The Season Series

Bilfer at Detroit Tigers Weblog did a great job. I simply point you in his direction.

The Secret Sauce Says

As I did with the Yankees, a quick review of the secret sauce rankings shows that Detroit should win this. The Tigers have a more efficient defense, a better closer, and almost the exact strikeouts per nine as the A’s. While this formula worked fine in projecting the Tigers over the Yankees, it failed to project the A’s sweeping the Twins (who were ranked #2 in baseball in the formula). It also went 1-1 in the NL, picking the Mets correctly but Padres incorrectly.

The Rotation Matchups

Here are the projected matchups for the first swing through the series and likely for the if-necessary games. Jim Leyland announced he is keeping his same rotation. Oakland appears to be keeping its same rotation, too. Detroit has four of the top five pitchers in the series according to Baseball Prospectus’ stat, support nuetral value added.

Game 1/5: Nate Robertson vs. Barry Zito

Zito gets the edge here. The soft-throwing lefty with an amazing curve has been getting the job done pretty well all season. But Robertson has been pretty good himself. This has the makings of a pitcher’s duel, I must say. Well, they all do. Don’t let name recognition fool you. In the support nuetral stat from above, Verlander and Zito shared No. 1 ranking, while Robertson was No. 3.
Game 2/6: Justin Verlander vs. Esteban Loaiza

Loaiza has been pretty good for chunks of the season. He was pretty average in September and for some other large swaths. Will that mean anything? Wouldn’t really bet on it. But Verlander is clearly the better pitcher in this matchup so long as he remains rested.

Game 3/7: Kenny Rogers vs. Danny Haren

Danny is on my keeper fantasy team. I made a stupid trade to get him. He is, by all measures, the emerging ace of the A’s rotation, unless Harden can stay fully healthy. He can really shut a team down. There’s a reason he’s set for the game 7 matchup. Rogers has owned the A’s. We’d probably prefer to see him in games two and (if needed) 6 because both would be in Oakland, where he pitches better. I really like Danny, but Rogers has to get the edge.

Game 4: Jeremy Bonderman vs. Rich Harden

Did Bonderman take the next step? If he did, and he can put two good starts together, he gets the edge here. Harden is a wild card. He pitched really good in his first two starts coming off the elbow injury. In his last start (post clinch) he got hammered. He hasn’t pitched since.

Edge: Ever-so-slightly, Detroit. Almost a wash though. I like the Tigers in three of the four matchups, but two of them I could see going in Oakland’s direction. But I feel like Detroit controls its destiny as far as pitching goes.

Bullpen

Setup men: Joel Zumaya vs. Justin Duchscherer.

The Duke is very good. Zumaya is very good and a real bulldog. No edge here. I’d rather have Zumaya on my team, but it’s a matter of taste.

Closer: Todd Jones vs. Huston Street

Last year’s rookie of the year, known for his baby face — and he’s only 23 years old — blew 11 saves this year. But he only allowed four home runs in 69 games. He’s got better stuff than Jones, but Jones has better results. You’d be tempted to give the edge to Street because of Jones’ total lack of impressiveness, but Jones’ success should speak loudest. Slight edge Tigers.

The Rest

For the Tigers, you have to like Jamie Walker. You might not like Fernando Rodney. Jason Grilli will be fine. And I doubt we’ll see much of Zach Miner or Wil Ledezma.

For the A’s, Joe Blanton started and pitched well this year. Kiko Calero and Joe Kennedy are both pretty good in short relief.

Bottom line, both pens are pretty good. Maybe a slight edge in the overall pen of the A’s, but if the starters from both teams do their jobs, the guys we’ll see playing most often are evently matched.

The Lineups

While the actual lineups are yet to be revealed, you have to give the edge to Detroit. The Tigers do have a problem with hacking, but they really cut back on that during the Yankees series. I was a bit surprised. There are home runs available from top to bottom. There are good hitters from top to bottom. Curtis Granderson seems to have figured ito out. You can point to his huge amount of strikeouts this year if you want, but he seems better than that. And Placido Polanco is healthy. We have our starting lineup from April, more or less, and they all seem to be producing. But we know about us. What we wanna know about is them:

To start, they lost their second baseman, Mark Ellis, to a broken finger in the second game of the ALDS. D’Angelo Jiminez will have to step up. He’s not Neifi Perez. But he’s not exactly who I’d want in my lineup. Like the Tigers, the A’s don’t have a lot of speed. Don’t let Mark Kotsay’s in-the-park home run fool you, he’s not the fastest guy out there. In fact, the A’s are again like the Tigers. They have no speed. Jason Kendall, their catcher, is their lead-off batter. See what I mean? They get their money’s worth at the plate, but it doens’t translate into runs all that well. They’re not quite the pirannhas of the Twins. Take Nick Swisher, for instance. He would feel right at home in the Tigers’ lineup with his 152 strikeouts and 35 home runs. Eric Chavez had 108 strikeouts in 137 games.
What the A’s have going for them is Tiger-killer Jay Payton. And Frank Thomas, my pick for MVP, can really tar the ball. Kendall leads off for a reason. And as in my previous post, there’s also Super Marco Scutaro to worry about. The A’s lineup does not look like much, but they are pretty good at scoring one more than than they allow, and that’s all that counts in the end.

But if pressed, I say Detroit gets the edge here in my view. The Tigers have too much power, too many good hitters, and are too good at taking the extra base. Pudge Rodriguez will have to step up more than he did against the Yankees, but there’s just no one batter that has to be controlled.

Defense

A lot is made of the A’s defense. Eric Chavez, even when not healthy, which is never really seemed to be, is still a gold glove third baseman. Brandon Inge makes more impressive plays but too many errors still. Mark Kotsay is a very solid, if typically unheralded, center fielder. And Nick Swisher is an outfielder playing first base out of necessity. He does is really well. The national media is going to give Oakland a big edge, I can pretty much guarantee. Oakland has a high fielding percentage. Detroit? Not so much. But as I’ve preached, that’s a poor stat. Look to defensive efficiency — the number of outs for balls in play — rather than how many errors a team makes. And that swings greatly in Detroit’s favor. I’ll take Curtis Granderson in center field any day. I like Craig Monroe in left. I like Inge’s Brooks Robinson’ impersonations. And both Polanco and Carlos Guillen can make better plays than their counter parts. Even as good a catcher as Kendall is, Pudge is clearly the favorite. So defensive edge goes to Detroit.

Conclusion

I see Detroit as having a slightly better defense, a better lineup, and about equal pitching. This truly is a close series.
In part 3 of the preview, I’ll do a position-by-position look at the players. Probably later tonight.

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This entry was posted on Monday, October 9th, 2006 at 2:55 pm and is filed under Oakland A's, Post-season. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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