Thoughts while I ignore the hideous spectacle that is the home-run derby …

• But before I get to the grading thing, “saves” is an overrated stat. I know I’m not exactly breaking new ground with that view, but thought I’d like to say again anyway. A good starting pitcher should have a pretty decent number of quality starts. To achieve this, all he needs to do is pitch the first six innings of a ballgame with an ERA better than 4.50; that is, six innings, three runs. To get a save, and three-run saves are treated the same as one-run saves in the stat book, the closer just need avoid an ERA of 18, or two runs in one inning. So when we start to talk about a closer’s success rate, I start to feel like there should be a better stat than saves.
• Maybe weighting them based on run differential would tell us more. (Or, you could use Baseball Prospectus’ stat WXRL, or relievers expected wins added. That’s a nice stat because wins added is probably something a reliever should be used for, and the results it spits out are so intuitively correct: Joe Nathan, Brad Lidge, Frankie Rodriguez, Mariano Rivera are the top four.  Todd Jones is ranked 55th.
• Big Al, like Jon Paul Morosi, gave out his midseason grades. I like giving out midseason grades for, say, a basketball team. It seems like a lot of work for a baseball team. So I’ll give out midseason grades not to players, but to aspects of the game.
• Batting:  B. The Tigers are fifth in scoring in the A.L. So that’s better than average. So that’s a B. If we were grading on the curve compared to expectations, I’d say D. The offense was never going to score 1,000 runs. That was some made-up crap from the start and I think most smart baseball people called it for what it is. But Detroit’s offense was far too inconsistent to start the season and racked up the shutouts. Since then, it’s settled in. Matt Joyce has been a terrific surprise. But the Tigers have seemed to stock several hitters of his ilk in Toledo and they’ve performed admirably when given the chance. Miguel Cabrera appears to be settling into the American League after a poor start. I think he’ll return to his superstar numbers next season. Going forward, I expect  a B+ from the team if it can avoid further injuries and get Gary Sheffield either started or a cushion on the bench.
• Starting pitching: C. Again, this is a bit mixed. for one, pitching is related to defense, and as you’ll soon see, defense was awful. The Tigers’ starters have n ERA of 4.48 and sit in the middle of the A.L. The C pretty much sums it up, too. For the most part, the starters were either great or crap, except Nate Robertson, who was consistently a bit below average. In the end, it adds up to average. Justin Verlander struggled, then got awesome. Armando Galarraga has been terrific. Kenny Rogers put last year’s injuries and poor showing out of his mind and has been a pleasure to watch. Too bad about Jeremy Bonderman’s injury and Dontrelle Willis’…whatever is wrong with him. In the end, it’s not really good or bad, it just is. Going forward I expect closer to a B.
• Relief pitching: C+. The relievers have an ERA of 4.19 and sit near the bottom. The relief was not really surprising or a disappointment because everyone knew it would struggle until Fernando Rodney and Joel Zumaya got back. And frankly, I think a few guys (Freddy Dolsi, Aquilino Lopez, Clay Rapada, Denny Bautista kinda) did a nice job keeping things together until the “big boys” got back. The Tigers’ relief hasn’t been strong, but I don’t look at it as nearly the problem the inconsistent offense was. Going forward, I expect another B really. Man I’m really noncommital. Or the Tigers are really “above average but not great.” You decide!
• Defense: B-. Oy vaye, the errors they make!  I’m a bit confused about the Tigers’ defense, to be honest with you. I think really you have to divide the season into quarters. The first quarter was awful. I mean, awful. Well, you saw it. But once Curtis Granderson got back (and this isn’t a knock on Clete Thomas, who is definitely above average, but he’s no Granderson), Carlos Guillen settled in at third and Miguel Cabrera at first, it really picked up in the second quarter. For the season, the Tigers’ defensive efficiency (percentage of batted battles in play they turn into outs) is .704, or about .003 from being Top 10 in baseball. That’s maybe a play here or play there they didn’t make over the course of the year. So i’d say that’s pretty good. It’s not terrific. The shortstop’s defense is probably hardly better this year than last. I like what I’ve seen in recent weeks. And Jim Leyland seems to have sorted out his outfield. If he can find a way to get Magglio Ordonez to DH more, I’d say the Tigers get a B+/A- expectation from me going forward. They won’t be great but they’ll be capable.
• Coaching:  C-. OK. Let’s be honest here. I have no idea how to grade coaching. But on a gut level, it feels like it hasn’t done a great job. The hitters’ slumps lasted too long. The pitching was obviously not prepared to start the year. But it feels like the defensive coaching has been great givn the changing personnel, changing positions, and lack of talent they were working with. I think Guillen and Cabrera adapted to their new positions fast.
• Managing: C+. At one point this season, I thought Jim Leyland lost the team and had maybe lost himself. It was a tough stretch in May. He rebounded from it. He yelled at the team. He saved the season. He never stopped trying things out. We like to think the manager is the ship’s captain, the final say, the great decision maker. But in reality, some of Leyland’s decisions have been made for him. It’s not like he can just get rid of Sheffield, right?  As for in-game decisions, I think we can all agree it’s a crapshoot. It’s hard to measure anyway. Sometimes he does by-the-book stuff that works and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes he makes tuff up and it works and sometimes it doesn’t. His bullpen, again, a situation a bit outside his hands, management was awful. But his bullpen was not exactly condusive to managing either.
• General managing: C. I feel like Leyland was given a softball team. Yeah, it’s not slugging as good as it could be and I’m not a big believer in “pesky” offenses. But I’d like there to have been a bit more flexibility, a bit younger of a club by choice, not by injury. I’d also have liked to see more emphasis on defense. For those reasons, when the Tigers aren’t slugging, they aren’t winning.
• The team overall: C. It’s been average. A month of crap. A month of great. A month of average. And it’s .500 at the break. Too bad. It shouldn’t have been, but for the reasons above, it is. Going forward, I expect above average. Not greatly above average. But I feel like the team has settled in. It’ll give the fans some enjoyable, memorable moments. So probably a B or B+. Unfortunately I feel like they’d need an A or maybe even A+ to be considered truly in the division hunt.
• Bonus point: Second half prediction!
• Whether it’s a postseason team is entirely upon the shoulders of the Chicago White Sox at this point. The division is theirs to win, because Detroit simply isn’t good enough to go on an extended stretch of .700 baseball. It’ll take a skid from the White Sox. As for the Twins, yes, they have been kickers of Detroit heiny. They are built perfectly to run circles around their elders. And that gives us the interesting record of 42-37 for the Tigers in non-Minnesota games, and the Twins 43-37 in non-Detroit games. The teams only play each other three more times this year. (And Lee Panas has pointed out, they aren’t particularly good at anything other than beating the Tigers.) They are also playing above their expect W-L. So I find it hard to believe they’ll continue winning at the same rate. The final standings seldom seem to be the same as the halftime standings, anyway. So:
• Final order of finish:  Chicago, Detroit, Minnesota, Cleveland, Kansas City. Only Chicago makes the playoffs.
• Final side note: Earlimart’s Hymn and Her is a pretty good album to blog to!

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