Category Archives: 2007 Season

2007 Season, Injuries

Kenny Rogers out 3 months

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So I’m watching the game on ESPN and they announce that Kenny Rogers had successful surgery to remove a blood clot and fix 2 arteries. I run to the computer and my site goes down. So I’m sorry if you were trying to hit the site between 1:30 and 4:00. It’s also the reason I’m so late to the blog with this.

D-Town Baseball seems to have the authoritative link round-up, so if you’re looking to see who said what, he’s got it.

Rogers of course is expected to miss half the season. It will be 6 to 8 weeks of rest, and then hopefully he can start throwing again. Being that he’s an athlete he may heal a little quicker than a typical person. But being that he’s 42 he may heal a little slower than a typical athlete. In any case, it will probably take him a minimum of 6 weeks to build the arm up once he can resume activity.

So while it wasn’t a worst case, career ending injury (not yet anyways), it is a far cry from needing a week or rest and some aspirin.
Continue reading Kenny Rogers out 3 months →

2007 Season, Injuries

Vance Wilson to the DL

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I fully expected some players to go on the DL this week, like Roman Colon and Edward Campusano. Didn’t see Wilson and Rogers as part of the mix though.

Wilson has been bothered by some tenderness in his elbow and it has landed him on the 15 day DL. He played yesterday, but I’m guessing he didn’t feel to good today.

Mike Rabelo will assume back-up catching duties. He’s already on the 40 man roster so it won’t require additional moves.

2007 Season, Injuries

More on Rogers – a blood clot

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I was further deferring my season preview to take a deeper look at the Tigers choice of Chad Durbin, when the news came across that Kenny Rogers may be suffering from a blood clot.

Now this could be bad, or it could be really minor. Tom Glavine had some coldness in his ring finger last year which was caused by a blood clot like malady. He was back pitching in 2 weeks after treating the problem with medication.

On the other hand, players have had to undergo surgery which have sidelined them for the better part of a season.

Dave Dombrowski has been downplaying the issue saying that it may be only a one start thing while Jim Leyland is worried about making sure that Rogers is OK before he wories about playing time. I don’t say this to paint Dombrowski as callous, just that there seem to be some different messages coming out.

I’ve been trying to get smart about blood clots, so I checked with Mrs. Billfer who is a heart nurse who happens to be working tonight. She checked with some physicians who identified 3 main causes for blood clots. Keep in mind I’m not a doctor, but I’m married to someone who talks to doctors while I watch TV.

The first is hypercoagulability which is inherited problems with anticoagulation. It isn’t uncommon for it to be diagnosed for people in their 40’s. A second cause is malignancy (cancer). The third cause is trauma. Given that pitching is a traumatic act on the shoulder, this doesn’t seem far fetched.

Of course speculation is pretty moot at this point. Rogers was to see a specialist and one name you might want to look for is Dr. Robert Thompson, a vascular surgeon from Washington University in St. Louis who has performed a couple surgeries on Major Leaguers.

(disclaimer: I’m truly not a clinician and don’t want to promote any false information. If you know better than me, please post corrections in the comment)

2007 Season, Injuries, Roster Management

Kenny Rogers to DL

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Danny Knobler reports that Kenny Rogers is headed to the disabled list. No other word is available on the injury.

The corresponding moves are that Chad Durbin joins the rotation and Bobby Seay has been recalled. There will need to be another 40 man roster move, but that hasn’t been announced yet. (EDIT: the 40 man move will probably be Edward Campusano going to the 60 day DL)

I’d guess that the rotation would be shuffled to something along the lines of Bonderman-Robertson-Verlander-Maroth-Durbin.

2007 Season, Players, Spring Training

Oh-mar

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If you peruse the Tigers spring training stats, you’ll see a roster full of guys with some pretty impressive numbers. Sure, Carlos Guillen is slumping a little but his 8:6 K:BB ratio is still favorable. But if you look at Omar Infante this spring, there isn’t much to like.

Infante has a 172/179/250 line thus far. He’s fanned 12 times in 64 at-bats and only picked up one walk. He has no stolen bases. He has more errors (4) than extra base hits (3).

I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t been following Infante everyday, so I don’t know if this has been a March-long slump or a nosedive the last 2 weeks. I do know that a third of his strikeouts came the last 2 games. Either way he’s not building towards the regular season at this point.

Now you never want to make too much out of spring training stats, but you hope to see something encouraging. Since Infante is slated to be the first guy off the bench to spell Inge, Polanco, and Granderson he will get a reasonable amount of playing time.

In Infante’s limited career, he’s been an every-other-year kind of guy. He struggled a ton in 2003, rebounded in 2004, struggled enough in 2005 to warrant trading for Polanco (I know Urbina helped negotiate that deal as well), and did okay as the super sub last year.

At 25 years old anything can still happen with his career. But avoiding a down year could be a big step for Infante – at least if he wants to be more than a career back-up.

2007 Season, Fan Experience, Injuries, Previews

Ticket hiccups, injuries, and more previews

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Another link round-up while I watch Lost and work on my Tiger preview…

Ticket snafu

Things are kinda hectic for the Tigers ticket department about now. A problem with the printer has season ticket shipments coming at the last minute. Tickets are just starting to arrive today, but the club expects everybody to have their tickets by Friday. Extended box office hours have been created to help with any problems that crop up.

Now if you’re not a season ticket holder, you probably had to get your opening day tickets from a broker. It could be tricky to get those tickets in time for Monday.

Injuries

Indians starter CC Sabathia took a line drive off his forearm today. X-rays came back negative so if he misses time it probably won’t be for very long. But in what looks to be a tight AL Central, all absences of frontline players could be significant.

Meanwhile, the Tigers are dealing with an injury of their own. Vance Wilson had an MRI on his elbow.

Other links

2007 Season, Fan Experience, Pitching, Previews

Tiger news round-up

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I’ll be a day late on announcing the DVD Giveaway winners. I promise it will be announced tomorrow night. In the meantime, some stuff worth reading:

PECOTA and the Central

The straight run of Baseball Prospectus’s PECOTA projections for the AL Central put the Tigers in 3rd place with 85 wins. Nate Silver makes some tweaks and post-adjustment he’s looking at the Tigers winning 88 games. With his other adjustments that puts them in a tie for 2nd place, one game out. So essentially it’s a 3 team toss-up in Silver’s eyes. Kind of hard to argue with that, unless you’re a White Sox fan who doesn’t like the 77 win projection.

Power ranking season

Fox Sports latest power rankings place the Tigers 6th, down two spots from last week. Meanwhile the Twins surged up 3 spots. Not sure why. But half of the top 6 teams are from the AL Central.

ESPN the Magazine picks Tigers

I don’t think it’s on newstands yet, and you need to be an Insider I think to flip through, but they’re picking the Tigers to win the AL Central.

New displays coming to Comerica Park

You know those fancy, colorful, shiny displays that you see on the facing of the upper bowl of many newer arenas? Comerica Park is getting those. They are also replacing the out of town scoreboard in right-center with an LED display. Similar ones I’ve seen in Pittsburgh and Cleveland seem to display a ton of information, so I think it could be a good thing. It will also make for dynamic ad space so hopefully it will be additional revenue for the club to sink into a Carlos Guillen extension.

I’m not sure I’ll like the strip on the upper bowl though. I’m trying to visualize it, and I think it might take a little away from the retro look of the park.

The Freep also had a story and video looking at stadium preparation for the Opener.

Four Tops get anthem duty

The Four Tops have been tapped to sing the National Anthem for the Opener. No announcement yet on first pitch, but I’d imagine it will be Kwame and Granholm. Gates will open at 10:30am with a ceremony (not the ring ceremony which is on April 4th). Me, I’m hoping for a fly-over.

Things are looking good weather-wise calling for 54 and sunny.

Now if only those tickets would arrive.

Other stuff

2007 Season, Roster Management

Tigers announce 2007 roster

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While not a formal announcement because there are still 28 players in camp, the Tigers trimmed 11 and cleared up who would be traveling North. The battle for the last bench spot went to Neifi Perez over Ramon Santiago and Chris Shelton. The last spot in the bullpen went to Chad Durbin.

As for everyone else, Zach Miner, Shelton, and Santiago have been optioned to Toledo. Presont Larrison, Tim Byrdak, Bobby Seay, Steve Torrealba, Timo Perez, Dane Sardinha, and Ryan Raburn were assigned to Toledo.

Felix Heredia was unconditionally released.

The other 3 souls who haven’t been cut yet are Edward Campusano, Tony Giarratano, and Roman Colon are all injured and will presumably be placed on the DL (Giarratano the minor league DL).

My thoughts, it’s about what I expected. I’m fine with Durbin getting a shot. After Campusano’s injury, it came down to Durbin/Miner/Seay. None of the options really differentiate themselves, and so making the decision based on roster status if fine by me.

With Perez, he had a good spring but I don’t know how much that counted. A bad spring may have sealed his fate, and some poor play in the regular season may do the same. I would have preferred Santiago over Perez. Neither one can hit, but Santiago is the superior defender. As for Shelton, it is probably best that he get regular at-bats in Toledo to be prepared for the impending Sean Casey DL stint.

And now, your 2007 Detroit Tigers…

Starting Position Players: Sean Casey, Placido Polanco, Carlos Guillen, Brandon Inge, Pudge Rodriguez, Craig Monroe, Curtis Granderson, Magglio Ordonez, Gary Sheffield.

Bench: Vance Wilson, Omar Infante, Marcus Thames, Neifi Perez

Rotation: Jeremy Bonderman, Kenny Rogers, Justin Verlander, Nate Robertson, Mike Maroth

Bullpen: Todd Jones, Joel Zumaya, Fernando Rodney, Wil Ledezma, Jose Mesa, Jason Grilli, Chad Durbin

2007 Season, Roster Management

Does Shelton still have a shot?

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I’ve long been a Chris Shelton advocate, and if you’ve been reading the blog this winter you know that I stumped for Big Red to be the first baseman over Sean Casey. With Marcus Thames proving to be adequate at first base, it seemed Shelton was destined to be a Mud Hen. But according to Danny Knobler, there just may be room:

The surprise this morning was that the Tigers are now wavering on the final position player spot, and Chris Shelton is suddenly back in the picture. Shelton has hit well this spring (.391 through Saturday), but the biggest thing is that the Tigers are starting to wonder how often Sean Casey is going to need a day off at first base — and whether it makes sense to have no other true first baseman on the roster (with Marcus Thames and Carlos Guillen as the available backups).

The problem with Shelton making the roster, is that he makes Marcus Thames remarkably useless. That’s quite a feat given Thames is one of the better hitters on the roster. If Shelton is on the team, he presumably is the back-up first baseman. He is very good defensively at first base, and I have every confidence that his bat will return. If it becomes a platoon situation, Thames and Shelton both bat from the same side so there is nothing to be gained in that regard.
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2007 Season, AL Central, Previews

Previews and Predictions

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As we’re entering the final stretch of spring training, the 2007 predictions are starting to come with increasing regularity. Here’s what today revealed.

Simulatin’

The Replacement Level Yankee Weblog ran a series of Diamond Mind Simulations. He ran 1000 seasons using each of PECOTA, Marcel, Chone, Diamond Mind and ZiPS. I summarized how the tigers fared below:

I think it is safe to say that the ZiPS projections look to be the most realistic – kidding of course. The truth of the matter is, and I’ve been thinking this as I read all sorts of projections, all teams in the Central not from Kansas City have a legitimate shot at taking the division.

The composite of all 4 simulations have the Tigers 3rd in the division with 87.4 wins behind Cleveland with 88.3 and Minnesota 89.2. The sims weren’t quite as favorable to the White Sox with a projected 75.9 wins.

Sports Illustrated

A less stat/computer/geeky preview from the folks at SI have the Tigers coming in 2nd in the Central and ranked as the 5th best team in the American League. The scouting report is pretty standard citing the Tigers balance as a strength, and injury & last year’s pitcher workload as concerns.

Cranking Win Shares

While not a prediction system per se, the Baseball Crank takes a look at Established Win Share Levels for the AL Central. EWSL attempts to quantify the talent level on a team by looking at past performance and adjusting for age. The Tigers rank favorably because they are pretty solid top to bottom. The downside is that because of the age of the key players, the age adjustments are most unfavorable.

2007 Season, Minors, Roster Management, Spring Training

Tigers announce 10 more cuts

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The Tigers optioned Mike Rabelo and Brent Clevlen to AAA Toledo. There was some question (at least in my mind) whether they would have Clevlen repeat AA given his struggles last year. I wonder if this is any indication that they may be moving Cameron Maybin to Erie to start the year.

The Tigers assigned Craig Dingman, Dennis Tankersley, Joey Eischen, Brent Dlugach, Mike Hessman, Kevin Hooper, Cameron Maybin and Brandon Watson to minor league camp.

Don’t read too much into Maybin. He wasn’t going to make the team, and it’s about getting him more playing time at this point.