Christmas roundup
posted in 2006-07 offseason, link roundup |I believe in January I’ll start putting together some actual useful posts. In the meantime, my fellow Tigers bloggers have been doing great work, which I hope you’ve read.
At DTW, Bilfer put together a Tigers payroll spreadsheed…sheet (you can tell it’s basketball season). It looks like when this year’s round of contracts are finished up with arbitration and whatnot, the Tigers will be in the $90-95 million payroll. That sounds fair for a team selling out the stadium routinely and who played in the World Series. The spreadsheet shows that GM Dave Dombrowski has built a lot of flexibility into the next several years.
At Tiger Tales, Lee put together a pair of must-read post, those being on batted balls and the Tigers. The first is more descriptive in nature, the second is more predictive. When you get down to it, what we see is this was a team that didn’t overperform at the dish. Some players did, others underperformed. Sean Casey, who anyone could see was having a miserable time with his luck, should even out over the course of the year, Lee finds. He also finds Marcus Thames should put up better numbers. Carlos Guillen might make a step back, but he’ll still be among the best batters at his position.
The White Sox possibly gave the Tigers another Christmas present for 2007: They traded young pitching stud Brandon McCarthy for a younger pitching stud. So they now lack a viable No. 5 pitching candidate. They’re definitely worse for getting rid of Freddy Garcia. Over at a forum, the Sox fans pretty much freaked but some have calmed down and now like the deal. Baseball Prospectus (premium) found this deal may actually backfire on Texas, because B-Mac gives up a lot of home runs. It just seems to me right now, I’d have to say the the Sox look weaker and the Twins lost two workhorse pitchers. If Cleveland’s pitching holds, could be an exciting rivalry for the division title. But that’s so far off in the future, no real purpose to thinking about it yet.
The Tigers made the “nice” list at Baseball Prospectus for trading for Gary Sheffield. Joe Sheehan also called signing Jeremy Bonderman to four years risky, but a good risk.
The trade for Gary Sheffield was perhaps the best example of a team matching an acquisition to need. The Tigers had major OBP issues last season, and even an aging Sheffield will be good for a team-leading mark. I suspect that his impact on the team’s overall run scoring will be greater than we can model. Adding an OBP guy to a high-SLG, low-OBP lineup should have a larger effect than adding it to a more balanced lineup.
The Tigers are trying to figure out their broadcast partners and TV deal, Lynn Henning reported in the News. I hope the Tigers really strive to get the free TV shown statewide. I know it was in most of the major cities downstate, but there’s a lot of state left that would like to see the Tigers too. 110 televised games is an embarrassment for a team that played in the World Series. They have to find more TV partners and realize that northern Michigan and the U.P. support the Tigers, too.
I think that about covers it. Have Happy Holidays! (Not that I’m PC, but I can’t spell all the holidays you should be having happily!)
A few more: I hadn’t realized that a few articles were written about Baseball America’s award winners:
- Dave Dombrowski, Executive of the Year
- Jim Leyland, Manager of the Year
- Andrew Miller, College Player of the Year
- Justin Verlander, Rookie of the Year (premium)
“If Cleveland’s pitching holds. . .”
Last year’s hard luck team suffered mostly from bad bullpen performances. But, the Indians bulked their ‘pen with the additions of Roberto Hernandez and Joe Borowski. With their already potent offense, a better bullpen and some better luck, Cleveland scares me more than the Sox or Twins.
On paper, Cleveland definitely has to be considered a playoff team. Whether paper translates to dirt and grass, we’ll have to see.