Monthly Archives: February 2007

2007 Season, Minors, Pitching, Spring Training, Statistics

This time it counts…a tiny bit

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So while yesterday was the exhibition to the exhibition season, this one was against the New York Mets, a bona fide big league club. And the Tigers won. Mack Avenue Tigers has the wrap-up so I won’t duplicate it here. I will just point out good games for Marcus Thames, Curtis Granderson, and Andrew Miller and a pretty rough game for Neifi Perez.

Because of research and video blogs and interviews, I’m a full week behind on links and such so I’ll try to catch-up.

Scott Sizemore
Scott Sizemore – credit Roger Dewitt

Pictures

When the big club is away, the kids will play. Roger DeWitt caught some of the action so if you want to see the possible Tigers of the distant future, you can see Dallas Trahern, Jeff Larish, and Audy Ciriaco (who I’m hoping has a big year) sporting Tigers road garb.
Continue reading This time it counts…a tiny bit →

2007 Season, Fan Experience

Drawing for Tigers Opening Day tickets

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Opening Day tickets won’t be going on sale on March 3rd like the rest of individual game tickets. With a Comerica Park record 16,500 full season equivalent ticket packages sold, it means there aren’t a whole lot of Opening Day tickets left for the general public. Instead the club will hold a drawing.

The Opening Day registration period begins at 9 a.m. (ET) on Friday, March 2 on the team’s website, www.tigers.com. The registration period ends at 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, March 11. The random drawing will take place early in the week of March 12 with winners being notified by e-mail no later than Friday, March 16. Winners will be eligible to purchase two tickets for Opening Day.

There is no charge to register for this opportunity and no obligation to buy a ticket. There is no assurance that any particular registrant will be selected. Winners may not transfer this purchase opportunity.

Fans who do not have Internet access can still register for the random online ticket drawing by calling (313) 471-BALL (2255) and working with a sales representative from the Tigers to complete the form. Winners who registered on the phone would be contacted by a member of the Tigers sales staff after the drawing.

If you miss out on Opening Day you can always try for the second game, April 4th when the team will pass out American League Championship rings.

And if you’re wondering, the price for Opening Day tickets on StubHub is up to $99 $120.

2007 Season, Spring Training

It’s a boxscore!

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I know it was an only an exhibition before exhibition season, but it still resulted in a game, with 9 innings, and live pitching – and a boxscore. That’s right, fresh stats are fresh stats, even if they are irrelevant.

But let’s work our way through it anyways.

What’s not to like about Granderson leading off with a home run? Or how about Marcus Thames playing first base and knocking 3 doubles. Cameron Maybin with 2 hits of his own. Ryan Raburn going yard. A shut out by the pitching staff is always nice. And an error free day by a number of defensive subs. Neifi even had a big hit. The only downside is that the Tigers didn’t pick up a walk – I kid of course.

Now I’m not making too much out of this. I’m actually not making anything out of this. A two touchdown win doesn’t mean anymore than the 1 run win last year. I’m just taking enjoyment from the fact that we are one step closer to the beginning of the season.

Former Tigers, Interviews

Interview: Tigers TV color commentator Rod Allen

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Rod Allen has had a very varied 30 year career in professional baseball. His current gig is as the color commentator for Tigers broadcasts on FSN alongside Mario Impemba.

The 2007 season will mark Allen’s 5th season in Detroit. While he, along with pretty much everyone associated with the Detroit Tigers, toiled in relative obscurity the first few years, his calls during the 2006 season are now part of Tiger lore. The very genuine “CRAIG DID IT AGAIN” call after Monroe’s 9th inning homer in Yankee Stadium captured the emotion and excitement that all Tiger fans were experiencing at that time.

Rod was kind enough to do an interview with me over the phone. We talk about the 2006 and 2007 Tigers, Allen’s career, and I ask him “Who’s your Tiger?”

Continue reading Interview: Tigers TV color commentator Rod Allen →

2006 Season, Pitching, Players, Playoffs

Kenny Rogers extra giddy-up

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Here’s a fascinating post looking at Kenny Rogers stellar playoff performances.

The author uses video to break down Kenny’s mechanics and demonstrate the extra effort and the quicker tempo Rogers was throwing with against the Yankees. Particularly interesting was the video comparison showing a regular season start and the Yankees playoff start. Rogers rushed his delivery considerably in the playoffs and the result was a significantly faster fastball.

Now I’m pretty sure that Kenny Rogers couldn’t throw like this and make it through a whole season. So don’t be looking for crazy-angry-emotional Kenny in a midseason tilt against the Royals. But in the process he probably learned something about himself that he can draw on in tough situations.

Offense, Players, Statistics

Curtis Granderson and his strike outs

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Don’t know if you’ve been following the news out of Lakeland, but it appears that Curtis Granderson struck out a lot last year. It also appears that a goal of the organization is that he strike out less this year. Essentially he just needs to make better contact. And changes in his

There has been a ton of interesting discourse about this over the last few days. Jason Beck notes Granderson comes in with a retooled swing that cuts down on extra movement. John Lowe points out that striking out a lot isn’t necessarily bad, just look at Grady Sizemore.

Leyland made a whole lot of sense when meeting with reporters on Thursday on the subject:

I think he (Granderson) will cut down some (on strikeouts) because he’s going to be a more mature player. But I don’t want to turn him into some get-a-walk, Punch-and-Judy type of guy.”

“I’ve never known how to figure it out. We tell our hitters to be aggressive all the time, and at the same time we tell them, ‘Work the pitcher.’ “

Lowe also quotes Granderson identifying that a more aggressive approach may actually lead to fewer strikeouts

“The simple approach is that if I stay aggressive, I’ll hit less often with two strikes in the count,” he said. “I’ve been aggressive, but I’ve missed pitches. If I can put them in play earlier in the count, I eliminate the two-strike approach.”

I really agree with this. We’ve seen that hitting with 2 strikes is no picnic, and once the at-bat reaches 2 strikes it was over pretty quick for Granderson.

So there is some good stuff on the theory front, but what do the stats say? Detroit Tiger Tales looked at K/BB ratios for the whole team, and Granderson’s K’s out weight his decent walk total and push him into the bottom half of the league. But let’s look a little deeper still…
Continue reading Curtis Granderson and his strike outs →

2007 Season, DTW-TV, Spring Training

DTW-TV: A position battle worth watching

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You guys were too kind last week, so I’m doing this video thing again. In episode 2 of Detroit Tigers Weblog TV I highlight what I think will be the most interesting position battle in Lakeland this year.

Watch: Detroit Tigers Weblog TV – Episode 2 (9 Mb, 4:14)

Subscribing

As always you can subscribe to all Detroit Tigers Weblog posts in your favorite feedreader using:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/thedetroittigerweblog

But if you want a feed with just the video for subscription in a podcatcher like iTunes, you can grab just DTW-TV with:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/detroittigersweblog-tv

References

Chris Shelton’s Defense
2005 Spring Training Stats
2006 Spring Training Stats
Marcus Thames & Chris Shelton

Offense, Research, Statistics

Battling with two strikes

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Jim Leyland has 2 priorities this season. First he wants to improve baserunning. On that front it seems like he was reading Detroit Tiger Tales’ analysis. His other initiative is improving the Tigers batters approach when they are presented with a two strike count. The Tigers strike out a lot, which means they get to, and struggle with their share of 2 strike counts. But are they really worse than the rest of the league when down in the count?

The following table shows both the Tigers stats when the count reaches 2 strikes, as well as all of MLB in 2006.


Continue reading Battling with two strikes →

2007 Season, Fan Experience

Tigers leave Ticketmaster?

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It appears that the Ticketmaster won’t be handling Detroit Tigers ticket sales this year. If you’ve purchased spring training tickets you may have noticed that the process was hosted by tickets.com and driven by an MLB account.

I’m not sure what the resulting fees will be, but the impact looks to be:

  • There’s a new phone number: 866-66-TIGER (866-668-4437)
  • Individual tickets will be available 3 ways on March 3rd at 10:00am. 1. Online at Tigers.com, 2. In person at the Tigers box office, 3. Over the phone. You will no longer be able to go to a Ticketmaster outlet.
  • Because it is a frenzy online when the tickets go on sale and you only have minutes to get your information in, you may want to create an MLB.com account ahead of time – and log in.

The fact that it requires an MLB.com account makes this feel like a MLBAM initiative and less of a team specific thing.

If the fees are less this will certainly be a positive for Tigers fans. And in doing a dry run with spring training tickets it appears the the captcha is actually legible. There is nothing like the frustration of not being able to even decipher the text you need to type in.

2007 Season, Contracts, Former Tigers, Spring Training

Baby it’s cold outside – Tigers 2007 Spring Training round-up

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Long lasting ice sculpture - Comerica Park
This is what a month old ice sculpture looks like

I was getting jealous of all the reporters and photographers down there in Lakeland taking in baseball and sun and palm trees. So I did the best I could and went to Comerica Park today to take pictures of ice sculptures…Leftover from Tigerfest…Which was a month ago. So stop complaining Wojo if it’s unseasonably cool in Lakeland. (Seriously, I took these pictures today.)

On to the link-a-thon

Carlos Guillen

An extension for Guillen is the only item remaining on the Tigers checklist. It is also a popular topic of discussion. This is a bigger topic than I’m going to tackle in a round-up post. Kurt has it covered anyways. I will say that I don’t think Guillen will sign here with the intention of playing first base. Just because he filled in there last year, doesn’t mean that is his likely destination – at least not for the next 3-4 years.

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