Bunt Singles: April 6
posted in 2008 predictions, bunt singles |- How sad is it that when I saw the headline “Tigers flame throwers: Will Bautista join them?” for a Free Press profile about the Tigers reliever, I first thought of Ian’s post about Jason Grilli — especially the photo — Friday.
Joe Sheehan wrote at Baseball Prospectus the Tigers’ slow start to the season tells us nothing today we didn’t know about the team last Sunday (subscription required). While Tigers fans may not believe it, April losses don’t matter nearly as much as we think right now. Nor do October’s, other than the fact you take a few months off and someone else gets a parade.
Four games are meaningless. They’re a rounding error, a blip, five days to be forgotten just in time for the next cry of “Play Ball.” … In baseball, the very best teams are perfectly capable of taking a trip through their rotation without winning a game. (Sheehan)
- Some ugly stats:
Magglio Ordonez, .238 avg, .238 obp, .333 slg
Miguel Cabrera, .143, .294, .357
Edgar Renteria, .227, .261, .227
Gary Sheffield, .143, .500, .143
Jeremy Bonderman’s 5.68 ERA is better than Justin Verlander’s 6 and Nate Robertson’s 9.
- Think those guys will keep those poor starts (Sheffield’s OBP notwithstanding) up? No way.
- Good stats:
Brandon Inge, .375, .474, .875
Clete Thomas, .500, .500, .571
- Stats from Fangraphs.
- Yeah, they’re not going to keep that up, either, but it’s more important the first four guys hit than the last two guys don’t.
- So you can see, my working premise here is, it can’t get much worse than this. The bullpen may continue to blow some games, but every aspect of the team has crapped out all at once. They are playing exactly like a team that lost five straight games. But talent is talent, and things will even out.
- Fortunately the Indians have lost three in a row and the Yanks have started slow out the gate too. Eventually, all three teams are going to be winning regularly. But for Tigers fans, the “0″ and blown-up games is obviously getting hard to watch.
- The Red Sox designated reliever Kyle Snyder, who had a good 2006 but otherwise hasn’t done much. He had a Tiger-like appearance Saturday. (MLB Trade Rumors).
- I’m not saying Detroit should go after him, but maybe I’m saying they should think about DFA-ing an underperformer …
- Tigers on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball tonight. Great time to get that first win!
