Heartfelt post. I enjoyed it. I’d like it if you would just try to ignore the crap you see here and cut in more often with facts we can discuss. Defense in particular is something I want to understand better. I don’t see the games, so I’m left with numbers on baseball-reference,com that I don’t fully understand. It would help me a lot to know how “range factor” and the like are determined and how to apply them to one’s judgement of a player.

Billfer

I know you weren’t singling anybody out.

You command a lot of respect here, and not just because it is your web log. When opinions about a player or a situation spiral out of hand, a word from you on the facts of the matter is all it takes for most people here to take note, and then the debate, if there still is one, gets more factual and serious. Those who won’t stop talking nonsense sentence themselves to not being taken seriously. That may be punishment enough. Don’t let it drive you nuts.

Thanks for the post. I have no doubt Renteria’s 2007 numbers look better than Guillen’s 2007 numbers (which is why I’ve been vocally disappointed)…

I’m not questioning his defensive prowess as an Atlanta Brave, but as a Detroit Tiger. And while I’m not 100% convicted on the point, I’m just not so sure about his 2008 numbers through 1/3 of the season — I just have a hunch (if things continue on par with the defensive preformance I’ve seen) that his -3 runs (2007) are going look more like Guillen’s -15 (2007). Guess we need to wait and see, since they don’t update until the end of the season, as you say. And that’s the crux of what I’m saying.

And I could be wrong. Interested to hear your thoughts (or Bill’s) on how you feel Renteria’s 2008 PMR is faring relative to his historic numbers.

And ron, you are right about the “i told you so” aspect. But maybe I’d like that more if there was more “i wanted them to make that move, but i sure was wrong” instead of “dombrowski needs to be fired for putting this crap together.” If you’ve been reading here awhile I’m wrong all the time and am freely open to admit it.

Again, I’m not speaking about anyone in particular or even limited to here at DTW. It’s just the stuff I’ve heard this season that makes me nuts sometimes.

“…Is his defense average and therefore OFF SETS his bat to a degree (given the number of runs he’s saving compared to Guillen at SS last year)? Yes. Absolutely….”

Not saying I disagree, neccessarily, but would like to see this supported. Not so sure this is true.

I understand the bitching is tiresome. But the reality is, this stretch of games — 10, maybe 20 ? Whatever the exact number, this stretch of games is crucial to this season. The Tigers dug themselves a deep hole and painted themselves into a corner. So now June happens to be the make-or-break month instead of September. Expectations for this team were huge, and emotions are up. This is the season. Every pitch counts. Every run. Every error amplified. That’s what you’re seeing here in this blog, and elsewhere among Tiger fans.

I somehow think if the Tigers fall out of things the bitching and complaining will stop. Until that happens, it’s gonna be part of the fan-base reaction. It is what it is.

On that front, I’ve been vocally critical of Renteria because he hasn’t produced at the plate and his defense has been — just “average”. And while he does field the routine play, there have been three, four, even five games I can cite in which his glove has tipped the game. Those add up for me, so to some degree, I feel it’s valid to point it out — especially when the bat doesn’t compensate. Not so sure I would go so far to say that falls in the invalid bitching category. But if I’m wrong about this, by all means correct me.

Renteria has been defended here as an average shortshop from wihch one shouldn’t expect too much to begin with — so in that sense, I’m admittedly guilty of expecting too much.

The Defense (based on 2007 numbers, since the Probabilistic Model of Range updates their defensive numbers after each season) can be supported with the PMR Defensive numbers (Billfer did this in the analyzation of who should play 3rd after the trade for Miggy and Dontrelle). So I could do that, but I noticed Billfer said he had a post coming on Renteria but I will just give you this (and if this post gets caught in the spam filter, you can take this out Bill if you’re doing a similar study…): in 2007, when the defense for both him and Renteria was normalized for 4000 balls in play (which is about 145-150 games) and converted to a runs total, Guillen was worth a -15 runs and Renteria was worth a -3 runs.

As far as my post, I’ll amend it to: less complaining that bothers me, and just more irrational fandom that I don’t associate with Detroit Sports Fans. Then again, hockey’s been the only thing Detroit’s been consistently good in in my lifetime and Wings fans have grown apathetic to them. Maybe it’s not a new phenomenon and I’m just a naive kid on the West Side of the state. So I don’t listen to Detroit talk radio, I don’t read the Detroit newspapers (save for the baseball coverage and Danny Knobler since he’s printed state wide and whatever other coverage is in the Kalamazoo Gazette), so perhaps I just missed all this nonsense that seems to go on here (that sounds more harsh then I meant it, honest) with some people. Yes, I’m a stats nerd who feels that I have a great, well-rounded, in-depth view on the game of baseball and the Tigers but unlike some ‘stat nerds’, I don’t have a problem with people who live and die by the avg/hr/rbi or wins/saves/era numbers (though would it kill FSN Detroit to post the OBP’s at each AB? Honestly?), it’s just when things cross over into just sheer irrationality it starts to bother me. Especially pertaining to Miggy (yes, I know that’s mainly just Chris, but still. . .) and I have no problems admitting that as soon as that trade was announced, Miguel Cabrera became my favorite Tiger (which should help to explain why I go to bat for him continuously with some irrational Fan(s) that consistently ride him for being “a bust”).

The other thing that irks me is just how much people get on Renteria. I just think people have genuinely forgotten just how terrible of a shortstop Carlos Guillen was the last few years. Honestly, and I’m not trying to ‘plug’ my work, but I ran some numbers last year (that I wish I would’ve ran differently now that I look back on it, but whatev’s . . .) and concluded that if you use defense, Renteria can be argued as being more valuable than Carlos Guillen. And I ran those numbers and came to that conclusion last October — before Renteria. (Again, my apologies because as I’m writing this I’m cringing at how overly self-indulgent and I’m-so-much-better-than-you-are it is sounding to me.)

I don’t know. I’m completely rambling and everyone’s probably aged a decade and a half and Miguel Cabrera’s long, glorious career is probably done before anyone else even reads all this, but I guess the one thing that I never thought of when my favorite of the Detroit teams got successful was the amount of irrational, knee-jerk reacting fans that come with that territory. It gets tiresome and grueling — especially coupled with the team’s bad play — and it’s only since the Tigers have started playing better (the last couple of weeks) that I’ve started to re-contribute my thoughts in the game thread comments and largely because there isn’t the complaining going on. I guess, in the end, I wouldn’t have such a problem with it if it didn’t seem like some people watch the games simply to find something to complain about and when there’s nothing to bitch and moan about, they just don’t post at all. And that irks me. I don’t want to question their commitment to the Tigers as a fan, but I can’t help but wonder how interested the complaining, irrational ones are with baseball when things are going smoothly.

Sorry, this entire thing was convoluted, too long, and probably shouldn’t have been written (or saved for my blog or something). I guess that happens at nearly 5 AM after a long day and longer night.

P.S. I hope no one (except for Chris) feels like I’m personally attacking them (and no, Chris, I’m not personally attacking you either, though I’m certain it’ll come across that way … I don’t know you as a person and I’m sure you’re 8000x better a person than you sometimes come across on here). This really is, on the whole, a solid community (you can see it when you’re here when the Tigers are winning) and anyone who followed this blog last year knows how much I love it and love to contribute in it. It’s just certain things have been driving me away as of late and even in the best of times (on the field, that is) it boils over a bit when the top is discussed.

(I didn’t use enough parenthesis so I’m using them some more.)

(and some more. Fin.)

Say, could you throw me a pillow out here? And what time do you want to wake up tomorrow? I’ll knock on the window.

I told you he’d say it.

So I’ll beat the drum for Country Funk Marcus Thames instead. Did you know he hit the home run that put the Tigers ahead, from behind, for good? It’s true. Wadn’t no frozen rope, either, by Kyle’s account. A towering blast! Yes!

10 HR in, what, 13 AB now? A slugging percentage up around 3.795? Woo yeah.