Jim Leyland has come out on several occasions and said that Jeremy Bonderman is one of the keys to any success the Tigers might enjoy in 2008. Bonderman’s second half swoon, which I attribute largely to his elbow pain that he finally fessed up to, clouded what was starting out to be a phenomenal season. An ERA of 8.50 over his last 9 starts, combined with the arm troubles meant that Bonderman finished with the highest ERA and lowest innings total since his rookie season. Like with Dontrelle Willis, we’ll delve into the pitch f/x data and see what we can find out about the veteran 25 year old pitcher.

What does he throw

Jeremy Bonderman throws 2 flavors of fastballs, a nasty slider, and the very occasional change-up. I used K-means clustering on the horizontal and vertical movement parameters, and the velocity to classify the pitches. The relative frequencies and mean velocity are listed below:

And the following graph shows the movement of Bonderman’s pitches from the catcher’s perspective in inches.

Both fastballs tail away from left handed hitters, with the 2 seamer having more lateral movement. The slider drops about 2 feet and dives away from the right handed hitter. I’m actually a little surprised that we don’t see more horizontal movement on the pitch. The change-up is hardly thrown, especially in relation to the number of stories that come out each year about it’s development.

Part of the problem with the change-up is that he doesn’t get enough downward movement on the pitch, because it ends up more like a batting practice fastball. Mike Fast when working with pitch f/x data likes to calculate the spin rate. Looking through Fast’s past work where he’s done these calculations, the spin rate for a change-up is in the range of 1500, give or take a few hundred depending on the pitcher. In the case of Bonderman his mean spin rate is 2155. As a point of comparison the spin rate on Bonderman’s fastballs are 2333 for the 2 seam and 2421 for the 4 seamer. The more backspin, the less sink so Bonderman’s change-up isn’t really behaving like a change-up.

Where does he throw it?

The scatterplots below show the pitch location, by pitch, from the catcher’s perspective. Each pitch has a graph for the pitches thrown to left handers and right handers. Reference lines are drawn such that the resulting box corresponds with a typical strike zone. So 0 on the horizontal axis represents the center of home plate and 0 on the vertical axis represents, well, the ground.

The slider is the bread and butter pitch where Bonderman gets the most swings and misses, many of which take place well outside of the strike zone. He also gets a fair number of called strikes right on the third base side black as the ball swings back – or at least fools the umpire enough into thinking that it is.

the 4 seam fastball is the one that Bonderman seems to have the most trouble controlling. Either by design or by accident, it seems to be up more than his other pitches.

The 2 seam fastball is typically bearing in on the right handers and tailing away from the left handers. From watching Jeremy the last several years, his ability to harness that tailing action will often dictate the good starts from the bad starts.


Bonderman hardly throw the change-up to right handers, and hardly throws it period with the pitch only about 5% of his arsenal. If you’re interested int he full size graph feel free to click the thumbnail.

If you prefer a tabular view, that is included as well here:

Left Handed Batters

Right Handed Batters

Those second half woes

Delving into this analysis I thought I’d be able to turn up something really cool regarding Bonderman’s second half struggles. Maybe a consistent failure to locate a pitch, or his slider flattening out and not biting. There had to be some graphical evidence of whatever caused Bonderman to go from striking out 4 batters for every free pass he issued to walking a batter every other inning and allowing 8 homers in his final 48 innings of the season. Alas I have nothing.

I fail to see any discernible changes in pitch location when looking before and after his 7/13 start against the Mariners.

In terms of movement, graphically it showed nothing so I went with the hard measurements below. Pfxx is horizontal movement, adjpfx_vert is vertical movement, and adj_start_speed is velocity.

Results for Pitch = 4seam 

Variable         Pre-Post    Mean  StDev
pfxx             1st Half  -7.528  1.610
                 2nd Half  -7.310  1.939

adjpfx_vert      1st Half  -7.596  1.504
                 2nd Half  -7.866  1.721

adj_start_speed  1st Half  93.220  1.143
                 2nd Half  92.865  1.460

Results for Pitch = Change 

Variable         Pre-Post     Mean  StDev
pfxx             1st Half   -9.109  1.255
                 2nd Half   -8.937  2.075

adjpfx_vert      1st Half  -14.172  2.403
                 2nd Half  -13.016  2.154

adj_start_speed  1st Half   84.264  1.691
                 2nd Half   85.464  1.637

Results for Pitch = Slider 

Variable         Pre-Post     Mean   StDev
pfxx             1st Half    1.104   1.317
                 2nd Half   0.2258  1.5330

adjpfx_vert      1st Half  -18.720   1.673
                 2nd Half  -20.017   2.537

adj_start_speed  1st Half   84.598   1.456
                 2nd Half   83.409   1.967

The differences are minimal, and given the newness of the system and the various stadium deployments I’d consider the bulk of this as random variation. The only possible change would be the slider which had more drop and less horizontal movement in the second half, perhaps an indication it isn’t quite as tight?

Also notice that there weren’t appreciable changes in velocity, which is good news from a shoulder health perspective.

Outlook

Once again we head into a season wondering if this will be the year for Bonderman. Last year I really thought that “this was it” because of the way he threw for the first 100 plus innings. People like to point to the lack of a legitimate 3rd pitch as a real limiter for Bonderman. His success early on last year shows that either the change-up was legitimate, or he doesn’t in fact need the 3rd pitch. What he does need is health.

Bonderman will only be 25 this season, but has over 900 major league innings on his right arm. Twice now he has suffered tenderness in his elbow late in the season. Will this be a recurring problem? Only time will tell. But until Bonderman can put together a full season people will continue to question 1. his stuff, 2. his ability, 3. his mental toughness, etc. He does appear to be pretty ripped coming into camp this year and he’s sporting a new tattoo, so he’s got that going for him.

One final note, I know you’ve read several pages now with no mention of Bonderman’s first inning struggles. You know the struggles. A quarter of the runs Bonderman has allowed in his career have come in the first inning. The thing is, when I wrote my program to parse the data and build my pitch database I neglected to grab the inning. The reason for this: I’m an idiot. Changing the code is easy enough to have things re-parsed. But everything after that point becomes time consuming, so it ain’t happening right now. Sorry.

On Friday Lynn Henning wrote a detailed look at Dontrelle Willis with a heavy emphasis on scouting. I found the article fascinating from the stand point of getting a better understanding of Willis’s repertoire as well as the thought processes that went along with approving the deal for the lefty. He was after all coming off a pretty rough year. I also viewed it as a chance to dust off that pitch f/x database I’ve had sitting dormant and explore whether or not the reports meshed with what the system had reported.

A little background

As a precursor, pitch f/x is a system deployed during the 2006 playoffs, and subsequently throughout MLB over the course of the 2007 season. It captures the velocity and trajectory of a pitch using several cameras and a lot of math. I wrote several articles using data from the system during the course of last season. Since the last time I delved into the data, there has been a ton of analysis done. Joe Sheehan, Dan Fox, John Walsh and others have cranked out some awesome stuff using this. But Mike Fast has really taken to the data and not only has bookmarked all the research to date, but has conducted a considerable amount on his own. I mention Fast so much because I borrowed heavily from his methods and I am very grateful.

The system wasn’t in place at all stadiums for the full season. The bulk of the data presented below was captured from seven starts, all of which came from July forward.

What does he throw?

From Henning:

His repertoire is as unique as his delivery. While his sinking, two-seam fastball is conventional, Willis throws a breaking ball that is not quite an overhand curve, and not a slider. It is closer to a “10-to-4″ curveball than a classic, diving “12-to-6″ breaking pitch.

His best weapon in the estimation of Wiley is Willis’ version of a change-up. It’s an off-speed fastball that cruises from 84-87 mph with tremendous sink.

Henning also notes that Willis’s 4 seamer tops out at 93 to 94.

Using a process called K-means clustering I went into Dontrelle’s pitch f/x data and grouped pitches by similarity of velocity and movement. The results are displayed graphically below:

The graph is from the catcher’s perspective and represents the movement that a hitter would see on Willis’s pitches including gravity. So Willis’s curve-ish slider dives towards the feet of right handed batters.

The 2-seam fastball has a little more sink than the straighter 4-seamer with both tailing into the left handed batter. The change-up does appear to tumble as described, with more sink than the 2-seamer but less lateral movement.

A tabular view including the average velocity is below:

This seems to reason check as well. An average heater in the low 90’s with the sinker a couple ticks slower. The change-up is on the lower end of what the scout explained, but that could be my issue. The number of breaking pitches seems pretty low, and the difference between the change and slider is pretty small mathematically. There’s a decent chance that I’ve misclassified some of the sliders as change-ups, dropping the overall velocity of the pitch.

Where does he throw it?

Dontrelle had problems with location last year.

He must be able to spot his four-seam fastball, which tops out at 93-94 mph. In particular, he must be able to throw it high and tight to right-handed hitters.

When Willis misses — and he missed a lot last year when that same fastball swung back across the plate — the ball can end up on a ride into the seats.

“His location was not nearly as good last year,” Russell said. “He was a little off as far as being able to pitch inside (to right-handed hitters). Last year, he was more middle-out, much more than he had normally been.

We can also take a look at where Willis was throwing to last year, and how that differentiated for left and right handed batters. Below is the graph for the 4-seam fastball. The pane on the left is for left handed hitters, and the pane on the right is right handed hitters. The center box in each pane is an approximation of the strike zone.

There certainly doesn’t appear to be a trend of jamming the right handed hitters with the 4 seamer, and when it was on the inner half of the plate it was put in play -with considerable success. Right handed batters against the 4-seam fastball hit .404 when putting the ball in play. Below is a table with the outcomes of each pitch to right handers.

Right Handed Batters

And now for the left handers, of which there weren’t many that faced Dontrelle.

Left Handed Batters

For the sake of completeness, here are the pitch location graphs for Willis’s other 3 pitches as well.

Willis keeps the 2-seamer away from both lefties and righties.

But he comes inside with the change-up to right handers. Again, some of those maybe sliders. And speaking of the slider, Willis doesn’t throw it in the strike zone a whole lot, but he manages to get a decent number of strikes via swings and misses

Staying ahead

By missing spots, the thought was that Willis was pitching from behind and having to go more fastball heavy.

He pitched behind in the count too many times and got into fastball counts.

Turning our attention to pitch count we see that Willis was throwing more pitches behind in the count than in a pitchers count.

And graphically…

When behind in the count, Willis goes to one of his fastballs nearly 80% of the time. It keeps him from throwing the breaking pitch, which is quite effective but hard to control. In fact he only seems to go to the pitch with any consistency when he has two strikes. Also worth noting is the reliance on the fastball to start off an at-bat as well. The 85% fastball rate on first pitches is only surpassed when the count is 3-1.

As for whether pitching behind is new for Willis, it is. At least to a certain extent. In 2004 and 2005 Willis was staying ahead of the hitters. In 2006 it tipped the other way and last year was the widest gap.

Pitches thrown when Ahead/Even/Behind in the Count

Conclusions

Everything works out. The scouts validate the data and the data validates the scout – or at least the two are reasonable consistent. Any issues at the end of the year didn’t appear to be velocity related – at least as far the pitch f/x data reveals. This is consistent with the scouting reports. The issues seem to be centered squarely on control. I don’t know that his pitches were any more hittable than in past years, just that he ended up in less desirable situations because he wasn’t able to locate like he had in the past.

Whether this was due to a change in mechanics, a subconscious reaction to a poor defense, or the result of some arm pain remains to be seen. The challenge for Chuck Hernandez and Willis is to regain that control. It will be interesting to see how quickly Hernandez can get comfortable diagnosing and working with Dontrelle’s unorthodox delivery. Or perhaps there will be something to the change of scenery and playing in front of a full house. Still, given the 3 years the Tigers committed to Willis I have to believe they have a handle on the situation and are confident it can be corrected.

For the last few seasons, sabermetrician Tom Tango has conducted a defensive survey called The Fans Scouting Report. I’ve mentioned it in the past, and I’m sure that some of you participated. Essentially fans rate players on a variety of traits. I’m not going to rehash how the Tigers did because Lee has covered that already. I’m going to focus on Brandon Inge (because it’s always good for traffic and comment numbers) and how he can be expected to fare as he moves all over the diamond this summer.

When fans are instructed to fill out the survey, they are told to make their evaluations independent of position. For example don’t compare Curtis Granderson’s speed to that of other center fielders. Compare him to all baseball players. This is relevant because Tango has developed a system to weight the different traits based on their importance to a given position.

The traits that are evaluated are instincts, first step, speed, hands, release, throwing strength, and throwing accuracy. In the case of Inge he rated as follows:

Instincts: 83
First Step: 83
Speed: 68
Hands: 73
Release: 75
Arm Strength: 91
Throwing Accuracy: 62

To give you a feel for the scale, an average player rates as 50 and one standard deviation is 20 points meaning that two-thirds of the league fall in between 30 and 70. If a player is above 70 he’s in the top 16%.

As you can see, and it’s no surprise, Inge rates as a top flight defender in most categories and his overall position neutral score is 77. Inge’s rating was across 53 ballots making for a decent sample size. Tango also provides an agreement score to see how much variation there is in ballots. Inge’s score was .75 and the norm was .71 meaning that most fans thought along the same lines.

But given Inge’s skill set, where is he best suited to play? Applying the weightings to Inge’s scores it shakes out like this:

Catcher: 78
First Base: 76
Second Base: 80
Shortstop: 78
Third Base: 78
Left Field: 77
Center Field: 77
Right Field: 77

Basically he has the skills to succeed anywhere on the field. I’m a little surprised to see second base come on out on top, but the differences are so small it doesn’t really make too much of a difference. The fact that Inge doesn’t really rate poorly in any area provides for the remarkable consistency at each position. He only really gets penalized at first base where his strongest trait, his arm strength, doesn’t carry much weight.

Now some caveats on the fans survey, it’s all subjective. It’s clearly not a perfect system but as more data is gathered the more I tend to trust it. There are other limitations, like the fact that the intention is that the ratings should be observation based and not stat based. It’s tough to separate the two, and many of the people going to the site are at least stat-aware. So don’t view this as the be all, end all because it’s not. It’s just one more attempt at getting a better understanding of defensive value.

As an aside, I also ran Miguel Cabrera’s numbers through the weighting. Keep in mind that there were only 9 ballots turned in (not a lot of Marlins fans out there which is why he and Dontrelle Willis are Tigers in the first place). Interestingly enough, Cabrera’s skills have him best suited as a third baseman with a score of 49. As an outfielder he only rates as a 38.

A look back at the year that was 2007 here at the Detroit Tigers Weblog…

January

• The Tigers inked Timo Perez and Bobby Seay. Seay would turn out to be pretty good while who could have fathomed the consternation Timo would cause.
• I began writing more than most cared to know about first pitch swinging and other stuff about plate appearances.
• Tigerfest is a sell out, and really cold.
• Jim Leyland calls out Neifi Perez, in what would be the beginning of a tumultuous year.

February

• The Tigers flipped Jeff Frazier for Yorman Bazardo.
• We get historical and look at the worst offensive seasons of all time.
• Spring Training kicks off.
• Everybody is worried about Curtis Granderson’s strike outs.

March

• A bunch of hit batters in spring training? Benches clear in a scrimmage against the Red Sox.
• Leyland announces that Pudge will bat leadoff against lefties. It wouldn’t last long.
• Kenny Rogers has a blood clot. The first of many injuries to come.
• The Tigers sign their first baseman of the future, shortstop Carlos Guillen.

April

• It’s Opening Day! Bonderman gives up first inning runs and the bullpen loses the game in extra innings.
• The Tigers have some late game heroics as Pudge Rodriguez hits a 3 run homer in the 9th inning to earn a victory against the Royals.
• Jeremy Bonderman pitches a tremendous game against the Blue Jays but the Tigers come up short in extra innings.
• Simply horrible news as we find out that Tigers fan Brian Bluhm was among those killed in the tragedy at Virginia Tech.
• Polanco refuses to swing at anything he can’t make contact with.

May

• I go all the way to Kansas City to see the Tigers play, and Joel Zumaya’s finger explodes
• Hey look, another pitcher is injured. This time it’s Bonderman.
• Wil Ledezma has a hard time getting people out.
• Andrew Miller makes his first start and does pretty good.
• Fernando Rodney hits the DL.
• Brandon Inge breaks his toe, and starts to hit good.

June

• An auspicious start to the month as Todd Jones gets pulverized and Jim Leyland just lets him take as the Tigers lose a game they had no business losing.
• The Jose Mesa era ends quickly, but not quick enough.
• Nate Robertson joins the DL party. He’d later go on to nearly pitch a perfect game while rehabbing.
• The Tigers draft Rick Porcello. Ilitch gives the slot system the middle finger.
• The Tigers played an uneventful game against the Brewers. Well, uneventful for the Milwaukee hitters.
• Vance Wilson has Tommy John surgery, and Roman Colon breaks a teammate’s face.
• Two less members of the 2003 team are around as Ledezma and Mike Maroth get traded.

July

• The Tigers place 5 on the All Star team. Five and a half if you count Bonderman being one of the last chance guys.
• Neifi Perez gets suspended for testing positive for a stimulant
• The Tigers head into the All Star break on a 5 game win streak including a sweep of the Red Sox featuring some Pudge heroics and a Grandy homer saving catch.
• Bruce Froemming needs to retire.
• Guillermo Moscoso throws a perfect game for the Oneonta Tigers.
• People love them some Tigers as Detroit sets an attendance record.
• The Tigers stand pat at the trade deadline and avoid trading Cameron Maybin for 2 months of bullpen help.

August

• Mike Rableo – the anti-save
• Andrew Miller hits the DL.
• Jair Jurrjens makes his debut.
• Cameron Maybin makes his debut and a 3rd member of the 2003 team is traded. Coincidentally it was the Tigers last day in first place.
• The Tigers play the Yankees. The game is delayed 4 hours and of course goes to extra innings and Guillen hits a walk off. It was neat.

September

• Maggs wins player of the month honors for August. Just another month in an incredible season.
• The Tigers improbably blow another key game – this one in Oakland as Jack Hannahan comes back to get them.
• Jeremy Bonderman finally admits to elbow pain ending his season.
• Granderson gets his 20th stolen base securing the quad-20.
• The Tigers come back from 3 runs down with none on and 2 out in the 9th inning.
• A look at which Tigers are more prone to swinging at balls and taking strikes.
• The nail in the coffin.

October

• The Tigers bring back Pudge for 2009
• The Tigers move quick to resolve the shortstop situation and ship out Gorkys Hernandez and Jair Jurrjens for Edgar Renteria.

November

• Somewhere a butterfly flaps its wings, and Joel Zumaya needs surgery.
• I made one last trip to Tiger Stadium.
• The Tigers trade Omar Infante, a 4th member of the 03 team and get a left handed bat in Jacque Jones.
• The Tigers D according to PMR
• The Tigers bring back Boras-less Rogers.

December

• Holy Freakin Crap! and a lively debate ensues about Brandon Inge.
• The Chris Shelton era ends.
• A look at Comerica Park’s park factors

Site Info

Once again DTW saw substantial growth in 2007 and for that I offer sincere thanks to everyone who stopped by, subscribed to the feed, or linked to the site. For the year the site had 326,595 unique visitors and 613,209 page views according to stat counter. Those numbers were 217,986 and 449,751 last year. The biggest days in terms of visits were the 3 days around the Willis/Cabrera trade. Those days surpassed the other highest volume day which was in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech tragedy.

In terms of posting volume, there were 727 posts this year (728 including this one). And you the reader contributed 18,718 comments. The most commented on post was the 3:30 in the morning game with 440 comments. There are more stats available for your perusal here (I like stats, what can I say?)

Once again, thanks to everyone for another great year!

I just wanted to take a moment to wish everybody a happy and healthy holiday season. May you be safe in your travels.

For Tigers fans I think we’ve already received some pretty nice presents. Here’s hoping that Miguel Cabrera’s stocking gets stuffed with a nice fat contract extension in the not-too-distant future.

I also wanted to announce some Christmas presents to DTW readers. I’d like to say thank you to the top 3 commentors on the site in 2007 with a baseball book. First, here are the top 3 commentors ranked by volume:

1. Kathy (1214)
2. Mike R (1048)
3. stephen (926)

Starting in order they will get to choose between The Hardball Times Annual, The Soul of Baseball, and the yet-to-be-released Tigers Corner 2008.

Merry Christmas and the warmest wishes.

I didn’t really expect to be writing another post about Chad Durbin. Sure, I was going to include a link at some point that he had signed with the Phillies, but that was just going to be a bullet point. But while reading Bless You Boys this morning, it was brought to my attention that Durbin took time to swing by Roar of the Tigers and leave a comment.

You see, Samara took a liking to Durbin following his spectacular effort against the White Sox earlier in the year. Samara thought the effort and Durbin were “pimp” and as Samara does she created an image to that effect. It came became a running thing. With Durbin leaving, Samra did one last pimp for Chad Durbin. Chad left the following comment on the post:

Samara,

Thanks so much for the attention and virtual pimp status! My family informed me last year of the blog and it was certainly the focus of some fun-poking on my account. I understand baseball’s dynamics and realize that it is hard to find reasons to cheer for some of the obscure, forgettable players. There are more “forgettable players” out there than the stars…we all understand that much. I don’t have to defend the amount of tremendous success a baseball player must have to reach even the obscure status, either…because this was all in fun. Thanks for finding reasons to make us/me unique. The beauty of free media, right??

I’ll have to check in to see who the next pimptim is…best of luck! Oh yeah, to ease your mind on having to cheer against me…I’ll most likely be in the NL. Pittsburgh, Philly, NYMets…somewhere like that.

Chad Durbin

Very cool on Chad’s part and very cool for Samara as well. And while I posted the comment here, the real incentive for you to click through to Roar of the Tigers is the imagery itself.

We know Dontrelle Willis has the big leg kick and the bigger smile, but let’s take a graphical and statistical look at the Tigers newest starter.

The pitch selection

Using Josh Kalk’s pitch f/x tool we can look at the mix of pitches that Willis throws and the success he has with each pitch in his repertoire.

Willis has 2 fastballs, one with more sink and vertical movement – presumably a 2 seamer – that he throws most frequently. He also appears to have a 4 seam fastball which he doesn’t throw as often. He has an 86 MPH change up and an 80 MPH slider that makes it tough for lefties.

The 2007 struggles

Willis is coming off his roughest season. A season in which he was banged up but tried to pitch though it. The result was an ERA in excess of 5. What changed for Willis? It came down to walks and home runs.

Willis walked a career high 3.81 per nine innings pushing his K/BB rate down below 2.0 for the second consecutive season. However, it was all walks that attributed to the ratio as Willis has maintained a remarkably consistent strikeout rate throughout his career.

The other problem for Willis was a new career high in home runs. Never before had he given up more than 21 long balls in a season and last year he surrendered 29.

Willis had theh Marlins defense behind him which was generally regarded as awful. But when Willis was pitching Florida converted 14 more plays than expected to outs. Four of those plays were ones that Dontrelle made himself. But he didn’t suffer from bad luck necessarily and his fielding independent ERA was right in line with his actual ERA.

The homers

Both Dolphins Stadium and Comerica Park are pretty equal in terms of allowing home runs. Last year 14 of the 29 dingers that Willis allowed came at home, and surprisingly all 29 were hit by right handers.

With such a disparity you can imagine how many homers went to left, and it stands to reason that even without Willis changing anything, he may have better results next year with Comerica’s big left and centerfields.

The graph below was cobbled together from Hit Tracker Online. The blue dots are the home runs that Willis allowed last year, with Comerica parks’s dimensions super imposed on top. (also courtesy of Hit tracker online)

Of course Willis won’t be pitching exclusively at Comerica, but there are a fair number that would fall within the fences, and with Jacque Jones and Curtis Granderson manning the outfield some may be harmless outs.

Projections

Many of the projections for 2008 are in with Marcels, Chone, ZiPS, and Bill James now available.

The key elements are detailed in the table below:

The projection systems are remarkably consistent in their expectations for Willis having a bounce back season. The consistency in his strike out rate isn’t surprising given how steady it has been throughout his career, but the consistency in the other numbers is a surprise.

In all, the projections make me feel better about Dontrelle’s prospects than I did when looking at his ERA from last year. Granted, he’ll still have to deal with changing to the stronger league, but he still has a pretty good chance to be an above average 200 inning pitcher and those are pretty valuable.

A couple years back myself, Brian Borawski, and Ryan Sosin decided to try and unite the group of Tigers bloggers. We came up with an acronym and a logo and then we decided to vote on some year end awards. This is the 3rd year of DIBS awards. This year’s winners are Magglio Ordonez for player of the year, Justin Verlander as pitcher of the year, and Curtis Granderson as breakout player of the year. There’s more description in the press release below, but I’ll just say that I voted for all the winners.

The Detroit Independent Baseball Scribes
Established 2005

Press Release
Nov. 29, 2007
For immediate release

ORDONEZ NAMED TIGERS PLAYER OF YEAR
Verlander top pitcher, Granderson breakout player

DETROIT — The Detroit Independent Baseball Scribes are proud to announce the results of the 2007 DIBS Awards balloting.

DIBS (Detroit Independent Baseball Scribes) is a collection of independent Web sites that cover the Detroit Tigers. Formed by Brian Borawski, Bill Ferris and Ryan Sosin in 2005 with the idea of uniting a community of fans and writers, DIBS is focused on improving and promoting the quality sports coverage taking place on the internet.

Magglio Ordonez was selected by 14 of 16 DIBS voters as the player of the year. The Tigers’ right fielder finished second in Most Valuable Player balloting by baseball writers this season. His .434 on-base-percentage coupled with a .595 slugging (1.029 OPS) made Ordonez a force at the plate all season. He hit 28 home runs and 54 doubles to go with 139 RBI. Curtis Granderson received the remaining two first-place votes. His 20 stolen bases, 20 doubles, 20 triples, 20 home runs season put him in rare air, allowing him to join just Willie Mays and Frank “Wildfire” Schulte at the time. A left-handed center fielder, Granderson got on base a .361 rate and slugged .552 (.913OPS). Placido Polanco, who completed an errorless season at second base, placed third overall with two second-place votes an 11 third.

Right-handed starter Justin Verlander was the unanimous selection for Tigers pitcher of the year. His no-hitter pitched against Milwaukee June 12 is undoubtedly one of the highlights of the Tigers season, but he was consistent throughout the year and finished 18-6 with an ERA of 3.66 and 1.23 WHIP. He struck out 183 and walked 67 in 201-2/3 innings pitched. Closer Todd Jones finished runner-up with 10 second-place and one third-place votes. He made 38 saves in 44 chances (86.4 percent success) and had a 4.26 ERA and 1.42 WHIP. Left-handed middle reliever Bobby Seay placed third overall with two second-place and eight third-place votes. He had a 2.33 ERA and 1.14 WHIP. He struck out 38 and walked 15 in 46-1/3 innings pitched.

Granderson was also named breakout player of the year with nine of 16 first-place votes. Utilityman Ryan Raburn, called up from Triple-A Toledo in July, finished second in balloting with four first-place, four second-place and four third-place votes. He got on base at a .304 rate and slugged .507 (.847 OPS) while playing in 49 games. He had four home runs, 12 doubles, two triples and 27 RBI. Pitcher Jair Jurrjens, now a member of the Atlanta Braves organization after being included in a trade for shortstop Edgar Renteria, finished third in voting with one first-place vote, five second-place votes and five third-place votes. Jurrjens started seven games for the Tigers. His ERA was 4.70 to go with a 1.14 WHIP. He struck out 13 and walked 11 in 30-2/3 innings pitched. Receiving his first start Aug. 15, Jurrjens pitched a span of games from Aug. 21 to Sept. 16 where he gave up just one run per game.

The blogs that voted included:
Roar of the Tigers
Mack Avenue Tigers
Out of Bounds/Johnny Grubb
Wayne Fontes Experience
Daily Fungo
Detroit Tiger Tales
Bless You Boys
Motown Sports Revival
Leelanau Sports Guy
The Fanhouse
D Town Baseball
Take 75 North
Grandy Report
From the Copa
Detroit Tigers Weblog
Tigerblog

Over the last month or so, David Pinto has released the majority of his studies using his probabilistic model of range (PMR). Today we’ll delve into the Tigers defense using this advanced metric.

I’ve explained PMR in the past, but a refresher is probably worthwhile. The PMR model uses data play by play data collected by Baseball Info Solutions. Pinto uses 3 years of this data to find out the probability that a batted ball will be converted into an out. In doing this he accounts for the handedness of the batter and pitcher, the type of hit (grounder, fly, etc), how hard the ball was hit, and the direction the ball was hit. The beauty of the system is that it provides context to the data. Players who have harder to field opportunities get credit it for it. It also removes the subjectivity of an official scorers decision.

What the system doesn’t do is account for throwing ability for outfielders. So a Jacque Jones upgrade in range would be lessened by a weak throwing arm.

On to the data. The first table shows how the Tigers fared by position.

The column definitions are as follows:

• In Play: the total number of balls in play for the 2007 season against the Tigers
• Plays: the actual number of balls converted to outs by each position
• Exp Plays: the number of balls that would be expected to be converted to outs based on the aforementioned factors
• DER: Defensive efficiency ratio. Plays divided by In Play
• Exp DER: Calculated based on types of balls put in play. Used to produce Exp Plays.
• Rate: Plays divided by expected plays
• Runs: The runs saved above or below expected. Calculated using methodology described here and here.

Most of these results shouldn’t be too surprising. The Tigers struggled with defense at shortstop, first base, and left field. All 3 of those positions will have new help coming in 2008. Meanwhile they excelled in centerfield, third base, and were strong at shortstop. Tigers pitchers defended their positions well, but I don’t think anything will put an end to PFP jokes.

Pinto also publishes the results for individual fielders. I have listed the Tigers primary defenders at each position. The runs column I based on 4000 balls in play which is roughly 145 games.

And the bench…

On the whole, the Tigers bench defense was quite solid. Across the board they were pretty much right in line with their expected level of production. Of course with bench players you’d expect them to be strong defensively because often times that is what is keeping them in the league (see Ramon Santiago).

Also notice that the Tigers 3 weakest defensive positions received the most support from the bench. The first step is recognizing the problem, which clearly the Tigers did last year and were quick to address this year.

Out of Left field

Left field is a position that really jumps out. Craig Monroe was pretty poor and accounted for 58% of the innings logged by Tigers in left field. Yet the position as a whole was pretty neutral because Marcus Thames (277 inn), Timo Perez (158 inn), Cameron Maybin (80 inn) and Ryan Raburn (58 inn) were above expected.

Thames and Raburn are good candidates to continue to log innings out there, but the lions share will be held by Jacque Jones. Jones was primarily a centerfielder last year, but was mostly a right fielder prior to that. As a right fielder he rated about 7 runs above expected. So the Tigers should expect to see a positive in net contribution in left field – possibly to the tune of a full win just defensively.

6-3

The other positional shake-up of course is Renteria to short and Guillen to first. Guillen had limited time at first base with only 545 balls in play while he was manning the position. However during that time he turned in 4 more plays than expected. Over a full season that would be 22 plays above expected and over 17 runs. That is potentially a 30 run swing in defense at first base based on range.

A couple caveats here. First, Guillen’s data is limited so projecting a full season based on it should be done with a grain of salt. But placing a shortstop’s range at first, even a declining shortstop, should be a substantial upgrade over a statue-esque Casey. Second, these measures don’t account for a first baseman’s ability to field throws – something that Casey excelled at. But without Guillen having to field his own throws, that task should be easier.

As for shortstop, PMR rates Edgar Renteria as a little below expected. He was -4.13 plays over 3067 balls in play. On a run basis per 4000 that is -4.1 runs.

The Tigers stand to see a real upgrade at 2 infield positions as well as in left field. The total defensive improvements could be in the magnitude for 3 to 5 wins.

I drew on many posts at Baseball Musings, but they can all be found on the PMR category page.

It’s award season and they are coming out fast and furious. Over at SB Nation they have been releasing the results of their blog ballots. Each baseball blog at SB Nation received 2 ballots, and with Bless You Boys being a solo operation, Ian was kind enough to let me vote his second ballot.

Today was the final day of announcements and it concluded with the MVP. Alex Rodrgiuez of course took home first place and he was a unanimous selection. Magglio Ordonez finished second, David Ortiz was third with Jorge Posada and Vladimir Guerrero rounding out the top 5.

Curtis Granderson had a solid showing finishing 7th and even Placido Polanco garnered a couple votes (neither vote came from the Tigers contingent).

My ballot is below:

1. Alex Rodriguez
2. Magglio Ordonez
3. David Ortiz – best hitter in the second half with a 1.153 OPS. Better offensive season than Maggs, but at DH
4. Curtis Granderson – very slight homer pick here, but defense and 26-27 on steals helped
5. Jorge Posada – great season and bonus points for doing it while catching
6. Vladimir Guerrero
7. Carlos Pena
8. Ichiro Suzuki
9. Victor Martinez
10. Grady Sizemore

I had no problem selecting the top 3, but the next 4 spots were a struggle for me. I actually had a half dozen iterations of Granderson/Posada/Guerrero/Pena. I elevated Granderson and Posada because of the defensive positions they play, and Granderson came out on top because of how well he played his position.

As for the other awards here they are, with my ballots as well:

• Cy Young Award: C.C. Sabathia. (My ballot- Sabathia/Beckett/Santana)
• Manager of the Year: Eric Wedge (My ballot – Scioscia/Wedge/Torre)
• Rookie of the Year: Dustin Pedroia (My ballot – Pedroia/Matsuzaka/Guthrie)

If you click through, Ian has the full voting results.

Tigers Awards

Yesterday the Detroit Sports Broadcasters Association named Ryan Raburn as the Tigers Rookie of the Year.  Today the Detroit Chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America named Magglio Ordonez as the Tigers Player of the Year.

Other non-awards

Bugs and Cranks is turning the tables on the Silver Slugger Awards and Gold Glove Awards with the Sawdust Sluggers and Lead Glove Awards.  Brandon Inge was named the worst hitting 3rd baseman in the American League while Carlos Guillen was named the worst fielding shortstop.

Despite Guillen’s high error total and decreased range as the season wore on, I don’t think this is a clear cut honor (or dubious distinction).  Derek Jeter was the worst AL shortstop using +/- at -34 and David Pinto’s probabilistic model of range had Jeter missing 40 plays more than expected (Guillen was 19 plays below expected over less playing time).  Michael Young rates worse than Guillen on both measures as well. In UZR Guillen ranks 2nd worst ahead of Jeter and behind Young.

This isn’t a defense of Guillen’s shortstop prowess by any means.  He still deserves to be in the conversation, but I have to give the distinction to Jeter.

Ivan Rodriguez and Placido Polanco were honored today as MLB announced the Gold Glove winners. For Pudge it was his 13th while it was Polanco’s first. But were they the most deserving Tigers? Rob Neyer took a look at the inherent biases or trends in the voting. A couple of these helped the Tigers (previous winner, fielding percentage, offensive contribution), and a couple hurt the Tigers.

Pudge Rodriguez

We’ll start with Pudge Rodriguez who saw his caught stealing rate drop to 30.9%. That was still a little above average in 2007 when base stealers in the AL were successful 73.2% of the time, but hardly Gold Glove worthy. Kenji Johjima gunned down 46.5% of would be base stealers. Even dubious stats like passed balls didn’t favor Rodriguez as he was charged with 7 while Johjima was charged with 5 in 54 more innings. And that isn’t even inclusive of the numerous wild pitches which could have been scored either way. Then throw in 6 errors and the picture is bleak for Pudge who won the award entirely off his reputation.

Placido Polanco

Moving to Placido Polanco, his win was certainly defensible. While errors and fielding percentage is a flawed stat, making it though a season without an error is still a remarkable achievement. While the error that was charged to Polanco and later assigned to Marcus Thames is certainly debatable, it was the only instance that I can recall where the streak was helped by the scorer. Throw in Polanco’s .341 batting average and it is easy to see why he would garner votes. But in looking at other metrics he lagged his peers.

Looking at +/- in the The Bill James Handbook 2008, Polanco was a respectable +10. That trailed Aaron Hill (+22), Mark Ellis (+19), and Robinson Cano (+17) considerably. If you don’t like +/- those same 3 appear as the best (but in a different order) using UZR as well. Polanco rates a little better using Revised Zone Rating, but he still is sandwiched between Ellis and Hill and made over 100 fewer plays than Ellis and nearly 150 fewer plays than Hill.

I like Polanco and am happy to see him receive some recognition. But the evidence just doesn’t show him as the best fielding 2nd baseman in the AL.

Brandon Inge

Now it’s time to stir the pot with some Brandon Inge controversy. Adrian Beltre took home the hardware for third basemen this year. Beltre is an excellent defender so this isn’t a bad choice at all. The trouble is, as Neyer pointed out, the award was a year late. Beltre should have won it in 2006. This year Brandon Inge beat him in UZR (+12 versus +5). Inge also beat him in +/- as Brandon amassed a +22, second only to Pedro Feliz. Nick Punto was next closest in the AL at +10 while Beltre was a solid +7. Inge was 2nd in the AL in RZR behind Mike Lowell and in total made 45 more plays on balls in his zone than any other AL third sacker. Beltre bests him only in plays on balls made out of his zone, 64 to 63. But even in fielding percentage where Inge typically gets dinged, he posted a .959 to Beltre’s .958.

Brandon Inge was deserving of the award this year, and it wasn’t a 1 year fluke. Looking at the 3 year +/- numbers only Albert Pujols, Chase Utley, Adam Everett, and Pedro Feliz have a better rate than Inge.

Curtis Granderson

This one is the hardest to figure. Granderson seemed to do many of the things that help you win gold gloves.

Solid offensive season? Check. He was top 10 in slugging, OPS, Runs, Total Bases, and Triples. Plus he had that whole quad-20 thing which was arbitrary, but still remarkable and attention gathering.
Winning team? Check. The Tigers were in contention all year and received plenty of attention.
Highlight plays? Check. His homer rob of Wily Mo Pena was the #2 web gem. Plus he had some high profile diving catches including a triple/run saving catch on Sunday night baseball and a game saving catch in an August pennant race tilt against the Indians.

Not that any of the above are legitimate reasons for winning, but they do seem to resonate well with voters.

As for his actual case, he had the highest RZR in the American League regardless of position.

Looking at +/- he was second only to Coco Crisp (also a deserving candidate) at +21 just behind Crisp’s +22. Gold Glove winner Ichiro was at +4 and other winners Grady Sizemore and Torii Hunter weren’t in the top 10. (the annual only lists the top ten and bottom 5 at each position.

Looking at UZR, Sizemore rates well at +26 leading AL centerfielders with Granderson second at +18 (Crisp and Dejesus tied for 3rd at +13). Meanwhile Ichiro was -14.

If you’re skeptical of the advanced metrics, that is understandable. When some players rate inconsistently across them it is hard to know where the truth lies. But Granderson rated at or near the top across the board, which is more than can be said for the other fielders except for Crisp.

I’m not overly upset with the results. The Gold Gloves have long been flawed awards. But when someone describes a player as a gold glover it is important to note whether they are using the generic term for a very good defender, or whether they are actually toting someone’s hardware. The former probably carries more weight even if the latter carries more prestige.

I love looking at spray charts of batted balls and seeing where hitters have success. I’m funny like that. Fortunately Dan Fox, proprietor of his own blog and writer for Baseball Prospectus has released an application that shows ball in play distributions for the last 4 years and he just released the updated version including 2007 data. With the heavy lifting done for me, I thought I’d take a look at 3 of the Tigers more interesting hitters from the last year.

Brandon Inge

First up is the ever controversial Brandon Inge. Inge had an awful season at the plate as he posted a meager 236/312/376 line. Part of his problem was what seemed to be an endless supply of check swing strikeouts. And that appears to be the largest difference over the past few years. Inge’s batting average on balls in play was .334 which wasn’t out of line with his past performances. His batted ball distribution didn’t differ greatly from his fairly productive 2006 season.

Inge actually upped his line drive rate and had a small improvement in his pop up rate, yet his overall performance dipped.  Maybe he was a little unlucky like he claimed earlier in the season?

Another complaint about Inge is that he became too pull happy.

Inge did become more of a pull hitter in 2006 and it worked to his benefit as he slugged .463 and 27 balls left the park.  He pulled just as much in 2007 but with a lot less success and a lot less power.  We also saw Inge go to the opposite field more often, but it was at the expense of going up the middle.  Based on observation and the data, it seems like it was more a function of Inge being late than looking to punch the ball to right.

Curtis Granderson

Nobody complained about Granderson pulling the ball too much, and he actually was more likely to pull the ball than Brandon Inge was. Of course, when you’re among the league leaders in extra base hits it doesn’t really matter where you hit the ball.

With Granderson’s proclivity for pulling the ball on the ground, it wouldn’t surprise me to see more teams shifting the shortstop closer to second base. I wouldn’t expect an Ortiz type shift because of Granderson’s speed and ability to bunt, but Curtis did hit .600 on grounders through the middle in 2007.

Magglio Ordonez

It seems that any look at Tigers performances isn’t complete without at least glancing at how Ordonez fared. It was a popular refrain from Rod Allen that Maggs was using the whole field, and it really was true. Ordonez hit 42% of his line drives to right field. And overall he hit the ball to right field as much as he hit it to left.

That kind of balance made it impossible for any team to load up one side. And in a spacious outfield like Comerica Park that gave Ordonez a lot of room to work with. Now granted he was still lucky in 2007. You don’t exceed career norms by that much without some things going your way. In the case of Ordonez it was a .318 batting average on ground balls and a .361 batting average on fly balls. MLB norms for the last 4 years were .233 and .272 respectively.

There’s a ton of information available, and it’s all free. So thanks to Dan Fox for his hard work, and let me know if you see anything interesting.

While it is probably a little premature to rate any draft after only 4 months, this is especially true in baseball. In many cases drafted players haven’t played in a league type setting, or if they have the experience has been limited to short season ball. Still, Baseball America likes the early returns for the Detroit Tigers in this year’s amateur draft.

BA rated the Tigers as having the 3rd best draft behind the Nationals and Rangers. Detroit ranked ahead of the Giants and Yankees who rounded out the top 5.  The full article is premium content, so I’ll just hit the highlights.

The Tigers draftees received some individual accolades on a variety of top 5 lists including:

• Danny Worth – 4th best defensive player
• Rick Porcello – 2nd best fastball
• Rick Porcello – 4th best secondary pitch
• Colin Kaline & Cale Iorg – 3rd and 4th most intriguing backgrounds
• Rick Porcello – 5th closest to the majors among high schoolers

There was also a draft all star team selected based on performance and level of play.  No Tigers made the team. 

In terms of early returns I’d have to say that Charlie Furbush (61 2/3 innings, 2.35 ERA, 69K, 14 BB at GCL and West Michigan) and Danny Worth (251/325/363 in High A ball) had the strongest debuts.  While Worth’s numbers weren’t dazzling, he gets extra credit because he debuted at such a high level for a new draftee.

Of course the strength of the Tigers draft was in the players who signed late and haven’t yet competed outside of the instructional league. In addition to Porcello, players like Casey Crosby, Iorg, and Matt Hoffman are who helped earn the Tigers such a high overall ranking. They are also the players who will hopefully make for an entertaining minor league season.

BaseballAmerica.com: Draft: 2007 Draft Report Cards Overview
2007 Tigers Draft – The Baseball Cube

Net Win Shares Value is Dave Studeman’s attempt to assess the value of a player and their contract.  He released some of his findings today, and there are several Tigers items worth pointing out.

Net Win Shares Value looks at the 3 different classes of players (not eligible for arbitration, arbitration eligible, and free agents) and compares the win shares above bench (the number of win shares that an average bench player would accrue given the playing time) to a player’s salary above the minimum.

The Best

As to the Tiger related items, Detroit had 2 of the top 10 best values in 2007.  Not surprisingly Curtis Granderson made the list at 9th as he turned in a season that has landed him on many MVP ballots at just a hair over the minimum salary.  What is more surprising, at least to me, is that Magglio Ordonez was the 5th best value on the list.  Ordonez season was outstanding, but he also made $15 million last year.  For him to “overcome” his salary to be that much of a value is a testament to how truly amazing his performance was.

Also of note on the top 10 best values list, there were 3 Cleveland Indians:  Fausto Carmona, Grady Sizemore, and Victor Martinez.  So it’s easy to see why the Indians had the success they had even with a smaller payroll.  It also means that half of the top 10 best values in 2007 came from the AL Central.

The Worst

The Tigers had 2 guys on the list of the 10 worst values as well.  Can you guess them?  No, one of them isn’t Brandon Inge.  Craig Monroe and Mike Maroth finished 7th and 8th on the list.  Neither was paid a whole lot this past season, they were just that bad.  Maroth though did a lot of his damage with the Cardinals as he went from “not good” in the AL to “really, really bad” in the National League. 

Now there is one area where this method fails to capture the worst values.  If a player is injured, he doesn’t really show up as a poor value for not playing.  So a Kenny Rogers who missed most of the year, doesn’t show up as a bad value because when he did play, he played well.  So a Carl Pavano is actually a worse value than many other players, but he wouldn’t show up on this list.

Getting their money’s worth

Dave also posted a table that highlights the teams that got the most and the least from their free agents. The Tigers finished 3rd best, which doesn’t really surprise because their free agent class players were mostly productive. In addition to Ordonez, the Tigers got great value in Placido Polanco who turned in a very good season – and cheaply. Carlos Guillen was good as usual, and in the last year of his old deal he was still cheap. And Todd Jones probably contributed more than Jose Mesa detracted
2007 Net Win Shares Value — The Hardball Times

I’ve somehow made it all the way through the playoffs without actually blogging about them. It’s not that I haven’t cared, I’ve watched the games. It’s just that I haven’t had a lot to say. That’s still true, but this is the World Series and all.

Will the Rockies stay so ridiculously hot? Will the Red Sox talent prevail? Hell if I know. Will the layoff effect the Rockies? Will first base effect David Ortiz? All questions that are probably better answered by the bloggers who follow their teams year round.

• Purple Row :: A Colorado Rockies Blog
• Colorado Rockies Baseball Coverage – The Denver Baseball Observer follows the Colorado Rockies with Stats, Quotes, and Game Notes
• Baseball Toaster: Bad Altitude
• The House That Dewey Built
• Fire Brand of the American League | MVN – a Boston Red Sox blog
• Yanksfan vs Soxfan

In any case, enjoy the Series and feel free to comment here.