If you’re new here and like what you see, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Need more info on what subscribing entails? Here’s a primer. Thanks for visiting!Manager Jim Leyland was on Mitch Albom’s show and the Free Press has the transcript in 3 parts. The links to all [...]

I was hoping to have a chance to run some numbers, but until I do I figured it was worth posting that Inge will play third and Guillen left field next season. I won’t completely pass judgment until I can do the math on this, but for the moment I’m thinking this doesn’t actually [...]

Dave Dombrowski told Lynn Henning and the Detroit News that Jim Leyland will be managing the Tigers next year. Seeing as this wasn’t a sound bite, it’s tough to get a flavor for how ringing the endorsement was given this is the quote that Henning had:
“Yes, oh yeah,” Dombrowski said when asked if Leyland would [...]

The last 2 games have featured Magglio Ordonez hitting 3rd and Miguel Cabrera hitting clean-up. That’s going to last awhile, like into next season.
I don’t think lineups make a huge difference, but it never felt right having a hitter like Cabrera batting below the clean-up spot. And with Leyland not liking to shuffle [...]

Jim Leyland before the game:
Zumaya’s right shoulder remains a point of concern. Leyland said Zumaya reported “normal soreness” and indicated that he was able to pitch, but Leyland said that description was “not defined enough for me.”
“I’m not going to have it on my plate that I got Joel Zumaya hurt, getting greedy,” Leyland said. [...]

The Tigers are going the route of closer by committee. Sort of. In the sense that Kyle Farnsworth, Fernando Rodney, and Joel Zumaya will all get opportunities there is definitely a committee of people who will be closing games. But it seems as if it will be pre-determined heading into the game [...]

I’ll be honest. I was going to break my rule about swearing on the blog and use some expletives in the title and direct them towards the skipper. His management - or lack of management - in the final inning of today’s debacle was grossly negligent (I’ll hit this more in a minute). [...]

Jim Leyland hasn’t been shy about making changes to established roles this season. He quietly announced a big one on the radio pre-game show with Dan Dickerson when he said that Todd Jones is out as closer and Fernando Rodney would primarily assume the role.
It had become clear over the last couple weeks that [...]

It’s been a couple weeks since Dontrelle Willis came off the disabled list. He’s made all of one appearance. That will change this week when he splits a start with splits a start with Armando Galarraga.
Willis will pitch the first 4 to 5 innings and Galarraga will pitch the rest. It’s an [...]

Hitting philosophy
Hitting coach Lloyd McClendon said runs scored, followed by on-base percentage, are the most important statistics.
“Batting average is the most overrated statistic in baseball,” McClendon said. “Pete Rose told me, ‘When you are scoring runs, you are doing the job.’

I don’t have a lot to comment on here, but I thought the quote was [...]

A cornucopia of Tigers news that has come out today. Jim Leyland is prepared to make some changes, even if it means hurting some feelings. The skip says:
“So I’m going to change some things around here and see what happens. I think that’s important. As I said, I don’t know if it’s going [...]

As I watched intentional walks by Tigers pitchers lead to runs on both Sunday and Monday this week, it seemed to be an all to familiar story. It seemed that the Tigers strategy of intentional walks was failing with remarkable regularity. So I went back to each of the 19 IBB’s the Tigers [...]