We knew going into the season that the Tigers’ pitching staff wouldn’t be a strikeout heavy staff. Bonderman as the ace would pile up quite a few, and Nate Robertson would be okay. But we knew that Jason Johnson at best was near average and Maroth and Ledezma would be below average. That’s why after the opening series against the Royals when the team piled up 24 strikeouts against 3 walks over the 3 games, things were looking pretty good. (Even if it was the Royals). Unfortunately in the 11 games since that series, the Tigers’ staff only has 51 strikeouts.

The starters in particular have been having a hard time getting K’s. In those 11 games the rotation has only accounted for 29 strikeouts or a K/9 of 4.26. Bonderman has struck out the most batters with 9 in two apperances, but his resulting K/9 is only 5.79. Jason Johnson hasn’t struck out a batter since his first apperance on April 7th (granted in one of his two apperances since, he only retired one batter). As Danny Knobler pointed out Johnson was the first Tiger to win a game without recording a strikeout since Nate Cornejo did it in 2003. Johnson wasn’t the only starter to make a K-less appearance for the Tigers this season though. When Nate Robertson was battling a virus and was roughed up by the Twins he failed to record a strikeout in 5 innings of work despite allowing 5 walks and two hit batsmen.

So why is the strikeout so important? Because it is the only out that pitchers have complete control over. It’s the only out that minimizes bad luck. If you look to the first game of the Minnesota series, Ugueth Urbina might have gotten out of the inning if a hard chopper into the ground didn’t take a turf bounce over the head of Brandon Inge. Even the Tigers benefited from this as Omar Infante drove in a run on a broken bat blooper. It’s also an out that pretty much ensures a runner won’t advance. Looking again at the Minnesota game, Jamie Walker got Jacque Jones to hit a weak grounder to second. Unfortunately there was a runner on third who scored on the play.

While putting more pressure on the defense is never a good thing, it is especially true of a defense that wasn’t expected to be that good. Fortunately, the Tigers defense hasn’t been bad. While the Tigers have 12 errors as a team, 3 have been by pitchers. And of those errors, only two have allowed runners to reach base (which is actually fewest in the AL). Their defensive efficiency, which is the percentage of balls in play that are converted to outs is .7107. That’s slightly above the league average of .6976 and 6th best in the AL.

Also fortunate for the Tigers, is that the starters have been pretty stingy allowing walks as well. While Nate Robertson has struggled and has a K/BB ratio of 1.0, the remaining starters have a ratio of 3.27. Robertson alone has accounted for 8 of the starters’ 19 walks. As long as the staff can supress the walks, it will help mitigate the low strike out rate.

Looking forward I’d expect Jeremy Bonderman to increase his strike out rate. He’s had higher rates in the past, and he has looked good enough this season for it to continue. Mike Maroth will probably stay about the same – he’s just not a strike out guy. Jason Johnson should improve slightly. He’s a little below his career numbers. However, if he can keep inducing ground balls with his sinker/two-seamer that isn’t a bad way to go either. Ledezma struck out quite a few guys at Erie last year, but was about a 5k/9 pitcher at the major league level. He clearly is still developing so I’m not sure where he’ll end up. Nate Robertson is the starter I’m most concerned with. His strikeout rate was very high early in the season (8.1 K/9 through June 30th), but it faded as the season wore on last year (6.1 K/9 from July 1st on). That combined with his struggles early this year has me a little worried. The good news is that this is only through three starts and he could just be in a slump. However, it is something to keep an eye on as the season progresses.

References: All the data points that refer to anything over a given time period came from the Day by Day Database. A creation of Baseball Musings mastermind David Pinto.

The tough thing about not having time to write everyday, is that when I come back, so much can happen. In this case, the Tigers lost Magglio Ordonez for a couple months, Farnsworth developed a strained bicep, Urbina combusted again, Trammell was slammed for his bullpen utilizaztion, Bonderman turned things around with an ace like performance, and Urbina managed a scoreless outing for the first time this season. So what is the topic for discussion? With a relatively light workday today, I’ll try all of it.

Bonderman, Maroth and the Bullpen
With the rotation of Bonderman, Maroth, Johnson, Robertson, and Ledezma it seemed apparent that the bullpen would be working extensively during the back of the rotation, and recovering when Bonderman and Maroth were on the mound. While Trammell helped to cause some of the fatigue by pulling Maroth too early in Minnesota, I’m sure he was planning on Jason Johnson pitching at least throught the first inning the subsequent night. Add a rough outing by Nate Robertson and you have a bullpen that pitched 14 of the 24 1/3 innings in the Twins series.

After a solid six inning effort from Wil Ledezma, both Bonderman and Maroth came in this weekend and pitched into the 8th inning when the pen needed it most. For Bonderman it was another step on his continuing journey to become an elite pitcher. For Maroth, it was just another outing where he went deep into the game and kept his team in it.

Ugh Ugueth Urbina
So what to do with Urbina? The good news is that he struckout all 4 hitters he faced in Sunday’s game. The bad news is that was the first outing this year in that he hasn’t allowed a run. With this last outing hopefully he turned the corner. While Urbina isn’t a dominant closer, he still has a pretty good track record of success. For the time being I still think he is the set-up man, even if it causes me to hold my breath when he comes in the game.

Searching for a lead-off hitter
I’m not convinced that this is really an issue. The Tigers don’t have a prototypical leadoff hitter, but I don’t really see it hurting production. They are still scoring 5.8 runs per game. Part of the problem is that Infante’s numbers are much more reminiscent of 2003 than 2004. However, as long as Inge continues to hit well there isn’t a problem with Brandon at the top of the order.

Of course if you wanted to put somebody at the top of the order who got on base 43.5% of the time, you could always put Carlos Pena up there. While he’s not hitting real well, he’s seeing over 4 pitches per at-bat, and he has 12 walks against only 6 strikeouts. His proficiency at getting on base has probably contributed to Craig Monroe’s 11 RBI (as well as his 3 double plays). I’m not advocating this move, because I think Pena will start to hit better, and I like his chances of doing that better with less pressure lower in the order. However, it’s something to consider.

Extra base-less opinion
Lost amidst the pitching debacle in the Metrodome, the Tigers bats were pretty anemic during the Twins series. While the Tigers amassed 27 hits over the 3 games, only 6 were for extra bases (3 doubles and 3 homers). The result was a .386 slugging percentage. Combine that with a 24 to 6 strikeout to walk ratio and you realize that even without the bullpen collapse, the Tigers would have been lucky to win any games. (I know that the first game they had a lead and it the game was theirs to lose. My point is that the whole team didn’t really play well enough to win)

Herniated Contract
At this point there isn’t really a lot to add to the Magglio Ordonez hernia discusssion. The Tigers have outfield options and will be able to survive. The offesne is already strong, it just won’t be uber-strong without Ordonez. The biggest implication is that with him missing a couple of months due to the hernia it all but guarantees that the out clause won’t kick in. With him having a shortened season, it will put less stress on the knee, and make it less susceptible to injury. I wasn’t rooting for the guy to injure his knee, but the hernia pretty much insures that Ordonez will be in Detroit for at least the next 5 years.

As for the hernia injury itself, a hernia pretty much wiped out Dmitri’s 2002 season. The difference is that Young tried unsuccessfully to rehab it before finally undergoing surgery. Ordonez on the other hand is consulting two specialists and will probably have surgery within a week.

Righty-righty matchup
The Tigers’ right hand heavy lineup faced their first left handed starter this season in Brian Anderson. For the season, the Tigers only have 80 at-bats against left handed pitchers, and they haven’t fared well posting a 203/264/278 line.

The Summer of 1935
Tigerblog has started to do a retrospective look at the 1935 season. Follow the team as Greenberg, Gehringer, and Cochrange lead the team toward the first championship in franchis history.

Okay, so the title may make this sound more sordid than it really is. Seth Stohs from SethSpeaks and I were both online and chatted throughout the course of the game. Seth has the first part of the transcript up on his site, and I have the second part below. In the first part we talk about the slimmed down Pudge and whether he is the best catcher of all time, Tigers’ outfield dilemmas, and productive outs among other things. The following picks up right after Brandon Inge hit the shot back at Radke that resulted in a double play in the fifth inning…

I enjoyed doing this because I learned more about the Twins, and I got to hear an outsiders’ perspective on the Tigers. Plus, it kept me from having to write about a 4 game losing streak (not explicitly anyways). I hope that you guys enjoy it too.

Yes, I know last night’s game was terribly frustrating. The Tigers lost their third one run game of the season. Clearly what we need to do is panic first, and then assign blame. I think that the common responses are that it was Urbina’s fault for blowing the lead, and Trammell’s fault for burning through his pen. Let’s look a little closer at those assumptions.

Urbina
OK, so it’s hard to defend Ugie here. Uribnia has pitched poorly enough this season to make people stop complaining about Bobby Higginson – which is quite a feat. While he did induce a couple weak bouncers, one of which took a turf hop, he also allowed two walks and a long fly ball to the warning track.

Now what should the Tigers do with Urbina? The popular mantra is “Trade him.” I’m not against trading Urbina, but not right now. While the bullpen should be a strength, I’m not convinced yet. German, Farnsworth, and Ginter (in his one appearance) have looked sharp. However German doesn’t have a strong history to convince me he can continue to pitch at this level. Farnsworth has looked great before only to erupt. And Ginter, well he won’t be your high leverage guy. Walker has been and will be adequate in the lefy specialist role. That leaves Percival, who has a history of being good, and a more recent history of being ok and injured. Despite Urbina’s struggles, given the other question marks in the bullpen the Tigers still need him.

Now demoting him from the set-up role for a game or two might be a consideration, but I doubt Trammell will do it in the near term.

Trammell’s Managing
While Trammell may have turned to the bullpen too early, and too frequently, his early moves paid off. German came in and picked up an out and induced a comebacker to the mound (which he failed to field cleanly). Walker came into face Jacque Jones who struggles against lefties, and induced a weak grounder to second. Of course it scored the run but it wasn’t the fault of Walker. Farnsworth came in and looked very good for an inning and a third.

Trammell then went with Urbina in the 8th, as he had to do. Urbina is the set-up man, and Trammell probably wanted to get him out there in a high leverage situation so he could bounce back from Friday. It didn’t work. Trammell came back with his closer in the 9th, which he had to do. He certainly couldn’t send Urbina back out there, and his other option was Matt Ginter. Nothing against Ginter, but Trammell went with the guy who gave him the best shot to get his hitters up again. It didn’t work.

Trammell put each of his pitchers in with a chance to succeed, and both Urbina and Percival didn’t execute. While I think he went to the pen to early, once he took Maroth out I didn’t mind his moves at all.

The move that really bothered me was sacrifice bunting in the 5th inning. The Tigers had already scored two runs on Monroe’s homer. Inge drew a walk to put a runner at first and nobody out. Mays was looking shaky. At this point color man Rod Allen said, “I’d have Infante lay down a bunt here. Trammell knows that he has to score as many runs as he can against the Twins.” I was thinking to myself how ridiculous that statement was when Infante squared to bunt. Now Infante got the bunt down and successfully advanced Inge, who ultimately was stranded at third.

The problem is that Trammell let a pitcher who was on the ropes have a free out, and in doing so reduced his run opportunity for the inning. It’s great to bunt a guy over if you need a run to tie, or take the lead, or even an insurance run in the 8th. But in the 5th inning it makes no sense.

So Trammell wasn’t perfect, Urbina and Percival weren’t good, but neither was the offense. The Tigers only managed 7 hits, six of them singles. And even of the singles, two were fisted bloopers and a third was a ground ball that was moving slow enough for shortstop Jason Bartlett to catch up with it in the outfield. The Tigers didn’t play that well last night, and still had a chance to win it (blow it) against the reigning division champs. Take some solace in that.

Other game thoughts
-Pena continues to have quality at-bats. It doesn’t look like his swing is quite right, and he seems to be falling back toward first base and fouling off some hittable pitches. However, he’s not swinging at bad pitches and now has 9 walks on the season.
– The rest of the team didn’t seem so patient though. I don’t have a count, but it seemed like they were swinging at the first pitch quite often. Rodriguez didn’t seem to be seeing the ball at all as he was swinging at everything. Magglio Ordonez still hasn’t had a hard hit ball.
-Craig Monroe is looking better than I expected in center. He did a nice job tracking down a long fly ball, and made it look easy. Even his throwing error from right was a well thrown, though ill-advised throw. It was right on the base, knee high.

I’m not sure if I’ll do the by the numbers stuff after every series, but I’ll keep doing it for now. So far it’s easy to compile the stats by just working off of the splits, because the Tigers have only played teams once.

800
That was Carlos Guillen’s batting average on balls-in-play. For the series, Guillen was 4 for 9 – with 4 strikeouts. His only non-strike out came on a pop-up to short.

2.25
Not a bad ERA from the bullpen. Despite Urbina’s rough outing Friday night, the bullpen pitched well. In fact, the two runs allowed by Urbina were the only two runs they allowed in 8 innings of work. Kyle Farnsworth led the way with 3 scoreless innings where he allowed only 2 baserunners while striking out 3.

59
It only took Jeremy Bonderman 59 pitches to get through 5 innings of work on Sunday. Unfortunately it took him 45 pitches to get through the first inning. Despite battling control problems early in the game, and almost getting pulled, Bonderman fought back to finish strong. Of course you never want to spot a team 6 runs, but the fact that Bonderman bounced back the way he did was impressive.

2 for 3
While Rodriguez mowed down all 3 runners in the KC series, the Indians were more successful going 2 for 3 on stolen base attempts. Vance Wilson however is still perfect. He gunned down the only runner who tried to steal on Saturday.

4.67
Fortunately, that wasn’t the team’s ERA. Not that it would be bad, but the ERA was a full run lower at 3.67. Unfortunately, 4.67 is the pitchers’ K/9. Below typical strikeout performances from both Robertson and Bonderman contributed to the low number. Despite the outfield’s strong showing on Saturday, I’m not convinced that the defense is good enough to support a low strike out rate.

Twins On Deck
Fortunately for the Tigers, they’ll miss Johan Santana this series. And with the injury to Carlos Silva, the Tigers will be facing Joe Mays who will be making his first start since the Tigers were chasing records of futility in 2003. The Tigers will be sending out Maroth, Johnson, and Robertson to face Joe Mays, Kyle Loshe, and Brad Radke.

Despite what AL Player of the Week Dmitri Young may say, I still think the Twins are the class of the division – but not by leaps and bounds. They have the best top two pitchers in the division in Radke and Santana. They also have the best closer in the division in Joe Nathan, along with several more formidable bullpen arms. The big quesiton mark is the offense. The bulk of the production is expected to fall on Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau. Mauer has 40 games of MLB experience, is a catcher with questionable knees, and is 22 years old. If he can stay healthy all indications are that he could be spectacular, but those knees make for a large quesiton mark.

Now when it comes to blogs, the Twins are definitely the class of the division. They have the rabid fandom of Bat-Girl. The measured and practical analysis of Twinsgeek. And of course a friend of my blog, Seth at Seth Speaks. Seth touches on all Minnesota sports in a friendly, hanging out with buddies talking sports, conversational sort of way.

So if you had told me that the Tigers would be leading the league in scoring one week into the season, I’d be happy. If you also told me that Tiger pitchers would have 3 times as many strikeouts as walks, and be second in their division in runs allowed I’d be really happy. And if you told me the Tigers record was 3-3, well not so happy.

One week into the season, and the Tigers possess the best run differential in the American League, and a .500 record. In the Tigers’ 3 wins they outscored their opponents by 23 runs. In the 3 losses, they were outscored by 8 runs. Now a 3-3 record isn’t bad, but it isn’t as good as it should be – especially considering that the team played pretty good.

Most disappointing was the 4-3 Friday night loss to the Indians. First their was the bullpen collapse, and then failure of the offense to take advantage of miscues. I know that Urbina wants to be a closer, and that he feels more comfortable in high pressure save situations. But as Brian pointed out, outs the 8th of a tie game are as important as outs in the 9th with a 3 run lead.

More disappointing than Urbina giving up the home run, was the Tigers failure to capitalize on Indian miscues. I know that even the best bullpen arms will make mistakes, and fortunately the Tigers offense still had a chance to come back. That chance became even greater when two Indian errors helped to load the bases with one out in the 8th. The Tigers only managed to score one run when Infante was walked with the bases loaded. It is hard to criticize a team for not being able to get timely hits when they lead the league in scoring, but that game was there for the taking.

A 3-3 start in the division isn’t bad, but 4-2 was there for the taking.

Other Thoughts & News From the Weekend

Of course the big news was the Marcus Thames call up. Unfortunately, my site was down yesterday morning so I couldn’t post about it. The Tigers now have 6 outfielders on the big league roster. It will be interesting to see how Trammell divides up the playing time. I’d imagine that once Ordonez gets healthy, Rondell might get a turn or two at DH with the red-hot young spelling Carlos Pena at first base. What I don’t want to happen is Trammell trying to find starts for Higginson.

…

While you can’t make conclusions from six games, you can make observations. Tram has followed the same pattern with his starters, in keeping in the pitch counts down. While I know he receives some flack for this, I whole heartedly support it. It’s the first week of the season, and the Tigers have invested a lot of money in their bullpen. Why wouldn’t you protect the young arms.

Also, Trammell is moving away from small ball – at least so far. In six games there were only two stolen base attempts and one sacrifice bunt.

Site Update
I’m working on cleaning up the links over in the sidebar. I also put links to the Ernie Harwell interview and took down the salary information. The salary stuff was several months out of date. If and when I get it updated, it will be back up.

I also have to apologize for the site downtime yesterday. Sorry about the inconvenience. It was a problem with my hosting company. Also, if you sent me an email between 7am and 2:30pm yesterday it was lost to cyberspace.

Thanks to all of you who have been stopping by. Hits have grown exponentially over the last few months, and opening day was my highest total ever. I’ll do my best to keep getting content up. As always I’m welcome to any feedback, good or bad (but especially good) so keep the comments and emails coming.

With a sample size of 3 games you can’t make a lot of statistical inferences. But it doesn’t mean you still can’t have fun with the numbers:

2:1
This is the ratio of Nook Logan’s runs scored to plate appearances. Nook managed to score twice despite grounding out in his only plate appearance due to a couple successful pinch running assignments.

4:1
How about that strikeout to walk ratio for Tiger pitchers. Granted, the Royals aren’t the most intimidating lineup, but it was a good job by the staff not giving out free passes. With 24 strikeouts, 30% of the outs came via the K.

3
Unfortunately, this is the number of plays missed by Inge. He chalked up his first error yesterday, and on Wednesday he probably should have had at least one more. Inge will make some dazzling plays, like the barehander on Opening Day. However, I’m still not convinced that he will end up being a big upgrade defensively.

Three is also the number of Royals gunned down on the basepaths. I wrote earlier in the spring how nobody tested Pudge last year, despite the fact his CS% had been dropping. The Royals tested him in this series and Pudge didn’t allow a stolen base.

52
The number of pitches that Carlos Pena saw in his 12 plate appearances. Pena drew 4 walks against only one strikeout. Combined with his 3 hits, Pena was the toughest out for the Tigers during this series.

1
The number of collisions/near collisions between Higginson and the centerfielder. Bobby has always been aggressive on balls to right-center. Often times it has been with good reason as Tiger centerfielders have either been young, or not very good, and Higgy has been the established starter. Typically it only takes a play or two where Higgy will stare down the centerfielder after the play before they start backing off. Now without TV I didn’t see the play in question and I don’t know how it went down. However, I know with 10,000 fans it wasn’t too loud to not hear a call. Higgy has to let Monroe make those plays. From all accounts, Monroe didn’t miss any plays and didn’t hurt them defensively.

Why Bondy is the Man
Yesterday on The Big Show on 1270 Art Regner asked Jeremy Bonderman what he thought about his Opening Day start now that he’s had a couple days to think about it. Bonderman answered, “I’m just kind of glad to have it over with. There are 35 more starts until the playoffs start.” His answer wasn’t arrogant, he just delivered it in the same matter of fact way that he answers every question. If he can keep this up, Detroit will be overflowing with Bonder-love.

TV Time
For those of you missing the Tigers, they start a stretch of 4 consecutive games on TV. It will be the longest stretch this month so get your fix while you can.

My thoughts all along this offseason were that the AL Central was getting better. The Twins will continue to be good, the Indians and Tigers are improving, and the White Sox are …mmmm… the White Sox. While I didn’t count on any of the four aforementioned teams being dominating, I thought they could all be .500 or a couple ticks above. The problem is that there are only so many wins to go around in the Central, and I don’t know how the Central teams will fare outside the division. The Royals aren’t cooperating by actually winning a game, so can the Central actually support 4 teams with winning-ish records?

The chart below shows how the AL Central teams fared against each division

The Twins dominated a weak division, but were basically a .500 team outside the division. The White Sox and Indians fared similarly outside the division, but weren’t able to match the Twins success against their rivals. The Tigers managed to put up a .473 winning percentage in the Central, but only .418 outside. Even the Royals who bolstered a lot of teams’ records across the league managed to not be awful in the Central.

So are the teams records in the Central representative of their talent relative to the rest of the league? And more importantly, has the talent in the Central improved relative to the rest of the league so that they can improve their extra-divisional records?

In terms of player movement, I don’t see a significant surge of talent into the Central. The Tigers picked up Percival from the West and the Indians got Millwood from the NL. The White Sox exchanged players, but I’m not sure that they are better (Dye, Podsednik in, Carlos Lee out). Corey Koskie left for the East, but Boone came into the Central. If there is additional talent from player movement, it isn’t substantial.

For the Central to be substantially better relative to the league this year, it has to come from player development within (kind of a running theme huh?). It’s Jeremy Bonderman, Morneau and Mauer, Martinez and Perralta. If the Central is going to have 4 winning teams, it is the development of these players that is going to swing the balance.

You know how when you’re looking forward to something so much, that as it approaches you start to fear that it will never live up to your expectations? That is what I was thinking yesterday morning. I’d been looking forward to the Opener for months, and I had built it up to be the best day of the year. Somehow, Opening Day managed to exceed my loftiest expectations.

Opening Day is about more than winning and losing. However, a 11-2 win on Opening Day will always be tremendously exciting. Similarly, a high 60’s April day in Detroit would be very acceptable as well, regardless of the outcome of the game. Put the two together and you’ve got pure baseball bliss.

It wasn’t just the win and the weather, it was the storylines that went along with it. The big story of course was Dmitri Young with the 3 dingers and a curtain call. And really, is there another Tiger player that you’d rather see celebrating than the gregarious Young?

But the best moment of all was delivered by Jeremy Bonderman. While his entire start was impressive, the ultimate came in the second inning. John Lowe captured it perfectly:

Here Bonderman is, up 0-2 in the count and Long is looking for his out pitch, probably out of the zone. Instead Bonderman came with all 94mph right in the zone and you could see it from way upstairs that Long didn’t even have a shot.

Yes it was only one game. Yes it was against the Royals. Regardless, the Tigers put on a great show in front of a primed and packed Comerica Park.

Renovations
The Tigers did a fine job with their outfield seating and bullpen renovations. The seats in right field look like they’ve been there all along. Most impressive was the new bullpen area in leftfield. The bullpen area involves a glass and brick structure sunk into the ground. It was somewhat reminiscent of the way the bullpens at Tiger Stadium were submerged – only much nicer.

Crowding the Place
An article in Crain’s this week highlights the rise in Tiger ticket sales.

The article also states that the Tigers have sold all their suites, and all are locked into long term contracts.

I’m not sure what the Tigers attendance goal is this season, but 2.15 million definitely seems possible.

Last year the Tigers seemed to thrive on big Comerica crowds. The Tigers were 13-7 when drawing more than 30,000 fans last year.

Twins sign new contract
John Bonnes, known as the TwinsGeek is one of the longest running team bloggers out there. In an unprecedented move, the Minnesota Twins have become a sponsor of his site. It’s a great move by the Twins from the standpoint of focusing on your target audience. It’s also great for John and other bloggers as well. Congratulations John!

It’s finally here (sighs blissfully).

That’s about all I can muster up this morning, as we sit on cusp of what should be Detroit’s first winning season since 1993. Jeremy Bonderman, the man who carries the Tigers’ hopes will also be carrying the ball today against the Royals. With a forecast in the low 60’s with sun, things are shaping up for this to be the best opener in recent memory.

As for me, I’ll be at the game so I won’t be posting any updates. My pregame ritual will take me to a coney island for breakfast, before heading down to Casey’s. Casey’s is by the old Tiger Stadium at Michigan and Rosa Parks. While there are some fine establishments closer to Comerica Park (i.e. Towne Pump, Detroit Beer Co., etc) I prefer the tradition that the older bars (i.e. Casey’s, Nemo’s) provide.

As I said, I’ll be at the game so I won’t have any commentary. However, feel free to post any thoughts in the comments. Or, check out one of the great message boards like MotownSports that will have a lively game thread running.

Other Stuff
As is old news by now, the Tigers put Steve Colyer and Gary Knotts on waivers, and both made it through. Knotts is in Toledo, and Colyer is with the Mets organization after being traded for Mike Ginter. This isn’t a big move, so it doesn’t deserve big commentary. So my take on it is: “it should be okay.”

Knotts meanwhile is complaining of shoulder soreness. That may explain why in his start last week, his fastball was sitting in the high 80’s instead of the low 90’s.

And former Tiger Alex Sanchez was the first player busted in the new steroid program. I don’t even know what to make of this.

More Predictions
The crew at TigersCentral has their season preview up, which is worth checking out.

And Lynn Henning says second place for the Tigers.

David Pinto picks the Tigers to finish 3rd.

Continuing in the season preview series, I’ll now take a look at the infield. To predict the offensive contributions I’ll be using Runs Created and Runs Created per 27 outs (RC27). Runs created in it’s shortest form is on base average times total bases. RC27 is the number of runs a team of 9 identical players would typically score in a game. There have been several refinements to this formula to take more into account. Last year the Tigers RC was 844 and their actual runs scored was 827, or a variance of 17 runs – so it’s pretty darn close.

Now on to the predictions…

First Base
A late power surge last year pushed Carlos Pena to a career high 27 home runs. Pena seems to have settled in as a .245 hitter who becomes more valuable by walking a great deal. He had 70 walks last year and posted a .338 OBA despite his batting average. He also slugged .472 which is respectable given his batting average as well. Given the fact that he is the Tigers only left handed power threat, he stands to play pretty much every day. The only thing that would deter him are injuries and playing really really poor. His RC27 the last 3 years has been rising (4.76, 4.92, 5.34) and following that line I’d peg him at 5.77. If he plays 150 games that works out to 96 runs created.

Dmitri Young will get the rest of the starts at first, and his RC27 numbers when healthy are between 6 and 7. Last year he dipped to 5.6. A return to 6.0 is feasible and he should account for an additional 8 runs created.

First Base: 104 Runs Created.
Change From Last Year: +10

Second Base
Omar Infante started off last year trying to forget his previous season. In 2003 he was given the opportunity to start, only to be demoted to Toledo mid-season. He made the club as a utility player because the Tigers had signed Fernando Vina to play second base. An early season ending (and probably career ending) injury to Vina opened the door for Infante to play, and Omar capitalized. He slugged .449 as a 22 year old and played an adequate second base. He will get the bulk of the starts at second base health permitting. He’s had back problems in the past, and has battled a sore shoulder this spring which puts him at a higher injury risk than I’d like to see. I wouldn’t be surprised to see his power regress slightly (he’s never hit for that kind of power in his major or minor league career before), but I think his average and OBA will increase slightly. In short I’d expect the same kind of production as last year and he will contribute 73 RC over 140 games.

Jason Smith and Ramon Martinez will provide backup duties for second, third, and short. Smith’s RC27 last year was 3.9 while Martinez’s was 3.6. For simplicity sake we’ll call the backup infielder duo has 3.7 RC27. Over 22 games that is 9 runs.

Second Base: 82 Runs Created.
Change From Last Year: +5

Third Base
Prior to 2004, Brandon Inge had a career .198/.254/.315 offensive line. That was the worst performance in the Majors from 2001-2003 (minimum 900 plate apperances). That’s what makes last year’s .287/.340/.453 so surprising. Inge made the team despite his offensive performance because he could back up 3 critical positions – centerfield, third base, and catcher. Given that Chris Shelton was holding on to a roster spot but not contributing that made Inge a valuable component. When Munson failed to hold onto the third base job, it became Inge’s for the taking.

Despite Inge’s success last year, the Tigers weren’t sold on it. They tried to acquire free agents to man the hot corner including Adrian Beltre, Troy Glaus, and Edgar Renteria (to play short and move Guillen to 3rd). However the Tigers didn’t find any takers. Inge will probably get 130 starts or so at third if he can hit at all. I think his power was real last year as his isolated power has been on the rise (IsoP is slugging minus batting average) from .131 to .136 to .167 last year. His plate discipline has been fairly steady as well. I’d expect his average to dip though to the .250 range for a stat line of .250/.315/.410 or a reduction of about 9% in his OPS. His RC27 last year was 5.39 and if that is reduced 9% it would be 4.91. Over 135 games that is 74 runs created.

With the backup crew picking up the remaining games, that is 11 more RC.
Third Base: 85 Runs Created.
Change From Last Year: -4

Shortstop
If only the Tigers could trade minor league non-prospects for guys that find themselves in the MVP race every year…Carlos Guillen looked to be a good player heading into last year, and I expected a big season from him – like a .280 hitter who might slug in the low .400s. Instead the Tigers had to settle for .318/.379/.542 and a hitter that they could slot anywhere in the batting order. What remains to be seen is if this new level of performance is sustainable, or a freakish career year. My take is that he won’t be able to repeat his performance in 2004, but he won’t slip all the way back to his career levels either. His RC27 had been on the rise from 4.03 to 4.45 to 4.83 prior to last year’s 7.60. I think part of his jump was moving to a new team and environment that fit him. I also think part of it was related to his age. And part of it was simply luck. I’m going to guess that his RC27 will be 6.0 and that he’ll manage 135 games (that has definitely been more predictable over his career). The results is 90 runs created.

The back up crew will pick up the remaining games and will contribute 11 runs.
Shortstop: 101 Runs Created.
Change From Last Year: -21

I’ll cover outfield, DH and catcher in the next edition.