Tag Archives: brandon inge

The Coda

Wrapping up some outstanding items from what very well could be one of the most significant trades in franchise history…

Replenishment

Peter Gammons astutely pointed out that the Tigers were able to make this trade because of Ilitch’s and Dombrowski’s refusal to adhere to the asinine draft slotting system. Not only did a willingness to pay above slot money directly allow for the acquisition of main trade chits Andrew Miller and Cameron Maybin, it also meant that a this type of aggressiveness meant that the Tigers cupboard – while depleted – isn’t bare.

Many of the Tigers new top prospects are the product of slot-buster signings in the most recent draft. Headlined by Rick Porcello, the group also includes Cale Iorg and Casey Crosby among others.

The question then becomes how long can this remain an advantage for the Tigers? Surely other organizations have taken notice of the Tigers strategy, and it’s not that different than what other big market clubs have done. While some teams will still religiously adhere to the slotting system, I have to believe that more teams adopt a more aggressive stance on acquiring top shelf talent early on.

Will the Tigers be able to reload quickly by just outspending on the draft? I don’t mean to minimize the work that David Chadd and his scouts do, because it is easy to make bad decisions with big piles of money. But when you’re willing to spend what it takes to get Maybins and Millers and Porcellos, it certainly improves your chances for success.

On the defensive

I just wanted to do a quick follow up on the value of Cabrera’s defense. It was a hot topic here on Friday and commentor Ryan S pointed out that PMR thought Cabrera was okay in 2006. I should have looked at more than one year of data, and in my haste I got a little sloppy. In terms of run value PMR had Cabrera at +5.2 runs in 2006 at the hot corner. Perhaps Cabrera isn’t awful, and simply underperformed in 2007 due to his weight gain, or the crappy Florida environment.

Taking it a little further I also looked at UZR numbers for Cabrera. In 2006 he rated -14 runs per 150 games. That happened to be the worst rating for third baseman who played at least 120 games. In 2007 UZR rated Cabrera as the worst third baseman in the National League at -28 runs while Brandon Inge ranked tops in the AL at +12.

As for his outfield prowess, he was merely below average in UZR splitting time between left and right field in 2004, but was -21 runs per 150 games while manning left in 2005.

Continue reading The Coda

Where should Cabrera play?

Jim Leyland was quoted yesterday talking about how this deal and the players they acquired were like a presents under the tree. Well, now that we can open up the presents, it’s time to play with them. The common refrain is that the Tigers should play Miguel Cabrera at third base and move Brandon Inge. It’s pretty clear that Cabrera is better than Inge and I’m not going to try and dissuade you from thinking that way. But as both Rob Neyer and Lee Panas have pointed out, the chasm in defensive ability between the two makes the upgrade not as dramatic as it appears at first blush. Are the Tigers better served putting Cabrera in left field?

Continue reading Where should Cabrera play?

The Tigers Defense – What are the Odds?

Over the last month or so, David Pinto has released the majority of his studies using his probabilistic model of range (PMR). Today we’ll delve into the Tigers defense using this advanced metric.

I’ve explained PMR in the past, but a refresher is probably worthwhile. The PMR model uses data play by play data collected by Baseball Info Solutions. Pinto uses 3 years of this data to find out the probability that a batted ball will be converted into an out. In doing this he accounts for the handedness of the batter and pitcher, the type of hit (grounder, fly, etc), how hard the ball was hit, and the direction the ball was hit. The beauty of the system is that it provides context to the data. Players who have harder to field opportunities get credit it for it. It also removes the subjectivity of an official scorers decision.

What the system doesn’t do is account for throwing ability for outfielders. So a Jacque Jones upgrade in range would be lessened by a weak throwing arm.

On to the data. The first table shows how the Tigers fared by position.

Position In play Plays Exp Plays DER Exp DER Rate Runs
Pitcher 4486 167 159.73 0.037 0.036 104.55 5.5
First Base 4486 296 310.16 0.066 0.069 95.44 -10.7
Second Base 4486 505 494.43 0.113 0.11 102.14 8.0
Shortstop 4486 517 536.95 0.115 0.12 96.28 -15.0
Third Base 4486 446 426.09 0.099 0.095 104.67 15.9
Left Field 4486 327 331.6 0.073 0.074 98.61 -3.8
Centerfield 4486 468 445.78 0.104 0.099 104.98 23.0
Right Field 4486 318 319.88 0.071 0.071 99.41 -1.6

Continue reading The Tigers Defense – What are the Odds?

Bill James Handbook fun

Last week one of my favorite publications showed up on my doorstep – The Bill James Handbook. This year’s version doesn’t disappoint. I’ve already dropped references to +/- fielding metrics which are an important reference point for evaluating defense. The usual assortment of win shares, park factors, player stats, and projections are also available. There is also a section on baserunning (the Tigers ranked 6th overall and had the highest percentage of their baserunners score). But my favorite part of the book are the leader boards which feature the top 10 in a number of obscure categories.

I won’t hit everything on the leaderboards, a lot of it is obvious (like Granderson and Ordonez being really good). Plus I don’t want to publish too much content because you should still have some incentive to buy the book. But as a teaser:

Hitting Stats

  • Magglio Ordonez slugged .713 against southpaws which far and away led the league (Frank Thomas was second at .613). Meanwhile Granderson and Ordonez placed 4th and 5th in slugging against righties.
  • Hard to believe it, but Brandon Inge had the 9th best batting average against lefties and the 10th best OBP at .419.
  • Granderson had the highest stolen base success rate and Carlos Guillen had the second lowest. But Guillen had the 8th most steals of 3rd base with 5.
  • Brandon Inge ranked 8th in pitches per plate appearance, and was 5th worst when putting pitches outside of the strikezone in play.
  • The Tigers had 3 of the 6 best first halves in terms of OPS with Ordonez, Gary Sheffield, and Carlos Guillen raking early in the season.
  • Ordonez swung at the first pitch 39.6% of the time which was 5th highest last year. Guillen ranked 9th. Curtis Granderson swung at the first pitch 13.6% which was the 5th lowest rate and Sheffield ranked 9th.

Pitching

  • Justin Verlander ranked 10th in terms of percentage of pitches in the strike zone. He ranked 2nd in terms of pitches thrown faster than 95mph and his 94.8 average fastball was 3rd fastest. But he also threw change ups at the 5th highest rate and curve balls at the 9th highest rate.
  • Jeremy Bonderman threw sliders 34.5% of the time which ranked first. Nate Robertson was 2nd at 22.6%.
  • Even with Joel Zumaya’s injuries and decreased velocity when he came back, he still led the league in 100mph fastballs with 30 and Verlander ranked 2nd with 17.
  • Hitters only posted a .502 OPS against Chad Durbin’s slider, the 3rd best rate in the AL.
  • Only 14.3% of the baserunners that Bobby Seay inherited scored, which was also 3rd best.
  • Nate Robertson sported the 5th slowest average fastball.

Handing out hardware

It’s award season and they are coming out fast and furious. Over at SB Nation they have been releasing the results of their blog ballots. Each baseball blog at SB Nation received 2 ballots, and with Bless You Boys being a solo operation, Ian was kind enough to let me vote his second ballot.

Today was the final day of announcements and it concluded with the MVP. Alex Rodrgiuez of course took home first place and he was a unanimous selection. Magglio Ordonez finished second, David Ortiz was third with Jorge Posada and Vladimir Guerrero rounding out the top 5.

Curtis Granderson had a solid showing finishing 7th and even Placido Polanco garnered a couple votes (neither vote came from the Tigers contingent).

My ballot is below:

1. Alex Rodriguez
2. Magglio Ordonez
3. David Ortiz – best hitter in the second half with a 1.153 OPS. Better offensive season than Maggs, but at DH
4. Curtis Granderson – very slight homer pick here, but defense and 26-27 on steals helped
5. Jorge Posada – great season and bonus points for doing it while catching
6. Vladimir Guerrero
7. Carlos Pena
8. Ichiro Suzuki
9. Victor Martinez
10. Grady Sizemore

I had no problem selecting the top 3, but the next 4 spots were a struggle for me. I actually had a half dozen iterations of Granderson/Posada/Guerrero/Pena. I elevated Granderson and Posada because of the defensive positions they play, and Granderson came out on top because of how well he played his position.

As for the other awards here they are, with my ballots as well:

If you click through, Ian has the full voting results.

Tigers Awards

Yesterday the Detroit Sports Broadcasters Association named Ryan Raburn as the Tigers Rookie of the Year.  Today the Detroit Chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America named Magglio Ordonez as the Tigers Player of the Year.

Other non-awards

Bugs and Cranks is turning the tables on the Silver Slugger Awards and Gold Glove Awards with the Sawdust Sluggers and Lead Glove Awards.  Brandon Inge was named the worst hitting 3rd baseman in the American League while Carlos Guillen was named the worst fielding shortstop.

Despite Guillen’s high error total and decreased range as the season wore on, I don’t think this is a clear cut honor (or dubious distinction).  Derek Jeter was the worst AL shortstop using +/- at -34 and David Pinto’s probabilistic model of range had Jeter missing 40 plays more than expected (Guillen was 19 plays below expected over less playing time).  Michael Young rates worse than Guillen on both measures as well. In UZR Guillen ranks 2nd worst ahead of Jeter and behind Young.

This isn’t a defense of Guillen’s shortstop prowess by any means.  He still deserves to be in the conversation, but I have to give the distinction to Jeter.

Two Tigers win Gold Gloves, but not the right two

Ivan Rodriguez and Placido Polanco were honored today as MLB announced the Gold Glove winners. For Pudge it was his 13th while it was Polanco’s first. But were they the most deserving Tigers? Rob Neyer took a look at the inherent biases or trends in the voting. A couple of these helped the Tigers (previous winner, fielding percentage, offensive contribution), and a couple hurt the Tigers.

Pudge Rodriguez

We’ll start with Pudge Rodriguez who saw his caught stealing rate drop to 30.9%. That was still a little above average in 2007 when base stealers in the AL were successful 73.2% of the time, but hardly Gold Glove worthy. Kenji Johjima gunned down 46.5% of would be base stealers. Even dubious stats like passed balls didn’t favor Rodriguez as he was charged with 7 while Johjima was charged with 5 in 54 more innings. And that isn’t even inclusive of the numerous wild pitches which could have been scored either way. Then throw in 6 errors and the picture is bleak for Pudge who won the award entirely off his reputation.

Placido Polanco

Moving to Placido Polanco, his win was certainly defensible. While errors and fielding percentage is a flawed stat, making it though a season without an error is still a remarkable achievement. While the error that was charged to Polanco and later assigned to Marcus Thames is certainly debatable, it was the only instance that I can recall where the streak was helped by the scorer. Throw in Polanco’s .341 batting average and it is easy to see why he would garner votes. But in looking at other metrics he lagged his peers.

Looking at +/- in the The Bill James Handbook 2008, Polanco was a respectable +10. That trailed Aaron Hill (+22), Mark Ellis (+19), and Robinson Cano (+17) considerably. If you don’t like +/- those same 3 appear as the best (but in a different order) using UZR as well. Polanco rates a little better using Revised Zone Rating, but he still is sandwiched between Ellis and Hill and made over 100 fewer plays than Ellis and nearly 150 fewer plays than Hill.

I like Polanco and am happy to see him receive some recognition. But the evidence just doesn’t show him as the best fielding 2nd baseman in the AL.

Brandon Inge

Now it’s time to stir the pot with some Brandon Inge controversy. Adrian Beltre took home the hardware for third basemen this year. Beltre is an excellent defender so this isn’t a bad choice at all. The trouble is, as Neyer pointed out, the award was a year late. Beltre should have won it in 2006. This year Brandon Inge beat him in UZR (+12 versus +5). Inge also beat him in +/- as Brandon amassed a +22, second only to Pedro Feliz. Nick Punto was next closest in the AL at +10 while Beltre was a solid +7. Inge was 2nd in the AL in RZR behind Mike Lowell and in total made 45 more plays on balls in his zone than any other AL third sacker. Beltre bests him only in plays on balls made out of his zone, 64 to 63. But even in fielding percentage where Inge typically gets dinged, he posted a .959 to Beltre’s .958.

Brandon Inge was deserving of the award this year, and it wasn’t a 1 year fluke. Looking at the 3 year +/- numbers only Albert Pujols, Chase Utley, Adam Everett, and Pedro Feliz have a better rate than Inge.

Curtis Granderson

This one is the hardest to figure. Granderson seemed to do many of the things that help you win gold gloves.

Solid offensive season? Check. He was top 10 in slugging, OPS, Runs, Total Bases, and Triples. Plus he had that whole quad-20 thing which was arbitrary, but still remarkable and attention gathering.
Winning team? Check. The Tigers were in contention all year and received plenty of attention.
Highlight plays? Check. His homer rob of Wily Mo Pena was the #2 web gem. Plus he had some high profile diving catches including a triple/run saving catch on Sunday night baseball and a game saving catch in an August pennant race tilt against the Indians.

Not that any of the above are legitimate reasons for winning, but they do seem to resonate well with voters.

As for his actual case, he had the highest RZR in the American League regardless of position.

Looking at +/- he was second only to Coco Crisp (also a deserving candidate) at +21 just behind Crisp’s +22. Gold Glove winner Ichiro was at +4 and other winners Grady Sizemore and Torii Hunter weren’t in the top 10. (the annual only lists the top ten and bottom 5 at each position.

Looking at UZR, Sizemore rates well at +26 leading AL centerfielders with Granderson second at +18 (Crisp and Dejesus tied for 3rd at +13). Meanwhile Ichiro was -14.

If you’re skeptical of the advanced metrics, that is understandable. When some players rate inconsistently across them it is hard to know where the truth lies. But Granderson rated at or near the top across the board, which is more than can be said for the other fielders except for Crisp.

I’m not overly upset with the results. The Gold Gloves have long been flawed awards. But when someone describes a player as a gold glover it is important to note whether they are using the generic term for a very good defender, or whether they are actually toting someone’s hardware. The former probably carries more weight even if the latter carries more prestige.

Playing in the spray

I love looking at spray charts of batted balls and seeing where hitters have success. I’m funny like that. Fortunately Dan Fox, proprietor of his own blog and writer for Baseball Prospectus has released an application that shows ball in play distributions for the last 4 years and he just released the updated version including 2007 data. With the heavy lifting done for me, I thought I’d take a look at 3 of the Tigers more interesting hitters from the last year.

Brandon Inge

First up is the ever controversial Brandon Inge. Inge had an awful season at the plate as he posted a meager 236/312/376 line. Part of his problem was what seemed to be an endless supply of check swing strikeouts. And that appears to be the largest difference over the past few years. Inge’s batting average on balls in play was .334 which wasn’t out of line with his past performances. His batted ball distribution didn’t differ greatly from his fairly productive 2006 season.

BABIP GB FB LD PopUp
2003 R 0.262 44.8% 31.3% 17.9% 6%
2004 R 0.344 42.6% 30.3% 19.4% 7.6%
2005 R 0.333 39.5% 34.3% 18.7% 7.6%
2006 R 0.324 39.9% 34.1% 15.1% 10.9%
2007 R 0.334 37.9% 31.8% 20.6% 9.7%

Inge actually upped his line drive rate and had a small improvement in his pop up rate, yet his overall performance dipped.  Maybe he was a little unlucky like he claimed earlier in the season?

Another complaint about Inge is that he became too pull happy.

Left Center Right
2005 41.0 28.3 30.6
2006 48.1 27.0 24.8
2007 48.1 22.0 29.8

Inge did become more of a pull hitter in 2006 and it worked to his benefit as he slugged .463 and 27 balls left the park.  He pulled just as much in 2007 but with a lot less success and a lot less power.  We also saw Inge go to the opposite field more often, but it was at the expense of going up the middle.  Based on observation and the data, it seems like it was more a function of Inge being late than looking to punch the ball to right.

Curtis Granderson

Nobody complained about Granderson pulling the ball too much, and he actually was more likely to pull the ball than Brandon Inge was. Of course, when you’re among the league leaders in extra base hits it doesn’t really matter where you hit the ball.

GB FB PU LD %
Left 25 45 26 16 25.2%
Center 25 57 4 19 23.6%
Right 116 40 10 62 51.2%

With Granderson’s proclivity for pulling the ball on the ground, it wouldn’t surprise me to see more teams shifting the shortstop closer to second base. I wouldn’t expect an Ortiz type shift because of Granderson’s speed and ability to bunt, but Curtis did hit .600 on grounders through the middle in 2007.

Magglio Ordonez

It seems that any look at Tigers performances isn’t complete without at least glancing at how Ordonez fared. It was a popular refrain from Rod Allen that Maggs was using the whole field, and it really was true. Ordonez hit 42% of his line drives to right field. And overall he hit the ball to right field as much as he hit it to left.

GB FB PU LD %
Left 126 14 8 34 37%
Center 32 51 4 30 24%
Right 62 65 18 46 39%

That kind of balance made it impossible for any team to load up one side. And in a spacious outfield like Comerica Park that gave Ordonez a lot of room to work with. Now granted he was still lucky in 2007. You don’t exceed career norms by that much without some things going your way. In the case of Ordonez it was a .318 batting average on ground balls and a .361 batting average on fly balls. MLB norms for the last 4 years were .233 and .272 respectively.

There’s a ton of information available, and it’s all free. So thanks to Dan Fox for his hard work, and let me know if you see anything interesting.

En-Inge-matic

Coming off a 3rd straight frustrating loss, Jim Leyland announced that Ryan Raburn would be the starter over a struggling Brandon Inge. With Inge’s recent play, and Craig Monroe’s departure, Brandon has taken over the role of the Tiger that people love to hate. And with statements like the following, he isn’t exactly endearing himself to the fanbase.

“I can’t explain it,” said Inge, batting .242 with 12 home runs and 56 RBIs. “I’m getting pitched like I’m Babe Ruth. Everything is on the corner. I haven’t seen a ball in the middle of the plate for a week.”

Inge is the Tiger that spurs the most polarized debate. Inge bashers point to his high error total and low batting average and advocate for more offense from a power position. Inge defenders point to his exceptional range, his power, and his role as a number 9 hitter. For the first time since Pudge Rodriguez assumed regular catching duties, it is getting harder to find people in Inge’s camp.

Myself, I’m somewhere in the middle. I was a proponent of his contract. I looked at his 265/327/443 line in 2004-2006 and viewed it as a new level of performance. It was (and still is) a far cry from his career numbers up to that point, a meager 198/254/314. line. And coming off a season in 2006 where the the average AL third sacker hit 269/338/442, he was certainly close to average for the position offensively.

What made the contract solid to me is that Inge’s defense is top shelf. Yes he has the errors, but he also rated at or near the top in other more advanced metrics like the probabilistic model of range and John Dewan’s +/ system (both of which account for his errors, and he still ranked high). Three different systems placed his defensive value in the neighborhood of 20 runs, which combined with near average offense makes for an above average player.

Because those 2004-2006 seasons coincided with his age 27-29 peak seasons, I didn’t expect Inge to improve on those numbers. But given his athleticism and body type I also anticipated that he would be able to maintain similar numbers in the near future without a dramatic dropoff. The fact that he had OPS+’s of 108, 100, and 99 in those years mean he was reasonably consistent over that time and it wasn’t a single peak year spiking the numbers.

With all that said, 2007 has been a major disappointment – or at least parts of it. Inge’s season can really be broken down into 3 parts, 2 of which were largely forgettable. He struggled mightily in April, was very productive in May and June, and has looked more like 2003 Inge since the beginning of July.
Inge’s Walks and Strikeouts

Early in the year when Inge was struggling, he was at least drawing walks and hitting for some power with a .163 ISO. He was fanning quite a bit, but that’s part of what you get with Inge. He also was probably battling some bad luck as his batting average on balls in play was very low.
Inge’s batted ball types

In the second act Brandon continued to draw walks a pretty good clip, and he really cut down in his strikeouts. For a 2 month stretch he was a very good player, and a big part of the Tigers offensive surge. His season line on June 25th was 259/356/453 which is quite solid. And then July happened.

The first thing that happened is Inge stopped taking walks. That was right about the same time his line drive percentage plummeted and shortly there after he started to strikeout at a ridiculous rate. A trend that is still underway and manifested itself this past weekend in New York. He’s walked 5 times since July 1st and his on base percentage has plummeted with it. He has 9 extra base hits over that timespan and his slugging percentage is now south of .400.

What is odd is that he’s actually maintained his batting average on balls in play, and as of late the line drive rate is on the way back up. In fact for the season his line drive rate is at 22.4% which is the highest mark of his career, and vastly superior to his 14% last year. And yet his numbers are way down because he can’t put the ball in play.

What about his fielding? I see mixed results. Despite the error this weekend, his fielding percentage is right in line with his career numbers. And if you look at revised zone rating he is second only to Mike Lowell, and he’s made more plays on ball outside of his zone than third baseman except for Adrian Beltre. But his impact defensively isn’t what it was last year, and I attribute that in large part to Kenny Rogers absence. Rogers induced a ton of grounders, and as a lefty the bulk went in Inge’s direction.

As someone who has been an Inge defender in the past I did it based on near average offensive production, combined with stellar defense. Now I’m looking at a player who is far below average at the dish and merely good in the field. I’ll still defend Inge to those who say he is a garbage player, but I can’t defend his production where it is at right now. When it comes to the benching, I think there is probably a little too much being made of it. I could be wrong, but I don’t see it as an extended time period. The Tigers just made two moves to bolster the defense in bringing up Cameron Maybin (I’m not saying this one is working, but it was part of the intention) and Ramon Santiago and if that’s the emphasis then swapping Ryan Raburn and Brandon Inge doesn’t make a lot of sense. If there is a platoon it may be based on who the Tigers are starting. If it’s Miller or Robertson I’d look for Inge, but the right handed guns I’d look for Raburn.

And back to Inge’s original quote about being pitched to like Babe Ruth…Maybe it’s worth pointing out that Ruth walked over 2000 times in his career. I’m just sayin…

For Inge data see: