2009 Season, Pitching

Tigers swap lefty bat for lefty arm

4 Comments

The Tigers optioned Jeff Larish down to Toledo to make room for lefty reliever Clay Rapada. My read is that this has little to do with Larish and more to do with Bobby Seay pitching every day and a bunch of games against lefty heavy teams coming up. Seay has pitched 3 days in a row and it would have meant Nate Robertson was the only lefty available for today’s game. With Carlos Guillen gimpy I’d expect Larish’s stay in Toledo to be brief.

4 thoughts on “Tigers swap lefty bat for lefty arm”

  1. i like larish but .174 is scary…on the other hand i was really disappointed to see Clay start in the minors. he was stellar in SpringT and has performed well at the major level. a 6’5″ philipino sidearm lefty? you could live another 100 years and never see that again 🙂

    jeff will be back, but im happy we’m get to see Clays sick delivery in the BP again

  2. Just thought my comment from last nights game thread would be relevant:

    Also, regarding getting Bobby Seay help, I don’t think getting him LOOGY help is necessary. He’s appeared in a lot of games this year, yes, however it goes deeper than that:

    2007: 46.1 Innings, 749 pitches.
    2008: 56.1 innings, 979 pitches.
    2009: 7.1 innings, 83 pitches (updated for tonight’s outing as well)

    That means he’s averaging:

    07: 16.18 pitches per inning
    08: 17.39 pitches per inning
    09: 11.37 pitches per inning

    Now let’s look at the batters he’s facing:

    2007: 189 batters faced
    2008: 246
    2009: 24

    That breaks down to:

    07: 4.08 batters per inning.
    08: 4.37 batters per inning.
    09: 3.29 batters per inning.

    So his work load has been dramatically reduced. To reach the 950 pitch mark at his current workload, Seay would have to pitch about 83-84 innings. Considering he’s at less than an inning per outing thus far (7.1 innings, 10 appearances) he can feasibly pitch in 81 games no problem.

    That said, I am in favor of this move even if Seay’s been incredibly efficient. It is worth noting that in these last 3 outings he’s only thrown 5, 11 and 13 pitches over 2.2 IP and 9 batters pitched. So, he’s really only been throwing 3.2 pitches per batter faced. I still contend that he’s not overworked, but I can live/do support the merit behind this move.

  3. I don’t think we even need Larish back. I’d rather have the extra arm in the pen since Anderson has proven to more than just a 4th outfielder. Rayburn can play any position that Larish could also. I don’t think Larish is much of a hitter either, so he was really just a clog on a team that is trying to play a different brand of baseball.

    I do believe the Tigers are much better off without Thames also (and Sheffield for that matter). Larish and Thames belong on the Tigers softball team of 2008, not the dynamic and versatile team like the Tigers are in 2009.

  4. Seay has been very effective in this 1st month. IMO, Leyland has used him brilliantly. Seay is usually only in the game to get 1 or 2 lefties outs, which is probably the right thing to do. Despite what his splits are, which is actually good vs righties, I think it’s best to play the percentages of the game instead of that of the pitcher.

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