Category Archives: 2007 Season

2007 Season, Fan Experience

Tigers Ticket Sales Surging

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Andrew Miller in the rain
Credit: Roger DeWitt

Jon Paul Morosi reports that the Tigers have sold 13,885 season ticket equivalents this year. That’s an increase of 4000 over last year. So what will the impact be on Opening Day tickets?

Last year there were very few Opening Day tickets made available to the general public. With the increase in season ticket sales, that number stands to be even smaller. Individual tickets go on sale March 3rd at 10:00am and there is sure to be a mad scramble.

Taking a look at some of my sponsors in the sidebar, tickets are already available and you’re looking at paying $100 a seat. At StubHub! there are a couple tickets available for $85 (aff link), but that supply is pretty low. Basically your Opening Day options are 1. Buy Season Tickets, 2. Try and get lucky on March 3rd, 3. Pay through the nose, or 4. Head down and enjoy the day, but invest your money in 4 other games.

As for me, I picked up 4 in the pavillion for $75 a couple weeks ago.

And it’s not just regular season tickets that are a hot commodity (despite the rainy weather today). Spring Training tickets have seen a 53% increase in sales.

2007 Season, Minors, Tiger History

Aircraft carriers, outfielders, and other news items

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A whole pile of links, plus another great shot from spring training…


Al Kaline chats with Justin Verlander
credit: Roger DeWitt

What are they saying

That would have to be an interesting conversation. What do you think they’re talking about? Maybe Kaline saying, “Listen kid, I know you were rookie of the year, but by the time I was your age I had 4 All Star games and finished in the top 10 in MVP voting 3 times…”

Best Young Outfield

You probably wouldn’t expect a Tigers outfield consisting of exactly one player under the age of 30 to rank among the league’s best outfields, but the Tigers do according to Baseball Prospectus. At least according to their PECOTA upside score the Tigers rank 3rd behind only the Mets and Devil Rays. The centerfield triumvirate of Curtis Granderson, Cameron Maybin, and Gorkys Hernandez has the forecast for the Tigers long term outfield as sunny.
Continue reading Aircraft carriers, outfielders, and other news items →

2007 Season, Minors, Roster Management, Trades

Tigers acquire Yorman Bazardo

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The Tigers today made a trade with the Seattle Mariners for right handed pitcher Yorman Bazardo. In exchange the Tigers have sent the Mariners outfielder Jeff Frazier.

Bazardo will turn 23 in July. Last year he had a solid season in AA with a 3.64 ERA over 25 starts. For his career he has a pretty meager strike out rate of 5.54 per nine innings but with decent control (2.31 BB/9). He had a solid winter pitching in the Venezuela. He appeared in 21 games with Aragua in the Venezuelan Winter League following the season, posting a 2-0 record, 1.78 ERA (30.1IP/6ER) and one save. Additionally, Bazardo saw action in two games with Venezuela during the Caribbean World Series, fanning six batters in five scoreless innings of relief.

John Sickels rates him a C+ and as the 9th best prospect in the Seattle organization.

Jeff Frazier is coming off a pretty brutal season for Lakeland in which he posted a 625 OPS. Prior to that he posted a nice final line in pitcher friendly West Michigan of 287/349/453.

To make room on the 40 man roster for Bazardo, Preston Larrison was designated for assignment.

2007 Season, Spring Training

Spring has Sprung

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Justin Verlander, Joel Zumaya, and Jeremy Bonderman report early - Credit Roger DeWitt

The Tigers are invading Lakeland. Justin Verlander, Jeremy Bonderman, and Joel Zumaya are among those who have reported early to camp. I’m particularly fond of the World Series hat that Verlander is wearing.

Pitchers and catchers are due to report en masse on February 15th.

Oh yeah, and you can save the pitchers-fielding-practice jokes.

Photo Credit: Roger DeWitt

2007 Season, Fan Experience

161 Tiger Games on TV

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What a change from the last couple years when the Tigers were scrambling to get games on TV. This year the Tigers have ensured that all but one game will be televised – and they did it before the end of January. Last year they were still adding games in mid April.

Fox Sports Net Detroit will pick up 134 games (plus 3 spring training games). Fox 2 WJBK will be the over the air partner which will air 17 additional weekend games, plus simulcast Opening Day. For those who are out-state a network of over-the-air affiliates is being lined up throughout Michigan and the Toledo area to carry the package of games airing on WJBK. An additional 10 games will be on National television in the form of Fox Saturday Baseball or ESPN Sunday night baseball.

The lone game that won’t be aired is an April 7th tilt against the Royals that falls during Fox’s exclusive rights window.
Continue reading 161 Tiger Games on TV →

2007 Season, Minors

Weekend Roundup

  • The Daily Fungo interviews Hall of Fame President Dale Petroskey. It’s a very interesting listen, and I think it’s great that Petroskey took the time for a blogger/podcaster.
  • Keith Law ranks the minor league systems. Detroit ranks a respectable 11th. (Insider).

    The Gary Sheffield deal kept them out of the top 10, but Cameron Maybin is just a tick below the Jose Tabatas and Fernando Martinezes of the world, while Andrew Miller should be one of the top five pitching prospects in the minors by midseason.

  • John Donovan says the Tigers are the only team without a weakness.

    The Tigers, top to bottom, are the most solid team around. Stronger than ’06. No holes. Really. As long as Sean Casey stays healthy at first, they’ll be tough.

2007 Season, Uncategorized

Tigers Caravan Roundup

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News from the road: (by the way, if you happen to make it out to a caravan stop and would like to comment on the experience, let me know)

2007 Season, Statistics

Tigers Non Roster Invitee List

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The Tigers are extending invites to the Major League camp for 16 players. They are:

Pitchers

Craig Dingman (R)
Jair Jurrjens (R)
Dennis Tankersley (R)
Tim Byrdak (L)
Felix Heredia(L)
Bobby Seay (L)

Catchers

Gabe Johnson
Dane Sardinha
Steve Torrealba

Infielders

Brent Dlugach
Mike Hessman
Kevin Hooper

Outfielders

Cameron Maybin
Timo Perez
Ryan Raburn
Brandon Watson.

Pitchers and catchers will report to Lakeland on February 15, with the first work-out on February 16. The balance of the squad will report on February 20 and the first full-squad work-out will be held on February 21.

2007 Season, Defense, Fan Experience, Former Tigers, Pitching

Midweek Linking

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2007 Season, Contracts

Tigers sign Timo Perez, Bobby Seay

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Jon Paul Morosi reports that the Tigers have signed Timo Perez to a minor league contract.

Perez will be 30 next season. He plays all out field positions and hits left handed. His major league career numbers are 262/301/373 with his best season coming in 2002 for the Mets when he hit 295/331/437. In part time big league duty since then he hasn’t topped an OBP of 301.

He was productive at the AAA level last year hitting 295/349/515 so maybe he can help the Mud Hens win another International League Championship.

Morosi also notes that Bobby Seay will be returning with a minor league contract as well.

2007 Season, Roster Management, Site News, Statistics

Link fiesta

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  • The Alexis Gomez era is over. He signs with Denver.
  • I’m remiss on this one, but Lee has a new stat called RPE (Run Preventing Event). It is simply a rate at which pitchers do the things that typically are favorable for the pitcher (K’s, ground balls, infield flies). I really like the stat for it’s simplicity. While DIPS and FIP are more analytical and provide more information, this seems to be more readily digested by the general public.
  • Cameron Maybin will get a Spring Training invite to hang out with the big club. This isn’t a big surprise. Everything I’ve heard has him starting at Lakeland and moving to Erie this summer.
  • The Wayne Fontes Experience turns 1 year old today.
  • The Replacement Level Yankee Weblog ran a Diamond Mind simulation using CHONE projections. It has the Twins as the favorites in the Central and the Tigers making the playoffs 21% of the time. The projections have the Tigers pitching staff regressing from awesome to decent. THT has more on regression to the mean.
  • Retrosheet has the files for 2006 available now. I’ve downloaded them and just begun to poke around. Hopefully I can come up with some interesting stuff in the next couple weeks. If you have anything you’d like me to check into, let me know. I won’t make promises, but if it is interesting and easy enough to do, and I have the time, I’ll give it a shot.
  • If you subscribe to the RSS feed, or get the email updates, you may have noticed something new the last few days. I’ve incorporated del.icio.us links. I find that often times I come across interesting stuff on the web, and I want to share it with you. If I can, I’ll usually include it in a post like this one. Often times though, that won’t happen for a couple days, and many times they never make it in. But now, each day you’ll get all the stuff I bookmarked from the previous day. Some days there wont’ be anything, other days there’ll be a lot. I’m able to do this conveniently through Feedburner, which is why it will only appear in the feed and not on the site. It won’t change what I post here, but it is just another way to give subscribers some fresh and interesting content.
  • The 2007 Bloggies are taking nominations. This year there is a sports blog category. If you feel so inclined you could nominate your favorite sports blogs.