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  • Kenny Rogers to DL

    Danny Knobler reports that Kenny Rogers is headed to the disabled list. No other word is available on the injury.

    The corresponding moves are that Chad Durbin joins the rotation and Bobby Seay has been recalled. There will need to be another 40 man roster move, but that hasn’t been announced yet. (EDIT: the 40 man move will probably be Edward Campusano going to the 60 day DL)

    I’d guess that the rotation would be shuffled to something along the lines of Bonderman-Robertson-Verlander-Maroth-Durbin.

  • Oh-mar

    If you peruse the Tigers spring training stats, you’ll see a roster full of guys with some pretty impressive numbers. Sure, Carlos Guillen is slumping a little but his 8:6 K:BB ratio is still favorable. But if you look at Omar Infante this spring, there isn’t much to like.

    Infante has a 172/179/250 line thus far. He’s fanned 12 times in 64 at-bats and only picked up one walk. He has no stolen bases. He has more errors (4) than extra base hits (3).

    I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t been following Infante everyday, so I don’t know if this has been a March-long slump or a nosedive the last 2 weeks. I do know that a third of his strikeouts came the last 2 games. Either way he’s not building towards the regular season at this point.

    Now you never want to make too much out of spring training stats, but you hope to see something encouraging. Since Infante is slated to be the first guy off the bench to spell Inge, Polanco, and Granderson he will get a reasonable amount of playing time.

    In Infante’s limited career, he’s been an every-other-year kind of guy. He struggled a ton in 2003, rebounded in 2004, struggled enough in 2005 to warrant trading for Polanco (I know Urbina helped negotiate that deal as well), and did okay as the super sub last year.

    At 25 years old anything can still happen with his career. But avoiding a down year could be a big step for Infante – at least if he wants to be more than a career back-up.

  • Promising news on Guillen front?

    From the Freep today:

    Guillen, however, is optimistic that he will have a new contract before Monday’s opener. He has asked for a four-year deal and indicated that progress has been made. His agent, Peter Greenberg, is due to arrive in Lakeland today.

    “They’ve been talking on the phone,” Guillen said. “It looks good.”

    Clearly it’s not a done deal, but the last reports I had heard were talks had broken off. David Dombrowski, per usual, has declined to discuss the negotiations in the media.

    If there is a linchpin on the team, it is probably Carlos Guillen, so this is promising news to say the least. I know many would prefer a 3 year deal, but to me giving him the 4th year is worth it to keep him around for the next 3.

    Related: The Guillen Gamble

  • Ticket hiccups, injuries, and more previews

    Another link round-up while I watch Lost and work on my Tiger preview…

    Ticket snafu

    Things are kinda hectic for the Tigers ticket department about now. A problem with the printer has season ticket shipments coming at the last minute. Tickets are just starting to arrive today, but the club expects everybody to have their tickets by Friday. Extended box office hours have been created to help with any problems that crop up.

    Now if you’re not a season ticket holder, you probably had to get your opening day tickets from a broker. It could be tricky to get those tickets in time for Monday.

    Injuries

    Indians starter CC Sabathia took a line drive off his forearm today. X-rays came back negative so if he misses time it probably won’t be for very long. But in what looks to be a tight AL Central, all absences of frontline players could be significant.

    Meanwhile, the Tigers are dealing with an injury of their own. Vance Wilson had an MRI on his elbow.

    Other links

  • Tiger Memories World Series DVD Give Away

    I’m pleased to announce the winners of the Tigers World Series DVDs for the essay portion of the contest. Thanks to all those who entered.

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  • Tiger news round-up

    I’ll be a day late on announcing the DVD Giveaway winners. I promise it will be announced tomorrow night. In the meantime, some stuff worth reading:

    PECOTA and the Central

    The straight run of Baseball Prospectus’s PECOTA projections for the AL Central put the Tigers in 3rd place with 85 wins. Nate Silver makes some tweaks and post-adjustment he’s looking at the Tigers winning 88 games. With his other adjustments that puts them in a tie for 2nd place, one game out. So essentially it’s a 3 team toss-up in Silver’s eyes. Kind of hard to argue with that, unless you’re a White Sox fan who doesn’t like the 77 win projection.

    Power ranking season

    Fox Sports latest power rankings place the Tigers 6th, down two spots from last week. Meanwhile the Twins surged up 3 spots. Not sure why. But half of the top 6 teams are from the AL Central.

    ESPN the Magazine picks Tigers

    I don’t think it’s on newstands yet, and you need to be an Insider I think to flip through, but they’re picking the Tigers to win the AL Central.

    New displays coming to Comerica Park

    You know those fancy, colorful, shiny displays that you see on the facing of the upper bowl of many newer arenas? Comerica Park is getting those. They are also replacing the out of town scoreboard in right-center with an LED display. Similar ones I’ve seen in Pittsburgh and Cleveland seem to display a ton of information, so I think it could be a good thing. It will also make for dynamic ad space so hopefully it will be additional revenue for the club to sink into a Carlos Guillen extension.

    I’m not sure I’ll like the strip on the upper bowl though. I’m trying to visualize it, and I think it might take a little away from the retro look of the park.

    The Freep also had a story and video looking at stadium preparation for the Opener.

    Four Tops get anthem duty

    The Four Tops have been tapped to sing the National Anthem for the Opener. No announcement yet on first pitch, but I’d imagine it will be Kwame and Granholm. Gates will open at 10:30am with a ceremony (not the ring ceremony which is on April 4th). Me, I’m hoping for a fly-over.

    Things are looking good weather-wise calling for 54 and sunny.

    Now if only those tickets would arrive.

    Other stuff

  • DTW is blushing

    Once again it is all about me. First, Kurt points out that a few Tiger blogs are mentioned in this week’s Sports Illustrated. Actually, there are blogs listed for all teams where you can vote online for your favorites. SI is really reaching out to team bloggers by featuring their sites and headlines on the team pages (scroll to the bottom of the Tigers page for an example). The tactic worked as I ran out and bought a copy today at lunch. Still I’m “tickled” (to quote Jim Leyland) to see the site mentioned in SI.

    Then, I see that Gas Lamp Ball has compiled a listing of the top 10 baseball blogs. There are some pretty prominent baseball bloggers on that list including David Pinto, Matthew Cerrone, and Blez. DTW didn’t make the top 10, but it just missed. Considering the magnitude of the blogs on that list, I’m thrilled to even have the site in the conversation.

    Of course none of this would happen without you, the readers who come here and the fellow bloggers who link here. Thanks so much for your support.

    UPDATE: Just saw this press release (hat tip Baseball Musings) which talks a little more about the list and how it was assembled:

    There are three criteria that Sports Media Challenge use to rank blogs for the top 10 – Influence, Fan Engagement and Quality. These criteria combine quantitative aspects, including the number of incoming links that connect to the blog, number of fan comments as well as qualitative measurement by Sports Media Challenge analysts.

    So those of you who link and comment, and read here truly are the reason that DTW was in the mix. Thanks again.

  • Tigers announce 2007 roster

    While not a formal announcement because there are still 28 players in camp, the Tigers trimmed 11 and cleared up who would be traveling North. The battle for the last bench spot went to Neifi Perez over Ramon Santiago and Chris Shelton. The last spot in the bullpen went to Chad Durbin.

    As for everyone else, Zach Miner, Shelton, and Santiago have been optioned to Toledo. Presont Larrison, Tim Byrdak, Bobby Seay, Steve Torrealba, Timo Perez, Dane Sardinha, and Ryan Raburn were assigned to Toledo.

    Felix Heredia was unconditionally released.

    The other 3 souls who haven’t been cut yet are Edward Campusano, Tony Giarratano, and Roman Colon are all injured and will presumably be placed on the DL (Giarratano the minor league DL).

    My thoughts, it’s about what I expected. I’m fine with Durbin getting a shot. After Campusano’s injury, it came down to Durbin/Miner/Seay. None of the options really differentiate themselves, and so making the decision based on roster status if fine by me.

    With Perez, he had a good spring but I don’t know how much that counted. A bad spring may have sealed his fate, and some poor play in the regular season may do the same. I would have preferred Santiago over Perez. Neither one can hit, but Santiago is the superior defender. As for Shelton, it is probably best that he get regular at-bats in Toledo to be prepared for the impending Sean Casey DL stint.

    And now, your 2007 Detroit Tigers…

    Starting Position Players: Sean Casey, Placido Polanco, Carlos Guillen, Brandon Inge, Pudge Rodriguez, Craig Monroe, Curtis Granderson, Magglio Ordonez, Gary Sheffield.

    Bench: Vance Wilson, Omar Infante, Marcus Thames, Neifi Perez

    Rotation: Jeremy Bonderman, Kenny Rogers, Justin Verlander, Nate Robertson, Mike Maroth

    Bullpen: Todd Jones, Joel Zumaya, Fernando Rodney, Wil Ledezma, Jose Mesa, Jason Grilli, Chad Durbin

  • Does Shelton still have a shot?

    I’ve long been a Chris Shelton advocate, and if you’ve been reading the blog this winter you know that I stumped for Big Red to be the first baseman over Sean Casey. With Marcus Thames proving to be adequate at first base, it seemed Shelton was destined to be a Mud Hen. But according to Danny Knobler, there just may be room:

    The surprise this morning was that the Tigers are now wavering on the final position player spot, and Chris Shelton is suddenly back in the picture. Shelton has hit well this spring (.391 through Saturday), but the biggest thing is that the Tigers are starting to wonder how often Sean Casey is going to need a day off at first base — and whether it makes sense to have no other true first baseman on the roster (with Marcus Thames and Carlos Guillen as the available backups).

    The problem with Shelton making the roster, is that he makes Marcus Thames remarkably useless. That’s quite a feat given Thames is one of the better hitters on the roster. If Shelton is on the team, he presumably is the back-up first baseman. He is very good defensively at first base, and I have every confidence that his bat will return. If it becomes a platoon situation, Thames and Shelton both bat from the same side so there is nothing to be gained in that regard.
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  • Tiger scented potpurri

    A little bit of this and a little bit of that:

    More Curtis

    Curtis Granderson opened up his mailbag again. This time he talks about the high socks (love the high socks), his at-bat music, and bubble gum. Hard hitting stuff? Not at all. Interesting? I think so.

    I always liked how the Negro League players looked wearing their high socks, and I wanted mine to look like theirs. The only problem is that I couldn’t get socks high enough when I was younger. Now that I’m in the Major Leagues, I can get them as long as I want, and I don’t plan on bringing them down anytime soon.

    Ducksnorts

    Cyberfriend Geoff Young, proprietor of Ducksnorts a blog about the Padres, recently wrote a book which is now available. The Ducksnorts 2007 Baseball Annual is of course for Padres fans, but I still found it interesting as a Tiger fan. First, Geoff has a great writing style and is great at mixing stats and stories. Second, Randy Smith’s name came up quite a bit, and in a favorable light no less. I didn’t know that it was Smith who traded Sheffield for Hoffman, and picked up several other key members of San Diego’s 1998 team. I also didn’t know that Smith ever got the better end of the repeated deals he made with Kevin Towers.

    If you’re interested, the book is available either electronically or in paperback.

    Cobb on strategy

    Hat tip to The Book Blog for pointing me to this article about Ty Cobb and his daring ways on the basepaths. Cobb talks about taking the extra base and how he worked out a lot of plays ahead of time, trying to calculate the odds of success. Neat stuff.

    Other stuff

    • John Heyman names his all under-appreciated team and Carlos Guillen is the infielder.
    • The Dugout notes that Curtis Granderson has just about as many friends on MySpace as presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Dennis Kucinich, and Joe Biden.
    • In need of masses: Tom Tango is compiling a community forecast for player performance. If you’re got some serious opinions on how the Tigers (or other teams) players will fare this year, submit you best guesstimates here.

  • DVD give away reminder

    Just a quick reminder that your entries for the World Series memories portion of the Tigers World Series DVD giveaway need to be in by noon on Saturday.

    As for the Final Cut portion, it sounds like we may have our winner announced on Monday. Jim Leyland anticipates whittling the roster down to 25 by Monday. There are still 39 players in camp. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your point of view, if all 14 cuts come on the same day that essentially means everybody who entered the contest is correct and it just turns into a random drawing. But them are the rules.

  • Leyland sets lineup and leadoff platoon

    It appears that Jim Leyland has settled on a lineup that he might use some of the time depending on the handedness of pitchers. One thing he did settle on though is that for the time being Pudge Rodriguez will lead off against left handers and Curtis Granderson will lead off against right handers.

    The knee jerk reaction from much of the sabermetric community will be to look at Pudge’s batting average heavy OBP (332 and 290 the last 2 seasons) and decry the move. But Detroit Tiger Tales earlier showed the splits that indicate this is a tactic worth at least trying. The Tigers with a right handed heavy roster have very little platoon flexibility and this is a way for Leyland to squeeze a little platoon advantage.

    Plus, the few times that Rodriguez led off last year, it appeared he tried to show more patience at the plate. Whether or not that is sustainable (he has a lot of career at-bats working against him), and whether or not it leads to better results, are both huge questions. But if Leyland can help the team score more runs, and Rodriguez become a better hit, why not try it?

    The lineup he’ll put out against right handers is: Granderson/Polanco/Sheffield/Guillen/Ordonez/Rodriguez/Casey/Monroe/Inge

    And according to Danny Knobler, the players seem happy with the lineup, for whatever that’s worth.

    As I’ve mentioned before, the order of the players in the lineup matters much less than which players are in it. This is because the Tigers lineup is quite balanced without real standout players, and without real black holes. Besides, Leyland will likely use over 100 different lineups this year. Last year the most common lineup used took the field all of 6 times.