Gary Sheffield arrived at Lakeland Wednesday morning, as the Tigers opened Spring Training opened for the full squad today. It’s always fun and exciting when Detroit adds a new star. I’m not sure the reason. Maybe it was several years of not adding a true star player at all, followed by Juan Gonzalez, followed by several more years of not adding a star player. Then Pudge was grand. That was huge. Magglio Ordonez signed, and though it’s only been two seasons, it’s hard to remember how hyped he was. Sheffield himself arrived quietly, but with a lot of pomp-and-circumstance surrounding him. That, and as Tom Gage pointed out in the previous link, the New York media was still chasing him, like Sheffield should care about the spat between A-Rod and Derek Jeter.

John Lowe says Lakeland is starting to feel like a suburb of Cooperstown with all the Hall-of-Famers, future Hall members or possible Hall members around Tigertown. He went on to commit the sin of comparing Sheffield to former Tigers star Al Kaline in a full article.

Lowe: Kaline and Sheffield also each have a few hundred more career walks than strikeouts. That also makes them unusual. In recent decades, high strikeout totals have become an accepted part of the run producer’s resume.

Today in spring training, Sheffield will go to work in a Tigers uniform for the first time. If he does in the next few seasons for the Tigers what he has done across 8,000 at-bats in 19 seasons with a half-dozen clubs, he could become Detroit’s best all-around hitter since Kaline.

I, myself, don’t see the comparison as a sin, as Sheff has been accepted with open arms by the organization Danny Knobler reports. But I know a lot of fans are still iffy on Sheffield, his past and his attitude.

And heck, Kaline likes him.

(Kalinie quoted by Lowe): “This guy is used to winning,” Kaline said. “He wants to play for Jimmy, and he’s going to take a lot of pressure off some of our players in the middle of the lineup.

“He’ll make a pitcher work. He sets up our lineup nicely. He’s nice to have.”

UPDATE: And he put on quite a show, the reporters tell us. I hope the Freep has video of that.

Beck: Sheffield’s batting practice wasn’t one of those home-run derby performances you would think, because there’s a purpose to his hitting work. But to watch his swing up close on a practice field is a sight. You know his swing isn’t going to be the same on the first day of full-squad workouts as it will be come the regular season, but you can still see what’s different about it, and you can tell his wrist injury from last year hasn’t changed that.

Lowe:

Sheffield showed that the baseball makes a different, louder crack off his bat than it does off of most bats. He mashed several batting-practice serves from the coaching staff to the distant parts of the outfield.

Update 2: One thing you can say about the New York media, they don’t give up a story just because it changes teams. The New York Post has a story. You would prefer Sheff stop talking about his former team though, but he is a talker and honest with his feelings.

More updates on this post as more stories come out.

I added a set of news headlines from major sources gathered by SportsSpyder.com. This idea totally came from what Athletics Nation has, I will admit. I tried doing a few with the News and Freep and whatnot, but their version was just so much better. Hopefully I’m not violating any agreements, but I didn’t find any and don’t make a dime anyway!

Also, this is probably a bit off topic but I noticed that a music video by Marco Volcy was put on YouTube recently, and I thought I’d share the link. I mention this because I did a story on him — he played basketball at Northern Michigan the previous four years — and very much appreciate his music. If you like R&B, I think you’ll like it. It played on a Canadian equivalent of MTV a few years back. It’s in French, of course. But I really like the sound.

The Free Press’ Jon Paul Morosi is reporting the Tigers and Brandon Inge are close to a deal to keep him in Detroit four more years for about $24M.

Update: Done deal.

Given the nuttiness of the free agent market, the look of the minors and Inge’s ability to make some great plays at third, this sounds like a good deal to me. Looks like he’s being paid about right, and I am a big Inge fan since he’s been around forever.

Update 2: Bilfer talks about the fielding stats.

Morosi also reports the Tigers also signed lefty center fielder Brandon Watson to a minor league deal. Watson started in the middle for the Washington Nationals on opening day in 2006, but quickly ended up back in the minors. He had some hype and I actually had him at the end of the bench in my fantasy keeper league, I’ll admit, but he quickly ended up gone.

First Inning’s scouting of him: Watson has no power and mediocre plate discipline. However, he’s fast enough to get on base and serve as a backup outfielder in the major leagues. FIPro suggests he will be a .290/.340/.370 type of hitter at the major league level. That’s not bad for a backup outfielder, but as soon as he loses a step he won’t be able to get on base and he will have almost no value on a major league team. His future could resemble the careers of Endy Chavez or Alex Sanchez.

In other news, Baseball Prospectus (sub req) found Detroit to have have the second-best outfield arms in baseball, statistically. They used the ability to prevent runs on second from scoring on a single as their measurement device. League average was 60% of runners scored. Detroit’s outfield of Curtis Granderson, Craig Monroe and Magglio Ordonez allowed 47.7%.

Credit goes to Matt and Ian from Detroit Bad Boys for alerting me to this. It can only be described as hilarious. I don’t know what’s funnier: Future FSN color commentator Rod Allen. The Pitcher. The voiceover. The Music. But among them, all I could do was crack up.

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.

The former Michigan football coach who needs no last name, Bo Schembechler passed away this morning. He worked for a short period of time for the Tigers in the early 90s.

RIP, and go blue.

Not that this really has anything to do with the Tigers. But as this blog is from Marquette, might as well toss some U.P. stuff out.

Trout Creek native and former Northern Michigan University student Dick Pole was named pitching coach for the Cincinnati Reds. He was previously bench coach for the Cubbies under Dusty Baker. Pole is in the U.P. Sports Hall of Fame.

Okay. I’m doing this on the fly. But like I said, I’m just going to primarily grade different aspects of the team rather than individual players, that way we get a better feel of what can be sacrificed a bit to make which improvements.

Run Scoring: B-

Run scoring wasn’t a problem for the Tigers, per se. When you look up the final product, you see a respectable 822. That’s not bad. True, it wasn’t the Yankees. Or White Sox. Or Blue Jays. Or Indians. Okay… so it wasn’t that great. There weren’t many holes in the lineup, but there weren’t a lot of highlights in the lineup either. It was mostly above average but not much on the strong side of the scale. They got the job done, though.

Except for that month…and a half… and World Series. Still, a B is above average. But it’s also a sign there’s work left to be done. You’d have to have navy blue blinders not to notice, Detroit needs to diversify the threats of its offense and be able to score with a bit more consistency, say, 5 runs a game rather than 7 followed by 3.

Team Power: A-

Detroit hit for power. Boy did it ever! The team finished third in homers in the American League at 202. It got 20+ from Marcus Thames, Brandon Inge, Craig Monroe, Magglio Ordonez. It got 19 from Carlos Guillen and Curtis Granderson. Basically, a home run was possible from anywhere in the lineup other than Placido Polanco.

Individual Power: B-

Therein lies the problem. Detroit didn’t have a break in the lineup, but it didn’t have that one batter who makes opposing fans quake in their boots. 19 American Leaguers finished with more home runs than Craig Monroe (28), the Tigers biggest home run threat. So, while collectively, Detroit had a lot of moderate power-hitters, on an individual basis, it had none. Maybe Chicago was hording them, two White Sox had 40+ homers, another came in at 30+. (That’s my benchmark for both categories).

Team Hacking: D+

A lot has been made of the Tigers’ hacking ways. And yeah, you can’t exactly oppose that. The OBP? .329. 12th of 14 AL clubs. Of course, if Detroit got on base 10 more times per 1000 opportunities, they’d have been smack in the middle of the league. So besides the 12 ranking? where does this woeful reputation come from? Fear of the Walk. Detroit finished 13th and not even close to the middle in this stat. Oh, and strikeouts? 13th again, or about 250 more Ks than the AL-leading Twins.

To recap, that’s strikeouts, F, walks, F, OBP, D+.

Individual hacking: C

But again, team stats may not be a great indicator… although at times, it is. Curtis Granderson was obviously among the worst offenders, gobbling up 15% of the team’s strikeouts by himself. As the leadoff batter. Brandon Inge and Craig Monroe both took about 10%. And Chris Shelton, who may or may not have a future in Detroit certainly doesn’t without improvement, added another 10% of the strikeouts. So that’s nearly half by 4 of nine regular batters. Okay, so maybe it does paint a fair picture! The walk frightened everyone but Granderson and Carlos Guillen.

The anti-hacker was Placido Polanco, who struck out, like, almost never. Sean Casey, known for his patience, would have had about 60 for a full season, not too bad. Guillen, obviously, was the anti-hack. The switch hitter got on base 40% of the time, walked a team-high 71… and struck out with about average regularity.

Shooting Ducks on the pond: C

Images that haunt us: Bases loaded. No outs. Maybe even 1 out. But specifically, no outs. Middle of the lineup coming. And HOLY CRAP, THEY DON’T SCORE. Three come to mind: One, against Boston in August. No outs. Tigers lose. Two, against Kansas City in September with the division on the line. Pudge up to bat. One out I think. Tigers lose. Three, against St. Louis in the World Series, game two, no outs. No runs. Tigers… win? Strange. The KC one haunts us the most, of course. But that brings up the point. I’m sure every team does this from time to time, but I have no clue how many more leave runners in scoring position with fighting regularity.

Individual target practice: C

The best Tigers at getting in runners? No longer Tigers. Matt Stairs (small sample). Sean Casey. (bigger sample). Third best? Ordonez drove in 19% of runners on base, 25% if one was on second, 40% if one was on third. That’s probably a B+. Polanco is Magg’s equal, but he drove in fewer runners from first, presumably because he can’t hit the long ball like Maggs. Most guys with many chances had about a 33% success rate for getting a run in from third and less than 25% (usually closer to 20%) from second.

Team speed: C

This is one of those categories where giving a grade doesn’t matter as much. Tigers team speed? Not so much. Tigers need for team speed? Not so much. But when the hammy-hindered shortstop leads the team with 20, it’s a bonus if you can add some.

By position

Catcher: B — Catchers aren’t asked to do much. Detroit has a Hall of Famer who drove in runs as consistently as Guillen. He struck out too much, yadayada, he’s a catcher. Not a bad position. Backup Vance Wilson had a great year when he managed to get Pudge to take a day off.

First base: C- D+ — It’s not that your first baseman must fit the prototype: Slugger who can’t field. But your first baseman has got to be a quality batter who stands in the middle of your lineup. Chris Shelton looked like the kind of first baseman you love. Then he stopped hitting. Sean Casey looked like, well, I’m not exactly sure. But at least he drove some runs in. In any case, this is a position to upgrade.

Second base: B- — I say B with this being the specific reason: Polanco to the Tigers is an A even if his stats look middle of the line. When Polanco wasn’t in the lineup, we cringed. Whether he was so useful for the Tigers because he was a contact batter with some patience, or whether he is truly a better batter than his stats would indicate to outsiders, I’m not sure. But the starter isn’t the problem and he’s a needed contributer. Just needs a quality backup.

Shortstop: A — Guillen was a great run producer, A+, second best VORP in the AL for SS, a guy who got on base, a guy who’s gonna cost a fortune. His backup stinks at the plate. Like with second base, wouldn’t hurt to upgrade the backup.

Third base: C+ — Not really the power you’d expect of a corner infielder. Not really the on-base percentage to make up for it. A solid batter, but a contributer to the hacking problem. Offensively, you would like better production, but if you look at the big picture, I don’t make a change.

Left Field: B — Both Marcus Thames and Craig Monroe played pretty nicely here, hit for power, suffered the same hacking problems, but put up very nice production. Not a problem going forward either.

Center Field: B- — Going backwards, center field had a hacking problem. Going forward, Granderson seemed to be putting it together and didn’t share CF very much with others. Not the best center field batter out there but I wouldn’t want to trade him for many others.

Right Field: B — Ordonez mostly played here. The backups were obviously a dropoff. Magglio was a high second tier at the position. There were some great ones. There were some blah ones. But Magglio came in near the top after a sizable dropff from Jermain Dye/Vlad Guerrera/(sometime CF Ichiro).

Designated hitter: C- — Another position you expect either a slugger or a consistent hitter. Detroit mixed its DH up quite a bit over the course of the year. If Thames hit like Thames and played the position the whole year, he’d have rated quite well but still no higher than a bit above average. As it is, the position was such a mish-mash and then Thames saw a dropoff and then things got worse. It was below average at best for the final two months. So it’s a hard one. I just went with C-: average and you want more.

Conclusions:

The Tigers have an offense that doesn’t need a lot of tinkering in the offseason. It does need some tinkering by the hitting coach (Don Slaught) to improve the eyes of the batters, maybe get a few more walks and a few less strikeouts. I think Granderson’s natural improvement will be in that area. As well, Monroe and especially Inge actually had worse years to that extent than in the past. So you hope for them to bounce back. So yeah, I do think we’ll see improvement.

On the other hand, I think Detroit needs two new batters with more patience. Honestly, I don’t think they need to get that big bat people talk about. But they need to get a few quality bats, low strikeouts, moderate walks at least, and who can drive in the run. DH, OF, 1B, I don’t care where. Ideally you upgrade all three with two personnel additions by getting a new first baseman, moving Magglio to DH and getting an outfielder of moderate ability (a step up defensiely, in other words) and some patience at the plate to mix things up. Maybe a lefty. I haven’t looked over free agent and trade targets to find the best possibilities. But you do need to make two changes.

The Tigers offense: Pretty good. Fun to watch. Frightening to watch. Needs improvement but it’s close. Anyway, that’s how I feel right now. All offers subject to change upon availability.

I thought I’d start to wrap up the regular season with a few Tigers awards so I can move on to the juicy stuff like whether signing Barry Bonds would be a genius move or a doofus move, because that’s a name that’s going to bounce around a lot. But I digress.

So I’m going with Minor Leaguer of the Year, Pitcher of the Year and Position Player of the Year.

But before I do that, I’m going to hand out some grades. I’m going to do that slightly different than most places, where you see the players graded against their potential and end up with 25 to 30 short profiles. Those are nice to read, but sometimes tedious if you’ve got a bunch of different places doing the same thing.

Instead, I thought I’d grade aspects of the team. That way we can see — my single opinion anyway — where the Tigers succeeded and where they might need work without assigning it to any individuals. After all, it’s these aspects that create the team, the players have unique strengths and weaknesses that mesh together, and even a “B” player might be a needed contribution to an “A” aspect..

Anyway, on with the show! Once I write it, anyway!

Okay. So that headline is not groundbreaking journalism, is it?

I’m flipping stations this morning (somewhere?) and Cold Pizza is on and they’re complaining about the weather in St. Louis, so Paige flippantly refers to his plan: Play the World Series in a warm-weather place, like the Super Bowl typically does. That way fans can get away and make a little vacation out of it.

Right now, he says, Tigers and Cardinals fans could be enjoying a nice week in Hawaii. (Awhile back, a Tigers fan did just that!) Yeah. Or, Tigers fans could be watching games played in Hawaii from their television sets because who can actually afford to go out and see their team play? Not many of the real fans. Maybe some of the suite fans.

This man has lived in the free tickets, free airfare world for too long. He’s flippin’ nuts!

Not that you didn’t already know that, but rainouts make it hard to find quality afternoon content!

Update: Apparently this is also an Outside The Lines topic.

Update 2: Everyone at ESPN is getting into the game now.