The Cincy Reds plan to release — designate for assignment –  left handed reliever Mike Stanton this morning, according to The Enquirer. The article says they will eat $3M of his contract this season and $500K next season for the club’s buyout of the option.  I bring this up because this is the kind of player the Tigers tend to chase after. If the Reds to take a bite out of the salary, it’s worth considering.

True, the specialist will turn 41 this year and turned in a rather pitiful 2007 season: 5.93 ERA (79 ERA+, so he’s 21% worse than average) with a 1.61 WHIP. And that’s against National League teams. His ERA (a bad measure for relievers, really) has been in the low 4s for the past few years otherwise.  Baseball Prospectus‘ PECOTA sees him having a decent enough season. Nothing to write home about, but his projected vs. LHB split is about .260/.330/.410, which is definitely a step over Aqualino Lopez, an RHP who is expected to make the Tigers a roster.

(via MLB Trade Rumors)

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And just like that, spring training, which seemed to take forever to begin, and seemed to drag on and on ad infinitum, has ended. The Tigers flexed their muscle against Philly on Thursday, packed the trucks, got on the bus to the airport, and left yet another Grapefruit season behind. Now, looking back on it, it seems to have passed in the blink of an eye. Lynn Henning was feeling a bit emotional about the whole thing, and why wouldn’t he? It’s pretty darn cold up here and who wouldn’t prefer to enjoy the peaceful days in Florida to shoveling in nearly April.

The Tigers head for Houston for a short two-game tuneup and a few decisions left to be made:

1) Do they really need a second left-handed reliever?

I say sorta. They need a second reliever who can get out left handers. I don’t care which hand he wears his glove on. It appears both Aqualino Lopez and Yorman Bazardo have made the club unless a trade occurs. This follows Denny Bautista being named a Tiger by Jim Leyland earlier this month.

2) Do they need a defensive replacement in the outfield with a little pep in his step on the basepaths (Clete Thomas) or do they need a backup catcher (Dane Sardinha) to allow Brandon Inge more time to think about hitting the baseball?

Of course the Tigers could pick someone up off the waiver wire and disappoint both players, but assuming that doesn’t happen (and I don’t have a clue whether that’s a safe assumption) I think I still go with Sardinha. I like the idea of a backup catcher being a backup catcher. All he thinks about is catching and getting the other team out. Inge is already juggling quite a bit. Inge could fulfill what is expected of Thomas: defensive replacement better than he could fulfill backup catcher, in my mind. But either way the Tigers go, it’s exciting to see what the newcomer can do.

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Franky Guzman was put on waivers, cleared waivers and was assigned to AA-Erie today. That means in all likelyhood either Clete Thomas or Dane Sardinha will have his boyhood dream come true Monday when his name is announced to the cheers of an opening day crowd. Or the Tigers could — and they’ve gotten quite good at this lately — make a total change of mind and fool everyone again. At this point, I wouldn’t put that past them either.

*Technically clout means hit, and in my region of the country, which is to say the Upper Peninsula, some folks still believe in saying “He has 21 clouts.” Which bewilders me to no end because I’m pretty sure some people use it to mean home runs, too.  So technically speaking anyway, my subject line makes no sense.

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Danny Knobler reported at MLive today Tigers manager Jim Leyland has taken renewed interest in outfielder Clete Thomas — so much so that he recalled him from minor league camp to take a few more looks. When that happens, I tend to want to take a closer look at a player’s stats myself. (Also, Lee at Tiger Tales reviewed Thomas, if you want a second opinion).

Thomas bats left, but throws right. A 2005 sixth-round draftee, Thomas worked his way up from rookie ball Oneata to low A ball. He spent 2006 in Lakeland and 2007 in Erie. Lee found out Thomas is a good outfielder with an excellent arm.

Lee also found out Thomas has good gap power but strikes out too much and struggles with breaking pitches. Thomas’ most recently had a .280 average, .359 on-base percentage and .404 slugging in Erie. (His OPS in Lakeland was .697). I’ll add to that there’s some other things in his minor league numbers to be concerned about. Thomas strikes out in nearly 20% of his plate appearances whiles walking in about 10%. He also has a pretty high batting average on balls in play. I am not an expert on what’s normal in the minors, but I would have to guess a career that his seen his numbers range from .328 on the low side to .350 on the high side (.448 if you count his limited time in rookie ball) is just asking to come back to earth should he reach the majors. On the basepath, he had 33 steals in Lakeland and 18 in Erie.

In all likelyhood, Thomas will spend most of his season in Toledo this year, unless Leyland sees a bit of Brent Clevlen in the young outfielder and keeps him over Freddy Guzman. But Guzman is out of options and provides some extra flexibility on the basepaths. He’s a bit more experienced, as well. So I think he’s a Tiger until Curtis Granderson returns from his broken finger in two-to-four weeks.

Should Leyland take Thomas to Detroit instead, you can probably expect the manager to use him as a late-innings defensive replacement. He can play anywhere in the outfield, and it sounds like Leyland could probably feel confident putting him into the game with a decent lead considering that Tigers lineup should be fine even if you take one of its powerful bats out in the 8th or 9th inning.

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Dontrelle Willis’ spring training came to an end today. Most — all judging by the blogs — people would say that was a pretty disastrous first-impression of a pitcher who has seen his effectiveness drop steadily since finishing runner-up in the National League Cy Young race three years back.

“I just hope that it clicks when the bell rings,” Willis said. “That’s the only thing you can be concerned about. If it’s not, we’ll continue to work on it. It is what it is.” (as quoted by Tigers.com’s Jason Beck)

You don’t have to tell any of us not to put too much weight on spring stats. Pitchers might be working on certain things or just getting their work in. Today, for instance, Jim Leyland said he left Willis in for 95 pitches to get his arm some work whereas he would have taken him out earlier during the regular season. That’s a relief, because Willis walked four batters and gave up seven hits. The concern is this followed up another four-walk performance. For the spring, he walked 15 in fewer than 17 innings.

A glance at Willis past few seasons shows us his struggles began two years ago when he jumped from 55 walks in 236 innings to 83 in 223 innings. Last season, he walked 87 in 205 innings. Or to put it another way, he saw his walks per plate appearance jump from 5.7% in 2005 to 9.2% in 2007, according to FirstInning.com stats. (Here’s the graph, and it shows his BB/PA actually improved during the course of 2007). Meanwhile his strikeout rate dropped from 17.7% to 15.5%. Not a huge dropff, but a dropoff.

One theory put forth for that is the defense Willis had stunk. So maybe he thought he had to do it all (Despite his claims. But who is going to come out and say “Hey, my teammates sucked”? Some things, athletes just can’t and shouldn’t say, and that’s one of them!) The thinking behind that is his batting average on balls in play went up from .305 to .328, meaning, if the ball stayed in the park, 33% of the time, it resulted in the baserunner being safe. (Here’s a graph of the resulting ERA. I don’t like the direction it was trending!) The thought was, in Detroit, Willis will know his defense has his back and he’ll pitch to the strike zone more. That and he should have a lead more often than not with that offense. In spring, it’s hard to test the theory that the defense is better, because it’s always changing. Same for the offense. But why would Willis even think about those factors in spring? You’d think he wouldn’t.

So that leads us to a second worry that Ian brought up.

Is Willis injured? He said he wasn’t feeling 100% in Florida last year and that helped account for his poor performance. If he was hurt, maybe he’s walking guys in years past and this spring because he just can’t get the ball to go where he wants it to. That’s a legitimate fear at this point, I have to think.

But here’s the thing. Don’t worry. Be happy. Baseball is back for real on March 31. Until the regular season starts, we really don’t have evidence to support either theory. So no use in getting worked up over it, right?

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Jason Beck (and Blake in my comments and on his blog) reported the Tigers released lefty reliever Tim Byrdak.

Byrdak was thought to be a safe bet for going north by pretty much everyone. He had a pretty poor spring, but you can never read too much into spring stats and I figured the team wasn’t either. You can read into other things in spring — stuff, workout sessions, makeup — but bloggers aren’t in Florida and can’t really do any more than rely on our media friends down there. And they didn’t seem to be that concerned. So this is kind of a surprise.

Byrdak was a guy you could enjoy rooting for. He toiled in the minors for so long. He worked a second job. His wife had to work odd jobs. And his baseball dream was finally realized when he spent the entire 2007 season in the majors with the Tigers and proved he belonged.

I don’t know what exactly the Tigers have up their sleeve. I assume they’d want a second lefty and I don’t know who that would be at this point.

Update with some quotes:

  “I’m probably more shocked than Tim Byrdak, if you want to know the truth,” Leyland said Wednesday morning. “That was a no-brainer that he was on this club.” (Jason Beck at Tigers.com)

“For us, it was a matter of making a decision today,” said Dombrowski, whose team must finalize its 25-man roster ahead of breaking camp Thursday and preparing for Monday’s season opener against Kansas City at Comerica Park.

“We just didn’t feel comfortable that he could help our big-league club. Last night didn’t help his chances.” (quoted by Lynn Henning in Detroit News)

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In chronological order:

• Ian’s post liveblogging — or imagining it anyway — the Red Sox/Athletics season opener cracked me up. (Baseball Blend) I caught the 10th inning only. Maybe I’ll catch an inning or two this coming morning, too.
• Miguel Cabrera and the Tigers made the 7-year extension official. The Freep takes us inside the contract.
• Tell Bilfer your faovrite baseball memories. It’s hard to say what mine are. In games I went to, nothing specially really went on, but it was nice watching games at Tiger Stadium from upper deck, right field, pretty much having an entire section to myself. In games I wish I was at, Game 4 of the ALCS might have been the coolest baseball thing to happen in my memory. Unless it was the no-hitter. Both make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. And of course, I have some memories from playing baseball in high school which really wouldn’t be of much interest to anyone.
• According to Danny Knobler, Jim Leyland said he has told Timo Perez he will not make the team out of spring training. He also said he has one pitching spot and one utility spot open on the roster. More and more I am reversing my belief I can predict Jim Leyland’s every move. So I’m going to say Yorman Bazardo makes the team. After deciding Leyland probably won’t take backup catcher Dane Sardinha to Detroit, Fast Freddy Guzman makes the most sense. But like I said, I am not always right about Leyland’s thinking. (Hat-tip Big Al)
• I did a guest post at Royally Speaking, essentially telling the Royals fans I hope their team starts to win some more games. Specifically, I’d like to see them win some more games against the Indians, not the Tigers, thanks.

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The deal to keep Miguel Cabrera in Detroit through 2015 and give him one of the largest contracts in MLB history is not yet official. But that doesn’t mean people will wait to start talking about it. Here’s a roundup from some of baseball’s thinks and fans alike.

Mitch Lichtman, one author of The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball, reacted early  on in the Baseball Musings comments.

Just because that is what he MIGHT get, does not mean he is WORTH that. Whether a signing was good or bad should be based on what a player is worth, NOT what he is perceived as being worth by other teams. If a player is overrated, based on what he would likely get as a FA, and a team signs him for that, or even less, then it just means that that team overrated the player also - and consequently it was NOT a good deal.

Cabrera is overrated because of his poor defense (even though, unlike a player like Jeter, it is well-known that his defense is poor), and the fact that he plays a slightly below neutral (to the left in the spectrum) defensive position, and for other unknown (to me) reasons. His WAR value is 3.5 to 4 wins. That ain’t worth 20 mil a year. More like 16-18.

At the Sabernomics blog, JC Bradbury, author of The Baseball Economist, loved it and said its’ the kind of deal smart teams make.

Cabrera will be only 25 in 2008 and he has posted OPS+ in the 150s for the past three years. Eight years is a long time to be tied down to a contract, and during that time league revenues and salaries will grow. At growth rate of ten percent—the historical growth rate of major league salaries—salaries will double in seven years. By locking in now to a modest $19 million per season ($21 million per season after his arbitration-eligible years) the Tigers are protecting themselves against future salary growth.

The Hardball Times had a roundtable, which Knuckle Curve’s Geoff Young participated in, as well as several other THT authors.

Geoff: Cabrera should still be in his prime (albeit toward the end of it) when this contract expires. His defense at third base and conditioning are potential concerns going forward, but that bat will play anywhere. I expect Cabrera to be an elite offensive performer for the next several years. A batting title or two isn’t out of the question, nor is an MVP Award or two. Assuming the market remains more or less what it is, I don’t see much, if any, downside here.

Be sure to read the others.

AOL Fanhouse’ Tom Fornelli — who published a limmerick by me about two weeks ago that I completely forgot to link to! — asks if the deal is too long.

If Miguel falls down a flight of stairs tomorrow and breaks his back in 5 places and can never play again, the Tigers are still going to have to pay him that $153 million. While Miguel certainly deserves the money he’s going to be getting, and he’s been healthy throughout his career, I’m still concerned about his weight.

If Miguel has trouble staying in shape at the age of 24, how can we expect he’s going to be able to do it at 28? 30? It’s possible that someday his weight will dramatically effect his ability to play third base, and it could lead to health problems down the road.

(I think we really have beaten this weight thing to a pulp by now. The man lost weight and has good clubhouse influences around him, let’s wait a year or two and see what happens, he’s not exactly Tubby McFatty anymore)

A Marlins blog, Fish @ Bat, says there is no way the Marlins could have — or should have — paid Cabrera that kind of money.

A Rangers blog, Lone Star Ball, thinks it was a good move by the Tigers. Commenters are mixed.

And there’s plenty more links to sort through at Ballhype.

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I did not seriously consider the thought Brandon Inge could be both a backup catcher and a superutility player everywhere else. I thought it sounded best to have a dedicated backup backstop, to allow Inge to concentrate on his other positions and hitting. But reading some stuff today makes me think my roster and Jim Leyland’s roster may not be perfectly aligned.

MLB.com beatwriter Jason Beck blogged:

Leyland left open the possibility something could change, but he plans on starting Brandon Inge in center field next Monday in place of injured Curtis Granderson. To further complicate things, Detroit’s starting center field will also be its backup catcher.

This makes Dane Sardinha the odd-man out. His bat is weak, but his catching skills are strong enough I figured he’d be carried north, especially with Inge playing center field.

It also means, for the first few weeks anyway, if Inge is playing catcher, you also have a backup in center field, such as Ryan Raburn, who now makes the roster. (Previously I suspected he was the 26th man.) And with Granderson going on the disabled list, it opens up a second spot for someone, either Timo Perez or Freddy Guzman. I have seen little of Guzman. I know he’s speedy. They’ve both had nice springs, statistically speaking. I don’t know how Leyland’s going to go on this one. He’d probably like the speed of Guzman. A nice late-inning pinch runner. But then there’s a Perez … Is it Neifi? Can he impersonate Neifi? Tough decision.

So my 13-man positional player roster looks like:

• Catcher: Pudge Rodriguez
• First base: Carlos Guillen
• Second base: Placido Polanco
• Third base: Miguel Cabrera
• Shortstop: Edgar Renteria
• LF (vs. RHP): Jacque Jones
• LF (vs. LHP): Marcus Thames
•  CF: Brandon Inge
• RF: Magglio Ordonez
• DH: Gary Sheffield
• Utility 1: Ramon Santiago
• Utility 2: Ryan Raburn
• Utility 3: Freddy Guzman

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Turns out the speculation in this blog post has been covered by Jim Leyland today already in an article posted at almost exactly the same time: Inge will start in CF and Edgar Renteria will bat leadoff against right-hand pitching. Pudge may bat leadoff against lefties. 

Nonetheless, here is the post:

As Blake at Spotstarters posited, Curtis Granderson’s going on the disabled list opens two roles to fill: Who plays center field, and who leads off.

Based on Jim Leyland’s quotes in today’s papers, it sounds most likely Brandon Inge will step into the defensive role. That really shouldn’t surprise anyone. He’s probably best equipped to play center field with his arm and defensive ability. (Did you see his diving catch? Though I hope he doesn’t just go supermanning around haphazardly during the regular season, in spring training it’s nice for him to get a chance to try out his tools.) I guess you could question whether he or Ryan Raburn had the better bat, but making Inge the center fielder is clearly the best decision. This is EXACTLY why I didn’t want to see him traded.

But the more interesting question is, who leads off? Personally, what I’d like to see is everybody move up one spot. The patient contact hitter Placido Polanco would make a good leadoff guy in Granderson’s absence, I think. And then you get even more at-bats for Miguel Cabrera. But I doubt that happens. My other idea, which I don’t think is going to happen, is to take the most Granderson-like of the lineup and place him as leadoff. That’s Gary Sheffield. Sheff is patient. Sheff has a high OBP. Sheff has power. And Sheff is a smart baserunner. Basically, a right-handed Grandy who doesn’t strike out. That and I like having my best hitters get the most at-bats, so he moves up to first and Miguel Cabrera moves up to third and everyone’s happy. But I doubt it happens. And it would really load the top of the order with right-handers, too. If anything, Leyland would probably put Carlos Guillen third in that instance.

But I’m not running the team, Jim Leyland is. So what do I think will happen? I’m seeing either Edgar Renteria or Pudge Rodriguez as the two he’ll likely choose between. I don’t really think anyone else is in the running.

Against lefties in Granderson’s stead, Jim Leyland gave plenty of at-bats to Pudge Rodriguez. But he is not a classic leadoff batter because he does not like to see many pitches, and he’s not exactly tearing up the bases with his speed. The latter point really doesn’t bother me as much as the former. I’d like to see some more on-base percentage at the top of the lineup than say, oh, .300. Now I believe Pudge is set for a rebound in this, his free agent season. But I still don’t want him to lead off.

I think Edgar Renteria is an intriguing idea — and he led off both Sunday and today. He saw 3.8 pitches per plate appearance last year and had an acceptable OBP (.340 vs. right, .400 vs. left). I think that’s probably the best way to go of the two.

Update: Pudge gets on base at about a .300 clip against lefties and slugs .444. Renteria should bat leadoff against both righties and lefties. 

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