Category Archives: Roster Management

2008 Season, Injuries, Roster Management

Clete for Clevlen

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Clete Thomas has been recalled from his rehab assignment. It has come at the expense of Brent Clevlen. Clevlen didn’t get the bat going, but he did play some slick defense in the outfield. Clevlen and Thomas are probably a push defensively, but Thomas carries a left handed stick which is probably the reason for the move. One would hope that this wouldn’t lead to more platooning of Marcus Thames.

Leyland was encouraged by what he saw from Clevlen saying

“I think Clevlen is really, really close to being a Major League player for sure.”

2008 Season, Injuries, Roster Management

Rodney activated, Lopez to Toledo

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So that’s one decision. Fernando Rodney is back with the team and Aquilino Lopez was sent to Toledo. But the demotion is with a plan. They are going to try and stretch Lopez out into a starters role. This comes as a little bit of a surprise to me, because I didn’t think that Lopez had an option. I thought he would need to be removed from the 40 man roster, meaning he’d need to go through waivers.

Lopez has started before, but not since the 2002 season when he made 11 starts for Tacoma in the PCL. He has turned in several solid long relief outings, most notable was a 4 inning, 3 hit effort against the White Sox.

Color me surprised though that the Tigers would be in a position this season to send out a reliever who is striking out better than 3 batters for every batter he walks.

UPDATE; Just received confirmation that Lopez had an option left. He’s still on the 40 man and wasn’t exposed to waivers.

2008 Season, Injuries, Roster Management

Junkballing: No shortage of news

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I’ve got to give this Tigers team credit for one thing. There’s no shortage of news. Last week I tried to put together a timeline of all the announcements and news coming out of Jim Leyland’s office. I couldn’t get it legible at less than 1200 pixels wide. And that was before all the news from the last week.

Vance Wilson

Wilson received awful news in that he needs to do Tommy John times 2. His contract with the Tigers is up this year and with a 12 month recovery period, he is done as a Tigers player and may be facing retirement. He’s well respected in the Tigers organization and it wouldn’t surprise me to see Wilson back in another capacity in a few years. Best wishes to Vance.

Roster moves: Rapada

Clay Rapada was optioned to Toledo to make room for Eddie Bonine. This isn’t a merit based demotion but a matter of the guy with options getting sent down. It’s something we may see again next week when Rodney and Zumaya return. Dolsi could be one of the guys out based on contract status. Fossum, Seay, Bautista, and Lopez are all out of options.

Granderson’s struggles

Detroit Tiger Tales takes a look at Curtis Granderson’s struggles. He finds among other things that Granderson is taking a lot of pitches, both out of and in the strike zone and it’s possible he’s being to passive. That’s something I could buy, and his timing seems to be off as well with a lot of ball popped up to the left side. I trace it back to the Tim Wakefield game. Look at his gamelogs and see what happens from May 6th onwards. It’s a 554 OPS with only 4 walks. Right now his OBP is the same as Pudge’s.

Zumaya-Rodney updates

I think I spied Joel Zumaya in the Tigers dugout last night. But he is experiencing some soreness in his side. If everything goes as planned he’ll pitch tonight, and then back to back on Monday and Tuesday with a possible return to the team for the San Diego series.

As for Rodney, he had a terrific outing for the Mud Hens last night and will be back Monday provided he feels alright today.

Spit balls

2008 Season, Game Post, Injuries, Roster Management

Game 62: Indians at Tigers

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PREGAME:: The Tigers are going for something rare, back to back wins. They did it once on the 9 game road trip and, well that’s it. Today it is replacement starters, turned regular starters, Jeremy Sowers and Armando Galarraga.

The Tigers have a 1 game winning streak on Sundays this year.

Renteria remains in the leadoff role, but Granderson returns to the lineup in the 9 spot. Clevlen starts in right field with Raburn sitting today and Ordonez DH’ing.

Also, the club has activated Clay Rapada who will assume Bonderman’s place on the 25 man roster.

CLE @ DET, Sunday, June 8, 2008 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

GameTime 1:05

POSTGAME: Wow. That was a pretty complete effort. Some early offense. Some add on runs. Some two-out hitting. A nice starting pitching effort. Good bullpen-ing, save for those 3 batters that Zach Miner put on base (which just made getting out of the inning all the more exciting).

Placido Polanco snapped a mini-slump with a couple hits. Miguel Cabrera built on his big RBI last night by knocking in the first run of the game today and adding a double. Man it would be nice if he really got going. And Granderson even homered off a left hander.

Galarraga threw strikes, and did so consistently up until he fell 1 out shy of a quality start after a couple walks. Casey Fossum shaved over 100 points off his ERA and Todd Jones had a 1-2-3 9th inning.

I’m not going to make too big of a deal when a win moved you to “only” 10 games below .500. But a win is a win.

2008 Season, Roster Management

Casey Fossum called up

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The Tigers have called up Casey Fossum from Toledo. A corresponding roster move hasn’t been announced yet.

Fossum was signed as a minor league free agent this spring and has pitched very well for the Mud Hens. In his last 3 starts he has 31 strike outs and 6 walks in 20.2 innings with only 2 runs crossing the plate.

As for who is heading out, I don’t know. Bobby Seay has struggled as of late with 4 walks in his last 3 outings and you wonder if he might be hurting and heading to the DL. Of course there is also Francisco Cruceta who has been struggling, but it would require him passing through waivers to be sent down.

Tigers promote Fossum to majors | Freep.com | Detroit Free Press

UPDATE: Francisco Cruceta was DFA’d. He’d been awful in his last few outings, and not that great in his other ones. Regular DTW commentor Craig sat next to a NL scout last night who had this to say about Cruceta:

Cruceta is the real deal despite his numbers lately. He thinks with his odd spring, he should have had another month in Toledo or wherever to get mentally tough.

This seems reasonable enough, and it looked like Cruceta’s splitter/fastball combo could be devastating if he knew where it was going. Hopefully he can clear waivers and the Tigers can give him some more seasoning time in the minors where he isn’t killing the big club.

2008 Season, Roster Management

Joyce down, Clete up

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The Tigers have optioned Matt Joyce back to Toledo and have called up Clete Thomas.

I suppose this is because they have the left handed option with Jeff Larish on the roster now to provide some power. And as Jason Beck noted, they want Joyce to play everyday and with Thames getting left field duties, that opportunity wouldn’t be there. But it makes you wonder why they wouldn’t want Thomas to play everyday?

Joyce’s swing appeared to get a little long the last few games. He fanned 4 times on Tuesday night. He swung through fastballs early in the count and then was finished off with breaking balls on the inner half he couldn’t deal with. So it appears that even if there wasn’t a book on him before this series, there certainly is now.

Still, he provided some nice pop on a team that was popless while playing some solid defense.

2008 Season, Injuries, Roster Management

Sheffield finally hits DL, Larish up

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Gary Sheffield’s oblique strain suffered in last night’s game has landed him on the disabled list. Jeff Larish has been called up and is jetting to LA for tonight’s game. He won’t be DH’ing though. That role will be reserved for Carlos Guillen tonight. Apparently he is bothered by hemorrhoids which is limiting his mobility. I guess HIPAA doesn’t apply to baseball players.

As for Larish, he’s 25 year old lefty hitting first baseman. He was selected by the Tigers in the 2005 draft and was the runner up for Eastern League player of the year honors last year. He led the AA league in homers and RBI. This year he’s mashing to the tune of 274/369/589 for the Mud Hens.

2008 Season, Injuries, Roster Management

Dontrelle Willis is almost back and headed to the pen

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WDFN is reporting that Dontrelle Willis will rejoin the team today or tomorrow and will head to the pen while Armando Galarraga stays in the rotation.


UPDATE: Old news now, but the corresponding roster move was Clay Rapada getting DL’d due to bicep tendinitis. Rapada certainly struggled his last time out so which may have cut the rehab session short of another start for Willis.

I’m surprised by the move of Willis to the bullpen, seeing as I just wrote that Willis should take Galarraga’s spot in the rotation. What do you know, I was wrong again.

But I do like that Galarraga isn’t going to the bullpen because I wanted him to remain stretched out as a starter – be that here or Toledo. I’m surprised that they would ask Willis to move to the bullpen. But he seems to be embracing it and was joking around with Todd Jones last night. And if he can work on things with Jeff Jones at the MLB level all the better. The tricky thing is getting Willis stretched out again when he rejoins the rotation.

2008 Season, Pitching, Roster Management

The Galarraga rotation debate

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Let’s do an old Rob Neyer construct, Player A versus Player B:

Pitcher A:
Record: 3-1
GS: 6
IP: 40
ERA: 2.48
K/BB: 23/12
HR: 2
OPS against: .618

Pitcher B:
Record 3-1
GS: 6
IP: 35.1
ERA: 3.06
K/BB: 24/14
HR: 3
OPS against: .571

Pitcher B is Armando Galarraga in his first 6 starts this season. An impressive display for a team that needed some quality starting pitching. Pitcher A is Nate Robertson in his first 6 starts last season. Now why would I bring this up? Because even an average-ish starter can string 6 nice starts together. Galarraga has decent minor league numbers, but far from overpowering numbers and stuff. This was a player for whom the best offer the Rangers could get is a player the Tigers signed out of a try out camp – and he had an option left.

Dontrelle Willis has at most one more rehab start in the minors and it’s no coincidence that his rehab starts have coincided with Galarraga’s big league starts. Willis will replace Galarraga in the rotation and it is the right decision.

Yes, you can argue that Galarraga hasn’t done anything to warrant losing his spot and I can’t say you’re wrong. He also did little to get the spot in the first place other than have Willis slip. And with one start and 2 batters I think it’s a little early to say that Willis pitched himself out of the rotation. Yes I’d like to see more control and better results during his time with Toledo, but the Tigers need to see if Willis can be successful and right or wrong his contract dictates that he isn’t going to get Wally Pipp’d.

As for removing another Tigers starter from the rotation, it ain’t going to be Justin Verlander who if he doesn’t return to form would render this discussion moot. And Jeremy Bonderman has managed to post a decent ERA despite awful peripherals. Nate Robertson is the starter with the best walk rate and an acceptable strike out rate. Not to mention that 2 of the aforementioned 3 have new multi-year deals.

That leaves one starter who Galarraga could reasonably supplant and that is Kenny Rogers. Rogers has walked more than he’s fanned and has generally been hit hard as he’s struggled to find the corners. Rogers is also on a one year deal meaning the longer term ramifications are lessened – aside from that whole “he’s like another pitching coach” business. And the Tigers aren’t going to dump Rogers this soon in the season.

Galarraga has been a pleasant surprise, but he’s also been a little lucky. His .180 batting average on balls in play is hardly sustainable even with a good defense. So his ERA is going to climb. I’m appreciative of what he’s done and it sucks that he’ll lose his spot. But the Tigers won’t bail on Kenny Rogers this soon. And while Jim Leyland would like to send Galarraga to the bullpen I think it is a pretty short sighted move. If Rogers continues to struggle, or in the event a starter goes down with injury (anyone notice Nate grab his back after one of his swings?), it would be nice to have someone to entrust a handful of starts to.

2008 Season, Managing & Strategy, Roster Management

Thoughts on Jones and the lineup shuffle

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Isn’t it something that we waited and waited to get the anticipated lineup together. First Granderson was injured, and then Sheffield and Polanco. And then everyone was set to come back and Carlos Guillen missed a couple games. Finally, on April 27th the 1000 run lineup took the field. And 8 days later on May 8th it’s been altered because it just wasn’t working. In that 8 day span was an off day and a sweep of the Yankees. Part of me can’t help but think it’s a little bit of an overreaction.

Now the Jacque Jones dismissal is a smart move and I applaud the relative swiftness of it. The Tigers gave him a month to do something, and it just didn’t happen. And this was with Jones facing almost exclusively right handed pitching. He only had 4 plate appearances against lefties, all of which result in strikeouts. His arm was as bad as advertised and Leyland respected his defense so little that he was always lifted for Ryan Raburn in late innings. If you can’t play defense and you can’t hit and you’re track record is marginal there is little to contribute and little reason to expect it to change. Jones amassed 5 line drives in his very brief Tigers career.

As for the “drastic” lineup move I hardly consider the swap of Carlos Guillen and Gary Sheffield to be drastic. The more drastic move is Gary Sheffield assuming left field duties. Sheffield had surgery to repair a torn labrum which you’d think would inhibit his throwing ability. But even odder is that the DH rotation will be between Sheffield and Ordonez.

Ordonez is an average fielder, and hardly a liability. There is talk about his bad knees, but in actuality he has 1 surgically repaired knee. The injury hasn’t appeared to be chronic and he isn’t as close to DH-dome as many make him out to be. While the semi-rest is probably a good thing, it does nothing to help the infield defense. An area of concern that could be remedied by rotating DH duties to Carlos Guillen (who does have bad knees) and Miguel Cabrera.

So like the Guillen-Cabrera switch, this realignment seems to be a reactionary move that solves little. The move was at Sheffield’s request because he thinks he can focus better by playing the field. That may be the case, but if he’s not healthy the focus part won’t make a big difference. Like Lee, I’m skeptical that it will result in an increase in his numbers.

2008 Season, Injuries, Roster Management

Grandy’s Back!

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Curtis Granderson has been activated and will be leading off and patrolling center field. Just like old times. The only person in Detroit to view this as bad news is Clete Thomas who was sent to Toledo to make room. Thomas did well for himself and made the most of his time with the big club. A 298/338/393 line isn’t too shabby for a last minute roster addition who didn’t figure to be in the Tigers plans.