Tiger Tales: A Detroit Tigers Blog

Long-time Cincinnati Reds and Detroit Tigers manager Sparky Anderson passed away today in Thousand Oaks , California the age of 76.

George Lee Anderson lasted only one year as a light-hitting second baseman with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1959, but later became a legendary manager for a quarter of a century.   He won 2,194 games over 26 years which ranks him eighth in wins among all managers.  His teams won seven pennants and three World Series and he was the first manager to win championships in both the American and National Leagues.  He was inducted into the hall of fame in 2000.

He managed the Big Red Machine to six pennants and two championships between 1970-1978.  That team of Joe Morgan, Pete Rose, Johnny Bench and company was among the best and most exciting of my lifetime.  He then went on to manage the Tigers from 1979-1995 winning a World Championship in 1984 and a division title in 1987.

When I think of baseball managers, the first image that comes to mind is the charismatic Anderson.  He was small in stature at 5-9 170 pounds, but he always seemed to be in control. There was never a doubt that players both loved and respected him. As a fan, I always got the feeling that the Tigers would have a good team as long as their white-haired leader was in charge.  And I'm pretty sure he was born with white hair. 

Some of my fondest memories of Sparky are his quotes such as "If you don't like Dave Rucker, you don't like ice cream" and "A little pain never hurt nobody."  Those and many other memorable quotes still pop into my mind today on a regular basis.

I also remember his bold projections for young players.  Kirk Gibson was going to be the next Mickey Mantle.  Barbaro Garbey was the next Roberto Clemente.  Chris Pittarro and Torey Lovullo were future all-stars.  None of those predictions were realistic, but there was something about Sparky that made you believe everything he said.  How could you not believe him? 

There will never be another Sparky.

Rest in Peace Mr. Anderson.

A couple of weeks ago, I looked at the relative importance of offense and defense (pitching/fielding) for getting into the playoffs. I concluded that good defense is somewhat more important than good offense. However, good defense is not absolutely required if you have strong offense.

Today, I'll do the same analysis except that I'll break defense into pitching and fielding. Pitching is measured by Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP). FIP is a gauge of how well a pitcher performs in events which he can control without the influence of fielders - home runs, strikeouts, walks and hit batsmen. Fielding will be measured by Defensive Efficiency Ratio(DER). DER is the percentage of times batted balls are turned into outs by the team's fielders, not including home runs. Offense is again defined by runs scored.

As before, each facet of the game is divided into three categories according to how teams rank on the appropriate statistic. Teams which finish in the top third of the league in FIP are classified as good pitching teams. Teams in the middle third are ok pitching teams and teams in the bottom third are bad pitching teams. The same was done for offense and Fielding. It gets a little messy processing all three parts of the game together so I'll present them separately in Tables1, 2 and 3 for the 128 playoff teams between 1988-2007.

Tables 1 and 2 show that offense and pitching are equally important with 61% of playoff teams having good offense and 62% having good pitching. It's important to be at least OK in both categories because only 8% of playoff teams had bad offense and 6% had bad pitching.

Table 3 indicates that fielding is not quite as important as offense and pitching: 46% had good fielding and 25% had bad fielding.

Table 1 - Offensive classification of playoff teams from 1988-2007

Offense	N	%
Good	78	60.9
OK	42	32.8
Bad	8	6.2

Table 2 - Pitching classification of playoff teams from 1988-2007

Pitching	N	%
Good	79	61.7
OK	42	32.8
Bad	7	5.5

Table 3 - Fielding classification of playoff teams from 1988-2007

Fielding	N	%
Good	59	46.1
OK	37	28.9
Bad	32	25.0

Now, let's look at the 38 World Series teams teams between 1988-2007. The data for offense, pitching and fielding are contained in Tables 4, 5 and 6 respectively. Pitching becomes a little more important than offense for World series teams: 74% had good pitching and 60% had good offense. Both are vital as no team with bad pitching or bad offense made the World Series during that period.

Fielding increased in importance for World Series teams as 58% of the teams had good fielding and only 16% had bad fielding.

Overall, I would conclude that offense and pitching are both key components of most winning teams and neither should be emphasized more than the other in building a playoff team. The better pitching teams might have a slight edge in reaching the World Series but the advantage is not striking. Fielding is less important but also can not be ignored.

Table 4 - Offensive classification of World Series teams from 1988-2007

Offense	N	%
Good	23	60.5
OK	15	39.5
Bad	0	0.0

Table 5 - Pitching classification of World Series teams from 1988-2007

Pitching	N	%
Good	28	73.7
OK	8	21.1
Bad	2	5.3

Table 6 - Fielding classification of World Series teams from 1988-2007

Fielding	N	%
Good	22	57.9
OK	10	26.3
Bad	6	15.8

The schedules for the next season used to come out on a cold snowy December day and would immediately warm me up with thoughts of summer. Now they seem to come out earlier and earlier. The 2009 schedule is now ready before the 2008 season is even over. Well, at least it's not technically over.

Anyway, they open up at Toronto on April 6 and play four games. Because, they have a roof, they will avoid that annoying off day after opening which is designed for a make-up game. In fact, they play on ten consecutive days before they have an open date. Their home opener will on April 10 versus Texas.

For those of you like myself who are inconvenienced by late starting west coast games, there will be fewer next year than there were this year. They go on a six game trips to Seattle and Los Angeles in April and Oakland and Las Angeles in August. They also have a three game series in Oakland at the end of June flanked by series at Houston and Minnesota.

In inter-league action, The Rockies, Brewers and Cubs will visit Comerica Park this year and the Tigers will travel to Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Houston. They end up the season with a nine game trip to Minnesota, Cleveland and Chicago followed by a three game home series versus the Twins. Hopefully, those end of season games will have more meaning in 2009

It's been a long disappointing season with few pleasant memories for Tigers fans but there might be some consolation prizes if players end the season on high notes. First, Magglio Ordonez has a chance to be the only Tiger other than Ty Cobb to win back to back batting titles. He's a bit of a long shot with three batters ahead of him but is only seven points behind the leader and coming strong:

Dustin Pedroia .328
Milton Bradley .327
Joe Mauer .323
Magglio Ordonez .321

Miguel Cabrera has a chance to be the Tigers first home run leader since Cecil Fielder hit 44 in 1991. With Cabrera on a roll and Carlos Quentin out for the season, he has a legitimate shot:

Carlos Quentin 36
Miguel Cabrera 33
Alex Rodriguez 33
Jermaine Dye 32

With 80 RBI in his last 82 games, Cabrera also has a shot at the RBI crown:

Josh Hamilton 124
Justin Morneau 119
Miguel Cabrera 116

With Carlos Crawford out for the season, Curtis Granderson has the triples title pretty much sewn up for the second straight year. He has the most triples (36) in back to back seasons for any Tiger since Sam Crawford in 1913-1914 (49) since Sam Crawford in 1913-14. These are the 2008 leaders:

Curtis Granderson 13
Carlos Crawford 10
Alex Rios 9
Brian Roberts 9