Carlos Guillen is the Tigers’ lone representative at the all star game, a far cry from last year’s five Tigers. Truth be told, it’s hard to make an argument for anyone else being on the team. Armando Gallaraga has pitched great but that was always going to be a long shot. Placido Polanco had to compete with some pretty decent second baseman, too. On the bright side, the players will get to rest and try to make up some of that distance in the A.L. Central.

Share/Email This

• 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!

Share/Email This

A few days late, but the people from the PS3 game MLB 08 The Show simulated the season and passed on some standings. They were nice enough to give me a few more stats about the Tigers from the simulation. Of course, take them with a grain of salt, they seem a bit optimistic for several teams, but it’s fun to take a look at.

American League Central
Detroit Tigers: 96-66

And some bonus stats:

Runs scored: 887
Runs allowed: 737

Category Leaders:
HR: M. Cabrera - 38
RBI: M. Cabrera - 133
AVG: C. Granderson - .340
ERA: J. Verlander - 3.21
W: J. Verlander - 15
S: T. Jones - 44
SO: J. Verlander - 173
WHIP: J. Verlander - 1.238

I also asked for a closer look at Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis. Cabrera had an on-base percentatge of .396 to go with slugging of .x for an OPS of .994. Not bad!

But the simulation didn’t like Willis movement to the American League. It placed his record at 12-13 with a 5.41 ERA and 142 strikeouts with 76 walks in 171.1 innings.

Here’s a glance at the rest of the playoff teams:

American League East
Boston Red Sox: 104 – 58
New York Yankees: 102 – 60 (Wild Card)

American League West
Los Angeles Angels: 92-70

National League West
Los Angeles Dodgers: 96-66
Arizona Diamondbacks: 95-67

National League Central
St. Louis Cardinals: 98-64

National League East
New York Mets: 99-63

And the awards:

MVP:

David Ortiz (Red Sox): .315 Ave.; 53 HR; 146 RBI
Carlos Beltran (Mets): .323; 35 HR; 113 RBI

Cy Young Award:

Fausto Carmona (Indians): 20W; 5L; 2.40 ERA; 171K; 1.222WHIP
Dan Haren (Diamondbacks): 20W; 6L; 3.48ERA; 174K; 1.306WHIP

Rolaids Relief Award:

Jonathan Papelbon (Red Sox): 53 saves
Billy Wagner (Mets): 57 saves

Rookie of the Year:

Daric Barton (A’s) – firstbase: .319AVE; 24HR; 97RBI
Joey Votto (Reds) – Firstbase: .284AVE; 27HR; 74RBI

Share/Email This

I’m rolling this out in three parts today as I write it. The first — or third if you happen to be visiting Monday! — part is the league standings, awards and add a few comments. I fully acknowledge this is an exercise in futility. In the second part, I shall get slightly more in depth when looking at the A.L. Central. And in the final — or first! — part I will look deeper at the Tigers. Enjoy!

The Tigers are not a perfect ballclub. This comes as no surprise to anyone who follows the club. Really it comes as little surprise to the national “experts” of the game, either. And so maybe for that reason there are two camps when it comes to the upcoming Tigers season. The first sees the Tigers as a 100+ win team that will score 1,000 runs. Sorry, but I’m here to tell you they are not that ballclub. And the second, maybe in reaction to the first, sees the Tigers as a fragile team where the pitchers hold their arms together with duct tape and the aging hitters have silly putty in their knees. No team like that can truly be contenders. Brother, I’m here to tell you, they are not that ballclub, either.

The Tigers are a very good ballclub that will win a lot of games and maybe go to the World Series if all the chips stack up right. And if they don’t? They’re still a pretty good team, but maybe they’ll fall a bit short. So what? You can repeat that claim for every contending team in baseball.

The Tigers’ lineup will hit often, score often and probably steal more than its fair share of games at Comerica Park due to hitting last. There’s almost no place for an opposing pitcher to catch his breath, and they’re going to wear some starts out pretty good. And if their hitting gets contagious, there’s going to be some very lopsided numbers on the scoreboard. There’s really no weakness. The lineup is mostly right-handers, but I’ve shown in the past their numbers against right-handed pitchers don’t suffer. It’s a lineup of professional batters who can pick up whatever the pitcher is tossing. And holy cow, the day-to-day lineup when Curtis Granderson plays center field is better than anyone’s in baseball, far as I can tell. But score 1,000 runs? No. “Murderers Row”? I’d rather we not go there, thanks. The Tigers lineup is good, there’s no reason to exaggerate it.

The starting pitching, we can start to worry about. I think that’s fair. I think Justin Verlander can repeat his first two seasons. I don’t think we need to worry about any injuries for the sake of worrying. Injuries can be inherent or random. If he gets hurt, it’s going to be a random one. Jeremy Bonderman, I think there’s some worry over with his elbow problem last season and love of sliders. But he rested it. He workd out. He didn’t have structural damage. I think Nate Robertson is a decent “plug-and-play” pitcher. You know what you’ll get. Not a frontline guy, but a valuable pitcher. Hopefully they can score some runs for him. Kenny Rogers is a wildcard at this point, I should think, as is Dontrelle Willis. Starting pitching could be a strength, or it could be a wildcard. Even if more than one starter struggles, that’s still going to be a statement most teams in the MLB can make.

As for the bullpen, well, yeah. It isn’t pretty. Who says it has to be? The purpose of the bullpen is not to lose games. Sure, some teams are lucky and have bullpens that can win games, and sadly, the Tigers aren’t one of those teams. Possibly a year of Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney pitching back-to-back innings spoiled Tigers fans and the experts. Maybe it was a year of some immaculate meltdowns in 2007 that started the theme. (In case anyone forgot, Fernando Rodney was one of those guys…) In any case, you might need to keep a roster nearby to know who is pitching in the seventh or eighth inning, but I really don’t think the Tigers are going to play a lot of 2-1 or 3-2 games to get the blood pressure excited. The bullpen is obviously the weak point, but something had to be.

Conclusion

So I add it all up. I weigh an injury here or there. I think about the schedule. And what do I come up with? I don’t have a clue what’s going to happen! But you didn’t read this section first for my honesty, you wanted a number. So I’ll say the Tigers are a 91 win team. Maybe even 92. They are better than last year. They might not face all the major injuries they did last year. They should be OK. They can win the World Series. But so much can happen in the next six months, I’m not even going to get near that prediction.

Share/Email This

I’m rolling this out in three parts today as I write it. The first — or third if you happen to be visiting Monday! — part is the league standings, awards and add a few comments. I fully acknowledge this is an exercise in futility. In the second part, I shall get slightly more in depth when looking at the A.L. Central. And in the final — or first! — part I will look deeper at the Tigers. Enjoy!

American League Central projection:

Cleveland: 91-61 (DIV)
Detroit: 91-61 (WC)
Chicago (A): 79-83
K.C.: 76-86
Minnesota: 72-90

The A.L. Central has an interesting dynamic to it this year. At the top, you have a pair of strong rivals in Cleveland and Detroit battling not only for division supremacy, but also for the best record in the A.L. While the salaries don’t quite reach the Yankees-Red Sox level and the fans don’t quite have the vitriol for the opposing team as they might on the East Coast, this is developing into a pretty good rivalry. Then you have Chicago, confused whether to actually try to content, or whether to try to rebuild. You have Kansas City, trying to climb the mountain of rebuilding, but sort of poorly at the moment. And you have the Twins who didn’t knock the whole major league team apart, but mixed some things up and got not a whole lot in return. so they’re just starting to rebuild.

Here’s a bit more background on the teams:

Cleveland

They’ll have a successful season because they’re a good team with no big holes. On the other hand, they’re also a team that won 96 games in 2007 (a jump of 18 from a year earlier) and made almost no changes, as if expecting to repeat the performance just by showing up. Frankly, they weren’t a 76-win team in 2006, they were better. And they probably weren’t a 96-win team in 2007, they got some fortunate performances. And while I do this Travis Hafner should add some improvement to the offense, I wonder who’s going to drop off. Ryan Garko maybe?

But the real question in Cleveland is can the pitching keep it up? C.C. Sabathia should remain in the Cy Young hunt. I just have to side with watching Fausto Carmona as an injury risk. Past that, they pretty have an average rotation. I’m just not believing you can claim it’s better than Detroit’s. But the bullpen, yeah, that’s clearly better than Detroit’s.

In my standings, I gave Cleveland the same number of wins as the Tigers, could I wouldn’t be surprised to see them fall back to, say 86 wins. I see their ceiling around 93 wins if everything goes right. But everything never goes right in baseball.

Chicago

It’s followed by a team in flux in the Chicago White Sox. They want to compete with the top two teams. They really, really want to. But they seem to lack the organizational commitment to invest all-in. For the second straight offseason they made a couple head-scratcher trades again, ones that didn’t necessarily make the team any stronger or weaker: just sorta shook things up a bit. The read head-scratcher was for the pitching-thin White Sox to trade Jon Garland for Orlando Cabrera when they already had a shortstop. Yeah, he had a losing record in 2007, but otherwise his stats were pretty close to the 18-win 2006 season (and actually, his ERA+ improved). How do the Sox expect to win like that?

They’ll win enough to stay above the cellar, not enough to fight for the division. I’ve got their win range in the 77-84 area.

Kansas City

I like the youth: 3B Alex Gordon will bounce back and 1B Billy Butler can just flat-out hit. Some experienced players in Mark Teahen and Jose Guillen will also help the offense. And I like starting pitchers Gil Meche, Brian Bannister and Zach Greinke. (Where’s Luke Hochevar!?) I really like that a team that has no need to worry about winning has such a good closer in Joakim Soria. So I guess there’s some potential in Kansas City. But the team is not that exciting and nothing really to get worked up over at this point. Maybe in another year or two.

They don’t make any major steps forward this year. They could finish anywhere from 70 to 80 wins in my mind.

Minnesota

The Twins had a pretty busy offseason. They lost Torii Hunter to free agency, sent Matt Garza and Jason Bartlett to Tampa for troubled outfielder Delmon Young (who also happened to be runner up in the AL Rookie the the Year voting). We’ll see how the troublemaker does in Minnesota, but I don’t know why a change of locale to the northern state should change things any for him. And finally, they sent Johan Santana out of the American League. (Finally!)  After fielding what I thought were good offers from Boston and the Yankees, the Twins traded Santana to the Mets for Carlos Gomez and Tommy John Surgery repaired pitcher Philip Humber.

The one bright point I see if Francisco Liriano coming back to the mound after his own TJS kept him away from the game for the entire 2007 season. He’ll begin the year in the minors, however. And they’d better work to protect that elbow.  So I’m believing the Twins just took several steps back all over the place and are kinda shallow right now. Did they step all the way down the ladder from Central winner to Central loser in two short seasons? We’ll see.

Right now, I don’t like them to do much, especially if catcher Joe Mauer is hurt again. I see about 70-75 wins.

Share/Email This

I’m rolling this out in three parts today as I write it. The first — or third if you happen to be visiting Monday! — part is the league standings, awards and add a few comments. I fully acknowledge this is an exercise in futility. In the second part, I shall get slightly more in depth when looking at the A.L. Central. And in the final — or first! — part I will look deeper at the Tigers. Enjoy!
N.L East

New York (N): 91-61 (DIV)
Philladelphia : 89-64* (WC)
Atlanta: 87-65
Washington: 65-87
Florida: 52-110

NL Central

Chicago (N): 89-73 (DIV)
Milwaukee: 85-77
St. Louis: 79-83
Cincinnati: 71-91
Houston: 68-74
Pittsburgh: 63-99

N.L. West

Arizona: 93-69 (DIV)
L.A. (N): 87-75*
Colorado: 87-75
San Diego: 81-81
San Fran: 67-95

A.L. East

Boston Red Sox: 94-58 (DIV)
New York (A): 87-65
Toronto: 82-80
Tampa Bay: 81-81
Baltimore: 70-92

A.L. Central

Cleveland: 91-61 (DIV)
Detroit: 91-61 (WC)
Chicago (A): 79-83
K.C.: 76-86
Minnesota: 72-90

A.L. West

Oakland: 84-78 (DIV)
L.A. (A): 83-79
Seattle: 79-83
Texas: 71-911

* Includes playoff game

N.L. playoffs

Arizona def. Philly, 3-0; Cubs def. Mets, 3-2
Arizona def. Cubs, 4-2

A.L. playoffs

Cleveland def. Oakland, 3-1; Detroit def. Boston,
Detroit def. Cleveland, 3-2

World Series

Detroit def. D-Backs, 4-2

Explanations: Everytime you predict the standings, you’re coming up with some sorta storyline. I have no idea if my standings add up. I doubt it. But the AL is stronger than the NL. The Mets are overrated. I like Philly as a complete team that could actually win the division. Milwaukee’s good in the Central, but lacks pitching. The Cubs are a complete team. The West will be close… for second place, but the Diamondbacks run away.

In the A.L., I see no reason to doubt Boston, but I think optimism in New York is based on the fact the Yankees make the playoffs every year. That has to end eventually, right? IN The Central, I think the Indians and Tigers pummel each other, costing both a 95 win season. In the West, the Angels have a injured, shallow rotation, and made some questionable offseason moves. The Athletics shouldn’t have traded away Dan Haren or Nick Swisher this year, because I think those guys would have guaranteed a division title. As is, in the West, I see a shootout.

Who knows what can happen in the playoffs, but I feel pretty good about those picks. A Tigers-Cubs World Series like Sports Illustrated predicted would be cool but I don’t see it.

Individual awards:

N.L. Cy Young: Brandon Webb (Arizona)
A.L. Cy Young: C.C. Sabathia (Cleveland)

N.L. MVP: Ryan Howard (Philly)
A.L. MVP: Miguel Cabrera (Detroit)

N.L. Rookie of the Year: Kosuke Fukudome (Cubs)
A.L. Rookie of the Year: Daric Barton (Oakland)

NL Manager of the Year: Bob Melvin (Arizona)
AL Manager of the Year: Joe Girardi (Yankees)

Share/Email This

AOL Fanhouse asked me to write a limmerick or haiku to preview the Tigers’ season. I suck at poetry. Here is the result (with the last line edited a bit from my original. Again: I suck at poetry).

I once had some Pepto Bismol
To be drank when Todd is abysmal
But with Miguel here
Fans have little to fear
Still we’re awaiting Jones’ dismissal

Share/Email This

Does spring training last too long? I say yes. The Tigers got a bit of final-week bad news for the thirds straight year: Curtis Granderson’s finger was broken when he took a pitch off it Saturday, Jason Beck reports. He’ll start on the disabled list. The splint can be removed in about two weeks, then he’ll start getting back into rhythm, Beck added. So he should miss about two weeks of the regular season, which is good news.

This obviously stinks. Unless you’re Ryan Raburn, who should now make the team for sure. Or Brandon Inge, who may end up as the starting center fielder. Of course, even then it still sucks, they don’t want to see a teammate injured.

So this is the third straight year that I can remember a starter being lost to the disabled list in the final week. Last year, Kenny Rogers needed surgery on his blood clot. The year before that, Todd Jones hurt his hamstring. Shorter spring training wouldn’t really guarantee future injuries — and maybe it would create more if players weren’t properly stretched out. But right about now, I’d just like to get to the regular season.

Share/Email This

Have you seen this man?

That’s Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez, a photo from 2007. You may recognize him. But you won’t recognize his spring statistics, nor the words coming out of his mouth lately.

Last year he had 11 walks homers. (Wait, it was 11 walks in 2005, 9 in 2007!) This spring training (standard spring stats yadayada here) he has six homers. But a possible new power surge isn’t all we’re getting in Pudge 2.0. Quoth the Lil Pudgy One:

The main thing about it is I’m just doing what I want to do and just being more selective at the plate, trying to hit some strikes and take the balls

I’m just trying to see four to five pitches per at-bat. That’s what I’m trying to do. And so far, that’s what I’m doing. I’m feeling pretty good about that.

WHAT!!!! The Pudge we know can’t stand to walk. (Maybe he hangs out with Dusty Baker?) Isn’t taking that fourth ball for no one. Even MLB.com beat writer Jason Beck (jokingly?) calls this crazy talk coming out of Pudge’s mouth.

Of course, his actions may not be speaking as loud as his words. While Brandon Inge has already compiled eight walks this spring, Pudge lags behind with … two. Which, to be fair, is a lot higher ratio (1 per 14.5 at-bats) than his past few seasons (1 per 56 at-bats in 2007, 1 per 21 in 2006, 1 per 46 in 2005). He hasn’t been a fan of walking since the 41 he took in 2004.

But if Pudge does follow through this season — and since it’s a free-agency year, I bet he tries — it can only be good news as he settles into his new slot eighth in the batting order.

Share/Email This

Note: I’m going to try posting subjects on individual posts this season, so that you don’t have to read through a long list of links and my comments in order to find what you’re looking for when linking or looking in the archives.

• Projecting the Central

Trev Alberts, onetime ESPNer and CNN/SIer, picks the Tigers to win the Central on this YouTube video. Fortunately, his first prediction of the video featured Detroit.

Share/Email This