• Carlos Guillen’s strained hamstring kept him out of the lineup today, Jason Beck reports.
• Dontrelle Willis was scheduled to have an MRI this morning but appeared in good spirits in the dugout, as shown on FSN Detroit.
• The Tigers rate last on the Baseball Prospectus hit list. Seeing as they started so poorly and it uses objective numbers for ranking, that sounds about right. No place but up to go!
• Former Tigers prospect Burke Badenhop debuted for the Marlins, striking out one in an inning of work.  Badenhop went to Florida in the deal that brought Willis and Cabrera. (hat-tip Fangraphs)
• Florida is turning into Motown South. Mike Rabelo homered yesterday, Andrew Miller is pitching today, 1998 Tiger Luis Gonzalez is there, as is 2003 Tiger Cody Ross. Eventually Cameron Maybin will make it up, too.
• Some stats, from ESPN.com unless otherwise noted.
• The Tigers are third in the A.L. in walks.
• And they’re at 100% in stolen bases at 8-for-8.
• They’re also worst in the MLB with 18 double plays grounded into.
• It may seem like the Tigers are grounding in an abnormally high number of at-bats, but they’re actually right in the middle of the A.L. (Hardball Times stats)
• The Tigers have a 5.20 ERA, second worst in the A.L. only ahead of the White Sox. The Marlins are the only N.L. team worse.
• Brandon Inge is the team leader with nine RBIs. That’s by far the most. 7 are runners driven in. The 3-4-5 hitters of Sheffield, Ordonez and Cabrera have driven in four baserunners.
• If you read Tom Gage’s story about Joel Zumaya’s recovery and wondered what internet photos he was referring to at the end of the story, these are your answer.

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• 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!

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We got 10 inches of snow in Marquette and 26 inches of snow in Negaunee on April 1. I only wish that were an April Fools joke. Otherwise, while no fan of the off-day-after-opening-day, I did see a pair of baseball games tonight, including the A’s, so it wasn’t too bad. So here’s a few links I read tonight.

• The Tigers’ payroll is the second highest in baseball at nearly $139M when you include bonuses and all the other junk. It lags way behind the Yankees but is ever-so-slightly above the Mets. Never thought I’d be writing this paragraph in my lifetime. (Hat-tip Danny Knobler)
•  Jim Leyland will drop the puck at the Wings’ game Thursday. (Behind the Jersey)
• The Tigers and Tim Byrdak are looking for an agreement that would put him back in Toledo. I imagine he’d end up back in Detroit eventually. (Freep)
• D-Town Baseball has the probable pitching matchups for the next week.
• Ian interviewed awesome Kansas City Star columnist (and blogger) Joe Posnanski. Great interview, and if you’re not reading Pos’ blog, you should be. (Bless You Boys)
• Matt at Take 75 North tries to piece together the farm system rosters for the Tigers. (Take 75 North)

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Some links to notice:

• I did a round table with Royally Speaking about my expectations for the A.L. Central.
• Ian has some nice new digs at Bless You Boys. I’m going to have to tidy up my blog a bit to keep up with the SportsNation powerhouse!
• But in all seriousness, he did a fun interview with Kansas City Star blogger Sam Mellinger, who also did an interview at BYB.
• Bilfer has 15 things he’d like to see this season.
• A fellow Spartan at The View From The Light Tower is not worried about Dontrelle Willis’ crappy spring.
• GO GREEN!
• Today is the rare occasion you can root against “the Tigers.”
• Just in case Jim Leyland surprises us, Lee profiled RHP Casey Fien at Tiger Tales.

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Feb. 23 already… going on Feb. 24. Wow.

Some Tigers links to eye:

• Curtis Granderson = Andy Van Slyke

Baseball Prospectus released its hitters player cards for PECOTA 08. Granderson’s is actually subscriber-only, but I found it funny his most comparable player was Tigers coach Andy Van Slyke.

• Lee has been busy!

At Tiger Tales, Lee tells us what to look for in Detroit’s starting pitchers and *shudder* relief pitchers. We’re in pretty good agreement on the starters. I don’t see the same 7 relievers coming out of Lakeland as he does though.

Oh, and he has another community project. I need to get my submission in.

•  Ryan Raburn is playing some catch. er.

The topic of the day was Raburn’s ability to play catcher. By ability I mean “he’s trying it out.” Apparently he’s barely done it in his life, but he’s willing to give it a shot. While I’m sure he’s a fabulous athlete, I’d rather he stick to the positions he, I don’t know, actually plays.

• Lynn Henning thinks Gary Sheffield is No. 3

His reasoning? Strikeout (or lack of) ratio.

• Oh yeah, the Tigers traded for Jacque Jones, too, didn’t they?

You don’t hear much about him.

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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.

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At MLive, Danny Knobler fills us in on who has options (can be sent to the minors without being put on waivers) and who doesn’t. For example,AAA reliever/starter Yorman Bazardo, who definitely had some potential, has to travel north with the Tigers or some other team is quite likely to grab him. Same for Francisco Cruceta, who the Tigers brought in this year to look at.

These players HAVE options left: Macay McBride, Zach Miner, Armando Galarraga, Clay Rapada, Jordan Tata, Virgil Vasquez, Brent Clevlen and Ryan Raburn.

These players DON’T HAVE options left: Denny Bautista, Yorman Bazardo, Tim Byrdak, Francisco Cruceta, Jason Grilli, Bobby Seay, Mike Hessman, Ramon Santiago and Freddy Guzman.

This, of course, could be bad news for Raburn and Miner, both of whom I believe should be going north with the team. But maybe there’s a shorter leash on them in spring training since they can be sent to AAA. We’ll see. You can’t make decisions based solely on the possibility of losing a guy who you didn’t think was good enough for your major league roster in the first place. Of course you don’t want to give up your depth either. So it’s something to watch.

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The Baseball Analysts recently looked at the top baseball players who are ages 24 or 25. Well, the Tigers didn’t have any 24 year olds make the list, but three 25ers made the top 15.

New Tiger Miguel Cabrera came in second, Justin Verlander seventh and Jeremy Bonderman 10th. And actually, today they looked at ballplayers ages 22 or 23. Obviously there were no Tigers, but former Tiger Andrew Miller did come in as the 11th best 22-year-old.

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Pitchers and catchers report Thursday… and I can report blogging will pick up as well!

• Former Tigers starter Mike Maroth signed a minor-league deal with Kansas City.

Two seasons after Maroth helped the Tigers start 2006 strong before falling to injury and one season after being traded to the defending World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals in July, Maroth has to earn his way onto the roster of the lowly Kansas City Royals. When he was traded to the Cardinals for — what was he traded for? Chris Lambert? This guy? — I think Tigers fans were a bit in shock he didn’t have trade value equal to the esteem of the fans. But he pitched poorly with the Cardinals before going on the DL, and the trade seemed to make sense from the Tigers point of view.

I don’t think that is really the true Maroth.  I think KC has gotten themselves a nice bargain and made a no-risk investment for a guy who will make their staff this season. Maroth’s problem was in his elbow for both injury stints — first he had some bone fragments removed, then he had tendonitis. Typically you don’t like to see pitchers with elbow injuries, of course, but I don’t think those are the type to derail his career. I don’t know enough to know if he has a chance at starting out the season with the Royals or if he’ll be at AAA, but to be honest with you, if he’s healthy I find it hard to believe K.C. has five pitchers better than him.

Here’s some reaction at Royals Review — a ton of it actually — and a hat-tip to Ian.

Good luck, Mike!

• Bilfer looks at Dontrelle Willis

Using fX data that tracks ball movement, pitching release and all sorts of stuff, Bilfer takes a look at new Tigers lefty Dontrelle Willis. Bilfer’s finding is that Willis struggles with control with his non fastball pitches and relies on his fastball when he falls behind in the count. For him to be effective this year, he has to find his control and throw strikes. (I know, I know, sounds like baseball 101 to me, but there’s a reason for that.)

• Viva El Birdos has an A.L. Central preview

One other thing the Indians did last year was to, apparently, royally piss off Dave Dombrowski. He obviously didn’t like losing the title they won the previous season and devoted this offseason to ensuring that they wouldn’t lose it in ‘08. (V el B)

• Daily Fungo Mike figured out the question Tigers fans had from the start: Why did Dombrowski trade for Neifi Perez.
  
• Jays fans are pissed.

Yes, this is a Tigers connection. Recently the Blue Jays offered first crack at Tigers@Jays tickets to Detroit fans. While this speaks loads of good for how strong a fanbase the Tigers have, this did not go over well with the Jays fans — you can tell by the salty language. But from the Jay’ front-office perspective, it’s going well, about $10,000 well at the time of this article.

• An interview with a Marlins fan

As long as we’re looking at other teams’ perspectives, Baseball Reflections interviewed a Fish Fan. I imagine we’ll all be a bit curious about how Andrew Miller and Cameron Maybin do with the Marlins before we start to lose “ownership” over the players in our minds. How was the trade received?

It was a difficult trade and I think most in the Marlins fan base are upset.  It’s not about trading Cabrera or Willis, it’s about trading both. I think people were ready to lose Dontrelle (despite him being the nicest guy in baseball).  Miguel was a different story.  He feels like a once in a generation franchise player.

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Around the Tigers blogosphere and beyond. Thanks to posts in the comments for the first two.

• Blake at Spot Starters interviewed Gary Gillette

Nice catch for Blake. Gillette edits the Tigers Corner series and ESPN’s Baseball Encyclopedia. Blake talked to him about Tiger Stadium, the blockbuster trade and what went wrong in 2007, among other topics. Gillette thinks the Tigers can be pretty good, but if they have more than two key problems, they could still end the year behind the Cleveland Indians because of depth issues.

It’s not a word-for-word posting of the interview, but it’s a good read. Nicely done.

• MLB Fleece Factor wrote the Tigers could win 95 games and has the potential to be the top team in baseball.

Fleece Factor thinks there’s strong batting all around, and the pitching isn’t bad either. But the problem is with so many innings on so many young arms, injury concerns for the rotation could put a damper on season.

• Bilfer wrote about the Tigers “backups” plan.

I think this one ties together what the first two point out. With the starters set, Bilfer looks at who could break camp on the bench for the Tigers and how that affects the depth at different positions. He made a nice chart of the possibilities. As I concluded on the topic earlier this year, Bilfer thinks the ideal situation is

… Marcus Thames, Brandon Inge, Vance Wilson, and Ryan Raburn given the assumptions above. Raburn would most likely end up thirsting for at-bats as the majority would go to Inge. Still, that bench gives you a pretty solid combination of offensive pop and defensive flexibility.

Also Bilfer is working on redesigning DTW.

• Lee is still going through all his defensive metrics at Detroit Tiger Tales.

• Jon Paul Morosi wrote about making his prospect list for Baseball America.

The introduction was funny — ” Ten Guys Who Weren’t Traded” — but his explanations for the players were nice.

–January 22 –

• One addition:  Baseball Musings’ David Pinto looked at the Tigers offense as part of his series.

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