Bunt Singles: Feb. 23
posted in 2008 Spring Training, bunt singles |Feb. 23 already… going on Feb. 24. Wow.
Some Tigers links to eye:
Baseball Prospectus released its hitters player cards for PECOTA 08. Granderson’s is actually subscriber-only, but I found it funny his most comparable player was Tigers coach Andy Van Slyke.
- Lee has been busy!
At Tiger Tales, Lee tells us what to look for in Detroit’s starting pitchers and *shudder* relief pitchers. We’re in pretty good agreement on the starters. I don’t see the same 7 relievers coming out of Lakeland as he does though.
Oh, and he has another community project. I need to get my submission in.
- Ryan Raburn is playing some catch. er.
The topic of the day was Raburn’s ability to play catcher. By ability I mean “he’s trying it out.” Apparently he’s barely done it in his life, but he’s willing to give it a shot. While I’m sure he’s a fabulous athlete, I’d rather he stick to the positions he, I don’t know, actually plays.
His reasoning? Strikeout (or lack of) ratio.
- Oh yeah, the Tigers traded for Jacque Jones, too, didn’t they?
You don’t hear much about him.
Sphere It
It’s really hard to justify moving Cabrera, one of the truly elite hitters in the game today, down to the #5 slot. I think you move Sheffield down to that slot instead.
In a purely stats-driven world, I’d do this:
Sheffield
Guillen
Ordonez
Cabrera
Granderson
Renteria
Polanco
Thames/Jones
Pudge
Granderson is not a classic lead-off guy in terms of walks/stolen bases. Polanco is fantastic, but with the combination power/average hitters we have, it’d be great to put pressure on every starting pitcher coming right out of the gate. And Sheffield and Guillen are both very good base runners with high OBPs.
Just the musings of a stathead . . .
personally, I’m fine with Grandy No. 1. Off the top of my head, I prefer something more like
Grandy
Sheff
Cabrera
Maggs
Guillen
Renteria
Polanco
Jones
Pudge