Archive for 2010

Austin Jackson had a nice rookie campaign for the Tigers in 2010.  It just wasn’t quite good enough because he finished second to Neftali Feliz for AL ROY of the Year.  When you look at Wins Above Replacement, these two were nearly identical (Jackson had a slight edge with 2.5 to Feliz’s 2.4) so this could have gone either way.  Feliz had the flashy numbers though and he set the rookie save record with 40 on the season.  I think it also helped that the Rangers made the playoffs.  Jackson did garner eight first place votes so a few people felt he was more deserving.

Ironically, Danny Valencia finished with the same WAR as Jackson despite playing only a little more then half the season.  Part of that may have been his position but he had a nice season with a .799 OPS.

Brennan Boesch came in fifth place in a three way tie at the bottom.  I still think when you look at this crop of rookies, Brian Matusz will be the standout.  I like the Orioles in a few years.

The Doyle Alexander for John Smoltz trade is one of the more infamous trades in the Tigers history.  In a late season trade, the veteran Alexander was shipped to Detroit for prospect John Smoltz.  Alexander did his job and was awesome in his eleven starts for Detroit (9-0, 3.9 WAR) and in hindsight it’s safe to the say that the Tigers probably wouldn’t have made the playoffs if they hadn’t made the trade.  Of course Alexander didn’t do much after that and John Smoltz went on to have a Hall of Fame career for the Braves.

I still defend the trade because it did what the Tigers set out to accomplish.  Now the Baseball Reference blog is soliciting answers to the question of “What if the Braves didn’t trade Alexander for Smoltz?”.  There’s some interesting feedback and it’s worth the read.

It was close to three years ago that the Marlins and Tigers rocked the winter meetings with their blockbuster deal that sent Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis to Detroit for a package of six prospects.  Not in back to back days, the Marlins have traded the two cornerstones of at least their end of the deal on back to back days for three relief pitchers.  Cameron Maybin was sent to the Padres for Ryan Webb and Edward Mujica.  Andrew Miller was traded to the Red Sox for Dustin Richardson.  Neither prospect has lived up to their hype yet and while the Tigers were saddled with that three year Dontrelle Willis deal, that was actually their own fault because they inked Willis to the contract extension.

The only player who remains on the Marlins from that deal is Burke Badenhop.  He’s pitched in each of the last three years for the Marlins and he’s been a decent but not great long relief option for them out of the pen.  Of course with the addition of three relief pitchers to the system, you wonder how long Badenhop has as well.

Tiger fans are expecting a big signing this winter.  They have a ton of money coming off of the books and that should open the door for one of the big, blue chip free agents out there, right??  Well, my biggest concern is the Tigers could be the odd team out.  They’re rumored not to be making a play for Cliff Lee, who everyone expects to be a Yankee.  Carl Crawford also could end up in a Yankee uniform and Victor Martinez could easily resign with the Red Sox.  That leaves Jayson Wersth and Adam Dunn, who the Tigers might be forced to over pay if they want his services and it’s questionable how much of an upgrade he’d be over a guy like Magglio Ordonez who could come cheaper.

So the question is, do the Tigers sit out with regard to the big names and maybe grab some of the second tier guys.  With Jacob Turner being a couple of years away, should the Tigers sign a guy like Carl Pavano to anchor the rotation (leaving Armando Galarraga as the odd man out).  A guy like Brien Fuentes would give the Tigers a formidable one/two punch with Jose Valverde.  And rather then paying big for Dunn or Werth, would it make sense to give a veteran like Lance Berkman and incentive laden deal to come play for Detroit for a couple of seasons.  And while A.J. Pierzynski is the guy people love to hate, it’s hard not to appreciate him if you’ve ever been a Bill Laimbeer fan.  He’d make a nice stop gap if the Tigers brass doesn’t think Al Avila is ready to take on the every day catching job.  I also wouldn’t might if the Tigers could possibly swing a deal with the Royals to maybe bring Zach Greinke into town.

So there’s plenty out there, I just think people will disappointed if the Tigers don’t grab a big name.  My concern with grabbing a big name means we have a lot of money tied up and it could hurt us over the next few years if some holes develop.  We’ve been in that trap before and I’m not ready to jump back in and risk getting back into it.

In an interesting series Geoff Young at the Hardball Times is going through the 1987 draft and imagining what would have happened had each team take what would eventually be the best player available based on WAR (Wins Above Replacement).  The Tigers actually did their job in this draft because they’re one of only four teams to be worse off under the revised draft compared to who they actually took (Travis Fryman).

Fryman was a mainstay in the Tigers lineup for most of the 1990s, splitting time between shortstop and third base before eventually becoming a full time third baseman.  The five time All Star was traded after the 1997 season and he eventually landed in Cleveland where continued to have success until he retired after the 2002 season.

Under the revised draft, Fryman would have been taken with the tenth pick by the San Francisco Giants.  In Fryman’s place, the Tigers would have picked Gil Heredia who had a pretty average ten year major league career.  Of course the 1990s were pretty much a lost decade for the Tigers anyway so having a slightly better starter for a couple of years wouldn’t have made much of a difference.

I was going to do my analysis but then I ran across this at FanGraphs.com that pretty much echoes my sentiment.  The money for Peralta sounds high, but the big problem is there’s not a lot of alternatives. Once you get past Derek Jeter, who should go back to the Yankees, things thin out quick and there’s not a whole lot better out there then Peralta.  I think the long term plan is to have Peralta be the stopgap at shortstop until Daniel Fields is ready for his chance.

It looks like the Tigers might not have given up Eddie Bonine quite yet.  Jon Paul Morosi tweeted that the Tigers were interested in signing him to a minor league deal.  It looks like the Phillies are also interested in the right hander.  This wouldn’t the be the first time the Phillies cashed in on a Tigers castoff.  While he got a major league deal, Chad Durbin left the Tigers and signed with the Phillies after the 2007 season.

Jon Paul Morosi broke the news a couple of hours ago that the Tigers are going to announce their two year, $11 million deal with Jhonny Peralta some time this week.  Like I said yesterday, this should lock up the Tigers infield.  A lot of people are complaining about the amount of money but I’ll take a closer look at the signing later tonight or sometime tomorrow.

In the 2006 draft, nine teams passed on Tim Lincecum before the San Francisco Giants took him with the tenth pick.  Kevin Goldstein, in his latest Future Shock, speculates what might have happened if each of the nine teams ahead of the Giants had taken Lincecum.

Of course one of those teams was the Detroit Tigers, who took Andrew Miller with the sixth pick.  He talks about how while Lincecum makes the Tigers rotation stronger, it also means they don’t have Miguel Cabrera in the lineup so it probably washes out.  Good stuff because while Lincecum helps out most of those nine other teams, it’s not as much of a difference as you might think.

I wrote about this yesterday, but it appears that offense is the Tigers primary focus in the offseason.  John Lowe recently gave us a run down on the guys the Tigers are likely to go after.  I still like Adam Dunn the best, but Carl Crawford is the most intriguing and probably be the best defensively of the bunch.  Of course it all could just be a smoke screen.

I watched/listened to a few innings of the AFL Rising Stars game.  The lone Tiger, Cbance Ruffin, got one strikeout against the only guy he faced.

Beck’s Blog broke the story that the Tigers are close to signing Jhonny Peralta to a two year deal for $11.25 million.  I like the amount because it pretty much shores up the infield, gives the Tigers a solid shortstop option and still gives them plenty of cash to go out and get a big name. As it stands, this is what the infield will probably look like

1b – Miguel Cabrera
2b – Scott Sizemore/Wil Rhymes
SS – Jhonny Peralta
3b – Brandon Inge

And then you have Ramon Santiago to fill in where and when needed.  Not too shabby if the Tigers can pull it off.

Or should it be Hot Stove Eve?  I don’t know but whatever you call it, tomorrow players are able to negotiate and sign deals with any team, effectively kicking off the baseball off-season.  And a little segue, but this is one of the best things about baseball.  There’s very little downtime and there are always things to pay attention too.

The big question is, what do the Tigers do with their money.  It seems like the front office has hinted they’ll be going after some top notch sluggers, but no specifics have come out yet (which is SOP since you want to go in with you best negotiating position possible).  Odds are a lot of the big deals won’t happen until the Winter Meetings in early December but it’ll be interesting to see what that first “big” deal brings because it could set the pace for the rest of the signings.

I’d like to see them focus on pitching but once you get past Cliff Lee, there’s a pretty sharp drop off.  Rotoworld has their top 50 free agents list and while Lee is number one, the next best starting pitcher is Huroki Kuroda at number ten and then Jorge De La Rosa at number eleven.  While a Lee/Verlander/Scherzer/Porcello rotation has me salivating a little, it just doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.  But still, if you keep Ryan Raburn in left, Brennan Boesch in right, sign Magglio Ordonez to be the DH and bring back Jhonny Peralta to be the shortstop, the Tigers would probably have the money for Lee, it’s just too much wrapped up into a few guys in the rotation and they have another thing to worry about.

That thing is Max Scherzer.  The Tigers have to decide whether to lock him now and potentially get a bargain or push the problem forward.  They might want to worry about him next year when Carlos Guillen’s contract comes off the books.

Still, this is always a fun time of year as teams build or re-build their teams.  And the Tigers are always good for a surprise or two along the way.

The Tigers sent minor league shortstop Brent Dlugach to the Boston Red Sox for the infamous player to be named later (or cash consideration) yesterday.  Dlugach was a September call up in 2009 but he spent all of 2010 in Toledo where he had a mediocre season at the plate.  At this point, and at 27, if he’s not getting it done in the minors he’s probably not much more then a fringe player for a big league team.  This probably also reinforces the fact that the Tigers are close to signing Jhonny Peralta or if not, are going after him strongly.

Sparky Anderson got a lot of love on all of the various Tigers sites yesterday.  Here’s one more by Chris Jaffe, the author of Evaluating Baseball’s Managers, where he gives the run down on Sparky as well as some interesting tidbits on his career.

This was a curiosity but it warrants some talk.  On August 7, 2006, the Tigers stood 40 games above .500 at 76-36.  Since that point in time, the Tigers have gone a combined 348-351 over the last four seasons and change.  They’ve had some moments (like a nice run in 2007 and the good first half in 2010) but they’ve basically been a .500 ball club for all but about 2/3 of a season since 2006.

Combine that with the money that’s been spent and it makes you wonder.

With all of the Sparky news, this one kind of got lost in the shuffle.  Tiger’s started Eddie Bonine filed for free agency after he was outrighted to Triple-A.  He’ll be joined by minor leaguers Max St. Piere, Jay Sborz and Jeff Frazier once the five day deadline passes and players can talk to other teams on Saturday.

Bonine had a weird couple of years with.  He was mostly used as a sport started in 2008 and 2009.  Then in 2010, he pitched almost exclusively out of the bullpen.  He kind of followed the Tigers because he had a really good first half (2.81 ERA in 41 2/3 innings.  Then he was just awful in the second half (.395 batting average against in 26 1/3 innings).  Bonine’s 29 and while he’s served a purpose, I don’t see him having a role on the Tigers with the talent coming up so this is probably just as well.

“Players have two things to do. Play and keep their mouths shut.” Sparky Anderson

Man, it wasn’t that long ago that I was writing something like this about Ernie.  If Ernie was the voice of the Tigers for me, Sparky was the team’s face. Earlier in the year, I talked about how Ernie was baseball to me.  Now with Sparky’s passing, it’s time to bid farewell to the man who coached the Tigers through the time where baseball became my favorite sport.  I remember attending a Tigers game with my dad and having Sparky rush by us in the tunnels as he was heading to the clubhouse and thinking how cool that was.  Now, over 20 years later, we’re celebrating the life that was Sparky Anderson.

I’ve read quite a few baseball books and in all of the biographies, every player who I’ve read about who crossed Sparky’s path respected him.  Captain Hook is now criticized for not being the best tactician, but what he could do (similar to what Jim Leyland captured in 2006) was get the best out of what he had.  1987 was the perfect example when the Tigers came back from a poor start and a nearly insurmountable deficit in the final week to capture what was then the American League East title.

The accolades speak for themselves.  He coached in over 4,000 games (4,030) and he won 2,194 of them.  He’s now sixth all time in wins, but when he retired he was third.  He won five pennants and three World Series and he was the first manager to win a World Series in both leagues.  The best way I can put it is Sparky managed his people well.  He knew how to handle a Kirk Gibson and recognized that he couldn’t handle Gibby the same way as he would a Lou Whitaker.

Even more, once the post-collusion era tore up the core of the 1984 Tigers team, Sparky remained.  1991 was kind of his last hurrah when the Tigers finished tied for second but were playing meaningful baseball in September.  Still, after 1987, it was rough going for the team in most respects but Sparky did his best all the way up to his retirement in 1995.

Even after retirement, Sparky was great to listen too.  He didn’t make too many radio appearances but you could tell he always loved his players.  His story about Jack Morris’ game seven shutout in the 1991 World Series is a classic and some of his Kirk Gibson stories were pretty funny as well.

So for the better part of 17 years, the Tigers had one manager.  Since then in the past 15 years, the Tigers have had six different managers.  You wonder if in a year like 2000 where the Tigers contended, whether he couldn’t have pulled a team like that together and gotten the Tigers a surprise playoff berth.

So to sum things up, I was glad to have had Sparky as our coach.  Thanks for all the memories skipper.

“People who live in the past generally are afraid to compete in the present. I’ve got my faults, but living in the past is not one of them. There’s no future in it.” Sparky Anderson

Finally some consistency for former Tiger Wil Ledezma.  The left handed pitcher played for six teams since 2007 and he had a weird year for the Pirates last year.  He gave up a lot of hits, but his strikeout to walk ratio showed some promise (22/6 in 19 2/3 innings).  He’s also got a reverse platoon split and was awful against lefties last year.  He just signed a one year worth $700k if he pitches in the majors in 2011.  He turns 30 in January which sounds low because he seems like he’s been around forever.

It wasn’t too long ago that Tigers fans were comparing Ledezma to Johan Santana because they were both Rule 5 guys.  To date, the fact that they’re Rule 5 guys is the only thing that’s similar about them.

Baseball Prospectus recently put out a piece on pitchers who might be forced to take minor league deals in order to keep their careers going.   Former Tiger Nate Robertson made the list after a rough 2010 season.

I always liked Robertson. He was a solid middle of the rotation lefty for a while and he stuck around Detroit in the offseason.  For a while, it looked like he was more unlucky then bad but the past couple of years have been pretty poor.  It’ll be interesting to see if Robertson can catch on somewhere.

With the 2010 season in the books, it’s time to start thinking about the Hall of Fame.  In a pretty detailed analysis, Baseball Reference Blog provides the positives and the negatives to Alan Trammell’s candidacy.  It looks like there’s a large consensus that thinks Tram is deserving (close to 68%) but only 14% of the people think he’ll get in.

My thoughts are, Tram is definitely deserving.  So was Lou Whitaker and he’s off the ballot.  The most deserving though is Bert Blyleven so until he gets, there’s going to be a logjam of players who have been on the ballot for a few years behind him.

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