When I was driving home last night shortly after the trade came down, I was listening to WDFN. I was more than a little taken aback by the number of callers saying good-riddance to Ivan Rodriguez. While there may be something to that in terms of evaluating the trade, there also seemed to be a glaring lack of recognition for what Tigers fans had the last 4.5 years. They had the pleasure to watch one of the best in the history of the game day in day out and he was wearing the English D.

For the last half decade Tigers fans have had a sure thing first ballot hall of famer playing for their team. This is a good thing. It’s a rare thing. It’s something that needs to be appreciated.

Not everything was pretty with Pudge. He had his superstar foibles. The absolute refusal to take a walk in 2005 and 2007 was maddening. His pouting and petulance likely played a role in dividing the clubhouse in Alan Trammell’s last year and shouldn’t be excused or forgotten. But greatness doesn’t come around that often, and it is even rarer that it comes to teams who threaten the all time loss record.

I know that Pudge came where the money was, so I don’t know how much credit he deserves for coming here. But he did come here and that is pretty special regardless of the circumstances. He also probably gets more credit than he deserves for leadership and handling of a pitching staff. After all, he didn’t even warm-up the starter in the bullpen before games leaving that to the bullpen catcher.

We didn’t see Pudge at his peak, but we did see him when he was still pretty good. He had a phenomenal 2004 season including the month of June when he hit .500. There was the big walk-off homer against the Indians in 2006. There was the extra-inning walk off hit against the Red Sox in 2007. And there were all the baserunners cut down and even more that didn’t try. We saw a guy with over 2000 games caught who can still hit nearly .300 and run the bases like a 28 year old second baseman.

I make a point to keep a mental checklist of all the great players I’ve seen in person. I know the times that I saw Roger Clemens start (steroids or not he’s phenomenal). I remember the time I saw Barry Bonds in person, and the games where Ken Griffey Jr. came to Comerica. And I appreciate every time the Yankees come to town because Alex Rodriguez is a remarkably rare talent. Pudge Rodriguez is in that class. There were problems for sure.  However, he’s the best catcher by far in my lifetime* and I got to see him play for MY team wearing the home whites. And that’s pretty special.

*Okay, Johnny Bench played in my lifetime but he was at the end of his career when I was old enough to discover baseball.

Pudge Rodriguez for Kyle Farnsworth? My first reaction was, and who else did the Tigers get? Rodriguez is having a fine season, and there are teams that are really looking for catching help. Besides the Yankees, the Marlins had also inquired and were turned away. In other words it was kind of a sellers market for the Tigers. If he was going to get moved I anticipated it would be for prospects, or something better than the 2 draft picks they would have secured had Pudge declined arbitration. When the return was a non-elite relief pitcher I actually felt ill. After a few moments of reflection though I feel a little less queasy.

Brandon Inge becomes the full time catcher now and he has an of .758 this season (I was actually surprised to see it was that high). Meanwhile Pudge carries a .755 OPS, but with a .295 average. On a starter perspective it’s surprisingly a push. Of course catching depth has been obliterated and there is a huge drop off when the back-up – presumably Dane Sardinha – enters the game. There’s also the issue of whether or not Inge can hit while catching.

As for Farnsworth the Tigers needed bullpen help and he’s having a nice season with a 8.73 K/9, a 3.45 BB/9 (still not that great). But the guy has allowed 11 HOME RUNS THIS YEAR. His 3.65 ERA is buoyed by a 94% LOB rate – far higher than at anytime in his career.

In terms of the other elements of the trade, both players are free agents at the end of the year. Pudge Rodriguez was going to be a Type A free agent meaning he’d bring back 2 draft picks. Farnsworth was a Type B last year, and would likely be one again this year meaning they’ll get 1 draft pick. So they give up a draft pick in this deal presuming both players were to get offered arbitration and declined. The Tigers save a couple million in the process as Pudge was out earning Farnsworth by about $7 million this year.

Farnsworth kind of fills a need, but not that well. The Tigers don’t take a huge hit in terms of production and aren’t giving up on the season. But my issue is that I think the Tigers could have done better for Pudge. He’s having a good year at a hard to fill position. Factor in the loss of a draft pick and it’s not good. No young player coming back? Not awful, but Dave Dombrowski failed to maximize Pudge’s value. Yankees win this one easy.

With a week before the non-waiver trade deadline, rumors are flying everywhere. A quick round-up of Tigers items of note so far:

It appears that the Tigers had scouts at the Orioles/Blue Jays game when A.J. Burnett started. Whether they were scouting Burnett or lefty reliever George Sherrill is unclear. The Tigers could of course use some starter help, and there is a belief they are looking for a lefty reliever also.

The starter isn’t a surprise, but the Tigers could always turn to Clay Rapada. And while I haven’t been a proponent of Casey Fossum, he has been pretty good in his last 7 outings. He’s stranded 8 of the last 10 runners he’s inherited and fanned 11 in his last 14.1 innings. Plus he’s had 3.1 and 4.1 inning games. I’m not saying there isn’t room to upgrade, but would that be the best use of limited chits?

Jayson Stark notes that the Tigers are offering Gary Sheffield. He could still fetch a player or two if the Tigers pay the bulk of the salary. The mildly surprising part is that Stark lists a young shortstop on the Tigers wish list. Yes Renteria has been awful, but I’d guess the Tigers would look for a stop gap. Mike Hollimon is more of a second baseman, but could fill in at short and some combination of Cale Iorg, Danny Worth, and even longer shot/higher ceiling player Audy Ciriaco could be reading within a year or year and a half. The Renteria 1 year/1 option year contract was attractive for that reason (before the sucking of course).

And then in the old news department the Marlins inquired on Pudge Rodriguez. Pudge is having a very solid year – not a $13 million year – but he does probably represent the best production that could be available at the position. Rodriguez would likely fetch 2 draft picks should the Tigers offer arbitration and he declines. I’d view the declining as likely because he’d probably pursue a multi-year contract.

Of course the intensity of any buying or selling on the Tigers part is likely to pick up following this weekend tilt with the White Sox.

So Miguel Cabrera slides into the clean-up spot with Magglio Ordonez hitting the disabled list. And promptly gets hurt himself. The diagnosis is hip flexor and the duration is day-to-day.

To add injury to injury, Pudge Rodriguez has spent the entire game grimacing and moving as if he is also in pain. This included a brief visit from trainer Kevin Rand early in the game.

Yeah, the kids have provided a nice lift filling it, but this is taking things to extremes.

The oblique problem isn’t going away for Brandon Inge and he is now on the DL. Dane Sardhina’s contract was purchased from Toledo and he’ll back-up Pudge Rodriguez. I’d guess that Sardhina wouldn’t be put into the rotating catcher situation that Inge was in.

This will certainly limit some of Jim Leyland’s flexibility when it comes to late inning defensive replacements.

Sardhina is a career 222/263/337 hitter in the minors so this isn’t the ideal situation by any means. In retrospect putting Inge on the DL a week or so ago when the team had 2 off days would have been a better move. The Tigers don’t have an off day now until July 7th and there are 5 of those day-game-after-a-night-game situations between now and then. So Sardhina will get a handful of starts.

On a side note, my buddy Russ wondered that since Inge strained the oblique on a check swing, if it was a repetitive stress injury – kinda like carpal tunnel syndrome.

In today’s edition of what’s up Jimmy’s sleeve, we find an alternating catcher. The announcement came down today that Pudge isn’t the regular catcher any more. He and Brandon Inge will rotate behind the plate.

Neither are really hitting worth a lick and at this point Inge is probably the better defensive catcher anyways. Plus with Inge under contract next year and Rodriguez not, it’s clear they are testing the waters despite Leyland’s claims to the contrary. The announcement also comes on the heels of a Vance Wilson sighting in the the clubhouse. Is Vance almost ready to go, will he be ready by the trade deadline, and does Pudge get dealt?

But of course this comes about a week after skip announced that Inge would play more third base and Carlos Guillen would play more left field. So there’s always the chance that this experiment could last 12 hours.

You can hear Tom Gage discussing this and other Tigers items on the WDFN.com Podcast page.
Download audio file (TOM%20GAGE%206-9.mp3?CPROG=PCAST&MARKET=DETROIT-MI&NG_FORMAT=sports&SITE_ID=1128&STATION_ID=WDFN-AM&PCAST_AUTHOR=Sports_Radio_1130_WDFN&PCAST_CAT=sports&PCAST_TITLE=WDFN_-_The_Stoney_and_Wojo_Show)

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:

Baserunning

Mario Impemba notes that Jim Leyland is emphasizing baserunning this season.

This spring, the focus has been on making the Tigers a better team on the bases. Not necessarily faster (that’s not possible according to Leyland), but better. “When you don’t have a lot of speed, you have to emphasize better base running,” he said. “We’ve worked on secondary leads a lot down here.”

Detroit Tiger Tales took an in depth look at baserunning and found that only Curtis Granderson ranked in the top 25 in baseball last season. And there wasn’t anyone close to Granderson on the team. In fact of this year’s roster, only Edgar Renteria, Gary Sheffield and Brandon Inge rated above average.

Projections

Baseball Musings has been taking a team by team look at starting rotations and the Tigers were up today. Pinto notes that the starters all project to be decent and eat a lot of innings. He also notes that as a group they do a good job keeping the ball in the park.

Meanwhile, Lee has been gathering various projections and surveying fans as to the Tigers offensive outlook. He posted the results today. The fans were considerably more optimistic than the computers for Curtis Granderson and Gary Sheffield. They were marginally more positive than the computers for Placido Polanco and Carlos Guillen. But were quite reasonable for the rest of the team. Considering that the bulk of the voters were Tigers fans, that’s not too bad. And if ever there was a case for intangibles I think Granderson would be the poster child.

Blocking pitches

A study was done recently using pitch f/x data to see how catchers rated when it came to blocking balls in the dirt. Tigers fans got used to seeing a lot more of Pudge’s back as he chased down wild pitches and passed balls. It turns out it wasn’t an illusion. Rodriguez was dead last in blocking only 68% of pitches in the dirt. On the other end of the spectrum were the likes of Jason Varitek and Brad Ausmus who blocked 92% of pitches. Mike Rabelo was at 82% if you’re interested. (h/t Inside the Book)

The Dugout

The Dugout takes on the Inge situation…

The game

A beautiful Florida day – credit Roger DeWitt

Oh yeah, the Tigers played the Yankees today. Justin Verlander got hit pretty hard, but he was “working on stuff” so no worries apparently. Also, Curtis Granderson got jiggy with it (do people still get jiggy with it?) and hit two bombs – one off of Joba Chamberlain, and a triple. The scene and atmosphere at the game had Lynn Henning pretty excited, and by the looks of the berm I can see why.

Pudge Rodriguez’s power surge has been a pleasant surprise this spring. With two more homers today, he now has a MLB leading six for the spring. But as Jason Beck notes, Pudge is focusing less on the homers, and more on being patient. This is a guy after all, that is one of only 4 players since 2003 to have more than 500 plate appearances in a season and fewer than 15 walks. And he did it twice!

Still, Pudge sez:

“No, I don’t think I’ve had a Spring Training like that as far as home runs. But I don’t look for that. It’s good, yes. I have six home runs in Spring Training. The main thing about it is I’m just doing what I want to do and just be more selective at the plate, try to hit some strikes and take the balls. I’m just trying to see 4-5 pitches per at-bat. That’s what I’m trying to do. And so far, that’s what I’m doing. I’m feeling pretty good about that.”

Keep in mind here that Pudge’s pitch selection in 2007 wasn’t just poor, it was horrendous. Using pitch f/x data from last year we saw that a typical big leaguer would offer at 29% of pitchers out of the strike zone. Rodriguez was around 50%.

As for the 4-5 pitches per PA, that would be quite a jump. Beck noted that Rodriguez ranked near the bottom in terms of pitchers per PA last year when he averaged 3.51. But that was actually the most pitches he’s seen since becoming a Tigers with rates of 3.44, 3.33, and 3.39. In fact the 3.51 was the 2nd highest mark of his career.

Rodriguez’s ability to carry this over into the regular season would seem to be far fetched. Still, this is a contract year which may provide some extra motivation to be a more complete hitter. Secondly, he’s had some early success this spring which should provide some positive reinforcement that the approach is working. Third, he’ll be in a great lineup. Okay, that last one doesn’t make a lot of sense but it is a popular refrain for why players will do really well for the Tigers this year.

Ivan Rodriguez and Placido Polanco were honored today as MLB announced the Gold Glove winners. For Pudge it was his 13th while it was Polanco’s first. But were they the most deserving Tigers? Rob Neyer took a look at the inherent biases or trends in the voting. A couple of these helped the Tigers (previous winner, fielding percentage, offensive contribution), and a couple hurt the Tigers.

Pudge Rodriguez

We’ll start with Pudge Rodriguez who saw his caught stealing rate drop to 30.9%. That was still a little above average in 2007 when base stealers in the AL were successful 73.2% of the time, but hardly Gold Glove worthy. Kenji Johjima gunned down 46.5% of would be base stealers. Even dubious stats like passed balls didn’t favor Rodriguez as he was charged with 7 while Johjima was charged with 5 in 54 more innings. And that isn’t even inclusive of the numerous wild pitches which could have been scored either way. Then throw in 6 errors and the picture is bleak for Pudge who won the award entirely off his reputation.

Placido Polanco

Moving to Placido Polanco, his win was certainly defensible. While errors and fielding percentage is a flawed stat, making it though a season without an error is still a remarkable achievement. While the error that was charged to Polanco and later assigned to Marcus Thames is certainly debatable, it was the only instance that I can recall where the streak was helped by the scorer. Throw in Polanco’s .341 batting average and it is easy to see why he would garner votes. But in looking at other metrics he lagged his peers.

Looking at +/- in the The Bill James Handbook 2008, Polanco was a respectable +10. That trailed Aaron Hill (+22), Mark Ellis (+19), and Robinson Cano (+17) considerably. If you don’t like +/- those same 3 appear as the best (but in a different order) using UZR as well. Polanco rates a little better using Revised Zone Rating, but he still is sandwiched between Ellis and Hill and made over 100 fewer plays than Ellis and nearly 150 fewer plays than Hill.

I like Polanco and am happy to see him receive some recognition. But the evidence just doesn’t show him as the best fielding 2nd baseman in the AL.

Brandon Inge

Now it’s time to stir the pot with some Brandon Inge controversy. Adrian Beltre took home the hardware for third basemen this year. Beltre is an excellent defender so this isn’t a bad choice at all. The trouble is, as Neyer pointed out, the award was a year late. Beltre should have won it in 2006. This year Brandon Inge beat him in UZR (+12 versus +5). Inge also beat him in +/- as Brandon amassed a +22, second only to Pedro Feliz. Nick Punto was next closest in the AL at +10 while Beltre was a solid +7. Inge was 2nd in the AL in RZR behind Mike Lowell and in total made 45 more plays on balls in his zone than any other AL third sacker. Beltre bests him only in plays on balls made out of his zone, 64 to 63. But even in fielding percentage where Inge typically gets dinged, he posted a .959 to Beltre’s .958.

Brandon Inge was deserving of the award this year, and it wasn’t a 1 year fluke. Looking at the 3 year +/- numbers only Albert Pujols, Chase Utley, Adam Everett, and Pedro Feliz have a better rate than Inge.

Curtis Granderson

This one is the hardest to figure. Granderson seemed to do many of the things that help you win gold gloves.

Solid offensive season? Check. He was top 10 in slugging, OPS, Runs, Total Bases, and Triples. Plus he had that whole quad-20 thing which was arbitrary, but still remarkable and attention gathering.
Winning team? Check. The Tigers were in contention all year and received plenty of attention.
Highlight plays? Check. His homer rob of Wily Mo Pena was the #2 web gem. Plus he had some high profile diving catches including a triple/run saving catch on Sunday night baseball and a game saving catch in an August pennant race tilt against the Indians.

Not that any of the above are legitimate reasons for winning, but they do seem to resonate well with voters.

As for his actual case, he had the highest RZR in the American League regardless of position.

Looking at +/- he was second only to Coco Crisp (also a deserving candidate) at +21 just behind Crisp’s +22. Gold Glove winner Ichiro was at +4 and other winners Grady Sizemore and Torii Hunter weren’t in the top 10. (the annual only lists the top ten and bottom 5 at each position.

Looking at UZR, Sizemore rates well at +26 leading AL centerfielders with Granderson second at +18 (Crisp and Dejesus tied for 3rd at +13). Meanwhile Ichiro was -14.

If you’re skeptical of the advanced metrics, that is understandable. When some players rate inconsistently across them it is hard to know where the truth lies. But Granderson rated at or near the top across the board, which is more than can be said for the other fielders except for Crisp.

I’m not overly upset with the results. The Gold Gloves have long been flawed awards. But when someone describes a player as a gold glover it is important to note whether they are using the generic term for a very good defender, or whether they are actually toting someone’s hardware. The former probably carries more weight even if the latter carries more prestige.

The Tigers announced that they have picked up Pudge Rodriguez’s $13 million option for the 2008 season. That’s one less question mark out there.

I already wrote up my thoughts on the matter.

We’ve now heard from all the relevant players involved in the should we exercise Pudge’s option discussion. Mike Ilitch weighed in on Pudge last night:

“Pudge did a big thing for us, putting a face on the franchise,” Ilitch told The Associated Press on Wednesday night. “He’s made a lot of contributions.
“I don’t think it’ll be a tough call, but we’ll see.”

And Pudge’s agent Scott Boras made his statement yesterday as well:

“In this marketplace, if they no longer wanted Pudge, that would surprise me, knowing what Pudge has done for the organization and knowing the loyalty the Ilitch family has for their players,” Boras said.

Boras of course speaks agent, so make of it what you will. He also cited that since Pudge had made the club so much money that he thought it would lead to the “fulfillment of his contract” which of course will be fulfilled either through the buyout or the option. Nevermind that Pudge made a lot of money playing for the club, way more than anyone else was offering at the time and the Tigers essentially bailed out Boras and Pudge.

Dave Dombrowski of course chimed in on Monday with the media and in typical Dombrowski fashion didn’t indicate which way the club was leaning.

And the then final player in this drama, Pudge, spoke of his time in Detroit in the past tense. Of course he was asked to reflect on his time in Detroit, or essentially he was asked to reflect on the past, so I don’t see the use of the past tense as peculiar.

“It was a good roll here. It was very nice. Very good four years.”

So put the pieces together the way you want. I still think he’s coming back, either via the option or an extension.

One of the Tigers biggest decisions this off season will be whether or not to exercise Pudge Rodriguez’s $13 million option.  The net cost to the Tigers is $10 million because there is a $3 million buyout.  But be it $10 million or $13 million there is no way that Rodriguez will be “worth” what he is owed.  Still I think exercising the option is something the Tigers should do.

Rodriguez has caught over 2000 games, and is in a well expected decline phase of his career.  Next year he’ll be 36 and there’s no reason to believe things will be better.  His slugging percentage has declined each of the last 4 years and the .420 slugging he posted this year was the lowest since 1993.

But his slugging is the acceptable part of his offensive stat line.  For the second time in the last 3 years he finished with a sub .300 on base percentage.  He’s drawn a whopping 46 walks the last 3 years combined.

And then there is his defense.  Rodriguez is much heralded for his ability to shut down the running game, and it has been largely deserved up until this year.  However his caught stealing rate fell to 29% this year which was the lowest of his career.  He also had trouble blocking balls as he allowed .510 passed balls and wild pitches to get by him per game.

Okay, so I haven’t painted a compelling reason to bring him back.  But it really comes down to a matter of if not Pudge, then who?  The free agent class includes the likes of Jason Kendall and Michael Barrett.    Two of the bigger names are Paul Lo Duca and Jorge Posada, but both are the same age as Rodriguez which is a dangerous age for a catcher.

Rodriguez’s offensive numbers were bad, and I don’t really look for them to get better.  I’d expect a few more walks and a slightly better OBP next year, but I also expect the slugging to continue to drop.  But even with the decline he’s still better than Lo Duca who had a .690 OPS this year.

As for the defense, Rodriguez was still above average at throwing out baserunners and ranked 5th among all starting catchers.  While his kills were down, it was in a year when stolen base percentage reached an all time high of 74.6%.  Plus throw in the deterrent that his reputation is and he had the 4th fewest attempts per game against him.  And it was still superior to Lo Duca’s 19% or Posada’s 22%.

As for the passed balls and wild pitches, he does rank 3rd from the bottom.  He does rank ahead of Posada and he’s 2 spots behind A.J. Pierzynski who just received a 2 year extension that will pay him $6.25 million in 2009 and 2010. 

Out of all the options, Rodriguez’s might be the most palatable.  Upgrading the position is going to be difficult at best and could prove to be impossible.  I’m not going to say that Rodriguez won’t be overpaid if he comes back, but do you overpay for 1 year of Pudge or 3 to 4 years of another mediocre catcher?

Danny Knobler is saying that the Tigers are likely to turn down the option I don’t know if he is reporting or opining, but his information is usually pretty good.  If that’s the case I’d hope that the Tigers look to bring back Pudge for not one, but two more years at a discounted per year rate.

Tigers unlikely to bring back Pudge – MLive.com: Detroit Tigers
THT Catching – Major League Baseball Statistics

PREGAME: The Tigers take another crack at Roger Clemens who they had no trouble hitting last week, they just had trouble scoring. The Tigers mustered 10 hits in 6 innings, but only 2 runs thanks to 8 strikeouts which all seemed to come with guys on base.

For the Tigers it will be Andrew Miller making his fast start since going on the DL on August 4th. Despite the great stuff, Miller struggles a little to put guys away and his lack of command can lead to hefty pitch counts. He hasn’t recorded an out after the 5th inning since July 6th.

I’ll be heading down to this game, and hopefully the result will be similar to when I saw Clemens pitch against the Tigers last year.

Who’s your Tiger tonight? I’m going out on a limb and going with Brandon Inge.

Game Time 7:05
NYY @ DET, Friday, August 24, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

POSTGAME: You know you got your money’s worth when on the way home from a game you start to ponder where it ranks in terms of the greatest games you’ve ever witnessed live. When you’re doing at at 4:00am, you know it’s a special situation.

First things first, thanks to all of you for the awesome comments throughout the game last night. I was reading them on my Blackberry throughout the night and was amazed so many of us were toughing it out together.

On to the game, I made several good decisions last night. First, I had an unused ticket and was really debating taking my 6 year old son. I ended up not doing it, because while I love him to death and love going to games with him, this was the first time since Opening Day I had plans to go with my friends and I just didn’t want to be a dad that night. Second, we took a couple cars to the game because one friend had commitments in the morning and we didn’t know how late he’d want to stay. Worked out great with the one friend being able to leave at 8:30 when he recognized any baseball would be way late. So those staying were happy to be stayinig, and no one had to leave prematurely.

The theme for the night was pretty much, “there’s weird s*** happening tonight” and that held up throughout the game. Witness:

• Placido Polanco makes an error. That never happens.
• Pudge battles back from an 0-2 count to take a walk. That never happens.
• The game started at 11:05.
• Jason Grilli pitches not only a scoreless inning in Comerica Park, but he does it uneventfully.
• Pudge took another walk. Intentional and all, but still.
• I’m drinking coffee at a game in August – normally an activity reserved for those cold nights in April or September

So there we were at 2:30 in the morning concocting the most improbable ways for the Tigers to pull this off. Like having the Tigers load the bases against Mariano Rivera and then have Inge come through. Well, that one got half way there, and only some bad luck kept it from coming through.

Still the crowd stayed, and sure it was whittled down after a while. After that 10th inning the numbers really dwindled and I said to the usher, this place looks like 2003 right now. But it sounded much louder. And at that point everyone had formed this big kind of friendship, the kind of friendship that can only come from staying at a ballpark until ridiculous hours of the morning as everyone individually questions their sanity for staying and yet being too afraid to leave and miss something. It was kind of like one of those West Coast Red Wing playoff games that goes into OT, and you think to yourself “I can’t quit now, I’ve made it this far.”

Fortunately for those who stayed, they got the pay off. After a nice walk by Polanco it looked like a hit and run sign was missed with Sean Casey up and Polanco was picked off. And the Tigers went from a runner on 1 out situation to a 2 out none on situation. As so often is the case, the next batter gets a single after the runner is wiped off the bases.

I was imploring Leyland to pinch run for Casey, figuring that a gapper would go to waste with Casey on the basepaths. Instead Leyland stuck with Casey who managed to go first to third with relative ease on a blooper. Setting the stage for the Carlos Guillen. When he hit it I didn’t know if it was gone. I just new it was well hit and I didn’t care if it were a homer, I just wanted it to get over Matsui’s head. When it landed on the roof of the bullpen it was euphoria, it was relief, it was “I get to go home now, but I’m not tired anymore,” it was so worth it all.

I know the above thoughts are incoherent, but I’m working on a couple hours of sleep right now. For the bullets:

• I saw a player hit triples in consecutive innings as Granderson hit #20 and #21 which were the 4th and 5th that I’ve witnessed in person this year.
• Chants of MVP rang out with Ordonez at the dish, and on a night where he was a triple short of the cycle he certainly continues to build his case.
• When Jason Grilli came into the game, they announced him and instantly cut to very loud music making any boos that may have been there indistinguishable. And Grilli certainly earned some cheers with his performance.
• Cameron Maybin is fast. Really fast. He stole a base on a pitch out and it wasn’t even close.
• Can’t say too much about the strike zone from my vantage point, but the players on both teams didn’t seem to happy.
• Lots of very patient at-bats tonight, and it paid of with 8 walks.
• Andrew Miller, still not efficient with 100 pitches thrown in 4 1/3 innings.
• As long as the game went, the bullpen should be okay for today with only Fernando Rodney and Tim Byrdak being unavailable. Everybody else just went 1 inning. Hopefully Bondo can go 7 or 8 strong though so that Leyland doesn’t have to dip too far in.
• Brandon Inge had some very nice at-bats tonight, picking up 2 walks and a hard luck line out with the bases loaded. What are ya gonna do about that one?

I don’t know if this win will be the start of something or not. No matter how exciting last night was, the team could still very well be gassed tonight and have a hangover. Regardless, the hometown team gave the hometown fans a memory for a lifetime on a stormy August night. The nice thing is that because they won we can debate signature wins and such, instead of lamenting “why did they even start that game and do that to the fans.” Funny how one swing can totally change your feelings about an evening.

Last year about this time there was a pretty popular post about Pudge Rodriguez’s ability to thwart the running game. Last year, Pudge’s caught stealing numbers have suffered a little bit, but his reputation made him the catcher that was least likely to be run on. He led Major League Baseball with .51 stolen base attempts per nine innings despite throwing out only 29%. This year a slimmer and quicker Rodriguez gunned down 45% of would-be stealers. However, he was no longer the most feared catcher in the game, as 3 other starting catchers had fewer attempts.

Player                  Inn         SBA        SBA/9 Inn      CS%

Yadier Molina         959.1          35           .33         55%
Brad Ausmus          1065.2          57           .48         26%
Joe Mauer             999.2          54           .49         38%
Rod Barajas          1025.1          67           .59         32%
Ivan Rodriguez       1032.2          68           .59         45%

The table shows the catchers who had the fewest attempts per 9 innings. Not included in the table, but right behind Rodriguez was Chris Snyder. What’s interesting is that while the attempts against Pudge increased modestly in 2005, the attempts against the leaders were significantly below Pudge’s leading mark from last year.

So was this a league wide phenomenon? Comparing total attempts the last two years, the difference was only 55 fewer attempts (out of approximately 3000). I’m not sure what caused the shift, but a handful of catchers had the luxury of not being tested nearly as much as in the past.

As for what this means for Pudge, his reputation didn’t loom quite as large. In 2005 opposing managers probably noticed Rodriguez that Rodriguez had slipped in 2004. Will his reputation come back in 2006? He certainly will stand to benefit from having 3 left handers in the rotation, two of which are amongst the best at holding runners. The Tigers should be able to control the running game. The bigger question will be keeping the runners off the bases in the first place.

detroit tigers,ivan rodriguez,baseball