Offense

In the Detroit News Tiger notebook, Tom Gage points out that the Royals had a better OBP than the Tigers in May. I disagree with Gage’s take on the situation. Instead of opining that this is a glaring indication that despite the Tigers success there are still opportunities for improvement, Gage uses this [...]

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Excuse my enthusiasm, but winning is fun. I certainly thought that 3-0 was possible, but the manner in which the Tigers are doing it has certainly left surprised. Some pleasant Tiger surprises after a thumping of the Rangers:

Tiger starters have yet to walk a batter. While Nate Robertson wasn’t dominating like Kenny [...]

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Over the last few weeks of spring training, I

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According to Danny Knobler, Jim Leyland has settled on a lineup.
Granderson, cf
Polanco, 2b
Rodriguez, c
Ordonez, rf
Young, dh
Monroe, lf
Guillen, ss
Shelton, 1b
Inge, 3b
Now if your reaction was similar to mine, you’re probably thinking “Guillen and Shelton at 7 and 8 while Pudge is hitting third?!?” Yes, the lineup is unorthodox, and one I probably wouldn’t advocate. [...]

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The Boys are Back in Town

Detroit AB R H RBI BB SO LOB AVG
Granderson, CF 3 1 1 1 1 0 1 .364
Guillen, SS 2 0 0 0 0 1 1 .250
Santiago, SS 2 0 0 0 0 1 2 .281
Ordonez, RF 3 0 0 0 0 1 0 .222
Taylor, RF 1 0 0 0 0 1 2 .379
Young, D, DH 4 0 1 0 0 1 0 .429
Pena, 1B 3 0 2 0 1 0 0 .194
Inge, 3B 4 0 0 0 0 2 4 .308
Gomez, LF 4 1 2 1 0 0 1 .317
Wilson, C 3 1 2 1 0 0 0 .400
Peterson, B, C 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .250
Infante, 2B 3 0 1 0 0 1 1 .455
How about that lineup? It’s nice to see some regular names in there. Carlos Guillen and Magglio Ordonez saw their first action since Venezuela was eliminated from the World Baseball Classic. The game [...]

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On Friday, Lee aggregated various projections for Tiger players to find the average projection. On Saturday, David Pinto web enabled a script written by Ken Arneson based on work by Cyril Morong that optimizes lineups. On Sunday, I do the easiest part of all and stick Lee’s numbers into David’s tool.
First some lineups, [...]

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I’ve already scanned the PECOTA projections for Tiger pitchers and highlighted what I thought was most interesting. Now we’ll do the hitters.
Curtis Granderson
Lee has already done the comparison of who PECOTA thinks should be starting in centerfield for Detroit. And it has been enough of a theme here that I think I’ve beat [...]

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When talking about players strengths and weaknesses, ultimately the discussion will veer towards: “What they really need is a platoon because player X can’t hit Y-handers to save his life.” Okay, so maybe not every baseball discussion goes this way, but I’m sure you’ve all heard it, and perhaps even said it before. [...]

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With the talk of starters yesterday, it got me thinking about potential batting orders. Now the value of setting the order is probably overrated. Aside from putting higher on-base guys at the top of the order, I’m not really sure how much sequencing actually matters. The only other real consideration I see [...]

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It was a familiar scene for Tiger fans this season. A runner gets to third base with less than two outs. The next batter would invariably seem to do one of three things, a strikeout, a sharp ground ball to third, or a pop out to second. Once that second out was secured, the final [...]

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So do you believe in Brandon Inge yet? I have to admit that I was highly skeptical that he could pick up where he left off last year. I didn’t expect him to slide all the way back to his .200 batting average ways, but I certainly didn’t expect the 375/453/607 line [...]

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