Tag Archives: carlos guillen

2008 Season, Offense, Statistics

Tigers have nocturnal bats

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With this afternoon’s loss to the Blue Jays the Tigers record in day games now stands at a remarkable 0-10. A quick check of the splits reveals that the Tigers have been outscored 57 to 18 in day games. Yes, the offense has mustered less than 2 runs a game before the sun sets.

After dusk the Tigers are 6-3 and have scored 59 runs while allowing 60. So the pitching has been pretty inadequate no matter what time it is. The differences in offense however are dramatic to say the least. The following numbers aren’t inclusive of the Sunday tilt:
Tigers can\'t hit during the day
Continue reading Tigers have nocturnal bats →

2008 Season, Injuries, Roster Management

Willis slips on to the DL, Guillen to miss time

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Dontrelle Willis is landing on the disabled list because he didn’t land correctly on Friday night. The initial diagnosis was a hyperextended knee and that was confirmed today by an MRI that revealed no structural damage. He’s not expected to miss significant time, but he wasn’t going to make his next start. Armando Galarraga will get the call, but he hasn’t been placed on the roster yet. That spot went to Ryan Raburn who will provide some positional flexibility to Jim Leyland.

Miguel Cabrera has been hobbled for the last week, and Carlos Guillen strained a hamstring that will require him to miss a few days. With uber sub Brandon Inge set to give Pudge Rodriguez his first day off behind the plate, Leyland would probably like to have someone man 3rd and do the same for Cabrera. Plus, Raburn deserves to be on the team regardless.

But back to Willis, this leg injury may be a blessing in disguise. We know the story about the 7 walks in his first start, and he wasn’t close to the strike zone in his limited time in the second start. An extra week might not be sufficient to find that elusive control, but it certainly can’t hurt. As for Galarraga the fact he’s contributing is a surprise. If he’s productive the trade in which Dombrowski acquired him might be his best of the season. All the Tigers gave up was an A ball hitter Michael Hernandez who they signed out of a tryout camp. Hernandez was subsequently released by the Rangers.

MRI reveals no tears but Willis placed on the DL; Galarraga will start | Freep.com | Detroit Free Press
Guillen’s injury not serious enough for the DL; Inge to catch for first time this year | Freep.com | Detroit Free Press

2008 Season, Roster Management, Spring Training

He looks good, he’s happy, and other reports from spring training

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Imagine if the players turned the tables on the beat writers during spring training and wrote stories about the beat writers.

“The official reporting date wasn’t until the 14th, but he was down here a couple weeks ago getting ready.”

“You can tell he was really working out this offseason. His vocabulary has grown as much as his forearms. Both are the product of intensive typing.”

“He’s excited to be down here. You can hear it in his voice when he talks about how excited he is to get to work.”

“As the new guy on the beat, he’s still trying to get a feel for his fellow media members, but he seems to be fitting in great.”

“As a 6 year veteran, and the only remaining beat writer from that awful 2003 team, it’s clear that he’s a leader in and out of the locker room and the other guys look to him for cues.”

“He’s excited to try out the new language he was working on over the winter. By adding Spanish to his repertoire he should really have an advantage over the competition. If he can gain confidence in it, it could be what he needs to push him from beat writer to elite columnist.”

I kid of course, especially on a day when there is so much news coming out of camp.
Continue reading He looks good, he’s happy, and other reports from spring training →

Uncategorized

Fictionalizing Jeter

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I’m sure many of you have seen the Gatorade commercial featuring numerous dramatic stills. It came to my attention when Ian blogged about it recently. The commercial is below. In the spot it appears that Jeter notches a game winning hit off of Todd Jones with Carlos Guillen turning away in disappointment.

Through the wonder of Baseball Reference PI, we can see that such a hit never happened. Looking at each match-up between the two, there have been 16 in total, 12 while Jones was with the Tigers, and only 2 while Jones and Guillen were with the Tigers. As for the two at-bats in question Jeter had a ground out and a fly out.

So I guess I still have the same question Ian did…why the Tigers and why Jones? Here’s hoping that at least Jones got paid for it. And I guess the implication is that if Jones would have had Gatorade things would have turned out differently.

2007 Season, Defense, Statistics

The Tigers Defense – What are the Odds?

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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? →

Statistics

Bill James Handbook fun

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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.
2007 Season, Awards, Defense

Handing out hardware

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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.

2007 Season, Game Post

Game 162: Tigers at White Sox

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PREGAME: Sigh.

List of team and offensive feats that may happen today so there is something to root for:

  • Magglio Ordonez needs to not go 0 for 6 and Ichiro Suzuki needs to not make an out and the Tigers have their first batting champ since 1961.  Maggs is also looking to see if he can add on at all, and perhaps move ahead of Norm Cash’s .361 average.
  • Placido Polanco needs one more hit to reach 200.  If he gets to 200, it will mark the first time since 1937 2 Tigers have finished with 200 or more hits.
  • Curtis Granderson is at .299 and will try to push that to .300
  • Ordonez needs 3 RBI to become only the 4th Tiger to ever drive in 140 runs in a season
  • The team is 2 doubles shy of matching the team record for doubles in a season set in 1934
  • The team has 1634 hits which is the highest total since the 1934 club notched 1638

Game Time 2:05
DET @ CHW, Sunday, September 30, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

POSTGAME: Considering what the Tigers had left to play for, everything came up roses today. Polanco got his 200th hit and finished an errorless season. Guillen got his 2 RBIs. Granderson finished over .300 picking up 3 hits (not to mention a walk, a HBP, and 3 steals).

And Magglio Ordonez already had pretty much locked up the batting title, but a 3 hit day pushed his average to .363. That’s the highest mark for a Tiger since Charlie Gehringer’s .371 in 1937. In case you missed it, FSN Detroit was cutting into the Venezuelan broadcast after each Ordonez hit, and while my Spanish skills are limited to what I learned in high school (which has been refreshed by Dora the Explorer), there was no mistaking the excitement.

Even Mike Rabelo managed to get a homer today, and while the bullpen was going crazy for him, his own teammates were giving him the silent treatment.

It really wasn’t the way anybody wanted to the end the season, but all things considered they made the best of what they had today. And it was fun. It was fun watching the team having fun. Exactly 6 months until we get to start it up again.

2007 Season, Game Post

Game 161: Tigers at White Sox

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PREGAME: So Jim Leyland announced that Magglio Ordonez wouldn’t be playing tonight taking away the most compelling story line for the Tigers. I guess we’ll just have to settle for seeing if the Tigers can solve the riddle that is Gavin Floyd. Floyd has allowed 1 run in his last 2 starts combined against Detroit. Floyd has a 5.71 ERA overall.

For the Tigers it will be Justin Verlander. Verlander struggled with the White Sox last year, but allowed 3 runs in 7 innings in each of his 2 starts against the Sox this year.

DET @ CHW, Saturday, September 29, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

POSTGAME: Justin Verlander had a solid night with the only blemish coming on a Thome-esque 2 run homer. It did take him 117 pitches to get through 6 innings, but he picked up 7 strike outs along the way.

For the Tigers the offense came via solo homers by Carlos Guillen and Marcus Thames, and that was it for the good guys scoring.

Doug Eddings had a poor game umping at second base, taking down Jermaine Dye and blowing a call in the 9th inning that ultimately hurt the Tigers. Eddings is famous/infamous for hit controversial call in the 2005 World Series. He’s also the ump who had the stopwatch on Rafael Betancourt.

That said, if Rodney hadn’t walked Darin Erstad, or if Ryan Raburn picks up the ball in right field, maybe we’re still playing.

2008 Season, Players

Tigers need a shortstop

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The decision has been made, Carlos Guillen is moving to first base in 2008. Kind of a strange time to announce it and then there is this curious quote from Guillen:

Guillen recently said he’d only switch if he was assured that the Tigers were going to replace him with someone good — “a Gold Glover,” he said. But he said Friday, without naming names, “it’s going to be someone good, someone very good.”

So does this mean the Tigers have already identified a shortstop and worked out a trade in principle? Does it mean that this plan only goes through if the Tigers come through with someone very good?

If you’re holding your breath thinking that the Tigers have already worked out something with Alex Rodriguez, exhale. That would be tampering in a legal sense, and just plain silly given that Rodriguez is going to be busy with playoffs and what not.

Guillen went on record earlier saying he’d only move for a gold glove caliber shortstop, and indicated that he wouldn’t move for a Jack Wilson type player. But Leyland has smoothed things over with Guillen and he appears ready to make the move.

Tigers to switch Guillen to first base

UPDATE: Scratch all that weirdness talk up there. Danny Knobler ran the full quote, which makes a whole lot of sense and doesn’t lead bloggers to wild speculation:

“I know they’ll bring in a good (shortstop),” Guillen said. “I know it’s going to be a good one. I don’t know who it’s going to be, but I know it’s going to be a good one.”

2007 Season, Game Post

Game 128: Yankees at Tigers

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PREGAME: The Tigers take another crack at Roger Clemens who they had no trouble hitting last week, they just had trouble scoring. The Tigers mustered 10 hits in 6 innings, but only 2 runs thanks to 8 strikeouts which all seemed to come with guys on base.

For the Tigers it will be Andrew Miller making his fast start since going on the DL on August 4th. Despite the great stuff, Miller struggles a little to put guys away and his lack of command can lead to hefty pitch counts. He hasn’t recorded an out after the 5th inning since July 6th.

I’ll be heading down to this game, and hopefully the result will be similar to when I saw Clemens pitch against the Tigers last year.

Who’s your Tiger tonight? I’m going out on a limb and going with Brandon Inge.

Game Time 7:05
NYY @ DET, Friday, August 24, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

POSTGAME: You know you got your money’s worth when on the way home from a game you start to ponder where it ranks in terms of the greatest games you’ve ever witnessed live. When you’re doing at at 4:00am, you know it’s a special situation.

First things first, thanks to all of you for the awesome comments throughout the game last night. I was reading them on my Blackberry throughout the night and was amazed so many of us were toughing it out together.

On to the game, I made several good decisions last night. First, I had an unused ticket and was really debating taking my 6 year old son. I ended up not doing it, because while I love him to death and love going to games with him, this was the first time since Opening Day I had plans to go with my friends and I just didn’t want to be a dad that night. Second, we took a couple cars to the game because one friend had commitments in the morning and we didn’t know how late he’d want to stay. Worked out great with the one friend being able to leave at 8:30 when he recognized any baseball would be way late. So those staying were happy to be stayinig, and no one had to leave prematurely.

The theme for the night was pretty much, “there’s weird s*** happening tonight” and that held up throughout the game. Witness:

  • Placido Polanco makes an error. That never happens.
  • Pudge battles back from an 0-2 count to take a walk. That never happens.
  • The game started at 11:05.
  • Jason Grilli pitches not only a scoreless inning in Comerica Park, but he does it uneventfully.
  • Pudge took another walk. Intentional and all, but still.
  • I’m drinking coffee at a game in August – normally an activity reserved for those cold nights in April or September

So there we were at 2:30 in the morning concocting the most improbable ways for the Tigers to pull this off. Like having the Tigers load the bases against Mariano Rivera and then have Inge come through. Well, that one got half way there, and only some bad luck kept it from coming through.

Still the crowd stayed, and sure it was whittled down after a while. After that 10th inning the numbers really dwindled and I said to the usher, this place looks like 2003 right now. But it sounded much louder. And at that point everyone had formed this big kind of friendship, the kind of friendship that can only come from staying at a ballpark until ridiculous hours of the morning as everyone individually questions their sanity for staying and yet being too afraid to leave and miss something. It was kind of like one of those West Coast Red Wing playoff games that goes into OT, and you think to yourself “I can’t quit now, I’ve made it this far.”

Fortunately for those who stayed, they got the pay off. After a nice walk by Polanco it looked like a hit and run sign was missed with Sean Casey up and Polanco was picked off. And the Tigers went from a runner on 1 out situation to a 2 out none on situation. As so often is the case, the next batter gets a single after the runner is wiped off the bases.

I was imploring Leyland to pinch run for Casey, figuring that a gapper would go to waste with Casey on the basepaths. Instead Leyland stuck with Casey who managed to go first to third with relative ease on a blooper. Setting the stage for the Carlos Guillen. When he hit it I didn’t know if it was gone. I just new it was well hit and I didn’t care if it were a homer, I just wanted it to get over Matsui’s head. When it landed on the roof of the bullpen it was euphoria, it was relief, it was “I get to go home now, but I’m not tired anymore,” it was so worth it all.

I know the above thoughts are incoherent, but I’m working on a couple hours of sleep right now. For the bullets:
Continue reading Game 128: Yankees at Tigers →