The Tigers Opening Day lineup:
Alex Sanchez
Fernando Vina
Ivan Rodriguez
Dmitri Young
Rondell White
Carlos Pena
Carlos Guillen
Bobby Higginson
Eric Munson
Most surprising is Higgy and Munson batting in the bottom two spots. I guess Trammell did get nervous about batting the three lefties (Pena, Munson, Higginson) in a row. I’d still prefer to see Sanchez batting 9th and the top two spots being held by Guillen and Vina. That said, this lineup should be a lot more fun to watch then last years.
BA touches on a couple Tiger notes
From Boros’ comment it appears that Colyer is the centerpiece of the Ross trade. If the PTBNL is just a throw in, then I’m disappointed in this trade. The good news is Baugh has passed 90mph and Sleeth is projected to be in Erie relatively soon.
Chris Shelton and Omar Infante were awarded the final two spots on the 25 man roster. Mike DiFelice has the option of accepting an assignment to Toledo or becoming a free agent.
I’m quite happy that the Tigers kept Shelton-at least for now-over Mike DiFelice. I don’t know whether or not Shelton will ever amount to anything, but his potential is too much to give up on.
As for Infante making the team as a back-up, I’m not sure it’s the right move for him. While last year was a disaster for him, he’s still just 22. Playing everyday in Toledo might be best for him in the long run.
So now that the opening day roster is set, the next roster moves to speculate are who will be the two players removed when Fernando Rodney and Ugueth Urbina come back.
The Tigers traded Cody Ross for left handed reliever Steve Coyler. Baseball America had this to say about Coyler
While I like Ross, I don’t know that he is more than a 4th outfielder or borderline starter. He was going to be blocked in Detroit this year and will have a better shot with the Dodgers. Curtis Granderson and Brent Clevlen are on the way up in the Tiger organization as well and Ross appeared to be the odd man out.
As for Coyler, I’m not particularly thrilled with getting a left handed reliever. However, he’s only part of the deal. Therefore, I’m going to hold off on evaluating the trade until the player to be named later is identifed. I’m hoping that it is a LA draft pick from last year. If so, we won’t find out until June who that player is.
In other roster moves, Fernando Rodney and Lino Urdanta were placed on the 15 day DL. Also, after being granted an unconditional release Esteban Yan signed a contract to join the bullpen. And Mike Bumatay was returned to Colorado.
The Tigers also announced they have set their pitching staff and are breaking camp with 11 hurlers. The starters are Johnson, Maroth, Bonderman, and Cornejo. The 5th starter spot will come down to Knotts and Robertson. The rest of the bullpen will be Walker, Yan, Patterson, and Coyler.
It appears that Greg Norton has lockedup a bench spot with the Tigers. Norton’s resume was bolstered by the fact that he has lit up Detroit in the past. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough roster spots for the Tigers to sign all the players who have lit them up recently.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t bode well for Chris Shelton’s chance of making the team. While Norton is a known quantity, Shelton has much more upside. Hopefully the Tigers can work out a trade to either keep him and send him to the minors, or to send him someplace else and get something for him. There’s no word on who was being moved off the 40 man to make room for Norton, which is another strike against Shelton because Norton could take his spot.
What’s a little bit unsettling is this quote from Trammell
With all of the Tigers roster moves this year, they were done to help them in the short term without jeopardizing the long term (well, except maybe Pudge). If it becomes a Norton for Shelton trade off then they are trading the future for maybe 1 or 2 wins tops in a season where 1 or 2 wins won’t make a difference.
In other roster news the Tigers cut Eric Eckenstahler, Andres Torres, and Jason Smith today. That leaves 31 players and 6 more cuts. However, Chris Spurling will be placed on the 60 day DL and Urbina will likely start the season in Toledo so there will only be 4 more cuts.
Now that Jeremy Bonderman has a year under his belt most Tiger fans are curious as to what this year will bring. While Bonderman did give up runs last year, his defense didn’t help him at all. Also, his strike out rate of 6 per 9 innings was impressive, and not just because he was only 20. But now that he’s pitched a full season, how much should he pitch this year? Keep in mind, this is the first season that he’ll be able to drink (legally) and he’s still very young.
The common sense answer is that it depends on how well he pitches. The better he’s pitching, the longer he should stay in games. No suprises there. But in defining pitching better, it is also important to talk about pitching more efficiently. Bonderman averaged 15.90 pitches per inning pitched, which ranked 51st in the American League. Not terrible, but not that good either. He had a respectable walk rate, but he gave up 10.9 hits per 9 innings pitched which ranked 102 among AL starting pitchers.
If you want to keep Bonderman’s pitch count totals per outing in the 100-110 range, that means that he can give you between 6 and 7 innings. However if he can shave his pitches per inning down to 14.5, then he could get into the eighth inning with the same pitch count. Over the course of 30 starts it wouldn’t be unreasonable for Bonderman to pitch 210 innings if he can pitch efficiently. Now this would assume that he is averaging 7 innings per start, and we all know he’ll have some bad outings so he probably won’t quite get 210 innings.
While they still need to be cautious with Bonderman, and closely watch his pitch counts in each game, he shouldn’t necessarily be shut down after a certain number of innings. Bonderman’s efficiency should dictate how many innings he should pitch, and not some pre-determined number.
As an interesting side note, when pulling the numbers I noticed that Jason Johnson ranked last among qualified pitchers in pitches per inning pitched with 17.1. One of the things called into question by many about Johnson is his durability. Specifically, in 32 starts last year he only had 7 games where he made it out of the 7th inning and he’s never had a 200 inning season. By having to use so many pitches to get 3 outs, he is probably wearing down relatively early. Just something else to keep an eye on this year.
The Tigers have signed Ugueth Urbina and outrighted Matt Anderson to Toledo. Details of the contract are being withheld until a physical is completed. During the offseason I was against this signing. However, between Anderson’s failure, and Fernando Rodney’s injury the Tigers didn’t have a solid option to close games. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is only a one or two year deal and if Urbina is traded later this summer (hopefully once Rodney heals and shows us something).
UPDATE: This article says it is a one year deal worth $3.5 million. It also indicates that Pudge was instrumental in Urbina coming here. It looks like it didn’t take long for the Pudge Halo Effect to kick in.
The Toronto Star takes a look at Dave Dombrowski.
What’s new about that? Fifteen years ago, Tigers’ president, Dave Dombrowski, then 31, blazed that same trail with the Expos in an era in which former major-league players dominated the profession and statistical analysis was in its infancy.
The Tigers assigned 10 players to minor league camp today. Cody Ross and Matt Roney were assigned to Triple A. Wil Ledezma is headed to Erie. Other players assigned to minor league camp include Ben Petrick, Marcus Thames, Brent Abernathy, Pablo Ozuna, Craig Dingman, Chris Mears, and Brian Schmanck.
This leaves 14 more cuts to come before the start of the season. As for what the 25 man roster might look like, here is a stab:
Position Players: Pena, Vina, Guillen, Munson, White, Sanchez, Higginson, Rodriguez, DiFelice, Monroe, Inge, Shelton, Torres
Pitchers: Johnson, Bonderman, Maroth, Cornejo, Yan, Walker, Rodney, Levine, Patterson, Eckenstahler/Bumatay, Robertson/Knotts
I think and hope that they will keep Shelton. Despite reports he’s looked lost, his numbers are pretty strong. Given the Tigers farm system, they have to keep a guy who can hit. As for Torres, he’s played well this spring, and there doesn’t appear room for him with Logan in Toledo. A possible trade could be Torres to PIttsburgh for Shelton which would give the Tigers Shelton’s rights and not be forced to keep him in the bigs.
I know that Inge can’t hit, but if he can prove that he can play 8 positions, then he is worth keeping on the team. If it enables us to not carry seperate backup middle infielders and centerfielders, it actually frees up a spot for a Chris Shelton.
As for the pitchers, unless Yan collapses I think he has the 5th spot locked up. I don’t believe that Robertson is still a contender. If anyone is pushing Yan at this point I think it is Knotts who had another strong outing today.
The bullpen is still scaring me. Matt Anderson can’t get anyone out, and pretty soon he needs to stop taking spring training innings from guys who might deserve to make the team.
The cutoff man is surveying readers about who they think should be on the roster, so check out his blog and send him your thoughs.
Scott at The Cutoff Man has a list of the first 16 cuts for the Tigers. Rob Henkel and Nook Logan are headed to Toledo. Don Kelly, Ryan Raburn, Kenny Baugh, Preston Larrison, and Roberto Novoa are all headed to Erie.
I’m a little surprised to see Baugh headed back to Erie. I was expecting him to start the year in Toledo. He only had one uneventful inning of work. Also disappointing is Preston Larrison. Last year he’s was competing for the 5th spot in the rotation. Now he’s headed back for a second turn at AA after giving up 3 runs in only a couple innings work.
The others assigned to minor league camp are: Jorge Cordova, David Cortes, John Ennis, Adrian Burnside, Andy Van Hekken, Mike Rabelo, Maxim St. Pierre, Rayner Bautista, and outfielder Jeff Inglin.
Meanwhile, Esteban Yan is improving his stock as the 5th starter. He’s throwing well, and fellow candidate Nate Robertson isn’t. It looks like Yan’s main competition now is Gary Knotts.
Housekeeping: Sorry for the lack of new content lately. A work project will keep my pretty busy up through April. This will have a significantl adverse impact on my blogging frequency. In the meantime, I’ll mostly be linking to other peoples stuff because I have so little time to come up with my own.
Aaron Gleeman, Alex Belth and others have teamed up to create a new website called The Hardball Times. One of their first features is a llook at the Tigers
This one is at Mlive.com and is called The Cutoff Man: Weblogs