Not so tender moment for Durbin, but Byrdak has that loving feeling

Chad Durbin’s stint as a Detroit Tiger came to an end today when the club made the decision to not tender him a contract. Durbin, who entered 2007 out of options made the team as a bullpen arm as the team broke spring training. But an injury to Kenny Rogers thrust Durbin into the starting rotation.

Durbin made 19 starts and appeared in 36 games in total. He did a decent job as a swing man, and when he was returned to the bullpen he even was given some critical innings.

But I think Durbin’s fate was sealed on September 11th. The Tigers were coming off their dramatic come from behind victory against the Blue Jays and had a double header against the Rangers as they tried to hang in the playoff race. Durbin started the first game and was rocked for 2 homers, a double, and 3 singles before being lifted in the 3rd inning.

Durbin didn’t make it into another game until September 25th when he pitched the 9th inning of an 8-0 game. That would be his last appearance of the season. It was clear that Durbin lost his manager’s trust during that September 11th game.

When you factor in the bullpen crunch the Tigers have with a number of players out of options (Cruceta, Bazardo) and another pitcher who can fill the same role (Zach Miner), it just didn’t add up for Durbin staying with the team.

The move also means the Tigers have a free spot on their roster.

All those other guys

Tim Byrdak on the other hand was inked to a one year deal. He’ll make $700,000 in 2008 which isn’t a bad price for a decent LOOGY. The question is whether Byrdak will be a decent LOOGY. His career was nondescript until last season and there aren’t a lot of guys who blossom at age 33. But Byrdak did add a new split finger pitch and did fan more than a batter per inning so I think he has a decent chance to be productive.

As for the other guys, they were all tendered contracts which wasn’t a big surprise. Miguel Cabrera, Dontrelle Willis, Bobby Seay, and Nate Robertson weren’t going anywhere. Marcus Thames has been the subject of trade talks, but the Tigers weren’t going to let him go for nothing. By tendering contracts it insures that the Tigers will be paying each of these players in 2008 and Cabrera and Robertson are particularly likely to get long term contracts. I’d suspect that they’d like to lock up Willis, who is fond of the idea, but want to see if he bounces back from a rough 2007 first.

If you’re wondering about the process, the players and teams can continue to negotiate. On January 18th the two sides will exchange figures. Then starting February 1st arbitration hearings will be held. The players and agents talk about how great they are, while the teams talk about all the flaws of the players and why they don’t deserve more money. An awkward situation to be sure, and one that Dombrowski has avoided historically. I’d be stunned if any of these cases made it to the hearing and expect contracts to be hammered out in January.

links for 2007-12-12

The Dontrelle Files

We know Dontrelle Willis has the big leg kick and the bigger smile, but let’s take a graphical and statistical look at the Tigers newest starter.

The pitch selection

Using Josh Kalk’s pitch f/x tool we can look at the mix of pitches that Willis throws and the success he has with each pitch in his repertoire.

Willis has 2 fastballs, one with more sink and vertical movement – presumably a 2 seamer – that he throws most frequently. He also appears to have a 4 seam fastball which he doesn’t throw as often. He has an 86 MPH change up and an 80 MPH slider that makes it tough for lefties.


Continue reading The Dontrelle Files

links for 2007-12-11

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

links for 2007-12-07

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?

Tigerfest sells out and some other trade.

There is an unprecedented buzz around the Tigers right now. I know it by looking at my server logs, but a much less obscure measure is the fact that Tigerfest sold out in 24 hours. I was astounded when it sold out last year, and was prepared to move quickly. But I didn’t move quick enough and now I’m left out in the cold. Or considering it’s at Comerica Park maybe I’ll be left out in the warm?

Oh yeah, there was another trade yesterday. I knew about it, was aware of it, but it really didn’t seem to fit anywhere last night. The Tigers swapped relievers with the Rockies and shipped out Jose Capellan for Denny Bautista. Matt took one for the Tigers blogosphere and broke it down. Then again, it’s not like the Tigers minor league blogger has anything else to do right now.
Take 75 North | MVN – Most Valuable Network » Blog Archive » Tigers trade Capellan for Bautista

The New Tigers speak

Now that the deal is official, people have permission to speak freely. And the new Tigers sound pretty excited to be heading North.

Matt Sosnick, the agent for Dontrelle Willis, indicated that Willis is “incredibly excited” and that while the 2 sides hadn’t talked about a contract yet “He’s [Willis] hoping to stay in Detroit for as long as The Tigers will have him. He’s good friends with Jacque Jones, and is a big Pistons fan.”

Sosnick and Dontrelle were also both on WXYT earlier today and their interviews are available for download.

Miguel Cabrera and Willis were both on a conference call this evening as well. Some notes:

  • When asked about his struggles last year, Willis indicated he was a little banged up. But towards the end of the year he felt better and got his command back. He’s been working on his throwing program and thinks his arm strength is there.
  • Cabrera mentioned that he hasn’t had discussions about what position he’ll play, but he’s willing to do anything and he can’t wait to get out there.
  • Cabrera also said he’s already quite familiar with all of his fellow infielders and he is good friends with Carlos Guillen. The two live nearby in Venezuela.
  • Willis couldn’t believe that he and Cabrera were traded together, but thinks that it will help both of them.
  • Dontrelle said that he worked well with Pudge in 2003 and he’s excited to work with him again.
  • As for the cold weather, both just said “baseball is baseball” and that it didn’t matter to them.

And for more Dontrelle, he’s now blogging at Yardbarker.

Chris Shelton era ends

Chris Shelton signs autographsChris Shelton is now a Texas Ranger. The Tigers continued their active winter by dealing Shelton, who was DFA’d last week, for centerfielder Freddy Guzman.

Guzman is a burner who led the PCL with 56 stolen bases last year. He’s about to turn 27 and he’s only amassed 37 big league games in his career, so take that for what it’s worth. He hits for no power, but has some on base skills with a .360 OBP on a .278 batting average in his minor league career.

As for Big Red, here’s hoping the change of scenery will benefit him. If he can recapture that opposite field power, he should do quite well with the Arlington jet stream pushing balls out to right.

Guzman is on the 40 man roster, but the Tigers have some wiggle room following “The Trade” because they had freed up 2 spots.

The 6 runs per game lineup

A couple weeks ago D-Town Baseball took the Bill James projections for 2008 and crammed them into the Baseball Musings lineup optimizer. Well, now that the Tigers lineup is drool-worthy I figured it would be worth updating.

One of popular iteration of the lineup is:

  1. Granderson
  2. Polanco
  3. Cabrera
  4. Ordonez
  5. Sheffield
  6. Guillen
  7. Renteria
  8. Rodriguez
  9. Jones

Such a lineup would yield 5.831 runs per game. Tantalizing.

Even the worst ordering of players (Pudge leading off) would produce 5.601 runs per game. The best lineup you ask? That would be 5.970 runs per game. As for the configuration – and I know this would never happen – is:

  1. Sheffield
  2. Cabrera
  3. Polanco
  4. Granderson
  5. Ordonez
  6. Jones
  7. Guillen
  8. Rodriguez
  9. Renteria

Regardless it’s a substantial upgrade from what Eric had found earlier where the lineups ranged from 5.224 to 5.578 runs per game.

The Cabrera- Willis Trade – early returns

What’s being said about the trade of trades…
Baseball Prospectus | Unfiltered

Four is the number of relatively cheap arbitration-eligible seasons that the Tigers are picking up between Cabrera and Willis. Half of the league is willing to bend over backward — perhaps giving up a package analogous to what the Tigers just gave up — for one season of Johan Santana. Although Willis is not the pitcher than Santana is by a long shot, he’s an excellent buy-low guy who was mostly victimized by some poor defense and some poor luck in Miami last year, and an extremely viable #2/#3 starter. And Cabrera might well be the equal of Santana in terms of 2008 value. In terms of overall value, the Tigers are getting perhaps three times as much incoming value as the Red Sox might get for one year of Santana.

Rod Allen-

It’s an incredible trade and it puts them in position to win the Central and possibly win the World Series with the talent in Detroit. It reminds me of a conversation that Mario Impemba and I had with Dave Dombrowski before last season and he said that you need to have top 5 talent at each position to compete for a championship and the Tigers have that now.

Detroit Tiger Tales

As difficult as it is to see Miller and Maybin go, it is not too often you get a chance to acquire an elite hitter like Cabrera. Badenhop DeLaCruz and Trahern are also decent prospects but in a trade of this magnitude they are almost throw ins. The Tigers signaled in their earlier trade of top prospects Gorkys Hernadez and Jair Jurrjens for Edgar Renteria that they were going for it all in 2008 and this deal confirms it emphatically

Continue reading The Cabrera- Willis Trade – early returns