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!Remember in the preseason when the Tigers starting lineup seemed to be made up entirely of All Star candidates? Yeah, things didn’t [...]

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 [...]

Gary Sheffield’s oblique strain suffered in last night’s game has landed him on the disabled list. Jeff Larish has been called up and is jetting to LA for tonight’s game. He won’t be DH’ing though. That role will be reserved for Carlos Guillen tonight. Apparently he is bothered by hemorrhoids which [...]

Isn’t it something that we waited and waited to get the anticipated lineup together. First Granderson was injured, and then Sheffield and Polanco. And then everyone was set to come back and Carlos Guillen missed a couple games. Finally, on April 27th the 1000 run lineup took the field. And 8 [...]

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, [...]

With this afternoon’s loss to the Blue Jays the Tigers record in day games now stands at a remarkable 0-10. A quick check of the splits reveals that the Tigers have been outscored 57 to 18 in day games. Yes, the offense has mustered less than 2 runs a game before the sun sets.

Dontrelle Willis is landing on the disabled list because he didn’t land correctly on Friday night. The initial diagnosis was a hyperextended knee and that was confirmed today by an MRI that revealed no structural damage. He’s not expected to miss significant time, but he wasn’t going to make his next start. [...]

Imagine if the players turned the tables on the beat writers during spring training and wrote stories about the beat writers.

“The official reporting date wasn’t until the 14th, but he was down here a couple weeks ago getting ready.”

“You can tell he was really working out this offseason. His vocabulary has grown as much as his forearms. Both are the product of intensive typing.”

“He’s excited to be down here. You can hear it in his voice when he talks about how excited he is to get to work.”

“As the new guy on the beat, he’s still trying to get a feel for his fellow media members, but he seems to be fitting in great.”

“As a 6 year veteran, and the only remaining beat writer from that awful 2003 team, it’s clear that he’s a leader in and out of the locker room and the other guys look to him for cues.”

“He’s excited to try out the new language he was working on over the winter. By adding Spanish to his repertoire he should really have an advantage over the competition. If he can gain confidence in it, it could be what he needs to push him from beat writer to elite columnist.”

I kid of course, especially on a day when there is so much news coming out of camp.

I’m sure many of you have seen the Gatorade commercial featuring numerous dramatic stills. It came to my attention when Ian blogged about it recently. The commercial is below. In the spot it appears that Jeter notches a game winning hit off of Todd Jones with Carlos Guillen turning away in disappointment. [...]

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 [...]

Last week one of my favorite publications showed up on my doorstep - The Bill James Handbook. This year’s version doesn’t disappoint. I’ve already dropped references to +/- fielding metrics which are an important reference point for evaluating defense. The usual assortment of win shares, park factors, player stats, and projections are [...]

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 [...]