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  • The pre report date link round up

    Robertson, Bonderman, Verlander, and Rogers work out
    Photo Credit Roger DeWitt
    • This picture has nothing to do with the links in the post. I just really liked it. Notice the high socks on Jeremy Bonderman. That has to bode well for the upcoming season. You can see more pictures from Lakeland at both Roger DeWitt’s Flickr page and the new Lakeland Flying Tigers blog. Expect many links to these sites over the next six weeks as they present first hand information from Tiger Town.
    • For all the talk of the Tigers being old, they do have some young talent. Including 3 of the top 10 25 year olds in the game.
    • Bless You Boys notes the passing of Roy Scheider. After he went fishing for a shark and before he captained Seaquest DSV, Scheider played the role of Tigers right fielder Billy Young in TigerTown. The fictional Tigers legend, who sported the number 6 if I recall correctly, brought joy to a boy who had lost his father.
    • Bless You Boys also points us to some archived radio related to the Tigers. No play by play, but a couple of the clips have Paul Carey saying “Tigers Baseball” as only Paul Carey can. Plus, there is this gem, along with Bless You Boys.
    • There’s a blog looking back on the 1988 Topps baseball card set. Some recognizable names already have been profiled including: Jim Walewander, Dan Petry, and Lance Parrish.
    • Lastly, The Hardball Times Season Preview is now out. I’ll confess that I don’t have a copy yet so I can’t vouch for it. But I do know many of the bloggers on the list, and I’ll be happy to vouch for their work. Included in that list is Brian from Tigerblog who wrote the Tigers section.

  • Scouting Dontrelle Willis

    On Friday Lynn Henning wrote a detailed look at Dontrelle Willis with a heavy emphasis on scouting. I found the article fascinating from the stand point of getting a better understanding of Willis’s repertoire as well as the thought processes that went along with approving the deal for the lefty. He was after all coming off a pretty rough year. I also viewed it as a chance to dust off that pitch f/x database I’ve had sitting dormant and explore whether or not the reports meshed with what the system had reported.
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  • links for 2008-02-08

  • Tigers Announce 2008 Broadcast Schedule

    The Tigers announced that 161 games will be broadcast this season, plus 4 spring training games. Detroit has been tabbed for 8 Saturday broadcasts on Fox and already 2 Sunday night games on ESPN (with the possibility of 3 more). The only game to not be telecast will be August 2nd against the Devil Rays.

    The schedule is after the jump.

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  • links for 2008-02-07

  • Minor Notes

    Tigers fans who dig minor league baseball are especially fortunate. The resources covering the Tigers are remarkable and go beyond the work that you’ll find at Baseball America or Minor League Ball. Both of these sites are great, but they have to cover 30 teams’ minor league systems. The Tigers have multiple blogs focused on just their system.

    Take 75 North debuted last year and has done a tremendous job all year. A recent case in point is Matt’s in depth analysis of the Mike Hernandez/Armando Galarraga trade.

    The Surge, dedicated to all things West Michigan Whitecaps, just posted their third interview. This time with top Detroit prospect Scott Sizemore.

    Now a couple of Lakeland-ites launched a blog covering the High A Flying Tigers. Both of the authors are active members at Motown Sports and I look forward to the analysis and coverage that they’ll bring this season.

    If you want to go the pay route there is also TigsTown. The Scouts.com site has the connections and talent to provide a level of minor league analysis that is unsurpassed. Want a full length articles about the top 50 prospects in the system? Tigstown is your place. Want to know who is coming stateside from this year from the DSL and VSL? You’ll find it at Tigstown.

  • Granderson gets multi-year deal

    Buster Olney is reporting that Curtis Granderson has signed a multiyear contract. Terms weren’t not available. More to come later. (h/t Motown Sports)

    UPDATE: It’s official. A five year deal with a club option for 2013. The Tigers buyout his arbitration years and first year of free agency. ESPN reports that the contract is for $30.25 million. Not sure on the option at this point. It’s a great deal for the Tigers. Again, more to come later.

    Notes from the conference call

    • Dombrowski is thrilled and said it “is a great day for the Tigers organization.”
    • Granderson is excited to be a part of this (the team, the city) for a long time to come.
    • Granderson’s agent Matt Brown said that it was great dealing with John Westhoff and Dave Dombrowski. He also thanked Mike Ilitch for the confidence that he showed.
    • Granderson is excited and appreciative that it got done now, knowing that the Tigers didn’t have to make a move like this at this time (not being arb or FA eligible)
    • On the length of the contract and possibly foregoing bigger dollars, Granderson recognized that he got some security and that he doesn’t know what could happen over the next 5 years. Brown followed up and noted that in these types of situations the club is assuming all the risk, but that it’s a win for both sides because he’s at the top of the heap for pre-arbitration players.
    • Dombrowski said his willingness to do a long term deal was due to how good Granderson is. Plus, not being a pitcher Granderson doesn’t present as big of an injury risk. The skill and the make-up of Granderson along with his willingness to stay are what made it possible.
    • Granderson views the Tigers as a second family. Everything since he signed with the organization has been positive.
    • Curtis said his areas for improvement were hitting left handers more consistently, continuing to cut down and strike outs, and improving in the outfield. He’s sure he’ll have more things to focus on in 2009 and will learn by watching the veterans on the team.
    • Granderson’s plans for the evening are to pack to head down to spring training.
    • Dombrowski said the trades of Gorkys Hernandez and Cameron Maybin didn’t factor into the decision to lock up Curtis.
    • Granderson’ celebratory meal was a McDonald’s extra value meal plus a double cheeseburger off the dollar menu.

    Analysis

    There’s not much to analyze except to say “Yay!” Granderson on the open market is a $100 million player. Of course Granderson didn’t get “taken” on this deal because he isn’t eligible for the free agent market. The only leverage that Granderson has at this point is to say no to a long term contract. And being faced with $30 million or $500,000ish, it’s easy to see why he’d take the money and the security. Not to mention he is sticking with an organization that he likes, and figures to be a contender for a good chunk of his contract.

    From the Tigers stand point, they take on the risk at this point. If Granderson’s career takes an unfortunate ending due to injury the Tigers are left holding the bag. In their favor though is the fact that even if Granderson is average they’ll still come out ahead. And when factoring in his defense (not to mention his work ethic and all his other qualities), he stands to be easily better than average. While being better than 2007 will be difficult (though not at all impossible), his future is still bright.

    His projections for this year (Bill James, Marcel, Chone, PECOTA ZiPS) range from an OPS of 806 to 882. So he figures to be somewhere between good and really good. Plus he’s now locked up for his peak seasons with some very palatable cost certainty. The contract will pay Granderson $1 million this year, $3.5 million in 2009, $5.5 million in 2010, $8.25 million in 2011, and $10 million in 2012. Even the 2013 option is affordable at $13 million (with a $2 million buyout).

    And then there is the off the field stuff. Normally “off-the-field-stuff” conjures up bad images. But Granderson is becoming the face of the franchise on a team with multiple All Stars and potential Hall of Famers. He’s entrenched himself in the community and been exceedingly accessible. He could be the next long term Tiger and as an unabashed fan I hope he is.

    The contract is par for the course with the Tigers who are taking care of their own and locking up a team to make a run for the next several years. This deal pushes the team payroll over $133 million this year and $99 million in 2009 (with only 12 players signed).

  • Sean Casey inspires Terrell Owens

    Sean Casey at the bat
    Former Tigers first baseman Sean Casey reached an agreement with the Boston Red Sox and will be the primary back-up at first base. Curt Schilling is pretty excited about the move citing Casey’s nice guy/solid teammate reputation. But Schilling goes a step further and relates a story about Sean Casey and a Sharpie.

    Each year at the All Star game the participants are given a jersey to autograph which is then auctioned off for charity. Casey somehow was down a couple jerseys and ended up having to autograph his game jersey.

    He tells the story and it generates a huge laugh, and I them comment that since he autographed it, he should take a black sharpee into the field with him when he plays, and have each player that gets to first base autograph his shirt as well.

    He actually TOOK the black sharpee in his pocket, onto the field with him. I am not sure who he told, but I know he told more than one player about it, and it was hilarious to watch guys at first base start cracking up as he told them the story.

    So in the end he got the better of everyone because he had players autographing his jersey while they were standing on first base.

    Casey only played in the 1999 and 2001 All Star games, meaning that his Sharpie-ness predated Terrell Owens’s Sharpie stunt by a full season.

  • The 2008 PECOTA’s are here

    Baseball Prospectus has released it’s 2008 player projection system known as PECOTA. What’s available at this point isn’t the full results of the system, just the weighted mean. PECOTA offers projections across a spectrum which are available on the player cards which will be forthcoming. What we have now is the middle.

    PECOTA is premium content so I won’t post all the projections here (I recommend a BP premium subsciption, at least for the next month or buy the annual). Still, I will note some items.

    Offense

    It was a surprisingly gloomy picture on offense when I opened up the spreadsheet. I didn’t expect them to forecast another batting title for Magglio Ordonez or another quad 20 for Granderson, but I was a little surprised how down some of the projections were.

    • Curtis Granderson’s 2008 is forecast to be much more like his 2006 than his 2007, but they do like him for a .486 slugging percentage and they give him a very high upside score (20th highest for position players).
    • The system hates Jacque Jones and sees only a .699 OPS. Players expected to significantly outperform that are Marcus Thames, Ryan Raburn, Brandon Inge, and Timo Perez.
    • But the Tigers do have some decent balance in the forecasts with 6 of the 9 members of the starting lineup projected to be at least 20 runs above replacement (and Edgar Renteria is at 18). Detroit is the only American League team that can claim that many.

    Pitchers

    The system likes the Tigers starters though.

    • Justin Verlander has Josh Beckett and Kevin Millwood as his top two comparables and is projected to headline the Tigers staff (and several other staffs as well).
    • PECOTA still sees big things for Jeremy Bonderman and he has the 22nd highest upside score bolstered by a 3:1 K:BB ratio.
    • The system likes Dontrelle Willis to rebound a little and be a league average pitcher with a 4.55 ERA. Not too shabby since that’s the highest projected ERA in the rotation.
    • One caveat on the above bullet is that PECOTA only sees Kenny Rogers pitching 57 innings. The list of pitchers in their mid 40’s throwing more than that is probably a pretty small number and his injury last year was probably also a large factor.
    • As for who might be eating those innings? PECOTA would go with Yorman Bazardo narrowly edging out Virgil Vasquez with either giving typical 5th starter type numbers.

    If you want all the numbers, you’ll have to buy the book or a subscription. And keep in mind these are projections, not gospel. Players will over perform and under perform the numbers. But there is some science behind this stuff, and it’s a nice objective check compared to one’s gut – especially when it comes to your favorite players.

    Take I75 North has some comments on the prospect projections.

  • A day of catch-up

    There was quite a bit of news that trickled out today so let’s roll through it.

    Prospecting

    It was a day of top 100 lists as both Kevin Goldstein (BP) and Keith Law released their lists. It used to be that looking at these lists was really depressing for Tigers fans. And then for a couple years it was really fun. And now, well let’s hope the big club keeps us from thinking about the minors too much.

    Rick Porcello rated #11 on the Baseball Prospectus list. Keith Law isn’t as big of a fan, putting him at 22nd. Porcello was the lone Tigers farm hand on each list.

    But at least it wasn’t because of the Tigers ineptitude. Former Tigers Cameron Maybin and Gorkys Hernandez appeared on both lists and Goldstein included Jair Jurrjens at number 86.

    The injury bug

    Injuries have plagued former prospect Tony Giarratano. At one time he was the Tigers top shortstop hope. A knee surgery and labrum surgery likely had sapped his defense – which was his strongest trait. A set back this spring ended his run as a Tiger. Detroit released him today.

    It won’t effect the team too much, except for freeing up another roster spot (that’s 3 open spots now). Tony G had been passed by Cale Iorg, Danny Worth, and Mike Hollimon. I feel bad for Giarratano, but the truth is he probably shouldn’t have retained a spot on the roster this long.

    D-Town baseball notes that keeping Giarratano cost the team Randor Bierd. T75 North tries to figure out how the middle infield situation might shake out.

    Some leg soreness has kept Miguel Cabrera at DH on his Venezuelan team. Although a 10 for 22 playoff series seems to indicate it wasn’t effecting him too adversely. He won’t play in the championship round at the request of the Tigers.

    Jones says Twins will be okay

    I haven’t commented on the Santana deal yet, mostly because I’m waiting for it to be finalized (which I expect). But that didn’t stop Todd Jones. In his Sporting News column he’s confident that the Twins will be okay. And now he just wants C. C. Sabathia out of the division.

  • The best defense

    Defensive metrics have evolved considerably as the charting of batted ball types and locations has become common place. PMR, UZR, and the like give us a much better understanding of defensive value, but what about past years. What about the years where there is play by play data, but not with the same level of documentation afforded over the last few years? Sean Smith has devised a way to cull through retrosheet data and present historical fielding data.

    With this data in hand, we can take a look for some of the best Tigers defensively. The data doesn’t cover all-time, because retrosheet goes back as far as 1957 with play by play data. Smith has compiled the data for 1957 to 1986, so for at least that 30 year run we can see which Tigers were best at patrolling Tiger Stadium.

    The players are ranked by runs prevented.

    Best defensive seasons

    First a look at who had the best individual seasons by position:

    Position Player Season Runs
    1B Enos Cabell 1983 18
    2B Lou Whitaker 1982 16
    SS Ray Oyler 1967 17
    3B Aurelio Rodriguez 1972 13
    LF Willie Horton 1969 14
    CF Chet Lemon 1984 20
    RF Al Kaline 1958 22

    Lifetime achievement award

    Now a look at the career run value saved defensively by position:

    Pos Player Runs
    1B Norm Cash 36
    2B Lou Whitaker 77
    SS Trammell 44
    3B Tom Brookens 50
    LF Charlie Maxwell 34
    CF Chet Lemon 56
    RF Al Kaline 103

    Al Kaline and Lou Whitaker not only rate as the best Tigers defenders at their respective positions over that time span, they rank as the best in all of baseball by this measure.

    Whitaker’s double play partner, Alan Trammell tops Tigers shortstops. Ray Oyler bested him on a runs per year basis (16 runs per year versus 7 for Tram), but his bat and .251 career slugging percentage couldn’t keep him in the lineup enough.

    Norm Cash saved the most runs at first base, but it took him the equivalent of 9 full seasons to do it. Jason Thompson finished within 2 runs of Cash, but did it in less than 4 full seasons.

    Those who saw Aurelio Rodriguez rave about his performance at the hot corner. But at least by this measure Tom Brookens gets the better of him, and by a considerable margin. Over their careers Brookens only had an edge of 3 runs, but he did it in less than half as many chances.

    Willie Horton narrowly edged out Larry Herndon in left field. Horton had an additional half season worth of chances, but the two were quite comparable – but I think Willie had him beat with his arm (which this doesn’t measure).

    Edit: goof on my part with the data. It was Charlie Maxwell who beat out Larry Herndon. Horton, despite having a very good season in left, actually rated pretty poorly for his career. Rocky Colavito was a solid fielder and deserves some mention here as well.

    Chet Lemon is really the only defensive center fielder of note for the Tigers during those years. Unless you count Ron LeFlore and his -52 runs as being of note.

    Other stuff

    If you have specific research requests, either about Tigers history or the current team, please let me know. I’ll do my best to turn it into content. I have play by play data back to 1980 loaded and ready to go. I also have all of the pitch f/x (enhanced gameday) pitches stored in a database as well. I’m always looking for new ideas.

  • Optimal Sub

    For the last few seasons, sabermetrician Tom Tango has conducted a defensive survey called The Fans Scouting Report. I’ve mentioned it in the past, and I’m sure that some of you participated. Essentially fans rate players on a variety of traits. I’m not going to rehash how the Tigers did because Lee has covered that already. I’m going to focus on Brandon Inge (because it’s always good for traffic and comment numbers) and how he can be expected to fare as he moves all over the diamond this summer.

    When fans are instructed to fill out the survey, they are told to make their evaluations independent of position. For example don’t compare Curtis Granderson’s speed to that of other center fielders. Compare him to all baseball players. This is relevant because Tango has developed a system to weight the different traits based on their importance to a given position.

    The traits that are evaluated are instincts, first step, speed, hands, release, throwing strength, and throwing accuracy. In the case of Inge he rated as follows:

    Instincts: 83
    First Step: 83
    Speed: 68
    Hands: 73
    Release: 75
    Arm Strength: 91
    Throwing Accuracy: 62
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