Archive for the '2011 Tigers' Category

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

When Sparky took over as the Tigers manager in 1979, I was eight years old.  When he retired, I was 24.  So throughout the time I was developing as a baseball fan, Sparky was always there.  That’s why I’m saddened to hear that Sparky has been put into hospice care.

In the past, there were two guys I’d pull the car over to the side of the road to listen to if they were interviewed.  One was Ernie Harwell, and the other was Sparky.  The guy always kept things interesting and my I wish his family the best in these tough times.

That didn’t take long.  The Tigers opted to not  exercise Jhonny Peralta’s $7.25 million option for next year.  That doesn’t mean Peralta isn’t going to be in a Tiger’s uniform, it just means they didn’t like that price so now the front office has a few days to get a new deal on the table to lock up the shortstop.

I just got done listening to today’s ESPN Baseball Today podcast and near the very end, Seth Everett mentioned a rumor that the Tigers were pretty interested in Prince Fielder.  Of course Prince is son of former Tiger’s slugger Cecil Fielder so there is a tie and I remember when Prince made the news when he came to Tiger Stadium to hit batting practice.

The big question is, where does Fielder fit.  Does he become the full time designated hitter (he’s a pretty bad fielder)?  Is it worth the money to have him hit every day and not play the field?  How does that hurt the team’s flexibility by locking up a roster spot with a guy who probably won’t see the field?

First off, congratulations to the San Francisco Giants.  It’s been a while for their fans and it’s the first since they’ve moved to the West Coast.  Still, I don’t like the fact that the Tigers have moved up another notch as far as World Series droughts go.  It was interesting seeing all of the former Tigers as well.

So now we enter the new and accelerated free agency season.  Under the old rules, teams had fifteen days to work out deals with their own players before they could talk to other teams.  This year it’s being sped up to just five days so it’ll be interesting to see what happens.  Starting Monday, we could see some players jumping ship. 

The Tigers have a lot of money coming off the books this offseason so the speculation is that they’re going to be big spenders.  I’ve heard both Victor Martinez and Adam Dunn mentioned a bunch, with Carl Crawford mentioned to a lesser extent.  Victor Martinez would give us some more flexibility but might also hinder Al Avila’s development.  My personal favorite is Adam Dunn because you pretty much know what you’re going to get (including 180+ strikeouts) and it’s nice having that consistency.  And then Carl Crawford is coming off of a career year with an .851 OPS.  I could see Crawford nabbing 25 triples at Comerica Park in a season.  Crawford also fills one of our biggest holes in leftfield.

There’s been some talk of expanding the playoffs and I’m pretty much against that.  The only way I’d like it is if they added the one extra wild card team on each side and had the two Wild Card teams play a one game playoff to get in.  This would make the division title more meaningful and make the team with the best record in each league have an extra advantage because they’d play a team with their rotation most likely out of whack.

It looks like the first order of business for the Tigers is what to do with Jhonny Peralta.  Jason Beck thinks the Tigers will turn down the $7.25 million option but still try to sign him.  Getting Peralta at a decent price would fill a hole so hopefully they’ll be able to get this done.

I can’t think of a more polarizing Tigers’ player then Brandon Inge.  It seems like fans either love him or hate him.  Well, the haters have something to complain about because Inge and the Tigers inked a two year deal with an option for a third that should keep Inge at third base for at least the next couple of years.  They’re getting him for $11.5 million for the next two years.  They’ll pay him $5.5 million for the next two years then there’s the $.5 million buy out. If they keep Inge in 2013, they’ll pay him $6 million so it’s probably better to look at this as a 3 year, $17 million deal.  That’s a small bump down from the absolute amounts over the past three years but if you look at Inge’s four year deal that he signed prior to 2007, the overall numbers are about the same.

The question now is whether Brandon Inge is worth the money.  Inge had a quietly decent year at the plate and while his home run totals were way down, his .321 OBP was his best since 2005 and he actually had more extra base hits this year (36) then he did last year (34) in 17 fewer games. Of course most of those extra base hits didn’t leave the park and that’s the difference between the years.

One thing I either missed, or forgot that I saw, was that Brandon Inge is now the all time Tigers’ strikeout leader with 1109.  He passed Lou Whitaker some time last year and he joins Al Kaline and Norm Cash as the only four Tigers to strike out more then a 1,000 times (answer to the trivia question earlier today).

Of course Inge is known more for his defense so that makes the money worth it, right?  Well, Inge’s defense has taken somewhat of a downward trend depending on how you look at things.  If you look at runs saved at Bill James Online, Inge was pretty mediocre (one run saved, thirteenth best amongst third basemen) in 2010 after a good but not great 2009 (10 runs saved, eighth best).  While that’s not bad, it’s a far cry from Inge’s gold glove caliber seasons in 2006 and 2007.  The big question is, was the defensive decline because of the bad knees (which you’d hope would be in better shape next year) or is it just general decline because of age.  If it’s general decline, and Inge takes even a small step back at the plate, this contract could look like a bad one.  If he comes back and either shows he’s back to form at third or takes a further step forward at the plate (or even better, both), it’s probably going to be worth keeping Inge in the fold.

Also, congratulations to Inge for winning the Marvin Miller award for all of his charity work.  Curtis Granderson won it last year so the Tigers now have a two year hold on the award.

I’m watching game three as I watch this and while the Giants have put themselves back into the game, I can easily see the home team winning all seven games in this series.  The Rangers with Vlad Guerrero at DH is a much better team then when their pitcher has to hit and that might just be enough of an edge for Texas in their own ballpark as long as the pitching is there.  As far as predictions, I probably would have taken the Reds (sentimental, they’re kind of my adopted NL team and have been for the past few years) versus the Yankees so I wouldn’t have come close.  For now, I’m saying Giants in seven.

The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2011 is set to hit the shelves in the next couple of weeks.  You can still pre-order the book and it’s a great way to help out what’s, in my biased opinion, still the best free content site out there.

I’m going to actually write something here later today (with a large part of it being the Brandon Inge signing) but in the meantime, here’s some trivia.  What do Brandon Inge, Lou Whitaker, Norm Cash and Al Kaline all have in common?

I’ll write more on this tonight but the Tigers signed Brandon Inge to a two year deal with an option for a third year.

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