I hear it all the time, people citing fielding percentage and errors as an example of Detroit’s ineptitude with the glove. They have the 9th most errors in MLB and only two AL teams have more (the Indians and the Angels) and their fielding percentage ranks 23rd overall. Those numbers aren’t great, but what is more troubling is the fact that so many are still using those stats when there are so many betters ones easily available.

Play by play data that tracks hit direction and type of hit has been available for a number of years. This is data that has been collected by video scouts and stringers that aren’t making a nebulous judgment about whether or not the play should have been made. They are just looking at direction and how hard it was hit and whether or not the play was made. The data then tells the story of whether or not the play should have been made by comparing the play to all the other plays and how often they get made.

So let’s look at some of this objective data and see what the objective data says about the Tigers fielding. Baseball Prospectus lists the Tigers team defensive efficiency ratio (DER simply looks at all the balls in play and figures out the rate at which they were converted to outs) as 16th in MLB. On this measure they come up middle of the pack.

Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) has the Tigers at 10th in MLB at 13 runs better than a typical team. A similar system called +/- has the Tigers at 11th in MLB at 25 defensive runs saved.

Revised Zone Rating is similar to fielding percentage in that it expresses things as a rate or percentage, but it uses a much more logical denominator. Instead of using the denominator as the number of balls that a fielder touches, it uses the number of balls hit to a player’s zone. Therefore it isn’t rewarding the slow of foot for not even getting to balls. In RZR the Tigers are 6th in MLB.

While there is variation in the systems, I just presented 4 defensive stats that aren’t subjective. They weren’t manipulated by me to make the team look one way or the other. The worst of those 4 said the Tigers were middle of the pack. The other 3 said the Tigers were above average to good.

The only metric that says the team isn’t good with the leather is the one that is frought with the most problems in methodology. It is the one that is most subjective. The one that doesn’t measure an ability to get to balls. Concluding that the Tigers  are a bad team because of fielding percentage would be an error in judgment.

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know how Carlos Guillen moving to second base will work. And even if I think I knew, I’m the guy who thought Scott Sizemore would outhit Austin Jackson and that Max Scherzer would be the biggest contributor from the big trade so being wrong is nothing new here. However I like the move and I like what the Tigers are trying to do.

Impact on Defense

It is interesting that the Tigers went with an offensive first approach in 2008, saw it fail miserably, and then went with a big defensive emphasis the following year. The 2010 season saw a little balance and something in between.

The results in 2010 have certainly been mixed. The Tigers error total is shockingly bad. The errors themselves have certainly been shockingly bad with dropped fly balls at in opportune moments. It feels as if if the Tigers have had more than their share of high WPA errors.

Pitchers like Rick Porcello have seen very high BABIPs and the team also ranks 22nd in MLB in terms of defensive efficiency. John Dewan’s +/- system has the team at +5 runs which ranks the team 20th in MLB. With UZR things are better and the team ranks 10th overall.

With mixed reports such as these I’d put the data together and say the team is a little below average with the glove. So why make a move that introduces a defensively challenged player into a prominent defensive role? Because Scott Sizemore was struggling in that regard as well.

Sizemore’s strength was never his glove, but the Tigers second base defense is one of the reasons for the overall struggles. The Tigers rank in the bottom third in both +/- and UZR at the position (not just Sizemore, the position as a whole). Interestingly enough the Tigers rank tenth in revised zone rating, so the second baseman have done a good job with balls hit to them. They just haven’t had the range to extend the position with only 1 play made outside of the zone.

That’s a long explanation to say that the Tigers are only weakened defensively if Guillen proves to be awful at the position.

Injury Risk

Guillen is a pretty good player when healthy. When healthy though has been a fleeting state for Guillen. Second base won’t make it easier for Guillen to stay healthy, but at this point I don’t know that it matters. The Tigers made him the primary DH and he still got hurt. Guillen will likely get injured again at some point this season but I doubt that second base would be the culprit.

Instead of trying to keep him healthy, the Tigers should try to get the most value from him when he is healthy.

Prudent Roster Management

Here’s the part that I like the most. The Tigers are really extending their 25 man roster by actively making it a 28-30 man roster. The doubleheader was a nuisance but it set a lot of things in motion. Even with the shuffle not playing out like I speculated the team is still doing a good job of trying to get the right mix for the situation.

The Tigers haven’t been particularly mindful of service time or option status under Dombrowski, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. The Tigers will use the players that they think will give the team the best chance to win rather than trying to milk out an extra year of club control.

Long term this has implications of course, but I don’t think trying to win now is a bad strategy.

In 2008 Detroit’s pitching was awful, but it had some help in allowing runs to score. After being a stellar defensive team in 2006 and a pretty good one in 2007, the ‘08 Tigers were awful. The team ranked 26th in UZR (-39 runs) and 24th in defensive efficiency. An emphasis on run prevention was the theme this offseason. And it seems to be working in the early going.

Last year the Tigers had very little stability in terms of defense. Miguel Cabrera did awful at third and learned first base on the fly. Carlos Guillen struggled at first and re-learned third base while battling injuries. Edgar Renteria got really old. And the relatively stable (stable in the sense that they weren’t shifting positions) outfield of Ordonez/Granderson/Thames (et al in left) saw regression from their past defensive numbers.

In ‘09 there are fewer question marks, or at least less shuffling. Brandon Inge is back at third, Cabrera has a season under his belt at first, Adam Everett is supposed to stabilize short. The only real question is left field where Guillen is learning on the job.

As for the stats, they show the Tigers as very good. They are the top rated team in the AL in terms of defensive efficiency at .726 and they rank only behind the Dodgers in all of baseball.

Looking at UZR/150, the Tigers are currently 5th overall and 3rd behind the Mariners and Rangers in the American League at 5.1 runs.

Looking at +/- the team leads the AL with a +9 and trail the Dodgers for the MLB lead. Moving on to RZR the team is 3rd in the AL overall, 1st for outfielders and 4th for infielders.

The bulk of the improvement has come from 2 positions, and one of them isn’t shortstop where Adam Everett has been pretty bad in limited playing time (like awful).  Last year Detroit’s centerfielders ranked in the bottom half at –5.4 runs/150 games according to UZR as Granderson had a poor year defensively. So far this year he has corrected to his previous levels and is +2.1 runs.

The other big swing is at third base. With Inge manning the hot corner the team is +1.4 runs at third (5th overall) as opposed to the –14.0 they were last year (which ranked 28th).

Cabrera looks to be more comfortable at first and is +.7 this year whereas last year the team’s first basemen were –4.1.

Also showing a bump up this year is Polanco who according to UZR was essentially a slightly above average defender. This year the Tigers rank 2nd at 2nd (+1.8).

Of course sample size warnings should be heeded. Many stats are quite volatile a dozen games into the season, and many defensive stats are especially prone to this volatility. A bad week and many of these things will change. Still, the early results are encouraging, and I’m sure the pitching staff is appreciative also.

Lynn Henning writes today about the Tigers infield defensive improvements (emphasis mine):

Those plus-minus ratings are part of compelling research done by scouts and video analysts for John Dewan, president of Baseball Info Solutions, and author of The Fielding Bible, a data-rich evaluation of major league defense that is carried by such Web sites as billjamesonline.net.

Dewan’s research joins with such indicators as Major League Baseball’s “Range Factor” index to help determine a fielder’s true effectiveness. The statistics are broader and deeper than the somewhat deceiving statistic known as fielding percentage, which states only how many balls a player reaches that are successfully turned into putouts.

Thank you Henning. While readers here know that fielding percentage is one of the most useless defensive stats, the greater baseball reading population doesn’t. That’s in large part due to the fact it is so commonly cited in articles like this.

And I don’t bring this up as a knock on mainstream writers because I know with limited inches there is only so much they can do introducing a new stat and explaining it. I’m sincerely appreciative of the fact that Henning took the time for the brief explanation of +/- and used it in favor of FP.

(Now if only he’d gone with zone rating instead of range factor.)

It seems as if calculating wins above replacement, or WAR, has become the cool thing to do this offseason. We’ve delved into WAR here in the past when evaluating contracts. Now Fangraphs has made WAR available to the masses. Detroit Tiger Tales has already taken a look at the 08 Tigers numbers. And now a call to action from Beyond the Boxscore has inspired me to project the 09 team numbers.

For now I’m focusing on the position players. What I’ve done is to use split the difference for the Bill James and Marcel projections for the 09 players for wOBA. Defensively I’ve used UZR/150 as the base, but in cases where there isn’t a lot of data due to injury or position shifts, I’ve made my best guesses. When in doubt I’ve left players as average defensively, like Guillen in left or Santiago wherever he plays. For playing time, this was entirely subjective and the area that you’ll most likely choose to disagree. That’s okay. This is one guy’s opinion and I certainly have no injury/effectiveness crystal ball. Heck, we don’t even know who the 5th outfielder and other utility infielder will be at this point.

The table below has my projections as of the time of writing. I’ve also built the same spreadsheet in Google Docs that I will update as more information becomes available. This one is just prettier and then anybody commenting will be working off the same initial assumptions.

2009 Detroit Tigers WAR Projections - Position Players

As for the calculations:
Batting Runs: (wOBA-.338)*700/1.15*Playing Time. This converts wOBA to runs by comparing it to league average and then factoring in playing time.

Fielding Runs: UZR/150*162/150*Playing Time. The UZR numbers adjusted to reflect projected games played

Position Adjustment: Position Adjustment*Playing Time. Not all positions are created equal. This accounts for that.

WAR: (Batting Runs+Fielding Runs+Position Adjustment)/10.5 + (2.5*Playing Time). This adds up all the runs and converts it to wins above or below average. The 2.5 is the win difference between an average player, and a replacement player.

Fangraphs continues to become the stat site for sabermetric player stats. Today they announce the addition of MGL’s UZR fielding system which is widely regarded as one of the most sophisticated fielding systems available.

UZR has been largely unavailable for the last several seasons because MGL has been consulting for big league teams. He’s posted leaders and trailers the last few years, but now the full data set is available. The only difference is that this set uses Baseball Info Solutions data instead of STATS Inc.

You can find them on the player pages and leader boards on Fangraphs site. But I thought I would drop in a few of interest here. These are runs per 150 games.

Jack Wilson: 06: -2.8, 07: 12.7, 08: 2.2
Adam Everett: 06: 24.9, 07: 24.4, 08: 10.0
Cesar Izturis: 06: -10.8, 07: -2.5, 08: 12.5
Edgar Renteria: 06: 2.1, 07: -2.2, 08: 1.1

We recently took a look at the Tigers team defense through the eyes of David Pinto’s Probabilistic Model of Range. As Pinto wraps up this season’s numbers, he calculated the PMR behind each pitcher. Not much went right for Nate Robertson this year, and it is little surprise that his woes were reflected in the PMR numbers as well.

The table below is a combination of Pinto’s PMR work and batted ball data from Fangraphs.

2008 PMR by Pitcher

Nate Robertson had the 7th lowest rate of balls in play converted to outs in Major League baseball. Now Robertson wasn’t particularly unlucky – at least in regard to his fielders letting him down. His defense only made 2 fewer plays than expected behind Robertson. Robertson also posted one of the lowest expected DER’s in baseball as well.

What is unexpected is why that rate is so low. Looking at his batted ball stats, they aren’t remarkable in any way. His line drive rate isn’t high, his infield fly rate isn’t low. His ground ball and fly ball rates are consistent. Yet his expected DER is a recipe for disaster. Is it that Robertson was especially unlucky in that a disproportionate number of balls were hit to locations where nobody could get to them (save the “over-the-fence” jokes, those aren’t in these stats).

Meanwhile, Armando Galarraga was on the opposite end of the spectrum. He had a high expected DER, plus his defense helped him out to the tune of 16 plays. Kenny Rogers gave up a fairly high line drive rate, so his struggles aren’t at all surprising. Justin Verlander was hurt by his defense to the tune of 4 plays, but hardly was that the main source of his struggles.

But back to Robertson, I don’t know what to make of the data. Sometimes it feels like a cop-out to chalk things up to luck, and I saw Robertson struggle – especially in the second half. His peripherals did slip with Nate fanning a few less hitters and walking a few more, but those shifts paled in comparison to the .343 batting average on balls in play. If he was giving up line drives all over the park, it would be easier for me to chalk things up to a lack of stuff. That wasn’t the case. It truly does seem like the opposition managed to “hit-em-where-they-weren’t” with remarkable consistency last year.

The Tigers defense was the cause of much consternation this season, and rightly so. Now that David Pinto has released his PMR defensive metrics, we can take a detailed look at each position.

If you’re not familiar with PMR, it is a system that looks at each ball hit into play and the probability that the ball should be converted into an out. That probability is based on a number of characteristics including the handedness of the batter and pitcher, the type of hit, the direction of hit, and how hard the ball was hit. It is based on data from BIS which also provides the data behind the +/- system and revised zone rating.

The table below shows how the Tigers fared at each position, as well as the primary players at each position. It shows the number of balls in play (this is constant at the team level), the actual outs and predicted outs, the plays made above or below expected and then a conversion to runs. The last 2 columns scale the plays and runs to 4000 balls in play which is approximately 150 games or the normal workload of a full time player.

2008 Tigers PMR

The Tigers took significant steps back at several positions and the results was being 27.8 runs below expected – which is nearly 3 wins. Compared to last year when the Tigers were 15.8 runs better than expected, it’s a swing of 4.5 wins to the negative.

The Tigers saw declines at every position except for left field, where Matt Joyce fared very well in his part time play. He more than compensated for Marcus Thames who in the past had been an averag-ish fielder. The declines at first, second, and short weren’t terribly significant. Polanco was nearly as good as last year, and Cabrera wasn’t appreciably worse than the Casey/Thames/Guillen combination at first.

One of the biggest losses occurred at third base where there aren’t many who can adequately replace Brandon Inge’s glove, despite the fact the system rated Carlos Guillen very well. Magglio Ordonez was near average in 07 but poor in 08 in right field.

The biggest hit defensively though, and it accounted for two-thirds of the decline in team defense by this measure, was in centerfield. The Tigers were +23 runs in 07 and -9.3 in 2008. I really have no idea what happened to Curtis Granderson but he was 3 wins worse defensively. And I don’t think it was a problem with the metric because throughout the season he seemed to be getting to fewer balls. He has several years of data where he was excellent and one where he was poor. I’m inclined to think that he’s still a good fielder who had a bad year.

So about this Inge/Guillen thing

Now the Tigers have already announced they are going to try and upgrade their defense by installing Inge at third base and shifting Guillen to left field. What’s misguided is that they are attacking two positions where they were actually decent last year. While Inge will still provide the upgrade at third with the glove, the benefit may be negated as Guillen learns a new position and replaces a pretty competent fielding Joyce. Plus you weaken third base offensively and I don’t understand how this move helps.

Below are links to the PMR data from Baseball Musings and the run conversion info from Beyond the Boxscore.

• 1B: PMR
• 2B: PMR / RAA
• 3B: PMR / RAAA
• SS: PMR / RAA
• LF: PMR
• CF: PMR / RAA
• RF: PMR / RAA

Chone Smith has compiled defensive projections for the 2009 season. He’s used 5 years of data (combination of Stats Zone Rating, Revised Zone Rating, and Total Zone), and weighted it such that the most current season receives the most weight. He also regresses the results and uses the Fans Scouting Report. The more data available the less regression, and when data is scarce the scouting report carries more weight.

Cherry-picking out the Tigers (the numbers represent runs/150 games):

Outfield

• Granderson: 13
• Ordonez: -4
• Joyce: (Corner) 7, (Center) -1
• Thames: -5
• Guillen: -3
• Raburn (Corner) 4, (Center) -4

Infield

• Inge: (3B) 10
• Renteria: (SS) -6
• Polanco: (2B) 9
• Cabrera: (1B) -1
• Santiago: (SS) -1, (2B) 1
• Guillen: (3B) 0, (1B) 5

Now there’s a good chance Renteria isn’t back next year, so some shortstop free agents:

• Orlando Cabrera: 1
• Eckstein: -3
• Everett: 19

Adam  Everett could be in a pretty steep defensive decline and even being +2 wins with his glove, his bat is so bad it probably can’t overcome it.  It’s not a great group that is out there, and one more year of Renteria if he can come cheaply might not be a bad bet.

Once again Tom Tango, aka Tangotiger, is conducting his scouting report by the fans, for the fans. I’ve linked to this in the past, but basically you the fan get to rate players defensively across several categories. Tom then compiles the data and makes it available to the masses.

He has instructions on his site, and the one I’d want to highlight is :

Try to judge “average” not as an average player at that position, but an average player at any position. If you think that Willie Bloomquist has an average arm, then mark him as average, regardless if you’ve seen him play 2B, SS, 3B, LF, or CF.

DO NOT CONSIDER THE POSITION THE PLAYER PLAYS!

It’s an off day for the Tigers, so take 5 minutes of the time you’d spend watching the game, and take the survey. It’s quick, and easy. And the bigger sample size the better.

In today’s edition of what’s up Jimmy’s sleeve, we find an alternating catcher. The announcement came down today that Pudge isn’t the regular catcher any more. He and Brandon Inge will rotate behind the plate.

Neither are really hitting worth a lick and at this point Inge is probably the better defensive catcher anyways. Plus with Inge under contract next year and Rodriguez not, it’s clear they are testing the waters despite Leyland’s claims to the contrary. The announcement also comes on the heels of a Vance Wilson sighting in the the clubhouse. Is Vance almost ready to go, will he be ready by the trade deadline, and does Pudge get dealt?

But of course this comes about a week after skip announced that Inge would play more third base and Carlos Guillen would play more left field. So there’s always the chance that this experiment could last 12 hours.

You can hear Tom Gage discussing this and other Tigers items on the WDFN.com Podcast page.
Download audio file (TOM%20GAGE%206-9.mp3?CPROG=PCAST&MARKET=DETROIT-MI&NG_FORMAT=sports&SITE_ID=1128&STATION_ID=WDFN-AM&PCAST_AUTHOR=Sports_Radio_1130_WDFN&PCAST_CAT=sports&PCAST_TITLE=WDFN_-_The_Stoney_and_Wojo_Show)

The Tigers new left fielder is Marcus Thames, except for when it’s Carlos Guillen? Guillen has been taking flyballs in left and it’s another way to keep his bat in the lineup while trying to find a place where his glove doesn’t hurt the defense too much – at least that’s the story.

Out of all the “drastic” moves so far this one reeks the most of desperation. Guillen has no experience playing left field. None. He’s struggled at positions he’s familiar with so why move him somewhere he isn’t comfortable. Meanwhile you have another defensive liability in the infield who has experience in the outfield – Miguel Cabrera. Admittedly he isn’t a good outfielder either, and he’s been looking decent at first, but why not move Cabrera to the outfield?

Or why not move Guillen to DH?

Guillen to left field? It’s a possibility, Leyland says | Freep.com | Detroit Free Press

A startling amount of news from the beat writers and analysis from bloggers today. Inge likes catching, Cabrera at first base, and more.

Inge says catching is fun

Brandon Inge is just too fascinating to resist. The very different views of his defense, the despair over his offense, the sympathy and lack of sympathy over his plight to get traded, his early season success while essentially being a full time player the first 25 games, people clamoring for Inge to return to third base, it’s the gift that keeps on giving for bloggers. Now it appears that Inge thinks catching is cool.

Inge said Tuesday that he still prefers to play third base — “my first love” — and that a chance to play at third regularly could persuade him to play elsewhere.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m not gonna lie,” Inge said, “but I’m good with the catching, too. I don’t like sitting.

“And I love Detroit. I love everything about it.”

It’s quite the shift from his stance this spring when he was catching and complaining about it, and doing it enough to draw ire from me. He later backed off those statements when it became clear Vance Wilson wouldn’t be breaking camp with the team.

I’m in agreement with Ian and Kurt that the possibility of Inge catching next year if Pudge Rodriguez isn’t back would definitely be a nice option for the Tigers to have.

Leyland to cement Cabrera’s spot in baseball history

Jim Leyland is personally feeding the JUGS machine to make sure Miguel Cabrera knows how much the skipper wants him to succeed.

“There is no way, shape or form that I will ever back down — ever — from moving Cabrera to first base,” Leyland said. “That is Cabrera’s position. There is no doubt in the history of baseball that is his position. I will argue it with anybody. That is where he needs to play, and he should be outstanding.”

That’s quite the statement. I don’t know exactly what the part about the history of baseball means, but it sounds good. The only quibble I have is that Cabrera’s best defensive trait is his arm, which becomes non-existent at first.

Tigers head East for talent

Detroit Tigers Thoughts points me towards a Baseball America article
reporting that the Tigers have signed Chao-Ting Tang from Taiwan. I didn’t know the Tigers were scouting that side of the globe, but I’m encouraged that they still continue to invest in R & D even when the big pleague payroll is at record highs.

Re-examining the Jurrjens-Renteria trade

Mack Avenue Tigers goes back in time as people lament the fact that Jair Jurrjens is tearing up the NL while the Tigers are searching for quality starting pitching. Kurt is dead on when he points out where would Jurrjens fit in the rotation? He’d be taking Galarraga’s spot.

The answer is, as the top remaining prospect, he’d already have replaced Dontrelle Willis. Armando Galarraga did that, and he did that quite well. So we have to advance the question: Would you be calling for Galarraga, some guy in the minors with sorta middling stats, to replace Robertson or Rogers? Would you have the gall to have him replace Justin Verlander or Jeremy Bonderman? I highly doubt that. So either way, what has to happen is the four horses the Tigers have must perform. Anyone who thinks one of those guys is going to lose his job is kidding themself.

Jurrjens is a decent bet to outperform Galarraga in the long haul. And it would be nice to have Jurrjens to slot into Kenny Rogers spot next year. But not having Jurrjens hasn’t been the problem this year.

Pitchingto the score

Some fantastic work by Detroit Tiger Tales as he does a study to look at the concept of pitchers pitching to the score. It’s the reason often attributed for Jack Morris’s high ERA. Lee shows which pitchers see a bump or decrease in performance in close games versus blowouts and finds that Morris is pretty typical.

Huh. Wow. Huh.

That was pretty much my reaction when I heard the news on my drive home from the game that Miguel Cabrera is the new first baseman and Carlos Guillen will be moving to third. Color me surprised.

According to Beck Guillen saw it coming and Cabrera is okay with switching positions.

Granted, Guillen had a bad first week of the season manning first base as his foot work kept brining him into the baseline. But since going to Boston it had appeared that the situation had been resolved for the most part. While Guillen was being taken out of games late it was usually for a pinch runner which I attributed to the hamstring problem, not as a defensive switch (though it certainly had that benefit when Inge came into play third).

What makes the move surprising is that
1. Guillen had all kinds of trouble fielding, transferring, and throwing the ball to first base last year. A move to third would seem to present many of the same issues.
2. The Tigers had to know that Miguel Cabrera wasn’t a good fielding third baseman both when they traded for him and when they signed him long term so they can’t have been surprised by what they saw this first month.
3. I’m not really sure that this solves any problems.

Since the Tigers are comfortable enough to rock the boat with Cabrera and Guillen, why not a platoon based on the handedness of the pitcher? Guillen gets third with a lefty on the mound and Cabrera gets it with a righty? At this point would it be that far fetched?

Some of my Tiger blogging brethren have clever names for their link round up posts, like Bless You Boys “Like Stripes on the fur coat of a Tiger” or Mack Avenue Tigers “Bunt Singles” or Roar of the Tigers “Pug Marks.” Here’s my foray and we’ll call it Junkballing:

Baserunning

Mario Impemba notes that Jim Leyland is emphasizing baserunning this season.

This spring, the focus has been on making the Tigers a better team on the bases. Not necessarily faster (that’s not possible according to Leyland), but better. “When you don’t have a lot of speed, you have to emphasize better base running,” he said. “We’ve worked on secondary leads a lot down here.”

Detroit Tiger Tales took an in depth look at baserunning and found that only Curtis Granderson ranked in the top 25 in baseball last season. And there wasn’t anyone close to Granderson on the team. In fact of this year’s roster, only Edgar Renteria, Gary Sheffield and Brandon Inge rated above average.

Projections

Baseball Musings has been taking a team by team look at starting rotations and the Tigers were up today. Pinto notes that the starters all project to be decent and eat a lot of innings. He also notes that as a group they do a good job keeping the ball in the park.

Meanwhile, Lee has been gathering various projections and surveying fans as to the Tigers offensive outlook. He posted the results today. The fans were considerably more optimistic than the computers for Curtis Granderson and Gary Sheffield. They were marginally more positive than the computers for Placido Polanco and Carlos Guillen. But were quite reasonable for the rest of the team. Considering that the bulk of the voters were Tigers fans, that’s not too bad. And if ever there was a case for intangibles I think Granderson would be the poster child.

Blocking pitches

A study was done recently using pitch f/x data to see how catchers rated when it came to blocking balls in the dirt. Tigers fans got used to seeing a lot more of Pudge’s back as he chased down wild pitches and passed balls. It turns out it wasn’t an illusion. Rodriguez was dead last in blocking only 68% of pitches in the dirt. On the other end of the spectrum were the likes of Jason Varitek and Brad Ausmus who blocked 92% of pitches. Mike Rabelo was at 82% if you’re interested. (h/t Inside the Book)

The Dugout

The Dugout takes on the Inge situation…

The game

A beautiful Florida day – credit Roger DeWitt

Oh yeah, the Tigers played the Yankees today. Justin Verlander got hit pretty hard, but he was “working on stuff” so no worries apparently. Also, Curtis Granderson got jiggy with it (do people still get jiggy with it?) and hit two bombs – one off of Joba Chamberlain, and a triple. The scene and atmosphere at the game had Lynn Henning pretty excited, and by the looks of the berm I can see why.