Tiger Tales: A Detroit Tigers Blog

The Tigers remained undefeated for the spring by topping the Blue Jays 3-1 today. Justin Verlander started and pitched two shutout innings. Jim Leyland also announced today that Verlander would be the opening day starting pitcher which, of course is hardly shocking news.

Rick Porcello made his debut as a Tiger and it was a good one. He pitched two perfect innings and did not allow a ball to be hit out of the infield. There were four ground outs, an infield pop up and a strikeout of Frank Thomas. Nate Robertson pitched two innings and allowed the only Blue Jay run.

Curtis Granderson hit his second homer of the spring off of left-hander Scott Downs to lead off the third inning. It's only the first week of spring training but Grandy hitting a homer off a pretty good lefty has to be viewed as a positive. Ryan Raburn, who is battling for a spot on the bench , went three for three.

The Tigers will face their division rival Indians both tomorrow and Sunday. Tomorrow, Dontrelle Willis will face C.C. Sabathia.

A few notes:

Brock for Broglio has a a list of the 101 "best progressive baseball blogs" on the internet. I didn't realize I was progressive but somehow Tiger Tales made the list. There are a lot of great blogs there so at least I'm in good company. You should check them out when you have the time.

I received my copy of The Hardball Times Season Preview yesterday and so far it looks great. Some of the best analysts on the internet have put together a team by team preview of the 2008 season. Brian Borawski of Tiger Blog wrote a sensible and I believe accurate preview of the Tigers but the previews of the other teams are worth reading as well. It is somewhat sabermetric in nature but less hardcore that some of the other stuff they do at THBT. To some extent, it seems to be geared towards the fantasy baseball crowd and should be a great resource for that purpose.

Duck Snorts, Geoff Young's annual book on the Padres, is now ready. Geoff is one of best baseball writers and analysts on the internet and last year's book was excellent even if your not a Padres fan. This year's book promises to be just as good and you can check out some free excerpts. There is both a hardcover and PDF version available for this book.

After pounding Florida Southern yesterday, the Tigers will face a major league team today - the Mets. Danny Knobler has the Tigers starting line-up:

Curtis Granderson CF
Placido Polanco 2B
Timo Perez DH
Magglio Ordonez RF
Miguel Cabrera 3B
Carlos Guillen 1B
Edgar Renteria SS
Pudge Rodriguez C
Jacque Jones LF

With the exception of Gary Sheffield in place of Perez, that is the line-up I expect to see on opening day of the regular season as well (Jim Leyland confirmed later that this is indeed going to be the starting line-up). I would rather see Cabrera bat third but it doesn't make a big difference. Jeremy Bonderman is starting.

Final: Tigers 4 Mets 2

Bonderman pitched 2 innings and allowed 2 runs but he was not throwing his slider in his first outing. The best news is that he threw pain free.

The Tigers scored 4 runs in the bottom of the seventh on hits by Marcus Thames, Wilkin Ramirez, Mike Hessman and Brandon Inge (who played some center field today).

The Tigers bullpen pitched 7 scoreless innings including two perfect innings apiece for Jason Grilli and Zach Miner and one for Tim Byrdak.

Fernando Rodney has tendinitis and is still not throwing. It's not believed to be anything serious but, given his past arm problems, I think there is cause for a little concern.

Miguel Cabrera smacks homer in first at bat as a Tiger
Photo Credit - Deran (Lakeland Flying Tigers Blog)

The Tigers opened up their exhibition season with a game versus the Florida Southern Moccasins. The Tigers gave a glimpse of their powerful offense with early homers by Placido Polanco, Miguel Cabrera, Brandon Inge and Scott Sizemore. It's 2:00 PM and the Tigers are currently up 6-4 in the third inning. You can check out the game action at the Florida Southern site. More later.

3:30 update: The Tigers are up 15-4 in the 8th. Lakeland correspondent Deran went to the game and has some awesome pictures.

Final Score: Tigers 17 Florida Southern 4

Along with the homers mentioned above, the following hitters had big days: Michael Hollimon (double, triple, 4 RBI), Freddie Guzman (single, double, triple), Jeff Larish (2 for 2 with 2 walks). Hollimon and Guzman have outside shots at making the opening day roster. We may see Larish in Detroit late in the year or next year. Todd Jones pitched a scoreless first inning. Jordan Tata was wild walking 3 batters and giving up all four runs in 1 2/3 innings.

Jim Leyland said yesterday that Ivan Rodiguez will bat 8th for the Tigers this year. I would normally expect to see the weakest hitter in a very productive line-up bat 9th but I'm not surprised by the announcement. The manager is likely keeping him out of the bottom spot as a token of respect to a future Hall of Famer.

This means that either Edgar Renteria or Jacque Jones will bat 9th. Batting Jones 9th would put two left-handed batters (the other being Curtis Granderson) who struggle against left-handed pitchers back to back. That problem could, of course be solved by platooning Jones with Marcus Thames. The option option for the 9th spot would be Edgar Renteria who reached base at a .390 clip last year. This would give the Tigers a second lead off hitter to bat in front of the extra base slugging Granderson.

The other line-up unknown is who will bat third: Gary Sheffield or Miguel Cabrera. I would like to see Cabrera bat third because I'm more confident in his having a productive and durable season than Sheffield. Billfer put the 4 possible line-ups through the line-up optimizer and found very little difference in the expected runs scored among them. So, I suppose it doesn't really matter too much who bats third, fifth, seventh and ninth.

The above analysis assumes that everyone stays healthy. With Leyland's tendancy to not change the order when players are rested or injured, I would be somewhat concerned what would happen if Sheffield (who I consider a significant injury risk) got hurt. I wouldn't want to see a Thames or a Brandon Inge or a Timo Perez get inserted into the third spot with Magglio Ordonez and Cabrera batting 4th and 5th.

Anyway, I do suspect that Sheffield will bat third for a few reasons: He batted there last year, has seniority, and walks a lot. So, here is the projected opening day line-up:

Granderson cf
Polanco 2b
Sheffield dh
Ordonez rf
cabrera 3b
Guillen ss
Renteria ss
Rodriguez c
Jones lf

Between this site and Motownsports, I'm getting some good sample sizes for the community projections so I'll move forward with the rest of the players. This week, I'm asking you to give your projections for Edgar Renteria and Gary Sheffield. Let's see if you guys can do better than PECOTA, Bill James and ZIPS. Please put your projections for Renteria and Sheffield in the comments. These are the categories:

AB BA OBP SLG HR RBI

Photo credit: Roger Dewitt

In previous articles, I covered spring training questions surrounding the regular position players, the bench, and the starting pitchers. Today, I'll finish up the series with the area having the most question marks - the bullpen.

While the Tigers made a lot of upgrades this winter to other parts of the team, they really did not make any significant moves to bolster their bullpen after Joel Zumaya got hurt. Thus, there will be a lot of pitchers with less than stellar resumes competing for spots this spring. The only certainty at this point seems to be that Todd Jones will close. Fernando Rodney came into camp as a lock to be the set up man. That probably still holds but the news of his shoulder discomfort earlier this week creates a little uncertainty. It's not supposed to be anything serious but it's something to watch.

As we try to sort out the rest of opening day bullpen, it's important to consider the options status of everyone involved. The following pitchers have options remaining and thus can be freely sent to the minors:

Macay McBride
Zach Miner
Clay Rapada
Jordan Tata
Virgil Vasquez

The following pitchers have no options remaining:

Denny Bautista
Yorman Bazardo
Tim Byrdak
Francico Cruceta
Jason Grilli
Bobby Seay

Any of these pitchers would have to go through waivers before he could be sent to the minors. Thus, the Tigers would risk losing a pitcher such as Bazardo or Cruceta if they tried to option him out.

While it's important to consider options in understanding roster decisions, one should also remember that most players do clear waivers. Eddie B recently compiled a list of 47 players who were placed on waivers last spring and found that 41 cleared waivers. Thus, a contending team like the Tigers is not likely to send a Zach Miner to the minors if they clearly consider him one of their 7 best relievers. Options will come into play to break ties. For example, if the 12th spot comes down to Miner or Cruceta and they really like both of them, then Cruceta would probably make the team.

Beyond Jones and Rodney, Seay and Byrdak would seem to be locks if they pitch well this spring. Given Byrdak's history of wildness and less than dominating stuff, pitching well is not a guarantee. It remains to be seen whether last year was a fluke or whether he was a late bloomer at age 33. While Grilli infuriates a lot of fans, he has been pretty close to a league average pitcher over the last couple of years, although he probably shouldn't pitch 79 2/3 innings again this year. Anyway, even if some fans don't like Grilli, Leyland does like him so he'll likely make the team unless he looks awful this spring.

After that, it gets more difficult. Miner was one of their better relievers last year but he has an option left and thus will get some competition from Cruceta, Bazardo and possibly Bautista. Bazardo pitched well last September and is probably their best option for spot (or more than spot) starts. Thus, he is probably someone they would not risk losing. I am still a bit skeptical about Cruuceta but the Tigers raved about him this winter and I'm not sure they would risk losing him. Given Bautista's age (27) and track record, I think there is a good chance that he would clear waivers if they wanted to send him tho the minors.

So, if we assume that everyone stays healthy and pitches reasonably well this spring, the follow seven pitchers are the best bets to be around on opening day:

Jones
Rodney
Seay
Byrdak
Grilli
Cruceta
Bazardo

Chances are though that injuries and disappointing spring performances will make the final decision easier than it looks right now. And by performance I'm not talking about spring stats. I'm talking about a pitcher that who just doesn't have good control or good stuff all spring. If anything goes wrong with the above 7 pitchers, Miner would be the next candidate. After that, it's anybody's guess.

Photo credit: Roger Dewitt

In earlier posts, I covered questions surrounding the Tigers starting position players and the bench. Today, I'll discuss the starting pitchers. The starting five is etched in stone:

Justin Verlander
Jeremy Bonderman
Kenny Rogers
Dontrelle Willis
Nate Robertson

The major thing to watch from this group this spring is the health of of Rogers, Bonderman and Willis. The biggest concern for me is Rogers whose 2007 season started with a blood clot in his left shoulder and ended with tendonitis in his elbow. It remains to be seen how much the 43 year old pitcher has left in his tank. Bonderman tried to pitch through elbow inflammation last year and had a miserable second half. Willis has also made vague statements about pitching through pain in 2007. the first goal is that all these pitchers make it through the spring pain free.

If anything happens to one of the starters, then the question would be who would be the replacement. Candidates include Yorman Bazardo, Zach Miner and Virgil Vazquez. Bazardo would appear to be the most likely sixth pitcher. After a solid season for Toledo in 2007, he impressed with a 2.28 ERA in 23 2.3 inings for the Tigers including 2 starts. They would prefer to keep Miner in the bullpen but he helped out a lot in 2006 with 16 starts replacing the injured Mike Maroth. Vazquez had a good season for Toledo in 2oo7 but struggled in three starts at the major league level.

Then there is the annual issue about Bonderman trying to develop a third pitch to go with his fastball and wicked slider. It's been said that Bonderman never throws a change-up or throws it for a couple of games and then scraps it for the rest of the season. That is not true. According to the new Bill James Online site (sorry, it's a pay site), he has thrown 756 change-ups the last three years which is almost 9% of all his pitches. The problem is that it's not a very good one.

one final question is about the order of the rotation. Eddie B, over at Tigers Thoughts, suggests a way to set up the staff so left-handed and right-handed starters face opponents who are least likely to hit them. Given the early schedule, his ideal rotation would be: Robetson, Bonderman, Rogers, Verlander and Willis. It's an interesting analysis but the the real order will probably look something like this:

Verlander
Rogers
Bonderman
Willis
Robertson

Part of the reasoning is that Jim Leyland has mentioned that he wants to place the soft tossing lefty Rogers between the two hard throwing right-handers. I'm not sure how big of a difference that makes in throwing off batter's timing but it's good to gain every advantage possible.

Later, I'll look at the relievers.

In a recent post, I developed a statistic to quantify the consistency of a player's performance over a season. Using the consistency statistic (the coefficient of variation of GPA), I determined the top 10 most consistent and the 10 streakiest (or least consistent) hitters in 2007. Looking at the two tables, one thing I noticed was that consistent players tended to have better seasons than the streaky players.

To examine the difference between consistent and streaky hitters further, I split the qualifying major leaguers into three equally sized groups according to the the consistency stat. I placed the 65 most consistent hitters into the high consistency group, the next 65 into to the medium group and the rest into the low consistency group.

The results in Table 1 below show that the high consistency group performed better, on average, than those in the other groups. In fact, they were statistically significantly better on the following stats: batting average, on base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS, GPA and K/600 PA. The differences between groups in isolated power and BB/600 PA were not statistically significant.

Table 1: Performance by Consistency Category - 2007


I did a similar analysis for 2006 and came to the same conclusion. That is, in each year, players who performed most consistently in GPA had better numbers at the end of the season than streak hitters.

As a next step, I looked to see whether consistency within a season was likely to be repeated from one season to the next. I calculated the consistency in GPA for each of the 137 players with sufficient playing time in each season and found very little correlation (r=.15) between the two seasons. Thus, it appears that consistency in overall performance (GPA or OPS) is not a repeatable skill and is actually fairly random.

My next thought was that changes in performance could be linked to changes in consistency. To test this theory, I took the difference in GPA for each player from 2006 to 2007. I then took the difference in the consistency for each player from 2006 to 2007. Finally, I looked at the correlation between the two differences (r=.30) and found it to be statistically significant.

In other words, players who improved their consistency from 2006 to 2007 tended to do better in 2007 than 2006. Conversely, players who became more streaky from 2006 to 2007 tended to see a decline in performance. This can be better illustrated by looking at some lists of players. Table 2 lists the 10 players who improved the most in consistency from 2006 to 2007. You can see that 7 of 10 also improved his GPA. Conversely, Table 3 shows the players who regressed the most in consistency from 2006 to 2007. In this case, all 10 also saw their GPAs decline.

So, it does look as if performance is tied to consistency even though consistency is not repeatable from year to year. That is, consistency describes something about a player's season more than it describes a player. If a player has an inconsistent season by the consistency statistic, that might be an indicator that he was injured or had some unusually bad luck which prevented him from hitting his best all year long. It also might mean that he's a candidate to improve in the following season. I'll look more into that later.

Table 2: Players who became more consistent from 2006 to 2007


Table 3: Players who became less consistent from 2006 to 2007

The information used here was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by
Retrosheet.  Interested parties may contact Retrosheet at "www.retrosheet.org".

Photo Credit: Roger Dewitt

The starting nine for the beginning of the season is pretty much set but the composition of the bench is still up in the air. With 12 pitchers and a full-time designated hitter that limits the Tigers to four reserves to cover eight positions. Much depends on the status of Brandon Inge and the health of Vance Wilson.

The probability of Inge being traded has been going up and down all winter. He would still like to be traded and they would like to move him but there hasn't been a lot of interest and both sides are open to the idea of him remaining with the Tigers. With Jim Leyland's recent comment that their is a strong possibility of a trade, it's looking like he might not be back. It's far from a certainty though.

The other wild card is Vance Wilson. There is still a question as to whether he'll be ready for the beginning of the regular season after undergoing Tommy John surgery last summer. Any decision on Inge is reportedly independent of Wilson's health status. One has to wonder whether that's totally true though. After all the bold moves this winter to put the team in a position where they are a favorite to win the AL central, it would be to tough to go into the season without an experienced backup catcher.

If Inge and/or Wilson are available then they would be locks for the opening day roster. The other lock at this point is Marcus Thames who could platoon with Jacque Jones in left field and backup Carlos Guillen at first base. Even if Leyland does not go with a platoon, Thames would be their top right-handed bat off the bench. The next closest thing to a lock would be Ramon Santiago, although if Inge can play some second and Shortstop and Ryan Raburn can play second base, Santiago might not be necessary.

If not Inge or Wilson, then who would be the backup catcher? Among the spring training invitees, the most major league ready catcher is believed to be 28 year old Dane Sardinha who caught for the Toledo Mud Hens last season. Sardinha has a lifetime minor league OPS of .600 and only 5 major league at bats but has been in AAA for four seasons. Other outside possibilities are Maxim St. Pierre and Nick Trzesniak. Each has the equivalent of close to a year of AAA experience.

Other players competing for roster spots, especially if Inge is not around, are Mike Hessman (first base/ third base), middle infielder Mike Hollimon (.282/.371/.478 for Erie in 2007), center fielder Freddy Guzman and left fielder Timo Perez. Guzman's value is that he is the best defensive center fielder and fastest base runner available. Perez has a chance because he had a great September for the Tigers and is one of their few left-handed hitters.

Assuming Inge and Wilson are both on the 25 man roster entering the regular season, here is my best guess at the bench:

Inge
Wilson
Thames
Santiago

If Inge is a Tiger and Wilson is still not ready:

Inge
Thames
Santiago
Perez

If Wilson is ready and Inge is gone:

Wilson
Thames
Santiago
Raburn

If neither Inge nor Wilson is on the opening day roster:

Thames
Santiago
Sardinha
Raburn

You might ask why I put Perez on one list (without Raburn) but Raburn on two others (without Perez). It's because I don't think there would be as great of a need for Raburn with both Inge and Thames on the roster. In that case, I think Leyland might take the left-handed batting Perez or the switch hitting Guzman instead. However Raburn's versatility and right-handed bat would be more valuable in the absence of Inge.

So that's my view of the bench. I'll take a look at the pitching later in the week.

Between this site and Motownsports, I'm getting some good sample sizes for the community projections so I'll move forward with the rest of the players. This week, I'm asking you to give your projections for Miguel Cabrera and Placido Polanco. Let's see if you guys can do better than PECOTA, Bill James and ZIPS. Please put your projections for Cabrera and Polanco in the comments. These are the categories:

AB BA OBP SLG HR RBI

Photo credit: Roger Dewitt

With pitchers and catchers and most other position players now down in Lakeland, it's time for spring training previews. I'll discuss the nine regular position players today. In future posts, I'll look at the bench and the pitchers. The starting nine is, of course, set:

C. Pudge Rodriguez
1B. Carlos Guillen
2B. Placido Polanco
SS. Edgar Renteria
3B. Miguel Cabrera
LF. Jacque Jones
CF. Curtos Granderson
RF. Magglio Ordonez
DH. Gary Sheffield

The actual line-up is still unknown and Jim Leyland will undoubtedly try many different combinations this spring. We probably won't get any clues from the early games but as the spring goes along, we should get an idea of the opening day line-up. It is pretty clear that Granderson and Polanco will bat one and two, Ordonez clean-up and Guillen sixth on most days. There is some question as to who will bat third and fifth between Sheffield and Cabrera.

The other line-up question of interest is whether Rodriguez will bat ninth. He is the weakest hitter in the line-up but Leyland may bat him 7th or 8th to protect his ego. If he does not bat ninth, it would likely be Edgar Renteria in that spot because I don't think the manager will want two lefties (Jones, Granderson) who struggle against left-handed hitters batting back to back. One possible line-up is:

CF. Granderson
2B. Polanco
DH. Sheffield
RF. Ordonez
3B. Cabrera
1B. Guillen
SS. Renteria
LF. Jones
C. Rodriguez

Another issue is a possible platoon in left field. Leyland does not generally like to do a lot of platooning but Jones (.825 vs. RHP and .636 vs. LHP lifetime) and Thames (.739 and .862) seems like a natural. Jones is the better fielder but the platoon split seems too big to ignore.

Whether or not Granderson can improve on the league's widest platoon split in 2007 (1.014, .494) is another question. I doubt Leyland would ever put one of baseball's best center fielders into a strict platoon but he could get benched against certain left-handed pitchers if he continues to have problems. It's something he will be working on for sure. After all, it is really the only part of his game that still needs a lot of polish.

With an aging starting line-up (7 players 32 or older), health is naturally going to be a question and I suspect you'll see their regulars get even more days off in the spring than they might if they were younger. The biggest potential health issue is Sheffield who was rendered useless by a shoulder injury the second half of last season. He is reportedly pain free after his off-season surgery but at 39 years old and with a history of shoulder problems, I still consider him a significant injury risk. If he does come back strong and healthy and has a reasonably full season, he could be the difference between a very good line-up and an elite line-up.

Defensively, one player to watch is Cabrera who had very poor range at third base over the last couple of years. He reportedly has good instincts and hands but was slowed by a weight problem. The good news is that he apparently lost 20 pounds over the winter but it remains to be seen whether he can translate that into increased range. On a pitching staff with three left-handers who induce good numbers of ground balls, decent defense at third is going to be important.

Later, I'll take a look at questions surrounding Brandon inge and the bench. Then, I'll try to sort out the pitching staff, the bullpen in particular.

You often hear fans, announcers, players and others talking about the consistency of various hitters. Some hitters are said to stay steady from the beginning of the season to the end. Others are known as streak hitters who go hot and cold throughout the year. Some think that consistent hitters are more productive than streak hitters and that they are more likely to continue hitting in the future. It also believed by some that consistency is a skill that repeats itself from year to year rather than just a random thing. Before we can explore these and other issues, it is necessary to quantify consistency and that is what this post is about.

Using the retrosheet play by play databases, I divided the typical 180 day season (including days off) into roughly 18 nine day intervals. For each batter I calculated the Gross Production Average (GPA) in each interval. GPA is similar to OPS except that it weights the on base percentage (OBP) and slugging (SLG) more appropriately (OPS puts too much weight on slugging). It is calculated as follows:

GPA = (1.8*OBP + SLG)/4.

Besides weighting things more correctly, GPA is appealing because it is scaled similarly to batting average. If a GPA looks like it would be a good batting average (e.g. .315), then it's a good GPA.

Placido Polanco's GPA is tracked by interval in the chart below. You can see that his GPA rarely strayed too far from his season average. In contrast, the chart for Pudge Rodriguez shows that his GPA by interval was much more variable. To quantify this variability, I used something called the coefficient of variation (CV). For the statistically inclined, the CV is the standard deviation of the 18 data points divided by the average of the 18 data points times 100.

More simply, players with low CVs are more consistent than players with high CVs. Polanco had a CV of 16.9 and Rodriguez was at 37.5 in 2007. .I calculated the CV for every player with at least 14 intervals where he had at least 20 plate appearances. There were 194 major league qualifiers in 2007 and their CVs ranged from 13.9 to 48.9.


Table 1 below lists the Tigers in order from least consistent to most consistent. The most consistent Tigers in 2007 were newly acquired Edgar Renteria, Placido Polanco and Carlos Guillen. The streakiest Tigers were Pudge Rodriguez, Brandon Inge and Gary Sheffield.

Table 2 includes the most consistent hitters in the major leagues in 2007. Renteria also tops that list followed by Chipper Jones and Chase Utley. Table 3 includes the streakiest hitters. Leading that group are Dioner Navarro, John Buck and Andrew Jones.

In a future post (more than one if it gets interesting), I'll compare the characteristics of consistent hitters and streak hitters, examine the repeatability of the the GPA CV stat and look to see if it is predictive of future production in any way.

The information used here was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by
Retrosheet.  Interested parties may contact Retrosheet at "www.retrosheet.org".

Table 1: Consistency of Tiger batters in 2007



Table 2: Top ten most consistent hitters in majors in 2007


Table 3: Least consistent hitters in majors in 2007

The information used here was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by
Retrosheet.  Interested parties may contact Retrosheet at "www.retrosheet.org".