The Tigers optioned Dusty Ryan to Toledo, Alfredo Figaro to Erie and assigned Scott Sizemore to minor league camp. That leaves the team with 45 players in camp.
Category Archives: Spring Training
ST Game Post: Tigers at Braves
PREGAME: Is it just me, or does it seem that FS Detroit always seems to schedule one of their rare spring training telecasts the same day as opening day of the NCAA tournament? Tonight is an especially tough choice for me, what with Jeremy Bonderman making his first start of the spring (followed by Dontrelle Willis, Brandon Lyon, Bobby Seay, and Juan Rincon) and Michigan making their first tournament appearance of the millenium.
Anyways, if you choose to follow either game, feel free to comment here. I’ll be going PIP for a couple hours tonight.
Game Time 7:05
In Game: Two scoreless innings for Bondo. Good Stuff. Bad stuff is Placido Polanco hit with a pitch and he left the game immediately.
Bad news for one reliever, good news for another?
The Tigers announced that they have outrighted the contract of Macay McBride to Toledo. McBride is still trying to get health after Tommy John surgery last year and doesn’t really figure in the immediate plans. The outrighting does open up a spot on the 40 man roster though. There are three relievers not on the 40 man roster who look to be in contention for a spot on the 25 man roster. Ryan Perry, Casey Fien, and Juan Rincon are all making a favorable impression this spring and would require a 40 man spot. Is this good news for one of the trio? Is it a sign that the Tigers are about to make a trade for a starter to flush out the rotation? Or is it just a clerical move?
Are things looking up for starters
It has been a tumultuous spring for the Tigers starters. Exactly what you wouldn’t want to see with the hopes of the team largely relying on the incumbents ability to bounce back from a rough 2008. Bonderman injured. Verlander working on mechanics. Willis, Robertson, and Miner playing hot potato with the 5th starter spot. Galarraga not doing a whole lot of anything (literally). If it weren’t for Porcello the first few weeks of spring games would have been a disaster. But are things turning around?
Justin Verlander went 6 innings on 70 pitches and only allowed one hit today. The K’s weren’t there but everything else seemed to be working.
Nate Robertson turned in 3 scoreless and efficient innings over the weekend. His first positive outing. He’ll actually get a start on Friday with Rick Porcello being pushed back a day because of his finger.
Jeremy Bonderman felt good enough after his simulated game that he’ll pitch for real Thursday night.
And if you look hard enough, you can even draw some positives from Zach Miner’s outing on Monday. Yes, the final numbers don’t look good. But if you watched the inning, it was set up with a couple weak hits. Miner has continued to throw strikes at least, and it appeared on Monday he was keeping the ball down. He’s understandably frustrated.
A couple of good outings isn’t a reason to get excited. But even a couple is better than none. Maybe they are rounding into form.
ST Game Thread: Cardinals at Tigers
PREGAME: We have ourselves the first FS Detroit televised game of the spring today. I thought we’d mark to the return of Rod and Mario with a game thread for those who are able to watch along (I won’t be one of those).
Zach Miner starts for the Tigers today and he will be followed by Brandon Lyon, Bobby Seay, Freddy Dolsi, and Ryan Perry.
Game Time 1:05 from Joker Marchant Stadium. The game will be replayed on FS Detroit at 7:30.
Also, it sounds like cuts are coming today, but none are major. Jon Kibler, Rudy Darrow, and Jeff Kunkel were in the first round.
The injury report
Catching up on the Tigers injuries and recoveries of note:
- Jeremy Bonderman is feeling great after playing catch. He’s up to 90 feet with no pain. That’s good.
- Joel Zumaya went to see Dr. James Andrews for stiffness. That’s bad. But there’s nothing wrong. That’s good.
- Gerald Laird has a strained quadricep. And Bobby Seay is feeling something in his quadricep too.
- Clete Thomas is throwing the ball 150 feet and may be available to start the season.
What to make of Dontrelle’s day
The final line isn’t at all impressive. Three walks in three innings of work. But the third inning was a clean inning, and against some good hitters in Bobby Abreu, Miguel Cabrera (who fanned), and Magglio Ordonez.
So what do you make of the day? Those 3 walks all came in the second inning, and included walking in a run. So it shows that Willis is still capable of losing the strike zone. The 3rd inning was great showing he’s capable of getting guys out.
Do you chalk it up as progress that he bounced back or just more of the same as Willis still searches for a clean outing?
D-Train gets outing back on track
Bad Boding for Bonderman
Rocky performances from Dontrelle Willis and Fernando Rodney in their first appearances didn’t worry me too much. But Jeremy Bonderman being handed over to the training staff already has me greatly concerned.
Bonderman had already been scratched from his regular turn today in favor of a simulated session. Jim Leyland said they were just being cautious and it wasn’t a red flag situation. However, Bonderman is now on the sidelines receiving medication for stiffness and inflammation in his throwing shoulder. Maybe the flags aren’t red, but they sure aren’t green or checkered.
Things could certainly be worse, like something being messed up structurally. And day-to-day isn’t a dire status at all, but things are also very unknown. My first thoughts went to Fernando Rodney’s day-to-day status last year at this time, and it turns out Jon Paul Morosi was on the same page. You may remember that Rodney was day-to-day for several months.
They are different situations and a direct comparison probably isn’t appropriate. Pitchers have recovered from the surgery that Bonderman had which is promising. But if the Tigers are going to have success this year, the turnaround will have to come in large part from the incumbent starters. Anything that could throw a wrench in that is cause for pause.
Spring Training Opener
Let the fake games begin. The Tigers take the field finally this afternoon against the Atlanta Braves. Justin Verlander will be joined by Zach Miner, Bobby Seay, Brandon Lyon, Eddie Bonine, Fu-Te Ni and Kyle Bloom on the mound. The game will be broadcast on the radio (1270 AM) so you can listen in.
And you can’t start the spring training slate without the Voice of the Turtle.
First pitch is 1:05.
This Porcello Kid
Spring training is never short on stories about guys being in the best shape of their lives, or young kids making a favorable impressions on the coaching staff. But the Rick Porcello hype is reaching a fever pitch, and the first spring training game hasn’t even been played yet.
Jim Leyland made the familiar comments about taking the best players early on, and the brass mentioned Rick Porcello has an outside candidate for the 5th starter spot. I pretty much shrugged off that talk for the following reasons:
- The Tigers already have 3 candidates for the 5th starter spot (Willis/Robertson/Miner) and will already be sending a player with a substantial contract someplace other than the rotation.
- It seemed more like a managerial challenge to both the rookie, as well as the other guys in competition to see how they would respond.
- Porcello spent last year on a strict pitch count limit with a hard stop at 75 pitches. Plus, the hard stop not only held down his intra-game workload, but it held down his seasonal workload at 125 innings. Breaking camp with the team would be a significant jump in required workload.
But then Jim Leyland said…
“You can protect (one) pitcher in the majors — maybe one starting and relieving. … In other words, you can make up your mind that a starter is going to pitch five or six innings and get him out of there — you can do that a few times. You can’t do it all the time. …
Presumably Porcello wouldn’t be at the 75 pitch limit, but even a 90 or 100 pitch limit for a full big league season would be a significant jump in workload. In the minors Porcello was focused on using his 2 seamer to get groundball outs early in the count. He was quite effective in this regard and it had 2 effects. One, he only needed about 14.4 pitches per inning. Second, it limited his strike outs to a low 5.1 per 9 innings. At the big league level he’d be looked to employ his full arsenal and miss more bats (I’d hope anyways), thus driving up his pitch count.
PECOTA player cards aren’t available for pitchers yet, but I’d guess that the system doesn’t love Porcello at this point due to the low strike out numbers. But scouts and people who know these things felt that Porcello had pitches that were big league quality at the beginning of last year.
I’m less concerned with Porcello being rushed due to his stuff needing more refinement (though some time to work on the pitches that were de-emphasized last year might not be a bad thing) and more so from a workload perspective. Unlike the Jeremy Bonderman situation where there weren’t really other options, the Tigers do have a couple other arms to consider for the spot. I wouldn’t be opposed to Porcello breaking camp with the team, but I’d probably prefer more of the Justin Verlander approach where he makes a couple spot starts to fill in for injuries or double headers.
Recapping the first workouts
The beats were busy with the first official workout of the spring. Seriously, multiple stories and blog posts throughout the day, even a live blog from Morosi. A quick rundown of the stories from Tiger Town…
Rick Knapp
After 20+ years in the minors, this was Rick Knapp’s first day as a big leaguer. This got a fair amount of attention and Jim Leyland was pretty excited for him.
“This is huge for him,” Leyland said of Knapp. “All those years in the minors, and now this is his first day in the big leagues. It’s one of the most exciting parts of our first day of camp, to be honest with you.
I’m a fan of the Knapp hiring and am I excited to see what he can do. But Chuck Hernandez looked to be a genius in 2006 before he suddenly forgot how to coach (that’s sarcasm). I do like that he doesn’t seem to have a specific pitch or philosophy (other than throwing strikes) and instead tailors the message to the individual. For Zumaya it is an emphasis on long toss and a change-up.
Dontrelle Willis
Part of Knapp’s plan for Willis is for just to be himself (the successful self from his days with the Marlins, not last year’s version). The early reports are positive, but it is only day 1. Part of that is due to improved conditioning that has him five pounds lighter.
Willis, along with Robertson and Miner are all in the mix for the 5th starter spot. It has led Henning to once again speculate a trade could be coming. There are obstacles in the way of course, like those big honkin’ contracts that don’t mesh with the 08 seasons for Willis and Robertston. But… I’ve heard similar rumblings. That’s not to say they’ll come to fruition, but I don’t think Henning is off base with this. The Tigers rotation, while not as strong at the top, matches up well with the rest of the division looking 1-5 (or 6 or 7).
Zumaya and Rodney
Joel Zumaya is trying to gain weight and get back into his 2006 form. Whatever it takes is okay by me. Meanwhile Fernando Rodney is sporting an alligator tooth around his neck. It came from an alligator that was wrestled in a river. Supposedly.
Work in progress
The official reporting date is over a week away, but things are getting busy at Tiger Town. The fact that Zumaya is on a mound is progress in itself. For more, Roger DeWitt has a nice collection of images from yesterday’s workouts.