Archive for 2010

Baseball America’s latest is on the Tigers possibly rushing their top pitching prospects to the major leagues.  There’s a ton of great stuff in there by Rick Knapp and the focus is how Rick Porcello and Andy Oliver both struggled in their 2010 campaigns.

David Laurila sat down with Tigers infielder Will Rhymes.  He talks about how he got started in the sport as well as his call up with the Tigers.  Of course Rhymes will be fighting for a job as a team’s second baseman, which is one of the Tigers more crowded (and open) spots.

With Magglio Ordonez in the fold, the Tigers now basically have their starters.  Yeah, I know there’s going to be a lot of days where the fourth outfielder (take your pick between Boesch, Kelly or Wells) is going to get some time and there are also the days where Victor Martinez will catch but this is what I think the Tigers starting lineup on opening day is going to look like as well as a few random comments.

1)  Austin Jackson CF – This isn’t going out on a limb, but I fear Jackson is set for a step back in 2011.  Most people will call it a sophomore slump but it’ll be more like him coming back down to earth from his near .400 batting average on balls in play.

2) Ryan Raburn LF – I don’t like Raburn here, but without Johnny Damon, I fear Leyland is going to drop him in the two spot. If Carlos Guillen were both healthy and effective, this is where I’d put him but he’s not so I won’t.

3)  Magglio Ordonez RF – Welcome home

4)  Miguel Cabrera 1b – Duh

5)  Victor Martinez DH – We’ll see if this gives Cabrera some better looks.  Cabrera had 32 intentional walks this year and some of those could be turned into productive hits.

6)  Jhonny Peralta SS – This is where things thin out pretty quick. If Brandon Inge has a resurgence, I could see him hitting sixth at some point.

7)  Brandon Inge 3b – I’m thinking Brandon has a good year this season.  Nothing to back it up, just a hunch that he’ll come close to topping his career best .793 OPS he had way back in 2004.

8)  Scott Sizemore 2b – I took Sizemore over Rhymes but I predict Rhymes will be the starting shortstop most of the second half because Sizemore stumbles again.  Sizemore needs a good start because there are plenty of options behind him (including Carlos Guillen when/if he comes back) so we’ll see if he can rise to the occasion.

9) Alex Avila C – This is time for Avila to step up.  He’s the catcher, but if he struggles, they might resort to Martinez getting more time behind the plate.

So there you have it.  The rotation is sort of set (Leyland seemed wishy washy with Galarraga as the fifth starter) and the pen is in decent enough shape.  From here on out, I don’t see the Tigers making any big moves but I like what they’ve done.  Now they can look towards locking up their arbitration eligible players so they know where they stand money wise.

Yesterday, the latest edition of THT forecast launched.  With lots of new features, THT forecasts is a must have for the elite fantasy player but it also has some outstanding benefits for just about anyone interested in the game.  Do you want to see what the Tigers can expect out of Miguel Cabrera in 2016?  It’s there.  How should we expect Justin Verlander’s strikeout total to progress over the next few years?  That’s also there.   What should we expect from Max Scherzer if we lock him up to a long term deal?  That’s also there.

Select players have commentary. I worked on the Tigers piece and I’ll be keeping the depth charts up to date.  Anyway, there’s a ton of other features so be sure to click on the link to see all that you get.

Now this is what I’m talking about.  Way back before the 2005 season, Magglio Ordonez didn’t appear to have any suitors.  Not only the Tigers step and take the risk on him, but they signed him to a big deal.  Now in 2011, Ordonez appears headed back to Detroit at a home town discount.  The price is high ($10 million) but it’s only a one year deal so there’s not a lot of risk there.

So now the Tigers lineup is relatively set and it’s not even Christmas.  If Ordonez can continue what he started in 2010, having him and Victor Martinez to back up Miguel Cabrera could be huge.  I still have some concerns about the pitching, but I like this move.

Chris Kahrl’s latest at Baseball Prospectus is all on the Tigers offseason moves.  They’ve been busy and you have to think there’s a move or two left but it’s nice seeing things all in one place.  The first thing I noticed (because I missed it) was that Alfred Figaro was released.  The Tigers top prospects have had some interesting plights.  Jeff Larish was the top hitting prospect a couple of years ago and now he’s gone (minor league deal with the Phillies).  Now you have Alfredo Figaro, who started game 161 for the Tigers in 2009 when they were knee deep in a battle with the Twins for the AL Central title, is now also gone after a lackluster 2010 campaign.

Kahrl mentions how Benoit gives the Tigers pen a lot more flexibility (as well as adding to one of the hardest throwing pens in baseball)   Overall though, she seems to like the Tigers chances of competing in a usually weak AL Central.

Not too long ago, I talked about the Tigers starting pitching.  The winter meetings have come and gone and the Tigers didn’t make a move in that department so it looks like the Phil Coke experiment begins.  Coke was a starter in the Yankees farm system but since he’s been in the major leagues, he’s pitched out of the pen with the exception of his lone start in game 162 for the Tigers in 2010.  Now with Jeremy Bonderman’s departure (i.e. being pushed out), the Tigers are an arm short and it looks like the Tigers are relying on Coke to fill that hole.

Jim Leyland thinks the transition is going to be easy but aren’t things rarely that?  Still, Coke started 77 games in the minors but he’s never had a season where he “just” started.  With Dan Schereth coming up, the Tigers have some wiggle room and what I like best about this move is, Coke isn’t much of a lefty specialist.  In 2010, he had practically no platoon split and as a lefty specialist, your job is to get lefties out.   His career platoon splits are a little better but still, this is a guy who can get righties out too.

Endurance could be a problem and August is Coke’s worst month so far (7.08 ERA in 20 1/3 innings).  The flip side to that is September is one of his better months (3.09 ERA in 32 innings).  Since we’re having fun with splits, Coke is lights out in June.  In 20 2/3 innings, he has a 0.44 ERA and a 0.823 WHIP.  Overall, he’s a little bit worse in the second half then in the first so it’ll be interesting to see how things play out when he’s pitching 150 innings.  Of course he’ll be forced to pace himself better and that could be the big wild card.  If he can accomplish that, we could see a successful transition.

These are interesting times for Tigers fans. If Coke can pitch well as the team’s fifth starter, that would go a long way towards helping the Tigers make the playoffs.  The bad thing is, at least the moment, there’s no good option if the experiment fails.  Andrew Oliver would probably be next in line but I question whether he’s ready.  Should be a fun spring.

After making some major waves in two of the last three winter meetings, the Tigers were fairly quiet this time around.  The big players were the Boston Red Sox (who really set themselves up nicely for next year) and the Chicago White Sox (who re-signed Paul Konerko and locked up Adam Dunn prior to the meeting) this time around.  It’ll be interesting to see if the Yankees now feel pressed and make Cliff Lee an offer he can’t refuse.

A lot of people have asked me about the Jayson Werth deal and here’s my take.  Werth would have been stupid to turn the money down so props to him.  As far as the Nationals, I equate them to the 2003 Tigers.  in 2004 and 2005 the Tigers overspent (or so we thought) at the time for Ivan Rodriguez and Magglio Ordonez but by 2006 they were playing in a World Series.  The Nationals had to overpay someone to get their ball rolling and as it turns out, that guy was Jayson Werth.  Yeah, it threw off a lot of other teams because it set an unusually high bar but they can take it up when they talk amongst themselves when getting ready for the CBA negotiations.

And with Werth and now Crawford out of the mix, it looks like Magglio is the guy the Tigers are targeting.  He held a private workout for the Tigers and you hope they’d get a little bit of a home town discount of course I’m not holding my breath.

The Tigers signed Chris Oxspring to a minor league deal.  He’s from Australia and he got a minor league deal.  Oxspring is playing in the Australian Baseball League with Brad Thomas and he’ll be competing for a shot in the Tigers pen.

The Tigers neither lost nor picked up a player in any phase of the Rule 5 draft.  It’s been a while (I think) since that happened.

It looks like baseball is going to lose another legend because Bob Feller is now in hospice.  The rivalry between he and Hal Newhouser made for a hot ticket back in the day (way back in the day).

Anyway, the meetings may be over but the Tigers still have some work to do.  It’ll be interesting to see how the rest of the offseason plays out.

The Tigers aren’t the only kids on the AL Central block throwing money around.  The Chicago White Sox made the first big move of the offseason by signing Adam Dunn to shore up their lineup.  It’ll be interesting to see how the Twins and now the Tigers respond.  Not only does this take one of the blue chip free agents out of the picture and reduces the supply but it also shold cause both the Twins and Tigers to respond in kind.

I mentioned Greinke in passing as a rotation option a while back but it turned out to be a pipe dream.  Jon Heyman tweeted today that the Royals won’t trade Greinke to another AL Central team.

Forget all of those crazy awards the newspaper writers vote on.  The real Tiger awards were given out a couple of days ago.  Be sure to check out Bless You Boys complete coverage of the DIBS awards.  Most of my first place votes won except for best hair.  I voted for Magglio.

On a couple of different levels, this piece by Jason Beck about the Tigers looking for a right fielder is interesting.  The first interesting tidbit I took out of it was that it looks like the Tigers are set on Ryan Raburn as the team’s starting leftfielder.  After a breakout 2009, Raburn got off to a slow start in 2010 before turning it on in the second half.   After the break, he had a .900 OPS and he hit thirteen of his fifteen home runs.  And for most of the second half, Raburn was out in left field.  He was a lot better against lefties but his numbers against right handed pitching (.753 OPS) wasn’t awful.  Even his fielding was solid (he had a +3, eleventh best amongst leftfielders which is good considering the time he spent out there).

The other interesting thing was Brennan Boesch’s name wasn’t even mentioned in the article.  He was the opposite of Raburn.  He took the world (at least the Tiger’s world) by storm in the first half then cooled off (okay, let’s call it an ice cold .458 OPS) in the second half.  Probably the only thing that kept him in the lineup (for better or worse) was Magglio Ordonez’s injury.  It looks like for now, we can pencil Boesch in as the fourth outfielder assuming the Tigers fulfill their plan of finding a right fielder in the open market.

Of course the corner outfield market is a bit thin.  Carl Crawford doesn’t appear to be in the Tigers plan so the next best options are Jayson Werth (probably not as good as he’s going to be paid) or a return of Magglio Ordonez and Ordonez has his own issues.  Namely will he be fully recovered by the time the Tigers open up camp?

One of the lower tier players I wouldn’t mind the Tigers going after would be Austin Kearns.  He’s never lived up to his top prospect hype, but he had a decent showing when he landed in Cleveland and he could keep enough money available for the Tigers to really go after another pitcher.  Brad Hawpe might make an interesting option as a bounce back player after a horrible 2010.  And if power is what they’re going after, the frustrating Rick Ankiel is available.  Jeff Francouer is also an interesting option with an unusual past.

So there’s guys out there, you just wonder if the Tigers would be better off sticking with a Boesch/(insert player) platoon out in right field and using their money on pitching.  Casper Wells is another guy who’s probably close to a make it or break it type of season so he’d also be an interesting option.

Yesterday I talked about the state of the Tigers rotation.  Well, just in the past day, two guys the Tigers could have made a grab for are close to being tied up. It looks like the Brewers and Nationals are going strong after Carl Pavano and now the Colorado Rockies have gotten into the mix.  Pavano’s price may have just gone up too because another pitcher is close to a deal with another team and the supply at the top end of the free agent pitching pool is slowly dwindling.

Jon Garland is one of those guys and he signed a one year, incentive laden deal with the Dodgers.  Garland had a nice bounce back season last year and fortunately he’s staying in the National League because he’s pretty good against us (his 13 wins is his most against any other team outside of the Royals).

If you look at Rotoworld’s top 50 free agents and assume we won’t be getting Cliff Lee, then the next best starter is Hiroki Kuroda and he’s already resigned with the Dodgers.  Jorge de la Rosa (Type A free agent, I don’t know the rules if a team picks up two of these in the same offseason) is an interesting option but if Pavano isn’t in the Tigers plans and Andy Pettitte isn’t coming here either, the only other starting pitching choice in the top 20 is Javier Vazquez (who appears to be heading to the Marlins so he might not be around much longer either).

Bottom line, right now what you see is what you’re probably going to get out of the Tigers starting five.  Lets just hope the new and improved offense can put enough runs on the board to keep the back end of the rotation in the winning column.

Looks like I got this one wrong. Alex Avila is going to be the Tigers starting catcher (at least to open the season).  Victor Martinez’s role will primarly at designated hitter but he’ll fill in for Avila when he needs a break.

So far, the Tigers have shored up their offense and their bullpen.  These are both admirable tasks but back in 2006, when the Tigers made it all the way to the World Series, they did it predominately with pitching and defense.  So far, the Tigers haven’t even touched their rotation unless you count the apparent subtraction of Jeremy Bonderman and there hasn’t been a peep out of the rumor mill that the Tigers might go after a starting pitcher.  Not that the current crop (short of Cliff Lee) is top notch or anything.  Still, let’s take a look at what the Tigers have then touch on how they might fill in the hole(s).

Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer I think are two locks.  Verlander is the ace and Scherzer is the ace in waiting.  If we can get a second half Scherzer for all of 2011 and the same out of Verlander that we’ve gotten the past two years, we definitely have a nice base. Of course after that, it gets pretty spotty.

I like Rick Porcello but since he made his debut in 2009, he’s lived (2009) and died (2010) by the Tigers infield defense.  At some point, if he’s going to make the turn to stardom, he’s going to have to get more strikeouts.  Especially in 2011 because if Scott Sizemore sees the bulk of the time at second, the Tigers defense is going to be spotty.  Still, Porcello had a much better second half so hopefully he’ll be able to carry that into 2011.

Armando Galarraga is also a safe bet for a rotation spot but he’s been even more inconsistent then Scherzer and Porcello.  While Galarraga’s numbers look “okay” they’re also a little deceptive because he had just a .262 batting average on balls in play.  If this goes up to a more average .300, we could see a repeat of 2009.

For now, the fifth starter appears to be Phil Coke.  In 125 minor league games, Coke had 77 starts.  Still, this move worries me a little.  Coke’s 2010 platoon splits don’t bear much mentioning, but if you look at his career, there’s an .080 point OPS difference and he’s going to be facing a lot more right handed hitters when the opposition can stack their lineup.  On top of that, he’s started just one game since he was brought up by the Yankees in 2008.

Of course one of the reasons Coke is being pushed into the rotation is there’s not a lot in the immediate pipeline. Andrew Oliver might get a look, but in his five starts he’s probably shown he needs another year of work.  And after all of the guys we’ve mentioned (and Dontrelle Willis), no other Tiger had more then two starts in 2010.  And there weren’t any lights out performances in Toledo and Erie and Jacob Turner is probably at least a year away.

Anyway, the rotation, like the one heading into 2009, worries me a little.  There was a lot of criticism about Jeremy Bonderman’s performance in 2010 but his 171 innings he threw could be harder to replace then many people think.

Alright, the Tigers aren’t waiting for the Winter Meetings.  They’ve already inked Brandon Inge, Jhonny Peralta and Joaquin Benoit to multi-year deals and now it looks like the Tigers are very close to inking Victor Martinez to a four year, $50 million deal.  It looks like the only the thing preventing this from being a done deal is a physical examination so it’s safe to say we’re introducing our newest Tiger.

Now the big question is, where does Victor Martinez fit.  For the front end of this deal, I can see him playing mostly catcher but his defensive skills have been mediocre the past couple of seasons.  Bill James +/- has him below average but of course he makes up with that with his stick.  He has a career OPS of .838 and he pretty much matched that in Boston last year in 127 games.  Even if he finishes with just an .800 OPS (he’s finished lower then that in only one year since 2003) it would be a huge upgrade at the position.

The big question is, then what happens to Alex Avila.  He had a rough year at the plate in 2010 but he’s only going to be 24 when the season starts.  So what you’ll probably have is Martinez being the primary catcher through 2011 and maybe 2012 while Avila gets a little more seasoned.  Then on the back end of Martinez’s deal, we’ll probably see him begin to transition to a full time designated hitter.

Another idea would have Martinez be the back up catcher but then be a full time designated hitter.  That would leave Carlos Guillen’s future in doubt because with one year left on his contract, he’s slowly getting squeezed out of any of the potential positions he can play.  If I were a betting man, we’ll see Martinez at catcher, Avila backing him up then Guillen at DH at least to start the season. If Guillen struggles out of the box, then we’ll see some shuffling.

Martinez is a Class A free agent so the Tigers will lose their pick.  They also didn’t offer any of their free agents arbitration so they won’t be getting on back.  Let’s hope the front office knows what they’re doing because those first round draft picks have been good for us.

Speaking of arbitration, the Tigers had five potentials and none of them got an offer.  Magglio Ordonez, Johnny Damon, Jeremy Bonderman, Bobby Seay and Gerald Laird can all now sign with another team without any compensation coming back to the Tigers.

Earlier in the week, I talked about the Detroit Pride Cheerleaders.  They’ve extended the deal on their calendar (check out the bottom of the page) and you can still get it for $10.  If you’re going to the Lions game, they’re going to be there on Thursday.

Ken Rosenthal broke this one but the Tigers are close to inking Victor Martinez to a four year, $50 million deal.  More to come on this as the story develops.  The Tigers aren’t wasting any time this off season.

While I can’t argue with many of the guys on this list, I guess I would have thought Al Kaline might have made the cut.  I might have put him in over Koufax but I didn’t think through if there was anyone else off the list that might make more sense then Kaline (and Koufax).

The Tigers signed Rays reliever Joaquin Benoit to a three year, $16.5 million deal earlier this week  and if things go as planned, this should really firm up the Tigers bullpen heading into 2011.  I already talked about Benoit and his sick numbers last year.  He had rotator cuff surgery in 2008, took all of 2009 nine off and the Rays took a chance on him and got 60 innings of pretty much shut down relief (1.34 ERA, 75/11 strikeout to walk ratio) in 2011.  Prior to that, his best season was 2007 with the Rangers when they converted him to a full time reliever after a few years of shuffling him between the rotation and the pen.

I have two general concerns.  One, did he have a career year and how far will he come down if he does?  His numbers seem to indicate (namely the strikeout to walk ratio) that this wasn’t a flash in the pan year though.  Second, he’s 33 and he’ll be 37 when he finishes up the deal.  The Tigers have made a habit of signing guys to a year or two longer then they should have so you wonder if this going to be the case here.

With that, if you have a bullpen of Jose Valverde, a close to 2010 equivalent of Joaquin Benoit and then a healthy Joel Zumaya (who’s said to be at 100%) then the Tigers should really be able to shorten how much their starters pitch.  The Twins have made a living out of having good but not great starters and a shut down bullpen so maybe that’s what the Tigers are going after here.

The Tigers fine tuned their 40 man roster in preparation for the Winter Meetings.  They signed Al Alburquerque from the Rockies system and he’ll probably be in the mix for one of the Tigers bullpen spots.  This guy has 191 strikeouts in 174 1/3 minor league innings so he looks like another power arm that Dave Dombrowski usually brings in.  Cale Iorg, Charles Furbush, Duane Below, Lester Oliveros, Jose Ortega and Brayan Villerreal were all added to the 40 man while Fu-Te Ni was removed.  Ni had the nice 2009 campaign then he really struggled in 2010.

If you’ve been to Lions games this year, you’ve probably seen the Detroit Pride Cheerleaders outside of Ford Field.  Since the Lions won’t have cheerleaders (yet?) the Detroit Pride Cheerleaders decided to just do it themselves and you’ll see them around town and outside of the field before games.  Their visit to the VA hospital on Veterans Day looked particularly heartwarming.  Since they’re not official yet funding can be an issue and they need your help.  Their 2011 calendar is coming out soon so if you want to pitch in, pick one up.  You can also find them on Facebook.

***UPDATE***

The link to order the Detroit Pride Cheerleader’s calendar is at the bottom of their website.  The preorder price of $10 ends today.

Jon Paul Morosi wrote this morning that the Tigers are close to signing a multi-year deal to bring Joaquin Benoit to Detroit.  Benoit had a hard time finding work at the beginning of the 2010 season after missing all of 2009 and he opted for a minor league deal with the Rays this year.  The Rays hit a home run on this signing because he was lights out as the Rays set up man.  He had a .147 batting average against overall and he sported an impressive 75/11 strikeout to walk ratio in 60 1/3 innings.

With the uncertainty with Joel Zumaya, this could really bolster the pen.  Of course we won’t know if it’s a good deal or not until the numbers are released.

« Previous Entries |

Powered by
WordPress

Click to advertise

http://every1bets.com