The Tigers bats have been scuffling to say the least. The Tigers received unexpected offense from a number of places early in the year while Magglio Ordonez, Placido Polanco, Carlos Guillen, and to a lesser extent Curtis Granderson, were struggling or injured. But the thumpers still aren’t producing consistently and you can add Miguel Cabrera to the list of slumping bats. So the pitching which has been a very pleasant surprise has been pitching with little margin for error.
But that pitching has also benefitted from the lineup as it is constructed. The Tigers have one of the top defensive teams in all of baseball and we are looking at a 71 run swing due to defense from last year. A lot of the Tigers who aren’t carrying their bats to the dish are certainly carrying their gloves to the field.
So with an off day, how about a little discussion of how much you trade to improve the offense? How much defense would you sacrifice for offense? What prospects or current members of the team would you be willing to part with acquire a bat (and don’t mention people on the DL or those who are untradeable -like Wilils or Robertson)?
The great “1000 run” offense of last year got us nowhere. We have a couple of injuries and slumps holding us down, but we need our pitching and defense to pull us through this.
I have no idea who is really available (outside of the Spilborghs speculation, which I don’t like), but corner outfielder would be position to address. I see Polanco coming around and Thames will fit the DH slot nicely once we are back in the AL. Magglio is a real concern if the power doesn’t come back soon and Anderson has become absolutely brutal offensively. Clete will probably be back as a fine defender and adequate back-up, but we need a proven commodity unless W Ramirez is ready.
I also think the situation at C might need to be addressed (perhaps from within) if Laird doesn’t show something with the bat before July. Of course, the idea of a new C learning this staff, as #1-#3 has been working quite effectively, is not all that appealing.
My main chips would be Strieby (1B), Fein (CL), Iorg (SS) (not buying into the hype), Dolsi (RP), Larish, and a number of guys presently on the club, Raburn, Polanco, Magglio, Zumaya (face it, he’s an injury away), Santiago, Anderson, etc. Really, the only prospects I find somewhat “untouchable” are Figaro, Marte, Avila, one of Satterwhite/Weinhardt, Robles, and Stohr. Ramirez would be hard to part with, too.
Corner OF targets on the cheap: Conor Jackson, Rocco Baldelli, Seth Smith…and a couple more “prospecty” targets in Nate Shierholtz and Travis Snider. Again, I doubt any of these guys are even available. I’m going based on the fact that they are not everyday guys right now. I wouldn’t expect to give up a ton for any of these names (the last two names would garner more), but if a quality everyday player were available (speculation here would be nonsensical), I’d give up what it takes. Catcher is a commodity best filled from within, but there are two-headed monsters like the Snyder/Montero platoon that we could target. Bottom line: we have to take advantage of the pitching (other than starters #4/#5) we have this year in a weak division.
For the right batter with the right contract…..I’m up for any deal.
I think you gotta stay the course. The return of Thames adds some pop. Beyond that, it’s just a matter of Polanco and Ordonez getting back toward their career numbers. I just don’t see how anyone we’re going to get through a trade raises the ceiling on the lineup’s overall potential.
And, as good as the pitching has been overall, it’s not like we’ve got excess pitchers to give up. If anything, we may be looking for a fifth starter for the stretch run.
I think one of the biggest things that needs to happen is for Leyland to stop screwing with the line-up so much. I know I have said this a hundred times before, but I think he is over-managing the line-up, especially when the likes of Polanco and Ordonez have a day off right before another day off. These guys are getting paid to play, not to ride the bench. Plug guys into their usual spots and I bet it’ll help with some of the offensive woes.
As for picking anyone up for offense, obviously the loss of Guillen is hurting this team. I wouldn’t mind the addition of a veteran left handed bat to this line-up, and use the term veteran very loosely. Any lefty that has a proven record of smoking the ball, young or old would work fine. The Tigers are log jammed at a couple positions and could probably stand to move a couple pieces. Take for exmaple Larish. Now that Inge is hitting again and Cabrera is comfortable at first, is he going to have a starting gig any time soon?
I really think it is time to send down Sardinha. I don’t buy the nonsense that he is a factor is Verlander’s recent success. Laird has caught just as many of his games and he has had the same success as of late. The guy is just dealing right now. Sardinha and Laird are a combine Mendoza line platoon, which is unacceptable, considering Sardinha doesn’t provide enough offense in his bat even to spot Laird as often as necessary.
I agree. It drives me insane on how much the lineup changes. Nobody going to get going if they keep getting off days. I say bring Miner into the 5th spot and make a trade for hitter and a closer. What about Matt Holliday? Is Oakland still up on trading him? I don’t know about a closer, but I think Colorado is up to trading Street? Any thoughts?
Well, this is the worst hitting team we’ve had since 2003 when Trammell had Shane Halter batting either 3rd, 4th, or 5th.
I like to see line-up changes when the hitting is struggling like this. We can’t have an everyday line-up because we have a few veteran players with injury histories that need more rested often (Polanco, Ordonez, Thames, and DL’d Guillen). Leyland is doing a fine job keeping most of our player healthy. Thames was injured coming into Spring Training and Guillen is just as fragile as glass.
As for the line-up, Leyland is sometimes just plugging in hot bats or playing splits/pitcher match-ups. He’s looking to find something that works or he’s trying to create a spark. IMO, the only right way to make the line-up is to build it around Cabrera, which is what our manager has done for the most part. It’s tough when you have to juggle players. It’s not like we have the ’84 Tigers where even the bat boy could just set the line-up and forget about it. This is the worst hitting team we’ve had since 2003 when Alan Trammell had Shane Halter batting 3rd.
With Anderson batting 3rd Leyland must of been playing the day night splits. Anderson has a .378 batting average, .404 OBP, .489 SLG, and .893 OPS in day games.
I think you have to hope that carlos comes back and you can get something from either magglio or polanco. However I think we have a wealth of talent in the middle to late reliever role. I’m not willing to trade any of our minor leaguers because we are not deep at any spot position wise. We might as well wait and pickup someone cheap at the trade deadline and with Galarraga and Willis struggling we might need another starter as well
First, try to get rid of Ordonez, or he will be a drag on the team for another 2 years. Also being paid big bucks, which will cripple any future free agent money. That being said, you would have to probably pay a portion of his salary to make him attractive to another team.
Second, although Polanco will probably find his hitting soon for this year, he is on his last year with Detroit and is the only value commodity a contender team would be interested in. The Tigers have a couple of people on the farm that they were probably going to bring up next year anyway.
There seems to have been interest in Larish by other teams over the last year, so he would be good trade bait. He’s more of a 1B, so is kind of blocked with the Tigers. Since he is young and has good potential, we should hold out for a good prospect or need at another position.
I would be extremely careful about trading any of the farm boys, since this has usually bit the Tigers in the a** in the past. Also the Tigers really have multiple problems this year: 4th and 5th spot of SP, corner OF, general hitting, sometimes okay bullpen. Too many holes to fill to give up the farm.
I’m a lot more concerned with pitching than offense right now. I think we can get by with the current line-up but something has to be done about Willis and Gallaraga. We should be talking about trading Magglio, Larish, and maybe a couple other guys to get a legitimate #4 starter from a non contending team. It’s not going to matter if we do knock in 1000 runs if our #4 and #5 starters give up 6-8 runs every time they take the mound. Non only do they guarantee losses but they make us overuse the bullpen so nobody can really give %100 in the late innings to preserve leads for Verlander, Jackson, and Porcello.
The offense is a concern, for sure. But things have a way of correcting themselves. I think they will score more runs. I know Bill doesn’t put much stock in where guys bat, but throwing folks like Clete Thomas and Josh Anderson into the 3-hole is making me insane. Put Grandy there and leave him there. He has plenty of pop in his bat to become a 100-RBI guy. Batting in front of Cabrera would, in theory, give him better pitches to hit, too.
Honestly, I’m more concerned about the backend of the starting rotation. We basically have two guaranted losses in there right now. I would make a move to acquire a serviceable fourth or fifth starter – a Jeff Suppan type guy. Although I’m not a huge Zach Miner guy, I would immediately promote him to the rotation and option/release Willis. They can’t run him out there again, they just can’t. Eventually, Verlander/Jackson/Porcello are going to run into rough stretches. If we don’t get some other guys at 4/5 that can win occasionally, two and three game losing streaks are going to turn into 6 or 7 game losing streaks.
Totally agreed about backend starters being way more important than a bat at this point. One guy I think would be worth looking at is Jon Garland. With the D-Backs going nowhere, they may well be willing to move him for pure salary relief. Given that Illitch is flush with Stanley Cup money, I think an outlay of around 4 million to plug such an obvious hole may be realistic. He’s certainly not a world beater, but an innings eater with a WHIP around 1.50 is, sadly, a major improvement.
I doubt we would be complaining about the pitching so much if we could score 7-10 runs once in a while. You have to have 5 guys like Verlander and Jackson to compete when you score 1-3 runs per game.
I think we would still be complaining about pitching, at least, to the regard of the lack of competitiveness out of the 4 and 5 slots. Willis and Galarraga have been awful, and I honestly believe not even the worst team in the league would tolerate their pitching for as long as we have. We have been able to tolerate their pitching because 1-3 have been so good. We can’t have 3 guys below a 4.00 ERA and the other two above 6.00. It just doesnt compute.
I researched that. This is copy and pasted from 5 days ago-
Here are some ERA’s from our rivals starting pitchers-
Minnesota – #1 Baker 5.59 ERA, #2 Liriano 6.12 ERA, #5 Swarzak 5.23 ERA
Chicago – #2 Danks 5.10 ERA, #3 Floyd 5.35 ERA, #5 Contreras 6.45 ERA
Cleveland- #3 Huff 8.71, #4 Sowers 5.40, #5 Ohka 5.40 ERA, Carmona 7.20 (DL’d), Reyes 6.75 ERA (DL’d),
KC- #3 Davies 5.13, #5 Hochevar 7.85
I agree with the sentiment that another starting pitcher needs to come first.
But I would like to see us deal for another bat too, a corner outfielder makes sense. I don’t know enough about the prospects that we have but I just don’t think we can afford to keep trotting out these painful lineups.
What’s the deal with Ramirez? I’ve seen him mentioned a few times in this thread, his numbers look good in AAA, is he ready to go?
The thread was about offense, and I think the image of the Tigers situation at the 4 and 5 slots is distorted by the Willis/ Bondo performances.
Look, VERY few teams, even contenders, have back- end starters with numbers well above replacement level. We should see Galarraga bounce back a bit, even if not to last year’s or April’s numbers. Miner would be a very serviceable #5; he’s much better as a SP then as reliever. I also think Figaro could pull a Jurejens if we go that route. The pitching sky is NOT falling.
Now, regarding offense. I think folks are correct that Polanco is a valuable trade piece. Especially with one of Sizemore or Holliman likely ready to prove a suitable replacement.
As far as Defense to Offense ratio goes, I’m happy with the infield true some are scuffling (Cabrera Polanco, and Laird specifically) but is not like they don’t have what it takes to get past it. Granderson is Granderson. Maggs is well not that great at either, but has one of those “who would want this” contracts. So that leaves LF and DH. A Left handed power hitter would be great to Platoon between LF & DH with Thames, whatever defense we lose would hopefully be made with the hitting.
With Strieby playing more in the LF you would have to think they are seriously considering bringing him up to play a LF/DH/1B combo. I would also like to see them just let Wilkin play some games in LF to see what he can do. Morosi wrote today that Tigers could be interested in Huff and Luke Scott and then mentioned Wilkin Ramirez name which I would not really want to trade him for.
Jon Paul Morosi stated the obvious; Wilkin Ramirez is our best trading chip. But given the bleak outlook of our corner outfield positions, I don’t think it would be wise long-term to trade him. If we can somehow trade Larish and one of the many college relievers we have for someone like Luke Scott, that would be fine.
We terribly need a backup catcher, and I’m sure we can do it for practically nothing. And if this “backup” catcher hits more than .220, he can split time with Laird. I think Laird is proving he can’t be a near everyday catcher. With the way he looks physically, it isn’t too surprising.
Lastly, I’ll agree with everyone who’s complaining about Leyland’s lineups. Batting Anderson and Thomas 3rd is manager malpractice. Marcus Thames needs to be playing nearly every day. Stacking our lineup with lefties against a right-handed pitcher isn’t going to help when all the lefties can’t hit.
I remember back when Shane Halter use to bat 3rd for us.
haha. Please, don’t remind me.
To be perfectly honest I’d like them to go after both another starter and vastly underrated guys on bad teams.
Realistically you have to look at the struggling teams and/or smaller markets – which there aren’t many – to make a MLB for MiLB player deal.
Still I think one more solid starter(OR two) who could post a sub 4 ERA would do a lot more for this team than nearly any hitter.
Some names –
John Lannan
Freddy Sanchez
Brian Roberts
Adrian Gonzalez
Dan Haren
Max Scherzer
Paul Maholm
Zack Duke
Ricky Romero
The pitching and D are much more important – especially if we can get it on a nightly basis.
All you need to do is go look at our combined record when Verlander, Jackson and Porcello start.
I don’t know what it is – but their combined W/L is a shocking 20 and 9. That is nearly a .690 winning%.
If you can pick up two of these sub 4 ERA guys and maybe a fantastic contact / speed guy like Sanchez or Roberts we’d be in fine shape to get to the WS.
If we could get one even, that would help a lot. Plus what happens if one of our trio goes down in August or Sept? Then we’re pretty screwed.
Pitching and D, Pitching and D!
Be serious. With the possible exception of the Pittsburgh guys, no one you listed is going to be traded. Dan Haren is arguably the best pitcher in the NL, has a multi-year contract, and is still under 30. The Dbacks wouldn’t trade him straight up for Edwin Jackson. Ditto for the Padres and Adrian Gonzalez.
We couldn’t get John Lannan, Brian Roberts, Max Scherzer or Ricky Romero ?
And I’d take those Pittsburgh guys for what prospects we have left, and or anyone in the above list.
1st move I’d make- Trade for back-up catcher or call-up Ryan. Laird has went into a big hitting slump ever since Treanor got hurt and Sardinha was put on the roster. Laird needs more rest.
To you and anyone else who wants to dump Laird and/or Dane. Do you really believe that the POSSIBLE MINOR increase in offense will provide us with more Ws? Our tandem have been more than adequate. If you’re looking for your catcher to provide your offense, your team is in dire straights.
Our 4, and 5 starters with possibly another position player should be our team’s top three priorities. Catching shouldn’t even be in the top 10.
This is all assuming of course that you want to win. If you don’t care about that, then sure go after another catcher. It is also assuming that we can’t get Joe Mauer, which I think is a fair assumption.
I think Mr X has a point here. Laird DOES need more rest and Leyland either has to trust a catcher who can’t bat .100 to play in more games, or the organization needs to get him a catcher he does trust. Because if Laird is slumping now, I can only imagine how tired he’ll be by September, playing as many games as he is.
This is correct.
It’s about keeping Laird healthy too. This problem is the easiest one to fix also. Sardinha is a great emergency catcher to have, but he’s by no means a major league quality player. Sardinha is hitting under .100 . Half the game is about hitting and he’s missing roughly half of his game.
I don’t see the Tigers making much of an overhaul anywhere else with the rest of the roster. We can swap out a few guys from Toledo here and there and that’s about it. Most of our players are here for the long haul.
Getting guys like Dan Haren or Adrian Gonzalez is out of the question because it would cost us someone like Porcello to get them.
I did list 7 other guys. The Nat’s pitcher is good, so are the Pirates. And I’ve wanted Sanchez and Roberts for awhile now, and it wouldn’t cost us an arm and a leg to get them and they’d help us win and give us a bit of depth.
Fine fix the catching situation… who do you propose? Dusty Ryan?
Just looking at Laird’s career stats he falls off the table in the second half.
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/7129/splits;_ylt=An7X.5ewHQC_V_V9IJDByLuFCLcF?year=career&type=Batting
Where are you going to play Brian Roberts. He’s a 2nd baseman. Are you dumping Polanco, an above-average defender at the position? Nevermind the fact that we don’t have the pieces to trade Baltimore, anyways.
I’d play him at SS, and keep Everett and Santiago as backups for MI.
His D is fantastic, he is fast, he can hit for average and is on pace to score near 125 runs with nearly 200 hits and over 50 doubles and has had an OPS+ of over 110 for the past several years.
The only things that would be stopping me would be his large and lengthy contract and/or lack of possible Tiger trading chips.
Sanchez is a comparable hitter (50 doubles/200 hits, 100+ runs) who is the same age, but not nearly as good defensively.
But he has one other thing going for him – no long expensive contract.
David, I can’t reply to your post for some reason, but I would disagree with this decision.
Edit: his defense is fantastic at 2nd base, not at short stop. Playing shortstop would drop 5-7 runs of prevention off of his abilities.
No panicking! Detroit’s current season BABIP is 10th out of 14 in the AL. Ahead of only KC, SEA, CHW, and OAK, which I think would be termed the four worst offenses. Despite this, they are above league average in runs scored. It looks bad right now, because the low-scoring games are clumping. The sensible thing to do is replace the below replacement-level guys with replacement-level guys. Anderson, Galarraga, and Willis need to be off the team. Replaced with almost anybody. Beyond that, the luck evens out and the Tigers have a shot at the playoffs, or it doesn’t. Knee-jerk reactions to a tough two weeks just won’t help.
Galarraga probably starts pitching better when Verlander goes into a slump. That’s the way the ball has been bouncing with them two. One is up, while the other is down.
Galarraga actually has 6 quality starts, which is the same number that Porcello has. Only 2 of Galarraga’s starts have been completely butchered. He is starting to look like a one year wonder, but I wouldn’t pull him from the rotation yet.
What Tiger pitcher is 1-0 with a 0.00 ERA in 9 innings, giving up only 2 hits, with 3 walks, and getting 7 k’s in the month of June?
A) Joel Zumaya B) Edwin Jackson C) Justin Verlander D) Brandon Lyon E) Bobby Seay
D
But he let in all of Rodney’s runs in the game in Chicago and got a blown save and nearly a loss.
Also I wouldn’t want to jinx him. June ain’t over. Still for the most part he hasn’t been as sucky (excluding that game) the last few weeks.
I could live with the defensive updgrade at short, and obviously we’ve upgraded defensively at third with Inge. Catcher I’m even ok with a good catch and throw player. It’s the corners in the outfield that I think we’re suffering on. This isn’t 1985 with the Cardinals here where they create havoc on the bases and are other worldly defensively, these guys while solid defenisvely (Anderson, Thomas) bring nothing to the table offensively. In a perfect world, get a corner outfielder with some pop, who’s not a complete hack defensively. In previous years, a Reggie Sanders type guy. I’d also lead off Polanco, bat Magglio second (though his double play propensity worries me, but his OBP has remained solid), Granderson third, Cabrera 4th, Thames at DH 5th, Inge 6th, and the new bat 7th with Laird and Everett/Santiago to end it off. I prefer to maximize the at bats with my best hitters, and I do like the idea of Granderson hitting in the middle of the order. If the new player was a left handed hitter, all the better. With our lack of talent that we can afford to deal from the system, we’d have to get a salary dump player, problem is it’s hard to imagine Illitch giving the ok to that with so much dead weight on the books (Robertson, Willis, Sheffield…), but since it’s not my money…
Everyone should bear in mind that if we make the postseason, we only need 4 starting pitchers. I realize that making the postseason is a big if, but I think we should focus on upgrades that will help in July and in October.
For my money that means a back-up catcher and a slugging corner outfielder. For catcher, anyone is better than Sardinha. I recommend at least giving Dusty Ryan an audition. This isn’t a position worth spending too much on.
For corner outfielder, that person might be Carlos Guillen. It also might be Jeff Larish. Luke Scott or Nick Markakis would be perfect, although I wouldn’t give up anything greater than Ryan Perry to get him. (To me, W. Ramirez is more valuable than Perry.)
I probably just contradicted myself. We don’t need a back-up catcher in October either (although we will need a fresh Gerald Laird). I recommend focusing on a slugging leftfielder who can be had cheaply for a 1/2-season rental.
Assuming
1) JV, EJax and Ricky are healthy
2) are as effective (or close) to what they have been
We need at least one more solid starter in my opinion. Way more than an average or so-so LF.
Why don’t they bring up Lucas French and Brooks Brown?
I would back a move to get Eric Hinske.
Where do you get the 5-7 run prevention number?
Even if that were the case, the only thing about him that doesn’t rate well above average is the arm strength. He has fantastic range, fantastic instincts, fantastic accuracy and fantastic hands.
Still looking at his contract, I’m not sure if I want him anymore.
In the Wins Above Replacement stat, there’s a positional adjustment given in runs. SS’s get a 7.5 run bonus and 2B/3B get a 2.5 run bonus. So, it’s about 5 runs difference between the two positions.
And even throwing numbers out of it completely: SS is the more demanding position. While someone is an above-average fielder at 2nd, it doesn’t translate 100% to the SS position. There will be a defensive dropoff because of going to a tougher position. It’s why guys move from SS to 2nd base, not the other way around (rarely happens).
I’d like to see how Don Kelly plays out little longer. His power isn’t much, but he really deserved this call-up after what he done in Toledo so far this year.
In 52 games, he had 0 errors defensively. Offensively he stole 14 bases, had 16 extra base hits, had a .339 AVG, with a .407 OBP, .475 SLG, and a .882 OPS. He just might be the perfect lead-off hitter that we’ve been looking for to take over for Granderson.
This line-up might work-
LF Kelly
2B Polanco/Santiago
RF Ordonez
1B Cabrera
CF Granderson
DH Thames
3B Inge
C Laird
SS Everett/Santiago
–
I’d be willing to sacrifice some defense for some offense. There’s no point to having the best defense in all of baseball if the offense only scores two or three runs a game. Pitching can’t be lights out every night.
Of course if you would have posed a similar question last season, the first non-pitcher shipped out would have been the one guy on top of both the fielding and hitting lists this season (Inge, who according to Fangraphs is worth approximately Cabrera + Polanco at this point).
Well, OK, the second, but I wasn’t counting ham sandwiches.
Don Kelly is the quintessential 4-A player. He can’t get at-bats on a contender.
That’s what they use to say about Keith Lockhart. Next to Keith Hernandez, he was one of my favorite players. 😆
He was my 3rd favorite Lockhart, behind Spider Lockhart and June Lockhart.
I think 2 problems with our offense, one obvious and one less so, are the number of pitches they see and starting games slowly (and both these become part of the Easy Start which we give other pitchers).
Take a look at Tiger 1st inning stats sometime…Runs (11 of 14) OPS (14 of 14) Walks (13 of 14) Hits (12 of 14) SB (11 of 14)…oh, but GIDP, we’re 1st in that (11, AL avg 5.1). So we don’t get on base and when we do, we’re likely to follow up with the GIDP. A starter’s gotta love the easy 1st inning, to be followed by the 1st pitch swinging.
Along those lines if we are going to add a bat I can think of worse types than a good leadoff hitter. Granderson’s solid stats mask the fact that he is very poor as a leadoff hitter the times he is actually, you know, leading off.
Here’s how we begin games with Granderson: .146 / .239 / .244 (.483 OPS) 5 BB / 13 K 4 R – that’s only 4 1st inning runs in 41 games, easily the lowest among AL leadoff hitters. And 1 was on his leadoff HR. DET overall totals are .504 OPS and 5 runs, so the other guys leading off haven’t done much better.
Of course we aren’t likely to see Granderson leading off much, since Leyland pronounced Granderson would be moving back to the leadoff spot…
I wonder if playing Rayburn so much lately means the Tigers are dangling him out there as trade bait…
After reading all these posts, I really think Perry is our best trade bait. His tools and age make him very attractive to any team. He should be able to get us a solid starter or corner infielder. I’m looking to land a guy like Adam Dunn, or a starter like Aaron Harang.
What I would do right now is outright release or put Willis on the DL and move Miner into the fifth starter’s role. I’d ride out Galarraga a bit longer because he’s been good as recently as April for us. Knapp needs to make Armando his #1 priority and get this guy back to where he was in 2008 and April of 2009. If Galarraga can get back to pitching like he previously did for us (or something reasonably close), that would shore things up far more than a hitter. Free Miner from the bullpen!
Immediately: The backup catcher scenario needs to be altered, fast, and Willis has got to go. Other than that, hold steady until the deadline (or until Minnesota pulls even) and hope to heck that Maggs, Cabrera, Polanco return to form, and that Thames adds even more pop to this lineup.
I almost typed “poop” there instead of “pop,” which, sadly, might have actually been more appropriate.
Dunn? Bring him on. I would love to be able to cheer for a guy whose nickname is “Donkey.”
it’s a long season guys….but one thing about baseball remains a fact. Its all about pitching and defense. The rest will fall into place!