From the category archives:

Defense

Junkballing: riding the river of news

07.05.2008 6 comments

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 [...]

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Cabrera to first, Guillen to third

22.04.2008 67 comments

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, [...]

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Junkballing: Baserunning, blocking, projections

15.03.2008

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:

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Color me surprised, Tigers like Cabrera’s glove

22.02.2008 22 comments

credit Roger DeWitt

I’d consider this the first bit of surprising news coming out of camp, but the Tigers are impressed with Miguel Cabrera defensively at third has had me a little nervous since the trade was made. A rotation with three southpaws, two of which are extreme ground balls pitchers, means that third base becomes very important. Whether or not this is spring-training optimism talking remains to be seen (Jose Macias was dubbed a gold glove centerfielder by Randy Smith one spring).

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Optimal Sub

29.01.2008 10 comments

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 [...]

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One more post on Comerica’s outfield

26.12.2007 4 comments

There are a few items that didn’t fit into the other posts about the outfield park factors that I wanted to wrap up. First I wanted to acknowledge some other work that was done. Chone calculated outfield park factors in the fall of 2006. I either missed this or completely forgot having seen it. Also, [...]

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Outfield Park Factors part 2

19.12.2007 13 comments

Earlier in the week, I questioned the widely held belief of whether with an outfield like Comerica Park’s the Tigers should have 2 centerfielder-types to man the large left and center fields. Using park factors and looking at the rate at which balls in the air drop in for hits, we saw that fewer balls [...]

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Comerica Park’s outfield is so big…

17.12.2007 5 comments

“How big is it?” You need 3 center fielders to cover all the ground out there Okay, as a joke it’s awful, but it is a common statement amongst Tigers fans. At the very least the belief is that multiple center fielder type players are required to man left and center fields. When you look [...]

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The Coda

09.12.2007 36 comments

Wrapping up some outstanding items from what very well could be one of the most significant trades in franchise history… Replenishment Peter Gammons astutely pointed out that the Tigers were able to make this trade because of Ilitch’s and Dombrowski’s refusal to adhere to the asinine draft slotting system. Not only did a willingness to [...]

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Where should Cabrera play?

06.12.2007 131 comments

Jim Leyland was quoted yesterday talking about how this deal and the players they acquired were like a presents under the tree. Well, now that we can open up the presents, it’s time to play with them. The common refrain is that the Tigers should play Miguel Cabrera at third base and move Brandon Inge. [...]

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The Tigers Defense – What are the Odds?

25.11.2007 16 comments

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 [...]

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Handing out hardware

08.11.2007 17 comments

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 [...]

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