Here’s a short piece as part of a roundup at Boston.com, the web site of the Boston Globe.

Red Sox manager Terry Francona’s assessment of the defending AL champs is in lockstep with the rest of baseball:

“In my opinion, the team that may have made the biggest gains — and it’s only one player — is Detroit. They needed one thing — a hitter in the middle of the lineup — and they got that without giving up any of those major league starters, so that’s a big gain right there.”

Francona is, of course, referring to Gary Sheffield.

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Parts may look a bit like the blog post below, but I expanded on it.

Tigers made baseball matter

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I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention former manager and god of shortstopping (new word, really!) Alan Trammell was hired Monday to be the Chicago Cubs’ bench coach.

Good for him. I am convinced that Trammell should have gone this direction in the first place. He should make for an excellent coach, and I’m glad to see him back in the game.

“We are extremely happy to add Alan to the staff,” said Cubs general manager Jim Hendry. “His credentials on the field as a player, instructor and coach speak for themselves. He will be an invaluable person for Lou Piniella to lean on during the game, and he brings a special expertise in working with our infielders.”

“I think Trammell’s probably, as a coach in the big leagues, is probably one of the best coaches,” Tigers catcher Vance Wilson told the Detroit Free Press. “He’s so passionate about the game. He knows so much. Obviously, as far as being the manager, it didn’t work out. But as far as being in the game, the guy absolutely deserves and should be in the game.”

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Beyond the Box Score examined the AL Central today.

The theory behind the article is using a market — people putting real money on the line — to figure out the chances the Tigers win the division. Using markets to find information is pretty common. You see it ever presidential election. Several years ago, the Department of Defense thought they’d try using it to predict a terrorist attack, but that quickly caused backlash. But it is a useful tool that uses the collective mind and information of everyone — who chooses to participate — to seek answers. The current price — prediction — is 76 (as of right now) for the Tigers winning the Central. MN is at 15.5, and Chicago 13.4. That is, if the event happens, the buyer makes 100. If it doesn’t happen, the buyer makes 0. So you’re feeling pretty confident to buy the Tigers right now, you could lose a lot if they didn’t win the Central.  BtBS explains in depth.

Oh, and Baseball Prospectus has the Tigers at 86% to win the Central, 97.5% to make the playoffs straight up. Using PECOTA adjustments, it’s 86%, 97.7%, and using momentum adjustments it’s 77% and 95%.

Just to build on it, I’ll look at some other figures at the Tradesports.com market.

The Twins and White Sox are both about 40% to win the wild card. Detroit is lower. But as you can see, the bettors already believe they’ll win the division.

The Tigers are at 10% to win the WS. Yankees at 20%, Mets at 15%.

The Yankees are at 62% to win tonight.

Twenty-four percent of people don’t think the White Sox will win 92 games.

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BP’s Future Shocks looks at Andrew Miller today. (Subscription required). I won’t paste it all since that’s how they make their money, but here’s an excerpt.

Miller has been every bit as good as advertised so far, striking out nine over five scoreless innings while getting his fastball as high as 98 mph to go along with a biting slider. Even as a LOOGY, Miller has immediate value. He’s faced five left-handed hitters as a pro so far, walking one and striking out the other four.

Translation: Guy who pitches to one left-handed batter, IE, Jamie Walker. (Although Walker seems to me he should be so much more)

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I’ll just link to Tom Gage in general. These reports come from him:
Maroth is going to start one last time for Toledo and likely won’t be up until the roster expansion.

Roman Colon has neck spasms and will be on the DL, Colby Lewis got the call up.

Neifi Perez will start 2B tonight and bat 8th. (Sorry Cubs fans!) He’ll likely be close to an every-day player. (Sorry Tigers fans…er)

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Baseball Prospectus likes Tigers prospect Cameron Maybin as much as the rest of us.
They talk to some scouts to lead off today’s Future Shock. This article appears to be free.

[O]ne American League scout who recently caught Maybin walked away very impressed. “He can run… real fast,” said the scout. “He has two styles almost, in that he rockets down the line, and when going from first to third he takes these big loping strides.” Despite the impressive statistics, the scout saw plenty of room for improvement, particularly in the power department.

They also thought he had a few holes in his swing to patch.

Here’s a photo of Maybin at Flickr Farlane linked to in the comments section.

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Baseball Prospectus’ Future Shock today looked at the top CF prospects leaguewide. They named No. 1 Cameron Maybin, Detroit’s first-round pick last year. He even ranked ahead of Justin Upton of Arizona. (Part of this should be available free before the cutoff). A 19-year-old, Maybin currently resides in West Michigan, of Low A, but the Tigers say he may be a September call-up next season if he continues his quick rise.

Maybin is a natural hitter who draws walks and knows how to utilize his plus speed on the basepaths, as he’s successful in 25 of 28 stolen base attempts and has been clocked at 4.1 seconds to first base despite a sizeable 6-foot-3, 200 pound frame. … The definition of a five-tool talent, Maybin is already very good and only going to get better. Detroit makes it hard to get excited on a statistical level about prospects as they are nearly always in pitcher’s leagues and pitcher’s parks, but don’t be fooled. This is an elite talent by any measurement.

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Subscription NOT required [also featured at SI, part 1 may be available free now]: Baseball Prospectus released the second part of its study on how the Tigers were built into a contender. Ironically given BP is a sabremetric-centered organization, they find the Tigers are taking advantage of good scouting to find guys where the stats fell short. And not just in finding talent, but bringing it up through the organization, repairing mechanical problems, those sorts of things.

No doubt the Tigers got lucky in some cases. But in at least some cases, they had information that no one else had. Maybe it was a scout’s impression that Carlos Guillen had untapped offensive ability waiting to be unleashed. Maybe someone in the organization helped Inge figure out how to turn his batting practice power loose in the games. Someone envisioned the mechanical tweaks that have made Verlander and Zumaya twin rookie sensations this year. Someone thought that Jeff Weaver was as good as he was going to get, and that Jeremy Bonderman was almost ready for the majors even though he was still pitching in the California League.

… If the Tigers are any indication, it might be possible to obtain a bigger edge from out-scouting your competition than from out-computing them.

Detroit: the anti-Moneyball team. Strange, indeed.

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