Tag Archives: carlos guillen

2009 Season, Injuries

Bonderman, Maggs, and Guillen updates

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A big chunk of the Tigers payroll was making some noise today for a variety of reasons. Let’s recap it:

Jeremy Bonderman

Jeremy Bonderman made his first rehab start for the West Michigan Whitecaps tonight. He lasted 7 innings and 94 pitches and posted an encouraging line (4 K’s, 1 walk, 6 hits, 2 runs). Bonderman thought before the game that he’d only need 1 or 2 starts to get ready. I think the Tigers would prefer at least 2 to give them more time to figure out who is leaving the rotation to make room.

Whether 1 or 2 starts is reasonable though is up for some debate. He’s still building velocity and arm strength. If this report is accurate though, it may take a little longer if his velocity was truly in the low to mid 80’s.

Magglio Ordonez

Magglio Ordonez just started to hit the ball with some authority and now it appears that he’ll miss a couple games this week. He will be away from the team Tuesday and Wednesday and the Thursday afternoon game appears up in the air as well. This is being called a personal matter and it is probably safe to assume this is related to Jim Leyland’s recent comments about Magglio having some things on this mind.

Carlos Guillen

It sounds like there is some progress in Carlos Guillen’s recuperation from a shoulder injury. He started hitting off a tee and was in the dugout carrying a bat around Saturday night.

2009 Season, Injuries, Roster Management

Clete Thomas called up

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UPDATE: Per Jason Beck on Twitter Guillen hits the DL with shoulder inflammation. Also Jeff Larish is called up and Clay Rapada heads down.

The Tigers have called up Clete Thomas. A corresponding roster move hasn’t been announced, but with Carlos Guillen’s struggles and general injury-ness (achilles and shoulder pain) it is likely he is heading to the DL.

Thomas is only hitting 236/349/371, but he should provide solid defense. An outfield of Thomas/Granderson/Anderson with Ordonez DH’ing would provide some solid defense.

Tigers call up Clete Thomas | Freep.com | Detroit Free Press

2009 Season, Roster Management

Some more Sheffield stuff

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I was going to just ammend the original post, but enough time has passed, and I ‘ve read plenty, and I have a number of thoughts about this, so we’ll start a new post.

Risk/Reward

When the Tigers acquired Josh Anderson on Monday I thought it was a very strong possibility that Marcus Thames career as a Tiger was over. I was apprehensive about that given the injury threat that Gary Sheffield and Carlos Guillen provided, another big bat on the bench would be nice insurance. As Jason Beck points out, the Tigers were also worried about injury. And the team decided that Thames was a safer bet to make it through the season than Sheffield.

And if the Tigers were going to keep Sheffield over Thames, they had better be sure they could get a good season’s worth of production out of him. Because it wasn’t just an Opening Day decision, but a longer-term decision. If Sheffield got hurt in late April, there would be no Thames to which to turn, unlike years past.

I still think a healthy Sheffield is a better hitter than Thames (the Tigers are giving up OBP skills), and I’d venture the Tigers may even admit as much. But they also probably didn’t like the odds that Sheffield could stay healthy.
Continue reading Some more Sheffield stuff →

2008 Season

2008 Offseason Preamble

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With a disastrous season completed it is time to head into the offseason. Given the gravity of the collapse, you know with the high payroll and the last place-edness, there is probably a tendency to overreact and second-guess. While a deep dive analysis is definitely called for, there is also some inaccuracy being bandied about. With that in mind, some thoughts as we head into what will likely be a tumultuous winter.

Dave Dombrowski did not abandon his philosophy

I’ve heard this one frequently. The common thread is that Dombrowski abandoned his pitching first philosophy in favor of “buiding a slow pitch softball team.” Dombrowski has always believed in stock piling young pitching and using it as the building blocks of a team. Whether that entails using the pitchers on his own team, or trading it to fill needs, he’s always used young pitching.

The Renteria trade was made in large part for defense, not to build a slow pitch slugging softball team. The benefit of Renteria was that he was to be a 2 way player. The problem was that while Renteria was a defensive upgrade, it was a small upgrade (Guillen was -12 in 1074 innings at short in ’07, Renteria was -9 in 1173 innings in ’08 according to Fielding Bible +/-) and his offense was beyond absent the first half of the season. The trade failed, there’s no question, but it wasn’t a change of philosophy.

As for Cabrera, defense was never a part of the issue. It was entirely an offensive move. But it was also an opportunity that doesn’t come along that often. Players like Cabrera don’t grow on trees and to add an elite player at age 25 is largely unheard of. It is the kind of big splash move that Dombrowski has been known for throughout his career.

As for the rest of the staff, they were far worse than could have reasonably been expected. While Willis struggled last year and was trending down, to get nothing from him was unexpected to everyone. Robertson was never a top of the rotation starter, but was the epitome of a solid back of the rotation guy. To compete, along with Kenny Rogers, for worst starter in the league wasn’t part of any reasonable plan. And then there was Verlander adding a run and a half to his ERA. That your entire starting rotation would be injured or significantly underperforming wasn’t part of any plan or strategy and more than could have been mitigated.

The window isn’t closed

I should adjust that and say “the window isn’t closed if Ilitch doesn’t want it to be.” The boss could go all Huizenga and say “cut-cut-cut” but I don’t see that happening. This team was positioned to go for it in both 2008 and 2009. Because 08 was crap doesn’t mean you need to abandon 09 as well. The offense should be good again next year, and it isn’t unreasonable to think that the pitching staff will see some return to non-crapitude next year.

In terms of trading, they’d be selling low on most of the players that fans want to see traded. They could probably get a nice return for Armando Galarraga, Curtis Granderson, and Miguel Cabrera, but who really wants to see them shopped?

Don’t overreact

Everybody wants speed, defense, and starters, and bullpen arms. Some better defense would be nice, but don’t sacrifice offense completely. The Tigers are ready to make that move at third with the Inge pronouncement. It means they can’t afford to do it at both catcher and shortstop.

The bullpen was awful, but 5 years and $75 million to fix it will be money poorly spent. As for starters, is it worth a second round draft pick to sign a Derek Lowe type starter? (it might be if the Tigers can get the draft pick compensation for Renteria)

I’m not saying do nothing. Clearly this team has holes at multiple positions and another starter and a 2-3 new bullpen arms are clearly needed. But I still think, and perhaps this is naive, but good teams can have bad seasons. This team wasn’t as good as we thought going in, and it isn’t as bad as we think right now. I’ll borrow this conclusion from Nate Silver’s piece in Baseball Prospectus ($) and quote sparingly because it is premium content.

Bad years happen to good clubs. The key for the Tigers will simply be not to panic, nor to try and save face with guys like Renteria and Willis whose projections don’t really warrant it. The Tigers need to budget somewhere between $15-$20 million for perhaps three pitchers next year, but with the contracts of Renteria, Todd Jones, Kenny Rogers, and Ivan Rodriguez all coming off the books, they can easily afford to do so without increasing payroll.
…
This has been a frustrating season in Detroit, but hardly a disastrous one in terms of the club’s long-term fortunes. There have been several pleasant surprises this year in Galarraga, Joyce, and Brandon Inge’s smooth transition back to the catcher position*. From top to bottom, the Tigers still rank somewhere in the top ten in the major leagues in terms of their overall talent pool, and they should be on track to return to contention with some relatively common-sense fixes.

*The Inge part was written on August 14th before Inge completely collapsed down the stretch offensively and started allowing a PB per game.

2008 Season, Managing & Strategy

Position roulette, Inge and Guillen edition

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I was hoping to have a chance to run some numbers, but until I do I figured it was worth posting that Inge will play third and Guillen left field next season. I won’t completely pass judgment until I can do the math on this, but for the moment I’m thinking this doesn’t actually help much of anything except defense at third base. And why announce this news, at this point anyways? And of all players, why guarantee Brandon Inge a job going into next year (177/279/287 line since the Pudge trade!)? Odd. Very odd. Feel free to discuss.

2008 Season, Injuries

Guillen’s back=not good

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Carlos Guillen continues to battle back problems, and the situation doesn’t sound good. He’s experiencing numbness in his right leg and soreness in both hamstrings. Hopefully the Tigers take it easy with Guillen, and Guillen takes it easy as well. If there is a silver lining it’s that the injury may give the Tigers an opportunity to do some evaluation for next year.

In the short term Ryan Raburn stands to get the bulk of the playing time. However, after the September 1st roster expansion, it could result in innings for Jeff Larish and Dusty Ryan.

The Tigers have already announced that Larish will head to the AFL to get work at third base. Might as well do it in the big leagues since there is little cost.

Dusty Ryan had a very good season for AA Erie. He’s since been promoted to Toledo where he has hit 322/385/559 in 16 games. He could get a look behind the plate with Brandon Inge making some starts at third. Although Inge needs the time behind the plate probably more.

2008 Season, Players, Statistics

Random Friday factoids

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Some stats and such that may or may not be interesting:

Edgar Renteria might not totally suck

Edgar Renteria is hitting 288/351/404 since the All Star Break. He is a career 290/347/404 hitter. He also has only 4 strike outs in his last 57 plate appearances (and 4 GIDP – eek). A return to normalcy or a blip in a crappy season?

Defensively he looked the best he has all season in the Indians series and +/- still has him at 0, meaning he is quite average. In RZR there are 9 qualified shortstops in the AL and Renteria is tied for 4th meaning he is kind of average.

Guillen can pick it

It turns out that Carlos Guillen can play defense. He isn’t stellar, but his .716 RZR is 6th out of 11 qualified shortstops. He rates as -1 in +/- which is 14th among MLB third baseman. Not stellar, but not bad for a guy on his 3rd position in the last calendar year. Considering that AL third sackers are hitting 266/339/428 and Guillen is hitting 286/374/437 that’s not a bad situation.

On kind of a downer note, Guillen hit 318 – 320 – 320 from 2004 to 2006. He dropped to 296 last year and 286 this year. And his slugging percentage is the lowest it’s been since his hamstring plagued 2005 season. His OBP is still solid, and there is a league widde dip in slugging so his OPS+ is still at 116. But is this the first step in what may be a rapid decline? It’s certainly possible for a player on the wrong side of 30.

Plunkocity

Clay Rapada drilled Grady Sizemore yesterday with the bases loaded driving in a run. It was the 5th time this season that a Tigers pitcher has plunked in a run. Also of note, Tigers pitchers have plunked 13 Indians batters this season. That is more than double the next closest team, the White Sox who have received 6 bruises from Tigers pitchers. A complete plunkocity report is available for your perusal.

2008 Season

Guillen lone Tigers All Star

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Remember in the preseason when the Tigers starting lineup seemed to be made up entirely of All Star candidates? Yeah, things didn’t quite work out and Carlos Guillen will be the lone player sporting the English D.

Jim Leyland suggested 5 players to manager Terry Francona. We know the list didn’t include Magglio Ordonez, so I’d guess the names were Guillen, Polanco, Pudge, Jones, and Galarraga. Maybe you can replace one of those guys with Thames.

But Guillen was the one that was chosen and he had to choose between taking his 2 boys to New York or staying home for the birth of his 3rd child.

Looking at the selections it’s hard to say that any Tigers were snubbed. The one eyebrow raiser was Jason Varitek as back-up catcher with his 219/301/360 batting line. Pudge Rodriguez would have been a better selection, but AJ Pierzynski, Dioner Navarro, and Gerald Laird would have been even better.

2008 Season, Defense

Guillen to left field?

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The Tigers new left fielder is Marcus Thames, except for when it’s Carlos Guillen? Guillen has been taking flyballs in left and it’s another way to keep his bat in the lineup while trying to find a place where his glove doesn’t hurt the defense too much – at least that’s the story.

Out of all the “drastic” moves so far this one reeks the most of desperation. Guillen has no experience playing left field. None. He’s struggled at positions he’s familiar with so why move him somewhere he isn’t comfortable. Meanwhile you have another defensive liability in the infield who has experience in the outfield – Miguel Cabrera. Admittedly he isn’t a good outfielder either, and he’s been looking decent at first, but why not move Cabrera to the outfield?

Or why not move Guillen to DH?

Guillen to left field? It’s a possibility, Leyland says | Freep.com | Detroit Free Press

2008 Season, Injuries, Roster Management

Sheffield finally hits DL, Larish up

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Gary Sheffield’s oblique strain suffered in last night’s game has landed him on the disabled list. Jeff Larish has been called up and is jetting to LA for tonight’s game. He won’t be DH’ing though. That role will be reserved for Carlos Guillen tonight. Apparently he is bothered by hemorrhoids which is limiting his mobility. I guess HIPAA doesn’t apply to baseball players.

As for Larish, he’s 25 year old lefty hitting first baseman. He was selected by the Tigers in the 2005 draft and was the runner up for Eastern League player of the year honors last year. He led the AA league in homers and RBI. This year he’s mashing to the tune of 274/369/589 for the Mud Hens.

2008 Season, Managing & Strategy, Roster Management

Thoughts on Jones and the lineup shuffle

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Isn’t it something that we waited and waited to get the anticipated lineup together. First Granderson was injured, and then Sheffield and Polanco. And then everyone was set to come back and Carlos Guillen missed a couple games. Finally, on April 27th the 1000 run lineup took the field. And 8 days later on May 8th it’s been altered because it just wasn’t working. In that 8 day span was an off day and a sweep of the Yankees. Part of me can’t help but think it’s a little bit of an overreaction.

Now the Jacque Jones dismissal is a smart move and I applaud the relative swiftness of it. The Tigers gave him a month to do something, and it just didn’t happen. And this was with Jones facing almost exclusively right handed pitching. He only had 4 plate appearances against lefties, all of which result in strikeouts. His arm was as bad as advertised and Leyland respected his defense so little that he was always lifted for Ryan Raburn in late innings. If you can’t play defense and you can’t hit and you’re track record is marginal there is little to contribute and little reason to expect it to change. Jones amassed 5 line drives in his very brief Tigers career.

As for the “drastic” lineup move I hardly consider the swap of Carlos Guillen and Gary Sheffield to be drastic. The more drastic move is Gary Sheffield assuming left field duties. Sheffield had surgery to repair a torn labrum which you’d think would inhibit his throwing ability. But even odder is that the DH rotation will be between Sheffield and Ordonez.

Ordonez is an average fielder, and hardly a liability. There is talk about his bad knees, but in actuality he has 1 surgically repaired knee. The injury hasn’t appeared to be chronic and he isn’t as close to DH-dome as many make him out to be. While the semi-rest is probably a good thing, it does nothing to help the infield defense. An area of concern that could be remedied by rotating DH duties to Carlos Guillen (who does have bad knees) and Miguel Cabrera.

So like the Guillen-Cabrera switch, this realignment seems to be a reactionary move that solves little. The move was at Sheffield’s request because he thinks he can focus better by playing the field. That may be the case, but if he’s not healthy the focus part won’t make a big difference. Like Lee, I’m skeptical that it will result in an increase in his numbers.

2008 Season, Defense

Cabrera to first, Guillen to third

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Huh. Wow. Huh.

That was pretty much my reaction when I heard the news on my drive home from the game that Miguel Cabrera is the new first baseman and Carlos Guillen will be moving to third. Color me surprised.

According to Beck Guillen saw it coming and Cabrera is okay with switching positions.

Granted, Guillen had a bad first week of the season manning first base as his foot work kept brining him into the baseline. But since going to Boston it had appeared that the situation had been resolved for the most part. While Guillen was being taken out of games late it was usually for a pinch runner which I attributed to the hamstring problem, not as a defensive switch (though it certainly had that benefit when Inge came into play third).

What makes the move surprising is that
1. Guillen had all kinds of trouble fielding, transferring, and throwing the ball to first base last year. A move to third would seem to present many of the same issues.
2. The Tigers had to know that Miguel Cabrera wasn’t a good fielding third baseman both when they traded for him and when they signed him long term so they can’t have been surprised by what they saw this first month.
3. I’m not really sure that this solves any problems.

Since the Tigers are comfortable enough to rock the boat with Cabrera and Guillen, why not a platoon based on the handedness of the pitcher? Guillen gets third with a lefty on the mound and Cabrera gets it with a righty? At this point would it be that far fetched?