After examining the depth of plate appearances for the Tigers and MLB as a whole, I wanted to take a look by individual Tiger at what happens as a plate appearance grows longer. Of course this would prove to be a massive post because each player would need their own table and or chart.
Instead, I decided to invest the time in dumping the data into a usable format in Excel so others can look up their favorite players, or teams.
There are 2 files, one for teams and one for players. There’s a simple front end where you can select teams or players via a drop down and the calculations and graphs will be generated for you. The data is also accessible if you want to play around. One word of caution though, the calculations in the player file aren’t exactly speedy.
Now because this is a Tiger blog, I did break out a file with just Tiger players.
If anyone comes across something or someone interesting, please let me know.
Certainly there is more to plate discipline than first pitch swinging. We’ve seen that the Tigers aggressiveness in that regard actually pays dividends. We also know that the Tigers strike out more than any other team in the American League and walk less than only the Cubs and Mariners. One hazard of first pitch swinging is that it short circuits long at-bats, but is there a benefit to working deep into the count? Continue reading Examining Depth of Plate Appearances→
The Tigers are extending invites to the Major League camp for 16 players. They are:
Pitchers
Craig Dingman (R)
Jair Jurrjens (R)
Dennis Tankersley (R)
Tim Byrdak (L)
Felix Heredia(L)
Bobby Seay (L)
Catchers
Gabe Johnson
Dane Sardinha
Steve Torrealba
Infielders
Brent Dlugach
Mike Hessman
Kevin Hooper
Outfielders
Cameron Maybin
Timo Perez
Ryan Raburn
Brandon Watson.
Pitchers and catchers will report to Lakeland on February 15, with the first work-out on February 16. The balance of the squad will report on February 20 and the first full-squad work-out will be held on February 21.
In the comments to the first first pitch swinging post Nate asked about the differences in the time of game reasoning that the value in wearing down a reliever is minimal. It was easy enough to break it down by starter versus reliever.
While I dispelled some of my issues with the Tigers and first pitch swinging, I still had some questions. I think many Tiger fans can remember what seemed like all those times there were runners on base only to see Magglio Ordonez (or any host of other Tiger hitters) take a swing at the first pitch and pop out to first base. So did first pitch swing rates, as well as success, hinge on whether or not there are runners on base?
There were a couple ways to describe the Tigers approach at the plate in 2006. The optimist might say they were aggressive, the pessimist might say they were hack-tastic. I guess one measure of this might be their propensity for swinging at the first pitch.
Now with the first pitch, 4 things can happen. There are two take events, a called ball or a called strike. There are also two swinging states, the batter can have put the ball in play or be sitting with an 0-1 count. At various times during the season I saw stats on TV broadcasts or in the paper that show how well certain Tigers did when hitting the first pitch, but that data neglected to take into account the swings and misses (or fouls). Continue reading First pitch swinging→
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 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.
Joe Sheehan made a list of who’s been naughty and nice (premium). He lists the Tigers in the nice category saying the Bonderman deal was a risk worth taking, and really liking the addition of Sheffield:
I suspect that his impact on the team’s overall run scoring will be greater than we can model. Adding an OBP guy to a high-SLG, low-OBP lineup should have a larger effect than adding it to a more balanced lineup.
I did an interview with Mike from the Daily Fungo Podcast. It doesn’t look like it’s up yet, but I’ll drop the permalink in here when he posts it. It’s nice talking baseball again.
While I wait for the BCS results, I’ll let others do the heavy lifting and link out:
There’s an interesting look at the results by count, and more importantly by what happens after a certain count. The Tigers swung at a ton of first pitches, and Tom Gage even had some stats saying it was a good idea. My issue with Gage’s stats were that they simply showed the result when the ball was put in play. It didn’t take into account the adverse effect of fouling a ball off or swining and missing and putting yourself in a hole. He also didn’t mention sample sizes. By only looking at balls in play, he essentially takes out the possiblity of striking out which isn’t realistic and then there is the issue of not enhancing your OBP via the walk. I didn’t really have the comparisons for what those numbers should look like, but they’re available now. We still don’t know the complete picture on the Tigers at-bats, but it is an interesting comparison nonetheless.
Baseball Analysts took a look at the best and worst defenders in the minors from 2006. The good news is that no Tigers showed up on the worst list. Kevin Hooper rated as the 2nd best defensive shortstop last year.
Via Knuckle Curve Baseball America has put out a scouting dictionary. So if you want to know what a long swing is, or what it means for a pitcher to throw downhill, this is the place to check.
Finally, it looks like there will be a DVD chronicling the Tigers season. It will be available December 7th and exclusive to Meijer stores. The DVD will retail for $18.99. For those interested in a sneak peek, the premiere will be December 6th at the Uptown Palladium in Birmingham. Dan Dickerson, Mario Impemba, and Nate Robertson will be on hand. Tickets are $10. Call 313-471-2052 for tickets and premiere information.
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)
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→
I’m way behind here, and some of this hardly qualifies as newsworthy anymore. But in the interest of completeness…
Gary Sheffield will wear Alan Trammell’s #3, and Trammell is okay with it. I have mixed feelings on this. First it is only a number and too much shouldn’t be made of it. But on the other hand it will be weird, to say the least, to see someone else sporting that number. Trammell is too classy to make a stink of it, but I can’t figure why Sheffield would even ask for it. It is sure to not endear him to Tiger fans, but that never seems to be an issue for him anyways. Even with 10 and 11 not available (and if 11 isn’t available is this to mean that Sparky’s # will be officially retired?), there were lots of other numbers to choose from. It almost seems intentional and calculated.
Lee has started doing a Runs Created analysis for the Tigers. It is a series of posts, here is the first. I love the runs created stat because it boils offensive production down to a value that all baseball fans can relate to.
The Lakeland Tigers are no more. They are now the Lakeland Flying Tigers. This will be helpful for me when I write up my minor league wraps next year because I was never a fan of L-Tigers. More importantly, it will help the organization tie in the aviation aspect of the Tigers facilities in Lakeland. The complex is on an old aviation school.
There are very few good things about the end of the baseball season. One of those things is The Bill James Handbook (aff link). This is my third year getting the book, and this appears to be the best of the group.
If you’ve picked up the book in the past, you’ll find many of the same elements including:
Player stats
Manger record – Jim Leyland used 120 different lineups and pitched out 9 times.
Baserunning stats – did you know that Pudge was on first base 6 times when a double was hit, and he scored all 6 times? (Curtis Granderson was 6 for 7)
Park effects –
The new stuff for this year includes the Fielding Bible Awards and the +/- leaders from the methodology used in last year’s Fielding Bible. There is also a section on Manufactured Runs (the Tigers were dead last).
The new sections I’ve only skimmed because the first thing I do when I tear open the book is head to the leader boards where you find stuff that doesn’t show up in the Sunday paper. Here are just a couple of Tiger tidbits:
The Tigers had 4 of the top 10 pitchers in the AL in left handers batting average against – and Jamie Walker wasn’t one of them. Nate Robertson and Joel Zumaya ranked 1-2 while Kenny Rogers was 8th and Fernando Rodney was 10th
Carlos Guillen was 2nd among shortstops on the pivot and Placido Polanco was 5th amongst second basemen. Given that it shouldn’t be a surprise that Nate Robertson and Kenny Rogers ranked 4th and 5th in the AL in GIDPs induced.
Joel Zumaya led the AL with 233 pitches clocked over 100mph. Kyle Farnsworth was 2nd…with 26. What’s even more impressive is that he threw 884 pitches faster than 95mph which is 4th behind starters Josh Beckett, Justin Verlander, and Felix Hernandez.
Craig Monroe and Magglio Ordonez ranked 5th and 6th in terms of highest percentage of first pitches swung at (just under 39%).
There’s a ton more statistical goodness which will be blog fodder for the rest of the offseason. But really, if you want something to get your baseball juices flowing I can’t recommend this book enough.
News, views, and analysis on the Detroit Tigers and baseball
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(aff link). This is my third year getting the book, and this appears to be the best of the group.