Sickels Top 20 in Review

John Sickels has posted his review of his 2005 top 20 Tiger prospects. Comparing last year’s list with what transpired, it is easy to say that the Tigers farm system is definitely looking better. Going into 2005, Justin Verlander, who hadn’t even pitched professionally was Sickels top-rated Tiger prospect. While Verlander had a very promising season, I think the preseason ranking had as much to do with the Tigers lack of talent as it did with Verlander’s potential.

While some guys such as Eric Beattie and Collin Mahoney turned in less than impressive seasons, several other prospects more than compensated. Jordan Tata and Brent Clevlen had huge years for Lakeland. Then there was the draft that yielded promising prospects and performances from Kevin Whelan and Clete Thomas – and that doesn’t even include the potential of Cameron Maybin.

Going in to 2006 the Tigers will be losing Curtis Granderson and Chris Shelton off the prospect list, but for all the right reasons. At least right now it looks like the Tigers farm system actually has some solid performers instead of (or at least in addition to) guys with potential.

Light week

Barring any transactions, it looks like this will be a pretty light week. In the meantime, I invite you to look back to March where I asked everyone to make “bold predictions” about what would transpire for the Tigers this season. Here is the link to the posting, and the predictions are in the comments.

Clearly, I expected a little more power from Craig Monroe.

Also, if you are a fellow blogger (or if you’re thinking about becoming one) I invite you to check out another project of mine – Baseblogging. It is a blog about baseball (and other sports) blogs & bloggers. The site is very new, so content is on the light side – but that will be taken care of soon enough.

Tigers Finalize 40 Man Roster

The Detroit Tigers have finalized their 40 man roster with the following transactions:

Purchased Contracts of:
Don Kelly
Joel Zumaya
Kyle Sleeth
Humberto Sanchez
Eulogio De La Cruz
Jordan Tata
Brent Clevlen
Kody Kirkland

Outrighted to Toledo contracts of:
Adam Peterson
Colby Lewis

The roster now stands at 40 players. The biggest omission is probably David Espinosa who the Tigers stand a decent chance of losing in the Rule 5 draft. Speaking of the Rule 5 draft, with the Tigers roster full, I believe that excludes them from participating.

To the best of my knowledge, this represents the Tigers current 40 man roster:


Player 2006 Contract Status Options

================ ==================== =======
Kenny Baugh Indentured Servant Yes
Roman Colon Indentured Servant Yes
Craig Dingman Indentured Servant No
Franklyn German Indentured Servant No
Jason Grilli Indentured Servant No
Preston Larrison Indentured Servant Yes
Wilfredo Ledezma Indentured Servant Yes
Nate Robertson Indentured Servant Yes
Fernando Rodney Indentured Servant Yes
Chris Spurling Indentured Servant Yes
Mark Woodyard Indentured Servant Yes
Tony Giarratano Indentured Servant Yes
Omar Infante Indentured Servant Yes
Ryan Raburn Indentured Servant Yes
Chris Shelton Indentured Servant Yes
C. Granderson Indentured Servant Yes
Nook Logan Indentured Servant Yes
Marcus Thames Indentured Servant No
Don Kelly Indentured Servant Yes
Joel Zumaya Indentured Servant Yes
Kyle Sleeth Indentured Servant Yes
Humberto Sanchez Indentured Servant Yes
E. De La Cruz Indentured Servant Yes
Jordan Tata Indentured Servant Yes
Brent Clevlen Indentured Servant Yes
Kody Kirkland Indentured Servant Yes

Jeremy Bonderman Arbitration Eligible Yes
Mike Maroth Arbitration Eligible Yes
Vance Wilson Arbitration Eligible No
Brandon Inge Arbitration Eligible No
Carlos Pena Arbitration Eligible No
Craig Monroe Arbitration Eligible Yes

Troy Percival Signed No
Justin Verlander Signed Yes
Jamie Walker Signed No
Ivan Rodriguez Signed No
Carlos Guillen Signed No
Placido Polanco Signed No
Magglio Ordonez Signed No
Dmitri Young Signed No

Roster Speculation

As the Tigers enter shopping season it is worth taking a look at their current roster status. Detroit currently has 35 players protected on their major league roster.

For those who haven’t taken the time to plow through the collective bargaining agreement, players can fall into one of three categories. The first category is players with less than 3 years of major league service time. These players have no negotiating leverage. They can be signed for the major league minimum, and there contracts can be renewed each year without any sort of raise. However, teams will typically give players nominal raises each year. These players are classified as indentured servants. (One footnote, players with less than 3 years, but who are in the top one sixth of those with 2+ years of service time are arbitration eligible).

The next category are players with more than 3 years of experience, but less than 6 years. Once a player gets to that magic 3 year mark they become “arbitration eligible.” This is when players finally have some leverage. The teams still retain the players rights – as long as they tender the player a contract. If the team tenders a contract, the two parties can either a) go to binding arbitration for a one year contract, or b) continue to negotiate. If the team doesn’t tender a contract, the player becomes a free agent.

The final category are free agents. These are the players with six or more years of service time. In these cases, a team can offer a player a contract. The player can accept the contract, go to arbitration, or become a free agent. If you’ve heard about draft pick compensation, this is where it comes into play. If a team loses a player to free agency, and they had tendered said player a contract, they can then receive compensatory draft picks based on how the player is ranked by the Elias Sports Bureau.

Below is a table of the Tigers’ current 40 man roster, and the players’ contract status.


Player 2006 Contract Status Options

Kenny Baugh Indentured Servant Yes
Roman Colon Indentured Servant Yes
Craig Dingman Indentured Servant No
Franklyn German Indentured Servant No
Jason Grilli Indentured Servant No
Preston Larrison Indentured Servant Yes
Wilfredo Ledezma Indentured Servant Yes
Adam Peterson Indentured Servant Yes
Nate Robertson Indentured Servant Yes
Fernando Rodney Indentured Servant Yes
Chris Spurling Indentured Servant Yes
Mark Woodyard Indentured Servant Yes
Tony Giarratano Indentured Servant Yes
Omar Infante Indentured Servant Yes
Ryan Raburn Indentured Servant Yes
Chris Shelton Indentured Servant Yes
C. Granderson Indentured Servant Yes
Nook Logan Indentured Servant Yes
Marcus Thames Indentured Servant No

Jeremy Bonderman Arbitration Eligible Yes
Andrew Good Arbitration Eligible Yes
Colby Lewis Arbitration Eligible Yes
Mike Maroth Arbitration Eligible Yes
Vance Wilson Arbitration Eligible No
Brandon Inge Arbitration Eligible No
Carlos Pena Arbitration Eligible No
Craig Monroe Arbitration Eligible Yes

Troy Percival Signed No
Justin Verlander Signed Yes
Jamie Walker Signed No
Ivan Rodriguez Signed No
Carlos Guillen Signed No
Placido Polanco Signed No
Magglio Ordonez Signed No
Dmitri Young Signed No

The Tigers currently hold the rights to 35 players, meaning there are 5 open spots. Of the players currently on the roster, most are expected to be retained (or at the very least traded for another major league player). Players most likely to be removed are Adam Peterson (who had a pretty poor AFL showing) and Andrew Good. Other possiblities for removal include Jason Grilli, Andrew Good, and Preston Larrison. It’s also unlikely that both Marcus Thames and Craig Monroe will be with the team next year.

The Tigers will most likely be looking to free up spaces as they look to sign free agents and protect several minor leaguers. One of the open spots will definitely go to Joel Zumaya who would most assuredly be picked in the Rule 5 draft. Zach Miner, who was acquired in the Kyle Farnsworth trade is also a likely candidate to be protected. Humberto Sanchez (who had a pretty solid AFL showing), David Espinosa, and Juan Tejeda are other candidates to be selected in the Rule 5 draft if not added to the 40 man roster.

The Tigers definitely will have some juggling to do in the coming month. It will be interesting to see how they value some of their prospects, and if they offer arbitration to any of their free agents (Jason Johnson, Rondell White).

Farnsworth speculation

There is an interesting post on the Atlanta Journal Constitutions Braves blog today. The bulk of the post is about Rafael Furcal’s likely destination (unfortunately probably not Detroit), but it also mentioned Kyle Farnsworth.

“Regarding the Braves? other biggest-name free agent, Kyle Farnsworth: The Braves are interested in keeping him, but only if he?s affordable. His last team before Atlanta, the Detroit Tigers, might be the only team willing to give Farnsworth anything close to what he hopes to get, because not many teams seem to be looking at him as a closer; rather, they see him as a setup guy and possible closer.

Mcdonald Traded & New Mud Hens

The Tigers traded John McDonald back to the Toronto Blue Jays for cash considerations. This comes one week after the two teams completed their July trade by agreeing to cash considerations. Essentially, the Tigers rented McDonald for 3 months. The trade frees up an additional spot on the 40 man roster, and may indicate the clubs interest in acquiring another infielder this offseason.

I’m a little sad to see McDonald go, if only because he was so nice to my son when we went to a game.

New Mud Hens Logo
The Toledo Mud Huns unveiled a new logo today.
New Mud Hen Logo - HeadNew Mud Hen Primary Logo
I actually like the new logo quite a bit. Unfortunately I bought a Mud Hens hat a couple months ago. I guess now it will be vintage.

2005 in Review – Tigers run distribution

Earlier in the season I took a look at Detroit’s run distribution. By run distribution I’m talking about the frequency with which they scored (or allowed) a certain number of runs per game. I’ve updated the analysis to include a full season’s worth of games.

The chart below shows the Tiger’s performance given the number of runs the offense generated. Wins are indicated with the orange bars, and blue denotes losses. The yellow line shows the cumulative percentage of games played where the team scored less than x runs. That explanation isn’t the least bit clear, so here is an example using two runs: The Tigers scored 2 runs 21 times (total of wins and losses), and they only managed to win 3 (orange bar) of those games. Furthermore, the Tigers scored two runs or fewer nearly 30% of the time (the yellow line). For comparative purposes, I did the same for all of baseball in 2005.


What I notice first is the large spike at three runs. The Tigers 3 or fewer runs in approximately half of there games, where as major league baseball was held to that mark 40% of the time. In addition, they didn’t fare as well as Major League Baseball at corresponding run levels. At two runs scored, MLB had a .253 winning percentage compared to .143 for Detroit. At three runs it was .347 for MLB and .290 for Detroit. In fact the only run levels where Detroit met or exceeded MLB were at 6 and 8 runs.

Extrapolating a little further, if you look at MLB’s winning percentage at for each scoring level, and apply it to the Tigers then Detroit should have won 76 games. Which leads us into a similar analysis of runs allowed.

Like the runs scored graph, the runs allowed graph has a significant spike. Unfortunately the runs allowed spike is at 4, where the runs scored was at 3. Where the expected wins were typically lower across the board in terms of runs scored, they were inline for the most part for runs allowed. In fact, virtually all the differences in expected and actual wins for runs allowed can be attributed to 2 & 3 run games. When the pitchers allowed 2 or 3 runs, the Tigers won 6 games fewer than expected.

While the pitching staff did implode during the month of August, they were largely effective. Their ability to keep the team in the game was inline with that of other teams. However they weren’t quite good enough to compensate for the offense. Conversely, the offense wasn’t quite good enough to compensate for a slightly below average pitching staff.

Other posts wrapping up the Detroit Tigers’ 2005 season:
Days, Dollars and the DL
Runs Created
A model of inefficiency
Treemapping Win Shares

Tigers add to R&D Staff

The Tigers announced today that they have name Manny Crespo as the director of Latin American Operations. Previously Ramon Pena handled Latin America, and I’m not sure if he is still involved or not (he’s still listed on the team’s website).

The Tigers also announced the hiring of 4 amateur scouts. Ray Crone Jr. and Jim Olander were added as national crosscheckers, Grant Brittain as an area scout and Steve Barningham as a part-time scout. Brittain will scout North Carolina and South Carolina, in addition to northern Georgia. Barningham will scout in the Pacific Northwest.

One of the drawbacks of signings like Magglio Ordonez is that discussions on sites like Baseball Primer focus on the theme that the money would be better spent on scouting and development. Assuming that these hirings are additions and not replacements, it shows that a team with enough money can do both.

While I’m not qualified to comment on the quality of scouts, I can say that the investment in scouting is probably one of the most encouraging moves this offseason. This appears to be the second offseason in a row where Detroit has been committed to scouting and development. Last year the Tigers hired David Chadd to head up scouting, as well as leasing a new training facility in the Dominican Republic. While the dividends will take longer to payout, the Tigers are trying to do the right things.

Bonderman’s Prospect Retro
John Sickels has a prospect retrospective on Jeremy Bonderman.

I was impressed with his overall performance and gave him a Grade B+ in the 2003 book, rating him the Number Nine pitching prospect in baseball.�

The Tigers promoted Bonderman directly to the majors in 2003, skipping Double-A and Triple-A entirely. This kind of decision carries a large risk of backfire with the psychological health of a young player. Although Bonderman pitched terribly in 2003 and almost lost 20 games, he retained confidence in himself. His ’04 and ’05 seasons were qualified successes, as he emerged as a .500 pitcher with an ERA slightly below league average. Given his age, that’s certainly acceptable, and scouts remain very high on his future.

Paul Carey and other news

As a long time Tiger fan I spent many a night listening to the Tigers on the radio while growing up. Those of you who read my interview with Ernie Harwell, know my affection for the old time Tiger broadcasters. That other broadcaster who was with Ernie Harwell for so long was Paul Carey, and wouldn’t it be great to see him in the Hall of Fame as well? Throughout the month of November you can vote for broadcasters to be placed on the final ballot for the 2006 Ford C Frick award. I’d love to see Carey get in and I encourage all long time Tiger fans to go vote for Paul.

AJ Burnett
This falls under the category of not surprising, but the Tigers have contacted Burnett’s agent, Darek Braunecker. At least according to this article some interest may have waned with the September shenanigans, but the Tigers are listed alongside the Rangers, Mariners, and Blue Jays as teams who are still interested. Of course any agent worth his salt would keep as many teams in play for as long as possible. As for my thoughts on Burnett, I’ll get into that in a seperate post (basically I’m still doing my research).

2006 Projections

Last week Tiger Tales posted the projections from the Bill James book (aff link). Today, commenter Walewander (awesome name) pointed out that Baseball Think Factory has posted their ZiPS projections. I won’t copy their work here, but I will recommend you check out the projections for Shelton, Pudge, Verlander, and Zumaya. Shelton looks very promising, and Pudge projects to decent production. ZiPS thinks Verlander will be a stud. Zumaya on the other hand looks to struggle like a first time starter – but that wouldn’t be bad production given his age. Take the projections for what they are – educated guesses (albeit with some pretty good math behind them).

BA’s Top 20
Jim Callis posted his top 20 long term prospects. Justin Verlander was the lone Tiger rating number 11, which is probably fair. The nice thing is that you could make a legitimate argument that a second Tiger prospect could have been included. Things are looking up in the minors.

Handing out hardware

Earlier in the week, DIBS announced Placido Polanco as its choice of Tiger of the Year (as well as pitcher and breakout player). We seem to be in pretty much complete agreement with the Detroit Chapter of the Baseball Writers of America as they announced Polanco yesterday. (I want to thank my DIBS brethern for so enthusiastically embracing DIBS.)

Other awards that were announced include the AL Gold Gloves and the Tigers were shut-out. Pudge Rodriguez picked-up a gold glove he didn’t deserve last year, but he was unfairly shut-out this year. Rodriguez shut down the opponents running game. He threw out over half the attempted base stealers (to be fair I think some of Maroth’s pick-offs were included in there), and that’s not the most impressive part. Of catchers with over 1000 innings caught, only Joe Mauer had fewer attempts. Runners didn’t even try against Rodriguez. Jason Varitke, the winner, threw out only 24% of stolen base attempts. Pudge had 4 passed balls to Varitek’s 7, and 4 errors to Varitek’s 8. This isn’t even really close.

Other Tiger related news

  • Former Tiger stud prospect Torey Lovullo was named manager of Cleveland Indians AAA affiliate Buffalo. This gets a little more relevant when I mention that former Tiger hitting coach Bruce Fields will be taking on the same role for Buffalo
  • Alan Trammell, who made Paul Depodesta’s short list for the Dodgers job was informed he is no longer in the running for the Tampa Bay job. And with Depodesta out, his status for LA remains to be seen.
  • The Tigers completed the John Macdonald trade from earlier this season by sending cash considerations to Toronto. I know everyone is relieved to finally have this settled.

Site News
I’ve done some more tweaking on the site, but I don’t think it is too noticeable. I’ve shrunk the logo slightly, as well as my picture and the fonts in the sidebar. I’ve also added Chitika eMiniMalls as another revenue source. I point all this out because in case something isn’t working that means I recently broke it and I’d appreciate if you let me know.

I’ve got a ton of stuff to write about, it’s just finding the time. However, next week I plan a post combing through the roster in preparation for the hot stove season. Also, I’m still working on wrapping up the 2005 season (I’m intentionally spacing this out – it’s a long offseason) taking a look at the pitching staff from a DIPS perspective.

Jamie Walker’s Option Exercised

This really shouldn’t come as a surprise, but the Tigers exercised Jamie Walker’s $1.25 million option for 2006. This move was pretty much a no-brainer as Walker is an above average LOOGY at an affordable price. According to Baseball Prospectus, Walker saved 3 runs above average in 2005. While 2005 was probably Walker’s weakest of his 3 with the Tigers, he is still a solid option in the bullpen. This should be good news for the Walker family as they moved to the metro Detroit area this year.

DIBS Awards

At the end of the season, eleven web sites that write about the Detroi Tigers voted on a Tiger player of the year, pitcher of the year, and breakout player. Today, DIBS (Detroit Independent Baseball Scribes) announced the winners. Placido Polanco took home player of the year honors, Jeremy Bonderman won pitcher of the year, and Chris Shelton was the breakout player.

As for my ballot, I agreed completely. For player of the year, I gave consideration to Bonderman, Polanco, Shelton, and Craig Monroe. Monroe was the only one to spend the whole season with the team, but I chose to go with Polanco. Polanco’s OPS of 847 ranked among the team leaders, and he did it while playing flawless defense at an important position. Throw in the fact that by all appearances he was the consumate teammate, the decision was easy.

Among pitching candidates, had Kyle Farnsworth not been traded he probably would have had my vote. Bonderman’s second half slide made him an average pitcher for the year. However, given his age and experience his season was still impressive.

As for the breakout player, there was little question that Chris Shelton should win. In fact, he received the first place vote on all 11 ballots. While Curtis Granderson was very impressive whlie he was in Detroit, Shelton did it longer. In any case, both players were bright spots in what turned out to be a disappointing season.

So that’s my ballot, but what about these 11 websites and DIBS? The idea was spawned by myself, Ryan Sosin, and Brian Borawski last season. There are a ton of great internet sites covering sports – specifically the Tigers – that are flying under the radar. The intention of DIBS is to help improve and promote those sites. As a member of the Tiger blogging community, one of the great things is that the various sites aren’t competitive. We don’t snipe at each other, and we do our best to promote each other. If one of our sites gains exposure, we all benefit. And that’s really what DIBS is all about. We want to generate great content, and we want to get that content in front of as big an audience as possible.