Tag Archives: justin verlander

Knapp talks Tigers pitching

Lynn Henning caught up with pitching coach Rick Knapp. Knapp broke down the various members of his staff and it makes for a very interesting read.

He talks about Justin Verlander’s arm slot and balance point (Verlander’s arm angle was a rich topic last year). With Nate Robertson it is falling off to the third base side and getting too “horizontal” which flattens the slider. Jermey Bonderman is built like an ox. Dontrelle Willis is in phenomenal shape. Fernando Rodney needs to keep his emotions in check.

I don’t have the first clue if he’s right with any of these assessments. But what I do like is that he seems to be looking at a myriad of issues. He isn’t forcing everyone into a set way to do things. I’m anxious and optimistic to see what he can do with the staff.

Tigers’ Knapp shows knack with Verlander tip | detnews.com | The Detroit News

Tigers get 4 under contract

The Tigers inked 4 of the 5 arbitration eligible players today. Gerald Laird ($2.8), Edwin Jackson ($2.2), Bobby Seay ($1.1) and Joel Zumaya ($733,000) are all in the fold. Missing from that list is Justin Verlander.

Verlander is the only one of the group likely to be in the mix for a long term deal. It’s also something he may not be eager to sign in the worst offseason for contracts in recent memory, and coming off a season when his numbers were down.

Verlander and the Tigers exchanged numbers and Detroit is offering $3.2 while Verlander is asking for $4.15. It’s a very manageable difference and I’ll guess they settle somewhere around $3.8.

I have updated the salary chart and the team looks to be at about $117 million at the moment.

Tigers ink four, ponder Verlander terms | tigers.com: News

Detroit Tigers Weblog Live 12.12.08

Wrapping up the winter meetings…

In this episode I talk of disappointment with the Matt Joyce trade and why I don’t think Edwin Jackson is the guy to get. I also talk about how James Skelton shouldn’t have been left exposed in the Rule 5 draft. I speculate about whether or not the failed auto loan will impact the team.

Links from the show:

Detroit Tigers Weblog Live – The Pilot

This is the DTW’s first foray into live web video. The show will kick off at 11 a.m. and you can watch it below. If you’d like to make comments you can head over to the ustream.tv page and join in the chat. I’ll be talking about the Tigers offseason, and the Jack Wilson rumors. Feel free to ask questions and I’ll try to tackle those as well.

I’ll try and archive this for later viewing after the show, and links I mention I will include in this post as well.

UPDATE: The archived version is now up below.

Continue reading Detroit Tigers Weblog Live – The Pilot

Hitting em where they ain’t

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.
Continue reading Hitting em where they ain’t

Fun with the Bill James leaderboards

The Bill James Handbook is always one of the first baseball books to come out each year. It’s not a riveting narrative by any means and it consists largely of tables of numbers. But there are always some interesting pieces and there seems to be something new every year. Last year it was the Young Talent Inventory. This year it is a bullpen analysis. They sit alongside managerial stats, baserunning stats, and the Fielding Bible awards. But one of my favorite sections is the leaderboard.

I’m not going to copy a bunch of leaderboards for you here. That might be kind of tedious and boring for everyone, and it would definitely be a copyright violation. But I will point out some Tiger related items that are either interesting, or surprising, or noteworthy.

  • Despite coming back from a horrific shoulder injury, and ending the season early, Joel Zumaya still let the AL with 18 pitches thrown over 100MPH. Brandon League was next closest with 4. Fernando Rodney even managed 2 over the century mark.
  • Speaking of fastballs, Justin Verlander’s 93.6 average was 6th in the AL and Kenny Rogers’ 85.2 MPH heater was slower only than Tim Wakefield’s.
  • Armando Galarraga threw a slider 38% of the time which was the highest rate in the AL.
  • Despite Verlander’s struggles, his .377 slugging percentage against was good enough for 8th best.
  • Rogers and Nate Robertson both ranked in the top 5 in GIDP/9. Just think how bad things would have been if they hadn’t had so many twin killings.
  • Edgar Renteria was 4th in SS pivot percentage. Renteria also had the 2nd highest batting average against left handed pitching with the 7th highest batting average at home. If only the Tigers faced lefties at home more often…
  • Curtis Granderson continued his maturation by taking the 8th highest percentage of pitches and seeing the 5th most pitches per plate appearance.
  • Placido Polanco struck out less per plate appearance than anyone else in the AL, but it didn’t help him in run production where he had the 8th lowest RBI percentage (5.96)

2008 Offseason Preamble

With a disastrous season completed it is time to head into the offseason. Given the gravity of the collapse, you know with the high payroll and the last place-edness, there is probably a tendency to overreact and second-guess. While a deep dive analysis is definitely called for, there is also some inaccuracy being bandied about. With that in mind, some thoughts as we head into what will likely be a tumultuous winter.

Dave Dombrowski did not abandon his philosophy

I’ve heard this one frequently. The common thread is that Dombrowski abandoned his pitching first philosophy in favor of “buiding a slow pitch softball team.” Dombrowski has always believed in stock piling young pitching and using it as the building blocks of a team. Whether that entails using the pitchers on his own team, or trading it to fill needs, he’s always used young pitching.

The Renteria trade was made in large part for defense, not to build a slow pitch slugging softball team. The benefit of Renteria was that he was to be a 2 way player. The problem was that while Renteria was a defensive upgrade, it was a small upgrade (Guillen was -12 in 1074 innings at short in ’07, Renteria was -9 in 1173 innings in ’08 according to Fielding Bible +/-) and his offense was beyond absent the first half of the season. The trade failed, there’s no question, but it wasn’t a change of philosophy.

As for Cabrera, defense was never a part of the issue. It was entirely an offensive move. But it was also an opportunity that doesn’t come along that often. Players like Cabrera don’t grow on trees and to add an elite player at age 25 is largely unheard of. It is the kind of big splash move that Dombrowski has been known for throughout his career.

As for the rest of the staff, they were far worse than could have reasonably been expected. While Willis struggled last year and was trending down, to get nothing from him was unexpected to everyone. Robertson was never a top of the rotation starter, but was the epitome of a solid back of the rotation guy. To compete, along with Kenny Rogers, for worst starter in the league wasn’t part of any reasonable plan. And then there was Verlander adding a run and a half to his ERA. That your entire starting rotation would be injured or significantly underperforming wasn’t part of any plan or strategy and more than could have been mitigated.

The window isn’t closed

I should adjust that and say “the window isn’t closed if Ilitch doesn’t want it to be.” The boss could go all Huizenga and say “cut-cut-cut” but I don’t see that happening. This team was positioned to go for it in both 2008 and 2009. Because 08 was crap doesn’t mean you need to abandon 09 as well. The offense should be good again next year, and it isn’t unreasonable to think that the pitching staff will see some return to non-crapitude next year.

In terms of trading, they’d be selling low on most of the players that fans want to see traded. They could probably get a nice return for Armando Galarraga, Curtis Granderson, and Miguel Cabrera, but who really wants to see them shopped?

Don’t overreact

Everybody wants speed, defense, and starters, and bullpen arms. Some better defense would be nice, but don’t sacrifice offense completely. The Tigers are ready to make that move at third with the Inge pronouncement. It means they can’t afford to do it at both catcher and shortstop.

The bullpen was awful, but 5 years and $75 million to fix it will be money poorly spent. As for starters, is it worth a second round draft pick to sign a Derek Lowe type starter? (it might be if the Tigers can get the draft pick compensation for Renteria)

I’m not saying do nothing. Clearly this team has holes at multiple positions and another starter and a 2-3 new bullpen arms are clearly needed. But I still think, and perhaps this is naive, but good teams can have bad seasons. This team wasn’t as good as we thought going in, and it isn’t as bad as we think right now. I’ll borrow this conclusion from Nate Silver’s piece in Baseball Prospectus ($) and quote sparingly because it is premium content.

Bad years happen to good clubs. The key for the Tigers will simply be not to panic, nor to try and save face with guys like Renteria and Willis whose projections don’t really warrant it. The Tigers need to budget somewhere between $15-$20 million for perhaps three pitchers next year, but with the contracts of Renteria, Todd Jones, Kenny Rogers, and Ivan Rodriguez all coming off the books, they can easily afford to do so without increasing payroll.

This has been a frustrating season in Detroit, but hardly a disastrous one in terms of the club’s long-term fortunes. There have been several pleasant surprises this year in Galarraga, Joyce, and Brandon Inge’s smooth transition back to the catcher position*. From top to bottom, the Tigers still rank somewhere in the top ten in the major leagues in terms of their overall talent pool, and they should be on track to return to contention with some relatively common-sense fixes.

*The Inge part was written on August 14th before Inge completely collapsed down the stretch offensively and started allowing a PB per game.

Daily Linking – 8/26

Links of note, or stuff I find interesting, or stuff I think you might find interesting

Managing Verlander’s Workload

After Justin Verlander’s 130 pitch outing, I flailed wildly in frustration at the stupidity of the situation. I didn’t care for the move from an in game management decision, and I hated the thought of increasing the risk of injury to the prized arm in the organization. The feedback was mixed. Some agreed with me. Others thought I was crazy. Pitchers used to throw a lot more. Justin Verlander was still throwing hard. He’s been throwing a lot of pitches this year so he’s conditioned for it. He hasn’t been injured the in the past. He’s the ace. Some of these arguments don’t hold a lot of water, but others are harder to refute. But what if we table the injury concern for a moment and instead look at performance?
Continue reading Managing Verlander’s Workload

Leyland abuses Verlander’s arm for no good reason

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. “I’m not going to do it.”

Justin Verlander last night:

  • 7.2 innings
  • 6 hits
  • 5 runs
  • 3 walks
  • 8 strike outs
  • 130 pitches

This is categorically stupid. From an in game management sense, the team was only down two runs and still very much in it. You starter has done his job and worked into the 8th inning. After the Dye double, even if he is still throwing in the high 90’s, get him out of there and bring in a fresh arm. Try and keep the game close. Instead he throws 11 more pitches taking a lofty pitch count to insane. That Lopez finally came in and allowed a single is immaterial.

From a pitching management standpoint it is inexcusable. With last night’s start, Justin Verlander now leads all of baseball in pitcher abuse points. He’s thrown more pitches than any other pitcher in baseball this year. And for what? A 5-1 loss in a season that is already decided? The Tigers just wanted to make sure that all their young pitchers end up on the DL?

It seems that this type of move happens when the manager is on his way out of town.

Justin Verlander in 150 words or less

Justin Verlander, the young stud pitcher and AL Rookie of the Year winner in 2006 was anointed ace of the Detroit staff and named the Opening Day starter. However with a 6.43 ERA and only one win he’s been anything but an ace.

Early on there were concerns when his fastball lost velocity. He changed his arm angle and found some mph’s and a tighter breaking ball. But still the results haven’t caught up to his stuff. It has led a former Tigers pitcher to think Verlander is injured, and others to think that Justin is in need of some Doc Halladay type adjustments.

A look at his components is encouraging because he’s not being hit hard, but he is walking too many and not striking out enough. Tigers fans need optimism about Verlander, because remaining playoff hopes rest largely on his shoulder.

Verlander arm angle follow-up

Prior to Justin Verlander’s last start we discussed his dip in velocity and a change in arm angle is he was looking to make. Verlander had some improved results in his Tuesday night start against the Rangers. Looking at his pitch f/x data he averaged 93.9mph with his fastball and peaked around 97mph. A definite improvement to be sure.

As for the arm angle, I added his Tuesday night release point data to the previous graph. Now there may be some calibration issues because the latest data was from Comerica Park and the other data was from Chicago. But there appears to be a marked difference, and maybe even an over adjustment.