Sabermetric great TangoTiger has a community forecast project for forecasters. If you’ve got a serious OPS and ERA forecast for the Tigers, or any other team, drop by his site and give a hand.
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DETROIT — After 19 years, what’s one more week?
What’s seven days when you’ve already waited 6,923 days?
So try to enjoy this week, the last one before the Detroit Tigers’ first post-season game since Oct. 12, 1987. And don’t fret too much about the American League Central Division race.
That’s Danny Knobler’s advice in Booth Newspapers and on MLive today. I don’t know if it’s needed. But if anyone needs to hear it, I endorse it. It’s still a pennant race, and it’s fun. I was checking Twins scores like mad last night. But I am thankful to have the stress-free safety net of the playoffs either way.
Knobler also observed something clicked in the players’ heads last week, and I thought this myself but only having games on TV, you can’t really tell.
That White Sox series was the most important one the Tigers played this year, and the first game was the most important game the Tigers won all year.
The Wednesday game was the second-most important, because it gave the Tigers a six-game lead with 10 games to play. In the clubhouse that night, you could feel that the tension had lifted. The Tigers had to wait four more days to pour champagne, but Wednesday was the night the playoff spot was basically clinched.
It’s not that I think you throw out the results of the past eight weeks, or cherry pick the good parts. But the way the pitching held up — mostly — through the struggles and the batting has come back just makes me think we shouldn’t put too much emphasis on the cloud of August. The playoffs are a new ballgame, and the Tigers seem to be playing exactly as you’d hope they would heading into them. For me, it’s all cheers and smiles right now. Time to savor this, because there’s at most a month left of baseball.
Baseball Prospectus writer Nate Silver notes power pitches — high strikeout rates, low walk rates, high groundball to flyball ratio — are most successful in the playoffs, and he projected playoff ERAs based on that theory. Based on this, and the percentage of time starters will likely see action, he finds Detroit’s playoff rotation will be the second-worst in the MLB playoffs at 4.14, ahead of Oakland’s 4.23. This is built mainly on the theory finesse pitcher Kenny Rogers will get creamed (4.64 ERA) and power-pitcher Jeremy Bonderman will have great numbers at number three (3.16 ERA). The numbers would look better if the starting positions were reversed.
Indeed, a recurring theme for the Tigers is whether Leyland will deploy his personnel correctly, which in an ideal world would mean that Bonderman and Kenny Rogers would swap places and Joel Zumaya would inherit the closer’s job.
Nate Robertson clocks in at 4.23 and Justin Verlander at 4.34. While certainly there’s basis for this article, I don’t know if Tigers fans would quite agree with that assessment based on what we’ve seen lately. I’m not sure if he even agrees.
One problem with a quick-and-dirty metric is that it’s, well, quick and dirty. Although strikeout rate is not very dependent on park effects, it is dependent on league effects, and the National League teams should probably be docked 10-15 points because they don’t have to face DHs. Either way, there is no clearly dominant group of playoff starters this year, but the Astros, Phillies and Twins come closest.
The Phillies have the best team ERA (3.75) behind No. 1 starter, rookie Cole Hamels. That’s what makes me say “It’s great in theory, and I’m sure is even somewhat reflected by what will happen, but you gotta add the real world still,” and wouldn’t want to bet the farm on a rookie starting my playof rotation.
What do you think?
A glance at the offseason
It’s early, but since the talk is starting, may as well banter a bit, hey?
SI’s article on A-Rod that the Tigers might be a possible suitor if he ends up on the market. The LA teams are supposed to be most interested. In theory, it makes sense to me. I like A-Rod. He’s a good player, he would probably look fine in a Tigers uniform, he would probably be better off outside that NY spotlight, but I don’t see it happening, and who knows how chemistry would work with that level of superstar.
Detroit is also said to be checking in on the Cubs’ 3B Aramis Ramirez. As much as we’ve heard the Tigers need a quality DH/1B. (via Cutoff Man)
Barry Bonds is returning in 2007 and likes the Tigers as a possible new team. The LA Times reports they and the Yankees are said to be his only non-West Coast choices. That’s a nice compliment. Not gonna hold my breath on the matter. Haven’t even formed an opinion. (via Ben Maller’s rumors)
I’d still more likely prefer Carlos Lee and move Magglio to DH, or Miggy Tejada and move Carlos Guillen to 1B. Lee seems to like the Rangers (Maller link).
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I just thought I’d take a quick look at the team VORPS — value above replacement players — as provided by Baseball Prospectus for the four (likely) American League teams. Three have clinched, the fourth ought to soon enough, despite Monday’s showing.
| Tigers | Yankees | Twins | A’s | |
| Pitching | 294.1 | 226.7 | 228.4 | 257.6 |
| Batting | 180 | 312.7 | 198.9 | 101.9 |
| Total | 474.1 | 539.4 | 427.3 | 359.5 |
All I did was add up the VORP for every player currently on the team’s active roster. Some of the guys who went into the figures probably won’t make the playoff rosters, which will change things slightly. I’ll revisit it when it does. Also, there is the problem that some players changed teams or did not play a full season. In the case of Sean Casey, his VORP is negative with the Tigers and positive with the Pirates. I only took his most recent team. (Besides, it seemed to be accurate enough). So, by no means is this a great study, but it’s a glance. I don’t know that this tells us all that much that we don’t know, of course.
Draw your own conclusions. Just off the top of my head, I’d say both AL Central teams are most balanced and have a good shot at making it to the World Series. When playoff time comes, you like to see teams with superior pitching. Minnesota’s pitching may not look that dominant, but when you consider some of the guys in the rotation haven’t been there all that long, and their VORPs reflect it, I’d say their pitching is fine. You look at New York’s batting VORP and your eyes pop out, but Detroit handled it pretty well in the Bronx and just couldn’t score. And if the Twins catch them in a short series, the Yankees are vulnerable. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t be in the slightest bit surprised if New York represents the AL. But I do think they’re no shoe-in.
Detroit and Oakland have the best playoff rotations. Detroit’s (Kenny Rogers, 45; Jeremy Bonderman, 37.2; Nate Robertson, 45; Justin Verlander, 47) totals 173 VORP by itself. Oakland’s — I have no idea if Rich Harden will crack it after his injury, but he might, which would make adding VORP as messy as reading this sentence — of Barry Zito, 48; Danny Haren, 41.4; Esteban Loaiza, 15.7; and Joe Blanton, 19.7 — totals 124. Minnesota’s Johan Santana obviously is the best pitcher, but he can’t throw every day. I’d probably rank them third behind Oakland in pitching, although the A’s have had their share of recent problems. Maybe it’s more of a tossup. Both teams have good bullpens, but Minnesota’s is probably better.
On paper, this seems like one of the better postseasons in recent memory. We’ll see if it turns out that way soon enough. I’ll come up with a closer analysis once the actual match-ups have been provided, but hopefully this kicked off some thinking.
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An intellectual exercise: Which Tigers starters are best served by being in the bullpen?
Detroit has too many starting pitchers. Like, way too many. Next year the task will be to choose five among these candidaties: righties, Jordan Tata, Zach Miner, Nate Robertson, Jeremy Bonderman and Justin Verlander; lefties Wil Ledezma, Kenny Rogers, Mike Maroth, Andrew Miller, Nate Robertson. You could throw Joel Zumaya into that mix if you like, but I believe he will make his home as a late-innings rock star, so I won’t.
What do you do with the others? You could keep them around in long relief roles. You could send them to Toledo as insurance. Or you could trade them and try to get a bat.
The reason I’m even bothering with this right now is Baseball Prospectus’ Nate Silver ran an article recently looking at finding which starting pitchers would best be served by becoming relief pitchers. Previously, his analysis found that nearly all starters, no matter who they are, will see their ERA decrease by 25% when they move to the bullpen. But some starters who made the move historically were more successful than others.
I will simplify the task by naming Tigers who I believe would never be considered for the bullpen: Justin Verlander, Jeremy Bonderman, Andrew Miller and Kenny Rogers. (As of right now, I would have those four in my rotation next year, but the Tigers may disagree. In any case, they’re not changing roles). Guys who I believe are fighting for the fifth spot: Mike Maroth, Nate Robertson, Wil Ledezma. Guys who I believe probably aren’t: Zach Miner, Jordan Tata. I’ll look at those five and see if there’s any optimization we can do, as to starter, bullpen, trade or keep as insurance.Silver’s research found the following correlation to relief success:
BB Rate +.210
K Rate +.201
BABIP +.002
GB% -.002
Age -.142
ISO -.274
That is, one the best predictors is a high strikeout rate. He points these are above the expected success of these stats. Counter-intuitively, a high walk rate is also a predictor of success. Why? Silver says over six innings, pitchers who struggle with mechanics will thave their wildness will catch up to a starter. Over one or possibly two innings, it probably won’t. Finally, the best predictor is a guy who doesn’t give up a lot of extra-base his. That makes sense. Statistically speaking, everything else you know about a pitcher dissolves. Flyball/groundball tendencies, average against, age, heart-attacks given to fans, none of it matters.
A relief role emphasizes high-impact pitching and deemphasizes consistency and durability. A low ISO is a good proxy for high-impact pitching, a pitcher who can take control of the at-bat with one or two great pitches. … All of this seems intuitive enough. Nevertheless, it’s routine to see teams employing pitchers in starting roles even after they’ve demonstrated time and time again that they lack the mechanical foothold to throw six or seven innings without giving something up.
No Tigers pitchers make his top five “who should switch” list. But using those key stats: K9, ISO and BB9, we see:
| Name | K9 | BB9 | ISO |
| Nate Robertson | 5.90 | 2.90 | .165 |
| Wil Ledezma | 6.26 | 3.67 | .084 |
| Mike Maroth | 4.12 | 2.81 | .187 |
| Zach Miner | 5.89 | 3.06 | .143 |
| Jordan Tata (AAA #s) | 6.34 | 3.61 | .116 |
Another few thoughts: Don’t dump Fernando Rodney after this year unless he wants a lot of money. If he does, don’t even sweat it. Worried about Humberto Sanchez’s elbow and want to keep his innings down? His numbers this year make him an excellent bullpen candidate too based on that criteria. His ISO is way low (.086), his Ks are way high. Obviously we’d rather see him starting in 2008 if he’s healthy, but it’s a thought.
What do I find? Detroit’s starting rotation looks very good up and down the club. The bullpen looks really fine, too. This team has a real future ahead barring unforseen circumstances and has a lot of flexibility. It is good to be a Tiger.
Different conclusions? Thoughts on Silver’s criteria? Let me know in the comments. If you guys like when I try applying Baseball Prospectus studies to Detroit, I’ll try to do more in the future and offseason.
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Kenny Rogers had stunk. S-T-U-N-K. Stunk. His July starts were bad. 22 earned runs in five starts. And in one of those starts in allowed just one run. So the other four were horrendous. Go back his last two starts in June and he allowed 10 runs in those 9 2/3 innings. His July ERA was really bad. 9.28. His walks are up (5.5/9 in July, 1.4 in June). His hits are up (12.66/ 9 in July, 7.71 in June). His strikeouts are the same. He went from a home run allowed per 10 innings to a home run allowed per about three to four innings. He’s stunk.
Lynn Henning thinks it’s time to pull him from the rotation because every five days is, if not a loss, then a hairy situation and bullpen eater.
The Tigers have to be preparing a plan for replacing him in the rotation.
Only one of his last half-dozen outings would make them believe a 41-year-old left-hander can take his regular turn if they’re going to make a serious run at a division title.
Other than the fact he started the All-Star Game four weeks ago, pulling Rogers from the rotation looms as no shock.
I am not quite as fast at the trigger as Henning. I do see Rogers as a problem. I see in his past he’s had second-half slides. And his walks and hits have skyrocketed. So he’s probably not locating his pitches like he’d like to, and being a finesse guy, that’s all he’s got.
Just some sabremetric stuff: The Tigers defense allows a BABIP of .276 for the season. Behind Rogers, it’s allowed .262. So he’s benefitted from better than average defense. And before the past month, it must have been a lot lower than that, because in July it’s .329. (Same for Zach Miner, it’s worth noting). This is seen as something the pitcher has very little, if any, control over. Independent of defense, Rogers is bad, but he’s not nearly as bad as he has been pitching. His DIPS is 6.91.* (Miner, by the way, was 3.75, so maybe it’s not time to worry about him quite yet). I find this actually is a pretty decent predictor going forward.
So Henning is probably on to something. I’d like to see Rogers start a few more times to see, then get some time off. Certainly we have an arm or two in Toledo who can fill in. Long term, I would prefer to have a wily veteran on the mound, but if he needs some rest to get to that point, so be it. If he’s feeling anything in his arm, I hope he speaks to a trainer about it, because Henning is correct in saying we can’t keep running him out. It’s bad for the Tigers and bad for Rogers. He has obviously been a big part of his own problem. But we have to think that luck has played at least some factor in his recent downfall. I think he needs a bit more of a chance to pitch through it.
* Actually, when I think about it, I think DIPS uses .300 as the BABIP average, so in comparison to the Tigers much-better-than-average defense, 6.91 DIPS is probably more optimistic than it should be. On the other hand, his ERA of 9.29 should come down to less than 6.91 going forward with the better-than-average defense. Still not becoming of a starter in a contender, however.
ADD: The Wayne Fontes Experience agrees, too early to make a move, but continual observing the situation and let him pitch through it.
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Okay, so Jeremy Bonderman never really questioned his defense. But his defense hasn’t lifted him nearly as much as it lifted the rest of the Tigers pitching staff. Right now, his defense-indendent ERA is 2.98, good for second-best in the major leagues behind rookie phenom Francisco Liriano. When you look at Bonderman’s 3.59 ERA, you have to think luck will eventually go Bonderman’s way and his ERA will go down with it. Couple that with a Top 10 strikeouts per 9 innings and things look good, indeed.
Quick, somebody tell Drew Sharp, who, inexplicably, thought it’s time to trade Bonderman for a #3 starter because Jeremy hasn’t put up ace numbers. No, he didn’t explain how that’s an upgrade, so don’t ask me. You’ll have to open your copy of the Freep to read it though, apparently, because I’m not seeing it at their web site. UPDATE: here it is.
Both Nate Robertson and Justin Verlander are pitching way below their defense-adjusted ERA though, which could be a bad sign or could just be a sign of baseball’s best defense playing behind them.
As long as I’m on a pitching theme — and Freep theme — another look at Todd Jones tells us he might not be so bad after all. Glancing at ESPN’s Closer Report shows us that Jones has blown the same number of saves as Boston phenom Jon Papelbon and he has a respectable 90% success rate. Jon Paul Morosi wrote Jones has been near perfect since his meltdown in Toronto. The other Tigers short relievers have not.
That was the game that put Detroit on Joel Zumaya/Fernando Rodney Watch, in anticipation that one, the other, or both, would soon inherit the ninth. Since then, however, Jones has allowed only one run, on a solo homer by baseball’s best player, Albert Pujols. Rodney, meanwhile, has a 13.50 ERA this month, after a 5.17 June. Zumaya, a future closer, is simply devastating on most nights, but he has had a handful of arduous outings, such as a three-run eighth on Friday.
Still on the DIPS kick, Jones’ .296 batting average of balls put in play is among the worst on the Tigers. His ERA is expected to be 4.26. Still pretty ugly, but better than it has been. So maybe Todd Jones is fine after all.
Conclusion for those who just avoided all the stats: If you believe once a ball is hit, whether it is an out or a hit is no longer dependent on the pitcher, as the Voros McCracken study showed, Bonderman and Todd Jones have better days ahead, while Verlander and Robertson might be, though not necessarily, in for some let down. The same sound defense behind Verlander and Robertson should be behind Jones and Bonderman.
That McCracken article, by the way, should be required reading for anyone who comments on baseball.
Baseball Prospectus did its second half preview for the American League over the weekend (subscription required).
It’s time to stop being skeptical, although the sloppy one-run wins over the Royals the last few nights aren’t helping my view. … The Tigers need fresh legs to keep their defense—the key to their success so far—playing well. I don’t expect them to hold off the White Sox, but it would take a massive collapse for them to miss the postseason.
A trade for Bobby Abreu would make the author more positive.
And for those who like graphs and the like, check out the Hardball Times look at the AL Central. (this always update, but I just point it out today)
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Am I late in discovering this? The Tigers currently lead the Hardball Times Dartboard with 106 expected wins, six more than the White Sox.
It’s not really a power ranking. More, it’s a statistical projection of wins based on past results and if a team played a nuetral-strength schedule, using BaseRuns as its projecting statistic. Well, Hardball Times explained it better themselves last month.
Justin Verlander, Jeremy Bonderman, and Nate Robertson are on-pace for career-highs in innings; meanwhile, Kenny Rogers is 41. Will the Tigers pitchers hold up or breakdown, and will Mike Maroth’s return to the rotation help?
In addition, Hardball Times posted its Anatomy of a Tiger (part 2) examining where the different positional players came from and how they came to be Tigers. The bottom line?
he Tigers seem to distinguish themselves by developing good talent and augmenting it with astutely acquired cast-offs and overpaid veteran free agents. If anything, the 2006 Tigers’ story tells us that if you can draft and develop good young (read: cheap) talent, you’re willing to spend some money, gamble on some players with some upside and aren’t completely incompetent, good things will happen sooner or later.
In it, reference is made to this article at Baseball Think Factor, which users other ways to show the Tigers to have the best defense in baseball.
Sphere ItThe Tigers are above average at every position except right field. That’s just incredible. And the difference between the Tigers and the White Sox can be summed up with the leather. The Tigers have a 68-run lead defensively. That’s six wins.
posted in Power rankings, Sabermetrics | 0 Comments
Quick quiz. There’s a runner on third and you need him driven home. Who’s your Tiger?
If your Tiger is Magglio Ordonez, you are a good observer. Maggs has been in that situation 47 times. He drove in 19 for a 40.4% success rate. I picked that statistic up by checking out Baseball Prospectus’ RBI report this morning and doing a little math. (Only subscribers can set it to seek out Tigers specifically, but you can browse, I believe, if you’re not a subscriber.) I thought I’d look at “other” RBIs, that is, the number of RBIs a batter has that don’t include scoring himself on a home run. On the whole, Magglio has driven in about 19% of all runners on base, 28% in scoring position. He’s driven in 46 runners when you take away times he drove himself in. He has the most chances (124) in scoring position, but he’s got the best overall percent of Tigers, too, with 19%.
The best Tiger by percentage, however, was Placido Polanco, who drove in 33% of those in scoring position and more than half of runners on third (16 of 31). He just hasn’t had as many opportunities (77 total, 31 with a runner on third). I’m sure his success rate is pretty high because his contact rate is pretty high.
Vance Wilson in limited chances and Curtis Granderson are also pretty successful. Granderson is about 29% of guys in scoring position.
So who’s not your Tiger? If you said Chris Shelton, again, you’re pretty observant. He has just 26 others-RBIs for a rate of about 16% and has knocked in 11.6% overall. Marcus Thames has only 12 others-RBIs for a 17% success rate with runners in scoring position. And Craig Monroe is about 19.8% with runners in scoring position.
Ramon Santiago, Omar Infante and Alexis Gomez, in limited chances, do not do so well, as you’d probably expect.
Inge, surprisingly for all his strikeouts, falls in the middle with 23.4%. He trails Pudge (25.5%) and Carlos Guillen (26.4%) for success.
There’s a lot of different statistics to check out over there. I’m going to try to find something interesting and fresh every day during the All-Star break.
UPDATE: In case you wondered, and because Lynn Henning keeps hammering the Bobby Abreu thing, Abreu leads the Phillies with a 19.3% success rate with runners on any base and has knocked in 38 of 133 runners in scoring position for 28.6%. He’s successful nearly 50% of the time a runner is on third, however, and has driven in 19 guys from first when he shows off his power. For full disclosure, a trade for Abreu would please me more than any other move, though I find it unlikely to occur.
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In the alternate world based on statistics at Baseball Prospectus, the Tigers lead the AL Central but don’t have the best record in baseball. I simplified the standings some so you can see things easier.
| TEAM | W | L | PCT | RS | RA |
| Yankees | 37.9 | 24.1 | .661 | 348 | 275 |
| Blue Jays | 37.4 | 26.6 | .584 | 378 | 318 |
| Tigers | 37.4 | 27.6 | .575 | 312 | 265 |
| Rangers | 36.6 | 28.4 | .563 | 355 | 311 |
| Indians | 35.1 | 27.9 | .557 | 359 | 319 |
| White Sox | 35.6 | 28.4 | .556 | 340 | 302 |
These are adjusted standings twice. The first time adjusts runs scored and runs allowed for equivalent runs, which is based on equivalent average. “EQA considers batting as well as baserunning, but not the value of a position player’s defense,” Baseball Prospectus says. After that adjustment is taken, those numbers are again adjusted based on strength of opponents batting and pitching. And then the standard pythagenport is applied to get a winning percentage.
So you can see, statistically the Tigers numbers aren’t quite as good as they look right now, at least, when you take defense out of the equation. They have a few less wins than the actual 42, allowed 15 more runs and scored a few less. Of course, you can’t take defense out in real life. But I think this means you can continue to credit Detroit’s improvement on it, as it has possibly added four wins already.
I also do think this does take a bit of bite out of the ’strength of schedule’ argument being batted about, though clearly Detroit’s isn’t very strong. Plus, if you go to that BP page, you’ll notice when adjusted for the quality of offenses the Tigers have faced, they’ve actually played better than average lineups. Yet when you harken back to real life, they still lead the Majors in ERA and runs allowed.
But notice, if it were to play out exactly like that, the Tigers would make the playoffs. So, it’s not all bad.
So the other bit of standings to take note of are the postseason odds at BP. Detroit is at about 62% to win the Central and 17% to take the wildcard if they don’t win the Central, giving them 79% with about 97 wins on average. These are based on the above standings, so they don’t take defense into consideration.
The other possible flaw is that the expected winning percentage “is going to be between the current winning percentage and .500,” according to BP, so it doesn’t allow for teams with a winning record to improve on their current percentage in the standings. For teams playing .600 ball, that might be likely. For teams closer to .500, it seems unreasonable. I’ll concede I’ve only read what they put on that page, not the how’s and why’s that went into the formula creation. So possibly they’ve done that for a good reason and I’m wrong.
Of course, this is just a snapshot in time and expects everyone to continue playing how they’ve played on average so far.
In any case, these numbers look pretty good for the Tigers, other than that lack of run production. Hopefully something is done about that.
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Allowing just six runs in three games, the Tigers completed the sweep Sunday with a 3-2 victory at Cleveland’s Jacobs Field. Just as shocking as this being the first Tigers’ broomjob in Cleveland since 1990 is the fact the Indians were averaging about 6.25 runs per game coming into the series.
Detroit improved its MLB-leading ERA to 3.25. Tigers’ pitching has been amazing. Jason Beck of MLB.com documented both the depth into the game the starters have been able to pitch, and in relation, how few pitches the Tigers have had to make (about 131 per game). The Tigers lead baseball in WHIP (1.18), are second in Slugging Average Against (.369), have given up the fewest hits per game (7.83) and have given the third fewest walks per 9 innings this season (2.10); and they’re doing all of that with an average of less than six strikeouts per game. That’s definitely a sign of control, and of good game-planning. The credit has to go to pitching coach Chuck Hernandez, though the occassional talks on the mound from manager Jim Leyland seem rather effective.
“But up to this point, that’s probably one of the most positive things on our club is that we’ve been able to get innings out of our starters and pretty much get a minimal pitch count. That doesn’t happen very often. That’s been one of the plusses.” (From Beck’s article)
By the way, the defense, which the play by catcher Vance Wilson Sunday, as well as both the catch and double play by Placido Polanco and the rolling ball down the first place scoop by Chris Shelton showed Saturday, is making some good decisions. The current defensive efficiency is second in baseball at .7395. According to the Baseball Prospectus, that statistic created by Bill James measures “the percentage of balls put into play fielded by the defense.” The Baseball Prospectus offers that a good team should be above .7300, a bad team at around .6900.
On the other hand, Cleveland’s pitching has been terrible (5.29 ERA), not surprisingly when they lose Kevin Millwood but gain Jason Johnson. Their defense isn’t too good either (.6909 DE). The Akron Beacon Journal says the mess must be cleaned up soon or the Indians, already 8 games out of first, will flounder despite great hitting. Certainly, it’s early in the season and Cleveland can bounce back. But I wouldn’t bet on it without a pitching overhaul. CC Sabathia is great; he’ll be fine. Cliff Lee should rebound. But I see no reason to believe Jake Westbrook, Paul Byrd or Jason Johnson, along with that bullpen, are good enough to turn things around. None of them have the career stats to make me see a turnaround is in store. But if Cleveland found pitching, they have the potential to be major scary. They’d be darn near undefeated if their batting came with our pitching.
But back to Detroit. With the win, Detroit moved into a temporary first-place tie in the American League Central. Later Sunday, the White Sox rebounded from allowing seven runs in the first inning to beat Minnesota, thus reclaiming sole possession of first place. It means little in the long run, but looks pretty darn good right now.
Sphere Itposted in Analysis, Cleveland Indians, Sabermetrics | 6 Comments
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