An excellent article by Lynn Henning. Lynn advocates keeping Sanchez out of the leadoff spot, keeping Chris Shelton, and here’s the kicker:

Been too busy lately to do much posting. I hope to have the offensive preview up in the next day or two if everything goes as planned. Keep checking back!

In Peter Gammons preview of the AL central he says:

Now if only they had the wins as well as the values…

This is the third in a continuing series of previews I’m writing about the Detroit Tigers. The first part was on starting pitching, and the second part took a look at the bullpen.

We’ve heard all offseason that the Tigers have significantly improved their defense, but I’ve yet to see any evidence to say this is true. My method for evaluating the defense is to use a measure called Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR). UZR was created by a Baseball Primer poster named MGL. UZR essentially measures the runs that a player will either save or cost their team compared to an average player. In other words, a player with a UZR of 10 means that he prevented 10 more runs than an average player. Conversely, a negative value indicates that the player is below average in preventing runs.

The core of UZR is similar to Zone Ratings in that it measures how successful fielders are at turning balls hit into certain zones into outs. However, UZR incorporates many more factors such as situations (how many outs, how many on), park factors, and a host of other influences. UZR doesn’t measure an outfielders arm, or an infielder’s ability to turn a double play. Here is a full explanation of UZR, and here is a csv file with UZR for all players for 2000-2003.

While UZR isn’t perfect, I think it is better than any other defensive metric currently available.

The table below shows UZR information for the Tigers last year, and what I think they’ll do this year. The first column, “2003 Position UZR Runs” is a measure of how each position performed last year. The “Primary Player 2003 UZR Runs/162” column indicates how many runs the main player at each position would have prevented/cost they had played 162 games at that position. “2004 Projected UZR Runs” is my take on what to expect this year. The projection methodolgy varies by player, and I’ll examine each one seperately.

First Base:Carlos Pena
I was actually a little surprised to see that Pena was a below average fielder. However, he is “just” below average and still pretty young. My projection for 2004 was simply the average of 2002 and 2003. In 2002 Pena had UZR runs of 0, meaning he was league average. Because he’s not at the point you would expect a decline due to aging, I would expect him to perform in the same range he has the past two years.

Second Base:Fernando Vina
This was a move that was praised as a major defensive upgrade. While it’s true that Vina was a heck of a fielder, it appears his best days are behind him. His UZR Runs for 2000-2003 are: 24, 10, -7, -21. That is a disturbing slide. Last year he was injured and only played 54 games. That is the reason I expect some correction this year, but even -10 maybe generous. The other factor with Vina is his reputation of turning the DP. Given the amount of baserunners the Tigers allowed last year, and the number of GIDP the pitchers induced (if this is in fact possible), Vina could still have an impact.

Third Base:Eric Munson
Last year was Munson’s first at third base, and it showed. He finished last/near last among third basemen in most defensive statistics. However, given his ability to learn first base in the minors, and excel at it, there is still reason to be optimistic. While I would expect Munson would improve this year, I don’t have any data that points to it. That’s why I project him to be similar defensively to last year.

Shortstop:Carlos Guillen
I was quite surprised to see that Santiago performed so poorly defensively last year at shortstop. From just watching him, I thought he was at least decent. If you look at the disparity between Santiago’s UZR runs, and the positional runs, it shows that Infante was the superior defender. Also, if you look at the disparity at second base between the position and Morris, it’s clear that Santiago was a liability there as well. We knew that offensively Santiago was a lost cause, but after looking at these defensive numbers Dave Dombrowski deserves serious praise for this trade. As for Guillen’s projection, at short the last 3 years he was 4, -2, and -6 last year. Last year was only in 57 games, and pegging him this year is tough, but -6 seems reasonable.

Left Field:Rondell White
This position was shared primarily between Monroe (+12 last year) and Young (-13) who combined to be a pretty average left field. White has a weighted average (recent years weighted heavier than older years) for the last 4 years of +16, so that’s what I projected for him this year as well. The knock on White is that he has no arm whatsoever. So while still being above average in left, he might not be a significant improvment over last year.

Centerfield:Alex Sanchez
I watch Alex Sanchez and I get scared. He gets bad jumps, plays too deep, has no arm, and misses cut off men. Despite all that, his speed helps him make up for his lack of instincts/ability and he’s-dare I say-average. His weighted average is 7, he had 8 last year. I’ll put him at 8 this year as well.

Right Field:Bobby Higginson
Bobby went from being a good fielder to an average fielder last year. Actually, the decline has been coming the past couple years. While in left in 2000-2002 he had years of 22, 33, and then 11 UZR runs. Last year he moved back to right and his UZR was 6. I know he was battling a hamstring which probably limited his range. However, he has battled injuries since 2000 so it wouldn’t be surprising if he were injured again this year. That said, I’d expect a healthy Higginson to bounce back some what, and that is why I projected +10.

Catcher:Ivan Rodriguez
Unfortunately UZR doesn’t include measures for catchers. For Pudge versus Inge defensively, I’ll point you over to a post by Brian. Basically he shows that Inge is better defensively right now that Pudge. I-rod has been on the decline, and Inge had similar numbers to Benji Molina, last year’s Gold Glove winner.

Conclusions
The Tigers are a slightly better team defensively this year than last year. Not counting catcher, I’d project the Tigers defense to allow 7 fewer runs than last year. If you figure that a 10 run swing=1 win, then the Tigers will add at most one game to their win total by their defensive changes.

Here’s a shot of Joker Marchant stadium in Lakeland that Deran sent me. Take it in, enjoy the green grass, think spring, think summer. And here’s the list of spring training non-roster invites

In one of the Tigers’ best moves since Comerica Park opened, the McDonalds restaurant will be replaced with Montgomery Inn. When my friends and I visited Great American Ballpark last year we went to the Montogomery Inn Boathouse before the game. The ribs were awesome.

While I prefer going to baseball games for the game and not the surrounding fluff, I have to say that Comercia does have the fluff down pretty good.

The Tigers sold 1.2 million in new season tickets in the 8 days following the Pudge signing. That doesn’t even count the 4 tickets my friends and I picked up prior to the signing.

Last week we took a look at the prospects for the Tigers starting pitching. Today we’ll take a look at who the starters will hand the ball to. Last year the bullpen allowed 285 earned runs in 553 innings.

Closer:
Going into 2003 the bullpen was supposed to be a relative strength. Matt Anderson was going to be the closer and Franklyn German was going to be his setup man. Instead, both of them spent signifcant time in Toledo. Anderson lost his 100mph fastball and had to learn to pitch. German lost all recognition of the strike zone while in the majors, walking 45 in 44 2/3 innings. On the bright side he also struck out 41.
That left the closer role up for grabs, and nobody really grabbed it.

This year German, Anderson, and Fernando Rodney will most likely compete to be closer. If German can get a handle on the strike zone the job the job could be his. Fernando Rodney allowed too many baserunners (15 per nine innings), but his K/BB ratio was almost 2. Despite an ERA of 6.06 his dIPS ERA was an impressive 3.61. I’d say that going into spring trainig Rodney is my pick for the job.

Setup Men and the rest
Jamie Walker was solid as the left handed specialist. The main knock against Walker is his propensity for allowing home runs. However, his HR rate improved last year while is K and BB walk rates per nine both moved in the wrong direction. His ERA+ of 130 still makes him the ace of the bullpen.

Al Levine was picked up as an affordable free agent. His career ERA+ is 126, and since 1998 his worst year was 102. One word of caution is that Levine’s career K/9 rate is 4.4 but he dipped down to 3.8 last year.

Danny Patterson will try to regain his form from 2000 and 2001 when he was an effective reliever for the Tigers. He did pitch in 19 games last year and his periperhal stats were pretty good. He finished 9 games and picked up 3 saves.

Rule 5 Guys
The Tigers picked up Mike Bumatay and Lino Urdanata in the rule 5 draft. Bumatay is a lefty who during his minor league career strikes out 10.3 batters per nine innings and strikes out 2.5 batters for every walk allowed. In Pat Caputo’s BA chat, he indicated that Bumatay will probably stick but that Urdaneta probably won’t.

Who’s missing
Most missed will be Steve Sparks who ate 90 innings last year. Wil Ledezma and Matt Roney, last year’s Rule 5’ers will probably be in Toledo to start the season. Chris Mears was removed from the 40 man roster to make room for Pudge. However, if Urdaneta is let go, there could still be a spot for him. As for Chris Spurling, I just don’t know what will happen with him next year.

The projection
I’m honestly at a loss for how to project what this bullpen will do. Levine and Walker are the only two known quantities. In my starter preview, I predicted that the starters would throw 972 innings, which leaves 486 innings for the pen (I just estimated innings at 9*162=1458). Working off Levine and Walker’s past performances, I expect about 120 innings from the two of them, and applying their dERA from last year that would yield 67 runs. That leaves 366 innings for the rest of the bullpen.

A replacement level bullpen (25% below league average) would have a dERA of 5.66 and would allow 230 earned runs in the remaining 366 innings. Hopefully, you would have better than replacement level closers. A league average bullpen eating the rest of the innings would have a dERa of 4.53 and allow 184 earned runs. While I doubt the Tigers will be league average, I think they would be better than replacement level. So I would expect the bullpen to allow between 251 and 297 runs. We’ll split the difference and call it 275.

Combined with the starters projection of 553 runs that means the Tigers pitchers will allow 828 runs if they had a league average defense. That is an improvement of 100 runs over last year’s team.

Now for the disclaimers. This is a very rough estimate, and it makes lots of assumptions. Given the Tigers youth and turnover, that’s about the best that I could come up with however. Now that I’ve done the math, an improvement of 11% seems aggressive. Time will only tell how it all plays out.

I got stats from a variety of sources including ESPN.com, Baseball-Reference, and Baseball Cube. All the defense independent stats were the work of Jay Jaffe at Futility Infielder.

In the next couple weeks I’ll take a look at the hitters and the offense.

Baseball America released it’s Top 10 Tiger Prospect list today. Non-subscribers can read the overview, and the scouting report on #1 Kyle Sleeth. To read reports for 2-10 you need to subscribe. Here are the top 10 according to Baseball America and Pat Caputo. Expected team in parentheses.

1. Kyle Sleeth (Hi A Lakeland)
2. Brent Clevlen (Hi A Lakeland)
3. Joel Zumaya (Hi A Lakeland)
4. Rob Henkel (AAA Toledo)
5. Tony Giarratano (Hi A Lakeland)
6. Cody Kirkland (Low A W. Mich)
7. Scott Moore (Hi A Lakeland)
8. Curtis Granderson (AA Erie)
9. Jay Sborz (Low A W. Mich)
10. Kenny Baugh (AAA Toledo)

Only two members of last years top 10 remained on the list, Clevlen and Moore. Preston Larrison, Nook Logan, and Anderson Hernandez dropped off the list due to performance. Bonderman, German, Infante, and Munson all made the jump, with varying results.

Caputo will chat at Baseball America at 2pm ET.

Gene Guidi writes in the Free Press that the Tigers might try to swing a trade with the Angels for one of their starters, Aaron Sele, Ramon Ortiz, or Jarrod Washburn. As for who the Tigers would be offering up: Craig Monroe or Brandon Inge. I’d imagine the deal would also involve one of the Tigers AA/AAA pitching prospects as well. Still, while Wasburn or Ortiz would be a great addition to the Tigers (I have no interest in Sele) I just don’t see the Angels going for something like this. The one advantage the Tigers would have is Anaheim’s motivation to dump $5-6 million off a very high payroll already. However, I’m sure there will be other takers who could offer more.

Other Stuff:
-Here is an article about pitching prospect Joel Zumaya
-There is a new baseball site called Baseball Outsiders. They have some feature writers, and they have a network of other bloggers as correspondents. DTW is the the Tigers correspondent. I’ll be linking to some of their feature content, and they’ll be linking to some of mine.

Solicitation:
Coming up in March I’m taking part in an event called Bowl For Kids Sake to benefit the Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Metropolitan Detroit. In the past I’ve never used this website to solicit funds of any sort. I’ve just written about the Tigers as a labor of love, and I’m not looking to make money. However, if you do like the content on the site, and feel so inclined to make a donation to a good cause, I’ve placed a donation button over on the right where you can sponsor me. All of the donated funds will go to Big Brothers/Sisters. I know making donations on the web is a leap of faith, but I’d encourage you to trust me. If you’re uncomfortable using Paypal, and are interested in sending a check, email me and I’ll get in touch with you with my address. Thanks in advance for any donations.

I’d planned on writing an analysis of the Tigers bullpen for this year. However, a discussion on Primer inspired this post instead. Craig Monroe was a stud against lefties last year, and a dud against righties. Can we expect the same this year?

I frequently read the Clutch Hits at Baseball Primer because they not only provide a number of links to interesting articles, but because the discussions that ensue are quite interesting. This particular thread deals with the expected platoon splits of right handed batters. Essentially, data shows that for all right handed batters the ratio of their OPS versus left handed pitchers to their OPS versus right handed pitchers is 1.09. In other words, right handed batters hit southpaws nine percent better than right handers. This makes sense and is to be expected.

Now here’s the interesting part. This is the expected ratio for all right handed batters. That is, given enough plate appearances right-handed batters will approach this average. Furthermore, there aren’t really hitters who are more adept at hitting left handers over right handers than their peers. So while some hitters hit left handed pitchers very well, those are also commonly the hitters who hit right handers better than their peers also.

If this all seems confusing, don’t worry, it is. Dodger Thoughts has done a much nicer summary than I have. But my point in bringing this up isn’t to necessarily explain it all. More I wanted to look at Craig Monroe.

Monroe’s OPS in 268AB’s against righties was .600, and against soutpaws it was .900 in 157AB’s. The resulting ratio is 1.61, or tremendously higher than the expected 1.09. If we are to believe that all right hand hitters will move towards 1.09 that means that in the coming years Monroe will either improve his performance against righties, or not perform as well against lefties (or both).

The point is that I was convinced that Monroe definitely should be starting against lefties next year over Sanchez/Higginson. While I still think he should, I just shouldn’t expect him to achieve an OPS of .968 when he does.

The larger question that will only be answered in time is whether or not Craig Monroe is closer to the .600 OPS guy, or the .968 OPS guy.

Now that Pudge mania has died down, I figured it would be a good time to take a look at the pitching staff he’ll be handling. While the Tigers offense is bound to produce more runs, will it be enough to compensate for a pitching staff that gave up 928 runs last year? This was sufficient to keep them in next to last place in the AL despite playing in Comerica Park (Texas was last with 969 runs). While the starting rotation is 80% established, we’ll have to make some guesses on who will make up the bullpen. Actually, with a pitching staff so young, it is hard to make any sort of prediction on this years performance, but I’ll give it a stab anyways.

Starters
What a difference a year makes. Last year going into spring training the Tigers had no starters. This year they have 4/5ths of the rotation identified. Jeremy Bonderman, Mike Maroth, and Nate Cornejo are the holdovers from next year. They are joined by free agent acquisition Jason Johnson. Jason Johnson will be the number one guy in the rotation. His peripherals are only okay, but that still qualifies him as the ace of the staff. Also, his peripheral stats for the last several years have moved in a pretty narrow range, so it’s reasonable to expect a similar performance again this year.

Maroth did everyone but himself a favor by making 20 game loser Brian Kingman irrelevant last year. This doesn’t make Mike Maroth a bad pitcher, but calling him average might be generous. However, this was his first full season in the majors. His strikeout, walk, and hit rates were similar to his 2002 performance when he had 21 starts. However, he gave up 34 dingers, or 1.58 per 9 innings despite being a lefty in Comerica. If Maroth is going to continue to be a starter in this league he will have to improve his home run rate. This seems plausible because in 2002 he allowed only 7 HR’s in 128 IP (or .49/9 IP).

Jeremy Bonderman made his pro debut last year, and despite some struggles, and an ERA of 5.56 he definitely showed promise. He had a stretch in June where he went 4 games without walking a batter. He also had the best strikeout rate among other Tiger starters. Another plus for Bonderman is that his defense independent ERA was .75 runs lower than his actual ERA. Considering he wasn’t old enough to buy a beer last year, there is definitely hope for him. One disturbing split is that he had serious trouble against the Twins. In 5 games (4 starts) he only lasted 16 innings, and the Twins hit .477 against him. I know this is a small sample size, but given that the Tigers and Twins battle 19 times, I’m hoping this was just a fluke.

Nate Cornejo led the team in ERA and pitching win shares despite the fact that he allowed 13.5 baserunners per 9 innings. He had a microscopically low 2.13 strikeouts per nine innings, and allowed a tremendous amount of balls in play. Cornejo has the ability to throw a ton of innings, and if he pitches well enough to stay in games, it wouldn’t surprise me to see him top 200. His inability to strikeout opposing hitters may signal that his performance and ERA may suffer next year. However, with only one full season under his belt, it’s is hard to know what a “normal ” season will be for him.

The 5th starter spot will most likely be held by quite a few different people. Those that are likely to see time include Gary Knotts, Nate Robertson, Rob Henkel, Wil Ledezma, Kenny Baugh, and possibly Preston Larrison if he can bounce back from a disappointing season at AA last year.

So this still doesn’t answer the question of what to expect from the rotation next year. Last year Tiger starters accounted for 61% of the innings pitched, which works out to about 5 1/3 innings per game. It seems reasonable to expect that with the addition of Jason Johnson, improvement from Bonderman (and probably a slightly relaxed pitch count), and my hope that Maroth can improve marginally by cutting down on his home run rate, that the Tigers starters can average 6 innings a game. Six innings per game equates to 972 innings. The table below shows my projections for innings pitched for 2004, and the pitcher’s DIPS ERA from last year. I arrived at the earned runs projection by applying last year’s dERA to my projection for IP. For the 5th starter, I used the the “replacement level” dERA from last year. Last year the Tigers starters allowed 562 ER’s in 885 IP. I’m projecting that the starters this year would allow 553 ER’s but in 972 innings.

Now there are some limitations with this analysis. I don’t really allow for any improvement by the pitchers, but given the age of the pitching staff it is hard to measure how much they will improve. Also, if the bullpen improves, the starters should be charged with fewer earner runs as well. Furthermore, this assumes that the Tigers defense is league average, which it wasn’t last year. I haven’t done any analysis yet to see if they will in fact be a better defense next year, but my gut tells me they will probably be below average as long as Sanchez is playing center. Hopefully on Monday I hope to have a similar analysis for the bullpen, and in the coming weeks I’ll be taking a closer look at the offense and defense as well. The plan is to zero in on runs allowed and runs scored projections so that I can make a moderately scientific prediction on wins and losses for the coming year.

As a point of acknowledgement, I found all the DIPS stuff at Jay Jaffe’s Futility Infielder. The other pitching stats came from a variety of sources. The starter/reliever split is courtesy of ESPN.com. The rest of the stats I had in a convenient Excel format courtesy of the TwinsGeek.