Yesterday, Matt Wallace said that the most likely candidates to fill in during Joel Zumaya’s absence are Eulogio De La Cruz, Virgil Vasquez, Jair Jurrjens or Dallas Trahern. Here’s a closer look at the four. I spend most of the time looking at the top two prospects - in my opinion. You’ll notice I leave out Andrew Miller. I just think he needs more pro innings and I think the Tigers agree. Plus you probably know a thing or two about him already.

Eulogio De La Cruz

Transformed from a reliever to a starter, the 23-year-old righty from the Dominacin is the hard-throwing ace of the Erie rotation. While he is a strikeout artist — 20 in his last two games — the thing of interest about him is how he goes against the flamethrower prototype: He’s just 5-foot-11, 175 pounds.

But even when he’s not racking up Ks, he has been forcing batters to put the ball on the ground a lot (a ratio of 3:1 this year, 1.78:1 last). He gave up four homers in 107 innings last year. So, basically, this is exactly the guy you trust a lead with in late innings, and the kind of guy who can throw water on an opponent’s rally.

His WHIP is just more than 1, and Baseball America put him as the No. 6 prospect and ranked his fastball and curveball as the best in the Tigers minors. I’ve read his fastball is typically as high as 97, but also that he can throw 100.
Both Jason Beck and Lynn Henning wrote about him today as well.

Vasquez

Virgil Vasquez, 24, is the surprise strikeout artist atop the Toledo rotation. Like De La Cruz, he’s a starter. Unlike De La Cruz, he doesn’t rely on speed, he is a soft thrower with immaculate control. He may have turned the corner this fall in the Arizona Fall League, where he went most of the short season throwing shutout inning after shutout inning against some of baseball’s top prospects.

This year, he has 50 strikeouts in 40.2 innings, adding another nine Monday. He has walked 10. He doesn’t have the groundball ratio that De La Cruz does, nor the ability to keep the ball in the park.

Based on a glance at the splits for De La Cruz and Vasquez, it appears that Vasquez is a bit better with runners in scoring position, But of course, be warned that’s a small sample size.

I see him as more of a possible Chad Durbin replacement than a guy who’d take over for Zumaya, but I consider him a strong candidate if the Tigers fill Zumaya’s absence internally.

Jurrjens

Jair Jurrjens, 21, is another top pitching prospect in Erie. He seems like he’s still warming up this season, with 19 strikeouts in 24 innings but a WHIP just over 1 and ERA of 3.65. His groundball rate is 1.85:1 currently, and was closer to 2:1 for the 2006 season, so it’s pretty consistent. But at his age, I think there’s no reason the Tigers will rush him.

Trahern

Dallas Trahern is a lot like his Erie pitching mates. The 21-year-old brings a 1.88 ERA and a groundball ratio of 3.29:1 to the table. He doesn’t seem as good as keeping runners off the bases, but his WHIP of 1.20 isn’t too bad. But at this point, I think he’s a bit on the green side, so I wouldn’t too much thought into his being a Tiger anytime soon. Still, you never know.

Share/Email This

We know all about the Tigers. They were great last year. They’re winning while being bad this year, so just wait until the batters actually hit the ball. That’s a big reason for now being a great time to enjoy baseball in Michigan.

But the other reason? The Midwest League. At Baseball Prospectus, Kevin Goldstein reviewed the low-A leagues today (Sub-Req). MILB.com has a feature on the top A-level prospects as well. Coming to a stadium near you:

• The Great Lakes Loons, of Midland, a Dodgers affiliate, have an excellent rotation and decent bullpen, Goldstein wrote. Clayton Kershaw was one of the top HS prospects drafted in 2006, MILB.com adds.
• Don’t forget, former Tiger Lance Parrish is the Loons’ manager.
• Toronto affiliate Lansing has one of the top outfields, featuring Travis Snider, who Goldstein calls among the top.
• Of course, we already know outfielder Gorkys Hernandez at the Tigers’ West Michigan. Scott Sizemore is there, too.
• Outfielder Drew Stubbs of Dayton and OF/1B Chris Parmalee of Beloit are names to watch too.

Oh, and April 13 is Cameron Maybin bobblehead night at Comstock Park for the first 1,000 fans.

Share/Email This

Andrew Miller’s first start as a professional went well but ended a bit early. Pitching for the High Class-A Lakeland Flying Tigers in a rain-shortened game, the Tigers’ top pitching prospect gave up three hits and no walks in a 3-0 victory over the Tampa Yankees. He struck out three.

Allowing no walks is the most interesting, as the knock on him right now is a lack of control. I’ve wondered if that’s because he’s a lifetime starter who stumbled in the few times he worked relief.

Cameron Maybin went 0-for-2 with a strikeout.

Share/Email This

I was playing around on the internet doing research for an upcoming story about a minor league umpire I know. Anyway, I spent some time at MILB.com and noticed some Tigers related stuff I hadn’t seen linked to.

Tigers roaring with Top Notch Talent in 2007

This one is basically an organizational look at the Tigers. There’s a lot of guys mentioned we’re familiar with. Ryan Raburn, Cameron Maybin, the like, so I’ll just point out their under-the-radar. That one seems to be true. I like to think I have a nice idea about Tigers prospects up and down the ladder, and this was a new name to me.

Brett Jensen, RHP
Drafted three times as a mainstay in the bullpen at University of Nebraska, Jensen then filled that role with similar success for the Gulf Coast Tigers after he was taken in the 14th round. He was 1-0 with a 0.67 ERA in 26 2/3 innings, striking out 31 and walking only five.

“He’s a tall, lean kid with a sidearm, down-under delivery,” Ezell said. “He’s a very strong competitor and he loves to be in there at the end of the game. He’s a guy we think will do some nice things.”

Naturally, they have the required Maybin story, this by Jason Beck actually ran on the Tigers.com main page a week ago, or around there.

By the way, Maybin had an EQ Average of .383 and contributed 6.4 EQ runs, per Clay Davenport at Baseball Prospectus.That put him behind Placido Polanco and around the same spot at Raburn. For whatever that is worth. *shrug*

Speaking of Maybin, the Lakeland Flying Tigers have a pretty cool looking site at MILB.

Also at MILB, and I don’t know how long this will last so you may want to look soon, they have streaming video talking about the top prospects of the A.L. Central. There’s an Andrew Miler interview early on in it.

That concludes the minor league portion of our festivities.

A more serious note from Danny Knobler, Vance Wilson had an MRI after experiencing elbow soreness. He says if it’s not serious, he’ll play through pain. As Knobler points out, Wilson is an important part of the team, but he’s still a backup catcher. So I’m not sweating it.

For some other stuff: Lee finishes his preview up with pitchers at Tiger Tales. I won’t ruin the”surprise” about how many wins he sees the Tigers getting, but I will say it’s a pretty good preview of what I’m going to predict myself.

Big Al at The Wayne Fontes Experince has parts 1 and 2 up. And the Mickey Tettleton Memorial Overpass does as well. Ian at Bless You Boys promises his preview soon. It kinda sneaks up on you, doesn’t it Ian? Ian also points out how tough the April schedule is for Detroit.

The stodgy Sporting News picks Detroit as the top team in baseball. Strange. Todd Jones says not so fast. Frankly the whole thing makes me a bit nervous. But being picked to win is actually no different than not being picked to win. None of it matters in the end. Hat-tip to a poster at Motown Sports who posted the cover to this week’s mag.

The Tigers reaction to being picked to win, at the least, the Central Division by so many people? “Thanks” basically. They’re keeping even keeled over it, Knobler reports. Leyland wouldn’t have it any other way.

Beck points to a poll which showed Tigers fans were among the most satisfied in sports. They ranked 12th overall, second in the MLB behind the Braves. They especially liked the ownership and loved Jim Leyland, but some thought the Tigers could have had more effort on the field. I’m not sure why that one came in a bit lower. Last year, the Tigers came in at 26th in baseball. Amazing what winning can do, huh?

And finally, the AP preview stories have crossed the wire and will probably sneak online at some media entity’s site ahead of the embargo. So keep your eyes open for that at Google.

Share/Email This

Cameron Maybin is No. 7 and Andrew Miller No. 17 among the Baseball Prospectus top prospects named by Kevin Goldstein. (No subscription on this one.) Andrew narrowly edged out Cleveland pitching prospect Adam Miller, a name we’ll become familiar with soon enough I suspect.

There was no text accompanying it, but the list is interesting to look at.

Share/Email This

Pitchers and catchers officially report to Lakeland today. The full squad is due Feb. 20. And so the march to October begins.

It’s not really a blog. Nonetheless, we can give a welcome to our little fraternity to the Free Press’ John Lowe, who I’m sure also knows he’s not really blogging so much as posting a featurette (to use Krista Jahnke’s description).

Lowe: The baseball year has few better highlights better than the first look of the season at a perfectly green and trim field in a stadium — whether that look comes in the summer, spring or, if you’re lucky like me, in mid-February.

It’s cold out. Like, really cold by my standards. So right now, that would be nice.

Lowe joins Tom Gage of the News, Jason Beck of MLB.com, Danny Knobler of Mlive and FSN play-by-play man Mario Impemba as Tigers media members with blogs.

Media companies don’t even begin to understand the concept of blog. They have just shoehorned the word to mean an informal place for additional content that doesn’t make the print edition. Basically, breaking news, some light opinions and the like. No links or nothing, which, well, is what makes blogs blogs.

My theory, if you’re curious, as someone who works for a media corporation (that owns the Pittsburgh Pirates, which says it all. I mean, Go Pirates!) is that they don’t allow linking because it’s Cover Your (Butt) or because they don’t want to buy software that allows it. Media companies are afraid you may find something bad 5 links down the road and blame them for it. Plus they’re cheap. Anyway…

—–

Speaking of blogging, Gage says Joel Zumaya will stop talking about Guitar Hero. Good thing because Samara nearly had a heart attack. (Hat tip Bilfer). Note to News: still can’t link directly to a post!

—–

As we know, in 2006 the Tigers were the best team in the best division in the best league in baseball. And so, while they were not American League Central winners, they came away from the season with a pretty meaningful 2006 AL pennant to fly instead. Everyone else knows how tough the AL Central is, too.
Fox Sports has its five burning questions. Dayn Perry — who jumped on the Tigers bandwagon so early last season he was sitting in the coach’s seat on the bus — tackles the question of whether the Tigers can keep up their fabulous playing or whether they’ll come back to earth.

When you see a team improve by such a huge margin from one season to the next (in the Tigers’ case they added 24 wins to their total), it’s always possible they’ll come crashing back to earth the following year. So will that happen to Detroit? Probably not. Last year’s team is mostly intact, and you can expect skills growth from some of their younger players like Justin Verlander and Curtis Granderson. As well, top pitching prospect Andrew Miller may be ready to take on a larger role. It’s possible the Tigers won’t return to the postseason, but neither will they be the listless Tigers of old.

Perry also tackles the question of whether Gary Sheffield can bounce back from his wrist injury. Check it out.

As Perry points out, there’s no team in the Central without questions, and he tackles them all. The Twins will have to find a replacement for Francisco Liriano and Brad Radke, for example. The White Sox are trying to rebuild while still playing strong enough to recapture the post season, and they’re looking for both a No. 5 pitcher and center fielder. The Tribe? They’re trying to fix the bullpen. Perry thinks they may have done enough to get back to the postseason.

–

Dmitri Young was signed by the Washington Nationals, current home of Nook Logan. Well, Da Meathook was signed to a minor league contract, but really, its the Nationals. If he’s past his 2006 problems, he’s going to make their major league club and be productive. I didn’t mind when he was released by Detroit last September, but I certainly wish him the best now and hope he puts up a great batting line. It’s the NL… so hey, quite possible.

–

Much like John Sickels at Minor League Ball, well identical, Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus ranked the Tigers minors organization 15th in the MLB. (sub req). Basically, Goldstein pointed out the Tigers don’t have much in the minors right now, other than Cameron Maybin and Andrew Miller. Gorkys Hernandez is young and far from the pros.

The Tigers are actually fine because their talented youth is already in the MLB, I think Goldstein would agree.

Share/Email This

The Tigers continued dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s before Spring Training opens by signing Curtis Granderson and several others to one-year deals Monday.

Granderson, who is still ineligible for arbitration, was the only major leaguer. Joining him were pitchers new tradee Yorman Bazardo, former prospect Kyle Sleeth and 2006 Tiger Roman Colon. Infield prospect Kody Kirkland also signed.

Share/Email This

The Tigers sent one of their extra outfield prospects to the Seattle Mariners for a right-handed minor league relief pitcher. The Tigers prospect you ought to have heard of: Jeff Frazier. He played in Lakeland in high-A and had some upside but was seen as expendable because Detroit is actually pretty deep at the OF position. The Mariners prospect — Yorman Bazardo — I hadn’t, but John Sickels at Minor League Ball ranked him ninth in the Seattle organization.

MLB.com Tigers beat writer Jason Beck gets the hat-tip for this blog post at Baseball America about Bazardo.

Yorman Bazardo–who has been outstanding since the Mariners designated him for assignment after signing Jeff Weaver–and Francisco Butto were two of the main reasons Venezuela was able to put away Puerto Rico on Tuesday and hand the Caribbean Series title to the Dominican Republic.

Bazardo (and we’ll have a scout’s view on him coming soon), was impressive, flashing a low 90s four-seamer and a hard curveball with good late life, looks like he’s approaching this Series as a showcase since being removed from the Mariners’ 40-man roster.

My first impression is this is a pretty nice trade here. He looks like an interesting pitcher, not a starter, but someone to keep the minor league shelves stocked and has some chance at making it to Detroit, and Frazier was going to have a lot of hurdles in front of him anyway with Cameron Maybin, Curtis Granderson and Magglio Ordonez penciled in as the outfield through 2010 with a good possibility of Gorkys Hernandez or Brent Clevlen being backups.

More later today, plus a few links of interest from the past few days.

Share/Email This

The Tigers prospects are ranked behind a required subscription at Baseball Prospectus, so I’m not going to list everything out for you. But I’ll offer a few nuggets.

CF Cameron Maybin and LH-SP Andrew Miller are rated excellent prospects. Not giving away any state secrets with that one!

CF Gorkys Herndandez and SP RH-SP Jair Jurrgens are ranked very good and good, respectively.

Everyone else is average, at best. But several 2006 draftees made the list. Take that for what you will. So yah, the Tigers’ minor league system is not exactly flowing over with prospects right now.

On the other hand, BP does something it calls “The Big Picture,” which combines prospects with a team’s current major league players under the age of 25 for a good look at the talent level the team should have over the coming years. When you think Justin Verlander, Joel Zumaya and Jeremy Bonderman are on that list, along with Curtis Granderson who turns 26 during spring training and was not eligible for the list, you’ve got a pretty good, young base.

In fact, BP writer Kevin Goldstein said ranking the top five in Detroit’s organization was so hard, he took a poll of what some other experts thought, just like he had to do with the talent-laden Cleveland Indians. Verlander and Bonderman took most of the first-place votes, with Verlander edging JB.

D-Town baseball reviews the same articles.

Share/Email This

Baseball America named its listing of the top 10 Tigers prospects today based on long-term potential. The selections were based on discussions with the club to get a feel of what the personnel director and scouts thought. The Freep’s Jon Paul Morosi wrote the accompanying article. I’m not sure if he did the listing but I assume. Without further adieu:

1. Cameron Maybin, of
2. Andrew Miller, lhp
3. Brent Clevlen, of
4. Jair Jurrjens, rhp
5. Jordan Tata, rhp
6. Eulogio de la Cruz, rhp
7. Gorkys Hernandez, of
8. Dallas Trahern, rhp
9. Jeff Larish, 1b
10. Scott Sizemore, ss/2b

The top is no surprise. Maybin, Miller, Clevlen, Jurrjens, Tata, Euliogio de la Cruz, they should all be familiar names. I am not sure if I would rank them exactly in that order. I’m not even sure if I’d choose Maybin over Miller, and I’d probably rank Clevlen lower due to his struggles at the plate. But it doesn’t really matter.

Whether Virgil Vasquez should crack the list is a good question. I think he probably should after the showing in Arizona.

But one thing we see is this is still an organization rich in pitching, even after trading Humberto Sanchez and two low-level minor leaguers to New York. But we also see how the pitching drafts have left Detroit low in quality positional players. Maybin is great. Clevlen did crack the majors and plays good defense, but still seems raw. And then it drops all the way down to A ball before you get another player (Larish) on the top 10.

Larish, we’re all familiar with. A nice hitter. But I wouldn’t say anything great at this point. Scott Sizemore — no relation to Grady — looks like a solid infielder. He spent his summer at short-season Oneanta. Hernandez is a 19-year old gulf coast leaguer.

So there’s definitely trouble on the horizon that Dave Dombrowski must keep his eye out for. The organization is not overflowing with high-quality prospects, that’s for sure. That’s also why Lynn Henning keeps talking about stocking up the minor leagues. I’m all for a trade or two to do so, but not Jeremy Bonderman, that’s nuts.

Bilfer weighed in at DTW. I’ll update as other bloggers wade in, too.

Update: Here’s Lee’s take at Tiger Tales.

In any case, agree with the top 10? Disagree? Let me know in the comments.

Share/Email This