Monthly Archives: April 2009

2009 Season, Game Post

Game 2009.002: Tigers at Blue Jays

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PREGAME: Well let’s not have a repeat of last night’s debacle. And I’m not talking about the throwing of stuff on the field, which may be curtailed because the stadium will be dry tonight. No, I’m talking about the beat down the Tigers took as the Blue Jays pummeled pitch after pitch into the gaps.

Edwin Jackson makes his debut for the Tigers tonight. He’s faced Blue Jays quite a bit from his days in the AL East. Adam Lind and Alex Rios are both slugging over .600 against him, so that doesn’t necessarily bode well. He has held hitters to a .228/.312/.431 line in SkyDome though.

Lefty David Purcey gets then nod for the Blue Jays. Purcey made 12 starts last year and he posted a solid strike out rate (8.03/9IP), and a decent K/BB ratio (2.0), but he did give up 9 homers in 65 innings leading to a 5.54 ERA.

Game Time 7:07

Detroit vs. Toronto – April 7, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: New faces, same results. Yesterday it was Juan Rincon. Today, Brandon Lyon.

Edwin Jackson was awesome, stunningly awesome. His efficiency and the way he pounded the strike zone was a sight to behold. Unfortunately it was all for naught as Brandon Lyon imploded.

He had some help. Brandon Inge extended the inning with a throwing error. And a ground ball was just out of Adam Everett’s reach. And the pitch that led to the 3 run homer was actually down in the zone. But the 9th inning was all Lyon.

Other stuff of note:

  • Miguel Cabrera had himself a very nice game. A couple walks and a missle to center on the offensive side and two slick plays defensively.
  • Inge’s error sucked, but he also accounted for half of the offense and that homer was an absolute bomb.
  • Bobby Seay did what he was supposed to.
2009 Season, Game Post

Game 2009.001 (aka Opening Day): Tigers at Blue Jays

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PREGAME: Finally. Months 6 months of despair over last year’s debacle are washed away. Two months of roster speculation can be forgotten (six Tigers are experiencing their first opening day). It’s finally time to play ball. Tonight’s pitching match-up is a dandy, as most opening day match-ups are.

The Tigers will try to scratch out a couple runs against Roy Halladay. The Tigers, like most teams, struggle against Halladay. Granderson is 4 for 10 lifetime and Polanco is 5 for 11. And the success ends there.

Verlander has only made one start in his career against the Jays and he got knockeed around to the tune of 6 runs in 4.1 innings. Fortunately we can claim “sample size!” and dismiss this information.

Tonight’s lineup is:

  1. Granderson, CF
  2. Polanco, 2B
  3. Ordonez, RF
  4. Cabrera, 1B
  5. Guillen, DH
  6. Laird, C
  7. Inge, 3B
  8. Everett, SS
  9. Anderson, LF

Yes, Josh Anderson gets the Opening Day start over Marcus Thames essentially as Jim Leyland is trying to save Guillen’s hamstrings – on the first day of the season.

Detroit vs. Toronto – April 6, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

Game Time 7:15 (bummed about the lack of high definition for this game though)

Oh yeah, there is another big game tonight. We’ll see how the chatter goes come 9:00pm. Good luck MSU fans.

POSTGAME: For everyone who is ready to say “same old Tigers” not so fast. The bullpen didn’t blow a lead. There. Take that. I’m not saying the bullpen was good, but they didn’t cost the game. That would largely fall on the shoulders of Justin Verlander.

Verlander had nice velocity (he was at 97 the first couple innings), a curve ball that buckled some knees, but command was inconsistent. And the Blue Jays had not trouble with any of it as they banged out 6 extra base hits.

Aside from the shellacking, the other damaging part of Verlander’s outing was that he didn’t even make it through the 4th inning. So Leyland turned to Bonine to mop-up, and subsequently Nate Robertson. Robertson actually pitched well retiring the side with 2 K’s on 9 pitches. My suspicion for Robertson being lifted was that Leyland didn’t want to burn both long guys on the same night.

Juan Rincon had a hard time finding the strike zone, but those runs really had little impact.

The good news is that the offense plated 5 runs off of Roy Halladay, including 2 homers. Curtis Granderson looked good, as did the middle of the order. And of course Brandon Inge with an opposite field homer.

2009 Season

Giving for Grandy

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I love the opportunity to promote good deeds from athletes, and it is fortunately becoming common place to talk about Curtis Granderson. He has a new program called Scoring for Schools in which you can pledge an amount for every run that Curtis scores. The pledges support the Grand Kids Foundation. If you pledge $0.28 by 7:15 tonight he’ll even sign a picture for you. (I apologize for the short notice, type quickly).

Now the Big Tilde brought this to my attention last week but I was negligent in posting until I saw this reminder from Ian at Bless You Boys. But these folks are going above and beyond the 28 cent thing. The Tilde is donating .30 for every run Curtis scores and $.30 for every run Ordonez scores. Ian is letting his readers decide his alternate pledge.

For our DTW I’m going to pledge an additional $.28 for every extra base hit and stolen base that Curtis collects.

2009 Season, Previews

The 2009 Tigers – they might not suck

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For years I would write up season previews where I would almost automatically pick the team for 4th place. I didn’t know if they were a legitimate 4th place team, but I’d inject a little homerism to avoid last place. And then 2006 happened. The team was good. Real good. Picking them first or second in the division didn’t seem homer-ish, it seemed prudent after their World Series run. And an 88 win finish in 2007 and a blockbuster trade in the subsequent offseason further solidified those predictions. Then 2008 happened. I’m not ready to go back to picking the team in the bottom half even though that is the prevailing wisdom. I have them at 84 wins and a second place finish this year. And here’s why.

Back in January I took a look at the Tigers hitters and pitchers through the eyes of win values. It was an exercise in forecasting the Tigers season as objectively as possible. I used other people’s projections (mostly found at Fangraphs) to see how the Tigers would perform. At the time I concluded that the Tigers were an 84 win team. Of course, some things have changed since then:

  • Gary Sheffield was released
  • Rick Porcello made the rotation
  • Zach Miner won the a spot over Nate Robertson and Dontrelle Willis
  • The Tigers added Brandon Lyon
  • Jeff Larish made the team and Ryan Raburn didn’t
  • Josh Anderson was added to the mix

In the process the Tigers got a lot younger. The Tigers boasted 3 of the oldest players in the league in the form of Todd Jones/Kenny Rogers/Gary Sheffield. Now the offense is a mix of veterans and emerging stars and the rotation are veritable babies. The oldest pitcher in the season opening rotation is Armando Galarraga at the ripe old age of 27.
Continue reading The 2009 Tigers – they might not suck →

2009 Season, Previews

Everybody has an opinion – prediction round-up

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I think everyone remembers last year when the Tigers were pretty much a lock for the playoffs in the minds of many prognosticators. Sure, it was up for debate whether they’d win the American League or the World Series, but they were post season bound. Not so much this year. A number of sites and outlets and experts are doing some predicting and, well it ain’t so pretty.

Ken Rosenthal puts the Tigers in last place in the Central. But he acknowledges that anyone in the Central could win it.

Sports Illustrated picked the Tigers to finish 4th with 77 wins, 8 games back of the Twins who they think take the divison with 85 wins.

ESPN the Magazine picks the Tigers…5th in the AL Central because the rotation is questionable.

David Pinto at Baseball Musings picks the Tigers to also finish last, but he gives them a 17% chance of winning the division which is only slightly less that random!

The folks at Baseball Prospectus give us a number of projections and predictions. Joe Sheehan ranks them as the 23rd worst team in baseball, but that is still better than the White Sox and Royals. Chris Kahrl cites PECOTA and has them winning only 80 games, but that is good enough for 2nd in the Central.

Seamheads.com takes the Tigers 2nd with 84 wins, 2 games off the league pace.

Baseball Digest Daily’s panel of writers peg Detroit as the 3rd best team in the division.

And the geeks (I use that term affectionately) at Beyond the Box Score pick the Tigers anywhere from 2nd to last.

If you read through all the links though there is a pretty consistent theme. The Tigers aren’t that good, but they might not have to be to stay in the mix. As for my predictions, those are coming soon.

2009 Season, Minors, Trades

Tigers trade James Skelton for Brooks Brown

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The Tigers have sent James Skelton (or actually they just let the Diamondbacks keep him after the Rule 5 pick cleared waivers) to Arizona for Brooks Brown. I’ve written about Skelton in the past, so we’ll focus on Brown for a moment.

Brown started at AA for the Diamondbacks last year and had a 4.18 ERA with 112 K’s in 144 innings pitched. He’ll be assigned to Erie to start the year. The right hander is 24 years old. Brown didn’t make the BA top 10 for Arizona, but his name did come up in the chat and Will Lingo had this to say:

Will Lingo: That is a pretty good analysis. Brown took a 3.63 ERA into the final month last season, but he was pretty bad from there on out and in the AFL. His stuff also hasn’t been quite as good as it was in college, so some people think he should just take his sinker-slider combo to the bullpen. But his big frame and durability still suggest he could provide more value as a starter. He’ll get another shot in the Triple-A rotation, but I think if he gets to the big leagues it will be as a reliever.

Sickels had him as the 15th best prospect in the organization but noted a loss of velocity and command.
Continue reading Tigers trade James Skelton for Brooks Brown →

2009 Season, Roster Management

Jeff Larish is the 25th man

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Steve Kornacki reports that Jeff Larish was getting congrats from his teammates today as he secured the last spot on the bench. Larish will be able to provide depth at the corners and be a lefty option at DH as well. He edges out Brent Clevlen who is out of options. The Tigers are probably looking to trade Clevlen or get him through waivers. I’d say there’s a decent chance he makes it through waivers and will report to Toledo.

Links

links for 2009-04-02

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2009 Season, Roster Management, Spring Training, Trade Rumors

Analysis: Breaking down today’s roster decisions

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Today’s roster decisions pretty much wrapped up nearly 2 months (and in some cases even more) of speculation. There is one spot yet to be decided. That will go to either Jeff Larish or Brent Clevlen, though the Tigers are reportedly in trade talks with the Pirates regarding Clevlen. (ironically, or at least coincidentally, such a trade would displace former Tiger Craig Monroe) But with 96% of the roster decided we shift our guessing from personnel to performance.
Continue reading Analysis: Breaking down today’s roster decisions →

2009 Season, Pitching

Tigers go closer by committee

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The Tigers are certainly making the last week of an agonizingly long spring training interesting. The other news of the day is that Fernando Rodney will be the closer on Opening Day (presuming of course they need a closer). But that he might not be after that. But Jim Leyland isn’t naming him the closer for the season and it sounds like others (Lyon/Zumaya/Perry) will get shots at it as well. There’s no word on if Fernando Rodney’s gator tooth factored into the decision.

So for everybody looking for saves on their fantasy team, probably best to stay away from the Tigers. Then again maybe you were already doing this.

2009 Season, Roster Management, Spring Training

Porcello and Perry make the team

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It appears the Rick Porcello and Ryan Perry will be breaking camp with the Tigers. Details are still thin beyond that. I’ll update as more information floats North. Also, Mike Hessman was placed on outright waivers and Ryan Raburn was optioned to Toledo. That leaves 29 players in camp including Scott Williamson, Brent Clevlen, Jeff Larish, Eddie Bonine, Juan Rincon, Zach Miner, and Nate Robertson battling for one spot in the rotation, a couple in the pen, and one on the bench.

UPDATE: Juan Rincon and Eddie Bonine are also in. Dane Sardhina and Scott Williamson were assigned to minor league camp.

UPDATE 2: Clay Rapada was optioned to Toledo and your second lefty in the pen is Nate Robertson. It’s down to Brent Clevlen and Jeff Larish for the last roster spot.

So…the pitching staff looks like this:

Rotation: Verlander/Jackson/Miner/Porcello/Galarraga (I’m guessing on the order to start the season)
Bullpen: Lyon/Rodney/Seay/Rincon/Perry/Bonine/Robertson