would like to keep him in the organization if possible.

As expected, Jeremy Bonderman, Craig Monroe, Omar Infante, Nate Robertson, and Fernando Rodney were all tendered contracts.

2007 Season, Contracts, Pitching, Roster Management

Tigers sign Jose Mesa

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Jerry Crasnick is reporting the Tigers have signed Jose Mesa to a 1 year $2.5 million deal. I for the life of me can’t figure out why. Not why Crasnick is reporting it, but why the Tigers would do it.

Mesa is 40 years old, and for the last 3 years he allows more than a hit an inning. He walks a batter every other inning, and he only strikes out a few more than he walks. He’s basically a 40 year old version of Jason Grilli at 6 times the cost.

One of my arguments for not keeping Jamie Walker was that he didn’t see enough high leverage situations for the Tigers to justify $4 million a year. I only hope that Mesa doesn’t see enough high leverage situations to justify his money. My fear is that like the Tigers other aging, $2.5 million bundle of joy, he will see significant time.

This one I just don’t get.

2007 Season, Managing & Strategy, Roster Management

Leyland gives us something to talk about

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Jason Beck has been all over the Winter Meetings. Today he’s got some Jim Leyland nuggets that warrant some discussion.

The leadoff spot

So the Tigers don’t have a prototypical leadoff hitter, or at least prototypicaly in the sense that most people think of leadoff hitters: fast guys who steal bases, bunt, and don’t strike out a lot and don’t hit for power. Many view Juan Pierre and his 330 OBP last year as perfect. But I digress. The point of this is that Jim Leyland is talking about Curtis Granderson, Placido Polanco, and Ivan Rodriguez to be the leadoff man.

Granderson is a logical choice because he held the post last year, and he’s the closest to that qualification for fast. Polanco is fine as that pesky guy who will always put the ball in play. The name that will raise eyebrows is Pudge Rodriguez. The same Pudge that more than doubled his walk total from 2005 by picking up 26 free passes.

But I don’t think this is a bad thing to try. Pudge led off in 3 games in 2006, and drew 3 walks. Three games is of course and insufficient sample, but when placed into that role he seemed to make a concerted effort to see more pitches. I don’t know how likely it is that he would be successful in the role, but if it helps him improve his plate discipline the Tigers will benefit.

Marcus Thames at first

Leyland wants to give Thames a shot at first base. I think this is a wonderful idea. After all, first base is often a last option for defensively challenged players. The upside is that Thames is passable defensively, and you have quite the platoon partner for Casey. You also keep Thames on the team. You also keep Santiago/Perez from being Casey’s injury replacement (by extension of course when Guillen moves from short to first). It certainly wouldn’t help Chris Shelton’s cause, but Shelton has an option year left. Thames doesn’t.

Omar in the outfield

Leyland also said that Omar Infante will most likely be the backup centerfielder barring a trade. Infante is athletic enough to pull it off, and any indication that Leyland sees a role for Infante is a positive.