Tigers option Sizemore and Scherzer – Guillen to play 2B

The Tigers have optioned Scott Sizemore and Max Scherzer to Toledo. In their place come Armando Galarraga and Danny Worth. Worth wasn’t on the 40 man roster so his contract was purchased.

The Galarraga move isn’t the least bit surprising, he was the scheduled starter. The fact that the Tigers think Scherzer isn’t close enough to correcting his problems in side sessions is pretty telling and disappointing.

Also disappointing has been Sizemore’s performance offensively where he hasn’t been able to find that line drive stroke that produced an 889 OPS between AA and AAA last year.

Danny Worth was drafted by the Tigers in 2007 and his defense earned him a quick assignment at Lakeland. The question all along has been his bat. Worth is OPS’ing .665 for Toledo this year so it hasn’t exactly blossomed. My guess is this is a chance for Sizemore to fix some things while putting some pressure on Adam Everett as the defensive specialist.

Also, it should be noted that Worth was selected over Brent Dlugach who has very similar rate stats (673 OPS this year) but who is striking out at an epic rate with 52 K’s in 149 at-bats.

Also factoring into the middle infield situation is the fact that Carlos Guillen will need  a spot in a couple weeks and Brennan Boesch is playing too well to sit. Guillen has begun taking infield at both second base and shortstop.

UPDATE: Carlos Guillen will be the regular second baseman when he comes off the DL. When was the last season without a major position shift for Guillen?

36 thoughts on “Tigers option Sizemore and Scherzer – Guillen to play 2B”

  1. I like them doing what they can to put the best 9 guys out there, and sending a message that if you’re not getting the job done, you will be replaced.

  2. im not so sure….are you afraid Guillen is going to have more errors than Sizemore? Doesnt he lead the league in E’s?
    He brings an upgrade with the bat (switch no less) and IMO an even swap on defense.
    Gets my approval stamp.

  3. Excellent move! Adds another bat to the lineup, gives another young player a chance to surprise management, and Scherzer out of the starting rotation. Just imagine if Galarraga can get back close to his 14 win year? This could be the change that sets the Tigers running! At a boy DD.

  4. There’s more to defense than errors, and yeah I think it’s possible that Guillen does make more errors than Sizemore anyway.

    Also, 2B is the most injury prone position on the diamond, and Guillen the most injury prone player, soooooooo……

  5. so you woukd rather go with no defense/offense over no defense/great offense? I really dont get the problem here…if guillen reinjures himself, they can pull a revamped sizemore back up.

    The potential upside outweighs the small chance scott couldve improved everything on his own.

  6. You expect Guilen to come back and hit some so you have to find a place for him and second is the only viable option. Boesch is playing too well to have him sit and this improves the overall team. And Bilfer is correct in that this gives the team a look at Worth and see what he can do to pressure Everett and possibly take his job if he can outperform him.

    1. This also can signify that the team isn’t going to sit back and wait on players. The win and the moves are going to be what everyone is talking about but Willis has got to be on life support right now. The team is having to know that they will probably need 5 innings from the pen in his starts and they can’t keep up this pace all season. The season is still early enough for Bonine to get in the rotation and we have many choices that can come fill that right hand spot in the pen from Toledo.

  7. I heard the news about Sizemore and Scherzer on the radio on the way home from the game tonight. That’s too bad about Sizemore. I figured there’d be ups and downs, just as there can sometimes be with rookies, but I really thought he’d hit at the MLB level. I hope that he get things turned in Toledo so that he can come back up and prove me right.

    I was surprised to hear that Worth got the call over Dlugach, but after reading that about Dlugach’s strikeouts, maybe it’s for the best that Dlugach stays down there.

    I wasn’t sure what to make of Scherzer after the trade was announced, and I guess I’m even less sure what to make of him now.

  8. Oh, and the idea of Guillen playing second base just seems like something that might’ve come out of the Twilight Zone. There’s just something that rings weird about that.

    1. Oddly enough, it’s an idea I’ve seen discussed several times right here on the DTW comments over the last week. Of course, some might call this the twilight zone, so… You may have a point.

  9. Wow, just wow. I think it’s awesome that they are making such frequent roster changes with the Toledo squad. They are starting to make great use of both rosters.

    I’m glad that they plan on doing whatever it takes to keep Boesch in the line-up when Guillen comes back. Get Guillen 3 or 4 AB’s each game, and then we put in a defensive replacement for him. They got to do something to get more hitting in the starting line-up. We can probably get away with sacrificing some defense early in the games.

    Ultimately, I want to see Sizemore moved to 3rdbase. Inge needs some competition at 3B or be gone. He doesn’t deserve to have 3B locked up the way he’s been playing.

    Scherzer needed to be sent down. He’s got 10 days before we’ll probably need him again. Hopefully he’s rested and fixed by then.

    1. I agree that MS only needs some fine tuning to get his pitching where it should be and we will see him back sooner than later.

  10. In 2011, Guillen will be moved to peanut vendor.
    He is almost 35, he’s always hurt, and he’s played 12 games at second in his career. This is crazy talk! I mean as long as we’re being crazy, move Inge to second and have Guillen play third.

    1. For all the issues with keeping Guillen healthy and finding him a permanent spot on the field, it’s worth remembering that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the man can hit. He’s well above a league-average hitter, and he’s usually a tough out. He’s got a great deal of baseball intelligence, and I like him at second a whole lot better than at third. And he’s already proven he can no longer play short.

      When Guillen arrived in Detroit, the word on him was: Great player, if he can stay healthy. That’s proven true over many years here: A pro, and a solid hitter when healthy. But as injury-prone as any baseball player I’ve ever seen.

      I sure hope the hammy is really healed. 3-4 weeks isn’t really that much time for healing a 35-year-old hamstring.

  11. To kick the fire ant bed, I’d like to see Willis do a stint in Toledo as last night’s performance was pathetic and almost cost the Tigers the game. If he doesn’t have the flu, he is throwing balls. At least Scherzer throws strikes. And now a few months into the season, Willis is starting to think about his game, which hurts him!

    1. I’m giving DW the benefit of the doubt that he didn’t have his full strength back yet because of the mystery flu. Let’s see what happens next start and then make a judgement

  12. It looks like the Tigers feel Carlos added offense to the line-up outweighs his defensive shortcomings and I myself like the moves. It sends a message to the guys that if you are not producing you can be replaced. Also these moves will lite a fire under the team and make them more competitive in the long run…… and we can blow right by Minny

  13. this should be interesting…

    Boesch won’t continue to hit like this and is likely to slow down dramatically as teams get a scouting report on him. Hopefully by then Sizemore will have figured things out again so they can call him back up and move Guillen back to left.

    Until then, let’s get the best 9 bats in the lineup and see what happens.

    1. Get a scouting report on him? I thought the general consensus here was that it was BABIP, Warp, Zorp and whatever other alphabet soup concoction that dictates a player’s rise and fall. A scouting report? Useless!

      Newsflash: Brennan Boesch is not going to hit .380 the rest of the year. He will also not slug close to .700 the rest of the year. He will “regress” or “slow down” numbers wise, and it won’t be his saber-mat numbers that dictate it: it will be the law of averages and scouting. But that doesn’t mean he will “struggle” as I have read here, and thus need to be platooned. Anyone who has played the game knows this kid has the tools to be successful, maybe even very successful, in the Show. Let’s enjoy the ride.

      1. And seriously, what is it with this crush on Sizemore? So you are saying you expect Boesch to struggle to the point that it will make us move Guillen to left to replace him, and then bring up “Slugger” Sizemore to play second again? What has Slugger done in the Show to shower this praise on him? What I have seen is that he would struggle to hit himself out of a wet paper bag. Maybe he needs to be sent down to get his bearings and come back up, but he is not even a serviceable big leaguer at the moment.

      2. Who are you flailing against? It is the scouts, those baseball people who have played and lived the game, are the ones who have questioned his potential beyond power. They are the ones who talk of holes in his swing that can be exploited.

        As for law of averages, that is what us saber people have been talking about. Regression to the mean is another way of saying law of averages. You’re managing to swipe at two different schools of thought with disgust without accurately portraying either argument.

        1. Every player has holes in his swing. That doesn’t mean that they are going to struggle to the point they are going to be platoon players. Some players take some seasoning in the minors before they can come up and be good, if not great, players. As an example, Ryan Howard did not make the big leagues until he was 26, one of those players with “holes in his swing” and “strikes out too much” with no appreciation of the strike zone. Today, he is not a bad player.

          Saber-mat stats are not the be-all end-all. Like most economists I know and work with, they tend to believe that their models are fool-proof; that is the examples being used, not their formulas, that are incorrect when their numbers don’t add up. It is a tool, and a fun one to use, but to throw those numbers out there, and to say that AS A RESULT of those numbers this person is going to do X,Y and Z is putting the cart before the horse.

          And the law of averages I am referring to is the basic average that has been used ever since they started keeping track of baseball stats: batting average. Boesch will not bat .380 simply because it is rare for anyone to bat that. But that does not mean once his numbers start coming down that he has crapped the bed and needs to be platooned. It is the natural regression that takes place with every player. Let’s stop and see what we have in front of us before we start picking him apart and throw him on the heap pile.

          1. I still don’t get what your point is.

            Saber-mat stats are not the be-all end-all. Like most economists I know and work with, they tend to believe that their models are fool-proof; that is the examples being used, not their formulas, that are incorrect when their numbers don’t add up. It is a tool, and a fun one to use, but to throw those numbers out there, and to say that AS A RESULT of those numbers this person is going to do X,Y and Z is putting the cart before the horse.

            So you don’t like models yet you go on to say:

            And the law of averages I am referring to is the basic average that has been used ever since they started keeping track of baseball stats: batting average. Boesch will not bat .380 simply because it is rare for anyone to bat that.

            So you’re employing a model there as well.

            I don’t disagree with this and I agree. I doubt that Boesch’s true talent level is that of a .350+ hitter. As time goes on his numbers will approach his true talent level, whatever that happens to be.

            I guess I just don’t see where people are picking him apart. They just don’t expect him to keep up this pace. Whatever anyone’s expectation is for his talent level is what they should expect him to hit going forward. Conversely, he is clearly a standard deviation or some above his true talent level right now and performance a standard deviation below that talent level for 100 PA’s wouldn’t be out of the norm either.

            So why the rant on sabermetrics when nobody has even introduced that into the discussion beyond what you’ve already said? And if you don’t like sabermetrics why don’t you like what talent evaluators have to say?

            Who is picking him apart? I think most are just happy with what he’s doing so far while recognizing it isn’t sustainable.

            1. Again, of course it is not sustainable what he is doing. But it does not take a Rob Neyer model or retrospective to state the obvious.

              It seems from a variety of posts that people expect Boesch to drop to the point that he will be just a platoon player and really nothing more; that he will cool off to the point as the poster I responded to wrote that Guillen then will move back to left field and Sizemore will take over in what is in his mind his rightful place at second base. There is this inherent fatalism that I read in these posts–that Boesch’s hot streak is just that; that he will fall back to earth and be nothing more than some guy we throw up against righties. Maybe it is because he was a call-up during the season, instead of starting out the season up in the Show like Jackson and Sizemore, I don’t know, but this kid has shown flashes of brilliance that you normally don’t see in rookies. Maybe it is because we are not use to players like this coming up thru our farm system (outside of pitchers) and maybe it it because we have been burned in the past with hot streaks, just to watch them cool off and wither away (anyone see Chris Shelton lately?). But I just don’t see it with this kid–from the looks of him and his make-up, we may have a star on our hands.

              The reason I am including the sabermetric stuff in this is because like those who are foretelling his regression, in sabermetrics there is this sense of fatalism–that whoever is doing well, there is some sort of alphabet soup model that will explain it all away, that this player will never be as good as he looks. The sabermetrics are fun to play with and they do serve a purpose, but they are not a substitute to what you see of a player when he is actually playing rather than his box scores.

              And on these pages, all too often there are certain players that are favored (e.g., Sizemore) that people seem to try to view in a positive light and explain away his flaws. In essence, almost the opposite in what those who employ sabermetrics do with a guy like Boesch. But anyone who has grown up with baseball, and maybe even had the chance to play at a high level, knows by watching Sizemore that you can throw his numbers in a variety of models to get your favored results but the reality is that he is an average second baseman at the very best.

      3. A scouting report is not useless….depending on the scout. Some are better than others. The good ones see the potential.

  14. just a good move all these millionaires get a big pay check whether they get the job done or not …this sends a message that if you don’t produce riding a bus is way different that flying on Red Wing 1……I just wish we had a catcher somewhere in the minors

  15. “we may have a star on our hands.” And I don’t mean Ryan Braun or Andre Elthier necessarily, but a potential borderline all-star.

    And to put some hard numbers to that to avoid any sort of confusion with my point: .285-.305, 25-35 HR, 95-115 RBIs is a star for a corner outfielder in my book for the post-steroids era in baseball. See Ryan Braun 32 114 .320.

    If Boesch turns out those type of numbers, I would be elated. That is obviously a steep decline in what he is on pace/doing now.

    1. IMO, right now Boesch is like Luke Scott, but only playing for us, instead of against us. I’m just too amazed with what he’s currently doing to be concerned about his past or future. Surf’s up. Ride the wave your in as long as you can.

  16. I was hoping for these moves, but was surprised at how quickly they happened and that they occured at the same time. The speediness of the moves is encouraging.
    The Worth call-up was a real shot out of the blue though.

    I am guessing they stick with Willis for the time being, but the one question I have is how much rope does Avila have left.

    Guillen at 2B – why not? And he is taking balls at SS as well. With time in LF, 3B and 1B in the recent past, perhaps he will take over the super-sub role if being the regular 2B turns out to be temporary (Sizemore would have to return and I am not convinced that will happen any time soon).

    1. IMO, Lloyd McClendon should be the guy with the shortest rope. It becomes a coaching staff problem when we got 7 guys who can’t hit their way out of a slump.

          1. That doesn’t make much sense. He’s been sober for about 20 years. Josh Hamilton can’t even say that. If there is something more to it, then he shouldn’t be coaching in the minor leagues either.

          2. Just out of curiosity, how is Durham’s situation different than McGuire’s?

      1. He seems to be doing OK with Jackson, Damon, Odonez, Cabrera, Boesch and maybe even Santiago.

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