Just think if they were good

I took in Tigerfest today with my family. It was my first Tigerfest in 4 years, and I came away amazed at how much people love the Tigers. We parked at Grand Circus Park and took the people mover to Joe Louis Arena where we looked out and saw several thousand people waiting to get inside. This was 10 minutes before it was set to open. Since we had two little ones with us, we decided to just do another loop on the people mover rather than wait in the cold.

By the time we returned the crowd had entered the Joe, but there was still a 20 minute wait to even buy tickets. The support the Tigers receive is tremendous, and I can’t help but wonder what things would be like in Detroit if they had given fans any reason to cheer in the last twelve years.
Continue reading Tigerfest 2006 →

Here are the Detroit Tigers starters as projected by ESPN.

C: Ivan Rodriguez
1B: Carlos Pena
2B:  Placido Polanco
SS:  Carlos Guillen
3B:  Brandon Inge
LF:  Craig Monroe
CF:  Nook Logan
RF:  Magglio Ordonez

SP1:  Jeremy Bonderman
SP2:  Kenny Rogers
SP3:  Mike Maroth
SP4:  Nate Robertson
SP5:  Justin Verlander/Wilfredo Ledezma

CL:  Todd Jones

A few comments:

• While I”m not ready to write off Wil Ledezma based on his struggles last year, I don’t really see a pitching rotation with 4 southpaws
• Dmitri Young is absent.  I understand the numbers crunch, and the site just listed one player at each position.  However, I don’t see Carlos Pena as the clear cut starter.  Provided Young, Shelton, and Pena all break camp, Pena will definitely get starts at first base.  But everything I’ve heard has Shelton as the starter.  In any case Jim Leyland will have some nice platoon options.  As for Pena versus Shelton defensively, I’m not sure that Pena is really better.
• Nook Logan does have value on a Major League roster, but I don’t see anyway he should be starting over Curtis Granderson.  The occasional start against left hand pitching and late inning use as a pinch runner /defensive replacement are the best bets for Logan.

baseball

The post that was 12 months in the making, and 45 minutes in the writing – the Year in Review. (seriously, there is NO Tiger news to report) As you’ve probably realized if you’ve been reading this site for awhile, I like statistics. With that, let’s take a look back:

• Posts: 210
• Words: 103,537(not counting this post)
• Comments: 1156
• Interviews: 3
• Visits: 72,000+
• Page Views: 100,000+
• Redesigns: 1

I thought about counting up the graphs and charts, but then I was just too lazy.

The most commented on posts were the Kenny Rogers signing, Ugueth Urbina being traded, and our wild and crazy prediction thread.

I’d like to thank all of you who have been here all year, and everybody else who began reading along the way. Thanks for taking the time to leave comments and get the discussions moving. This year has by far been my most successful year, if you define success as visits and recognition that is. My traffic increased by about 300% this year. All of that increase of course came from you coming back again and again, and telling your friends and thanks for that.

But you had to find this place in the first place, and that was faciliated by a number of people. Sean Baligian gave me several mentions on WDFN, and Mike Wendland wrote about the site in the Free Press. Most of my traffic though came from the generous linking of others. David Pinto, Seth Stohs, Geoff Young, Dave Studeman and so many others helped to drive considerable traffic to this site. There are many, many more who linked to me, and to list them all would take the rest of the day. I’d also like to thank Scott at Motown Sports for the opportunity to write for his site, and at the same time promote mine.

I’d also like to thank Dave Dombrowski, Ernie Harwell, and Dan Dickerson for being so generous in their time and their willingness to participate in interviews. This site is still pretty small in the grand scheme of things, but it is a little bigger with a little more credibility (I think) thanks to those interviews.

And of course there is the Detroit/Tiger blogging community (DIBS) who have all been so supportive of this site and each other. I look forward to even more interaction and cross-site discussion in 2006. We’ve got some ideas to grow DIBS in membership, and in terms of community, that I hope we can bring to fruition.

Thanks for a great year, and I’m really looking forward to 2006.

Now if only we can get a winning record one of these years…

Well, after a couple days of intense computer time and the scorn of Mrs. Billfer, DTW has received an upgrade. In addition to the redesign which is glaringly obvious, I moved the blog from Blogger to WordPress. Here’s what I’m hoping the benefits will be:

• Improved readability: The site is now optimized for a 1024X768 resolution, as opposed to not being optimized for any resolution before. For the 85% of you with monitors bigger than 800X600 this should mean more usable real estate. Oh yeah, the humongous banner is now smaller.
• Better integrated commenting: The comments will now appear right on the page with the post. The pop-up is gone. Hopefully this will make it easier for you guys to participate in the discussion. The benefit to me is that your comments will appear on the page – which gives the site more content for search engines to puruse. Thankfully, I was able to import all 1353 of your comments so none were lost.
• Improved Navigation: It should be easier for you to find things on the site. It will be easier to move between posts, and there will be better searching. Additionally, WordPress offers category support. Now currently nothing is categorized (and the chances of me going back through the various posts is slim), but newer posts will be categorized logically.

The benefits for me are that everything becomes easier. My blog had simply outgrown Blogger, so even simple changes had become cumbersome. The new design also allows for more & better ad placement. I hope the ads don’t offend anyone. However, I spend a great deal of time on this site, so if I can make a couple bucks I’m going to try.

Now the drawbacks of major overhauls are that sometimes things break. If you have a 800×600 monitor, and go to an older post with a bigger picture/table, things will be screwy. I apologize for that, and please let me know if you see anything. Also, the import didn’t treat some tables kindly. I’ve manually fixed some already, but again, if you find anything let me know the post that’s giving you the problems.

I think that all the links to old content should still work. If you’re coming to really old content, you may hit a page that looks like the old design. I wasn’t able to line up all the links exactly, so I kept a couple old pieces around.

With that, I look forward to your feedback.

And most importantly, have a great holiday season! I’ll be back with more posts next week.

All’s quiet in Tiger land, and looks to remain that way. Tomorrow (Tuesday) is the tender deadline, and really the only player in question for Detroit is Carlos Pena. I fully expect the Tigers to offer Pena a contract, because if they weren’t planning on it they could have actually retained a player in the Rule 5 draft. Plus, Pena is too good to let walk – although a previous regime let Tony Clark go for nothing.

Other arbitration eligible players such as Brandon Inge, Craig Monroe, and Mike Maroth will most assuredly be offered contracts.

Although things are relatively quiet, my fellow bloggers are keeping things interesting. Brian has posted a tidy recap of the Tiger’s 1901 season. Fortunately there are a lot of Tiger seasons so if Brian gets favorable reviews he might do this some more.

And if you want to get geeky instead of historical, Lee continues his series looking at run production.

Don
Finally, for those who were curious about the family situation I mentioned on Friday, my father-in-law passed away rather unexpectedly. He had some health issues, but his passing took everyone by surprise.

While Don didn’t read this site, he wasn’t so much a computer guy, he was a huge baseball fan. Like so many from his generation and the Detroit area, he spent the majority of summer months with Ernie Harwell plugged into his ear.

During the visitation, one of Don’s old high school classmates reminisced that “Don was a heck of a pitcher, probably the best player on our team.” Don instilled jis love of baseball (and many, many, more admirable traits) in his two sons, and his youngest daughter (aka Mrs. Billfer) who all played as kids.

Don had a tremendous work ethic, and it was a race to see what would happen first, retirement or age 70 – 70 won. Don didn’t argue, but he didn’t give in. He spoke volumes without saying hardly anything. He didn’t ask for help, but always offered it. In short a great man.

After suffering several strokes, Don was relegated to a wheel chair and while his mind was intact, his speech wasn’t. For a proud, self-sufficient man the last couple years were probably very difficult for him, even moreso because he couldn’t communicate. Ultimately, he’s happier now in heaven with his wife who passed away just last year, but it doesn’t mean that those he left behind aren’t hurting.

Thank you for reading this, learning a little bit about Don, and indulging me this off-topic post.

Due to some family related issues, I probably won’t be posting this weekend. However, I had a couple of things to cover:

1. Based on feedback I changed the look of the comments, they should be easier to read and they now match the site colors.

2. I’m in need of help with CSS for the redesign (it’s not massive). I think I get it all figured out, but then it doesn’t work in IE. So I fix it in IE, and break it in Firefox. I’m just not bright enough and have spent too much time with trial and error. If you are a wiz with floats and such and would be willing to donate 30 minutes to help me, please email me at bill@detroittigersweblog.com

Finally, while I said this was an open thread I’ll suggest a topic:
Based on comments others have made in various posts, what about Nomar Garciaparra? Is he worth Kenny Rogers money (as Tim put it)? Do you guarantee a second year or work out a vesting option (be wary based on what happened with Dmitri Young)? Is it worth having him if it means giving up Carlos Pena?

An interview with Mike Illitch was circulating on AP today (oddly enough though not in Detroit papers). In the interview Illitch concedes he screwed up in his GM hirings when he bought the team after Bill Lajoie said no. He also concedes that he’s not happy with his tenure.

Illitch has taken a lot of criticism for his ownership of the Tigers. Quite frankly given the team’s record it is deserved. When he clamped down the payroll after the 2000 season he rightly took a lot of flack. The team seemed to be changing direction each year. However, the criticism that he doesn’t care about the Tigers isn’t fair. Given his spending the last 3 offseason it is clear he was embarrased by the disaster that was 2003.

The article concludes with Illitch wanting to spend more money – if the team is competitive:

Bases Contributed Percentage
New Tiger blog Tiger Town is playing with a new stat called bases contributed percentage. The stat combines baserunning with other offensive metrics to provide a more complete picture. Amongst Tigers Chris Shelton still fairs best followed by Carlos Pena and Curtis Granderson. My only quibble with the stat is that Ron removes HBP. Considering it is an offensive event, that some players are more adept at I think it should probably be included.

In any case, it is great to see so much fresh Tiger writing.