Phil Coke as a Starter

This makes perfect sense. Well explained.

I’ve been hoping this will be the case, but I guess we’ll see how he does in spring training. I would much rather Coke take the ball than an iffy Galaraga/Bonine. Plus, it would be a shame to waste one of the many quality lefties we now have in our ’pen.

As far as lefty starters go though, I wouldn’t give up all the way on Robertson. He actually looked almost like 2006 Nate Robertson in spots towards the end of ‘09. I’m not expecting it, but I’m hopeful he will be able to eat some innings and give us a chance to win if/when Bondo goes down.

If he is able to win the #4 or #5 spot and hold his own, maybe even grow into the starters role, that trade will look even better

The Tigers as an organization have a major incentive to fit Coke into the rotation. It is far easier to sell the Granderson trade as a victory if we get two starting pitchers out of it rather than a starter and two relievers

I am completely unsympathetic to this view. The organization’s job is to sell that the team is a winner. If that end is better served in Coke throwing from the bullpen, so be it. General mangers, skippers and various coaches for any sports team will tell you at the end of the day things like contract cost, trade cost etc. play little factor into the day-to-day of the team. If it did, Ordoñez would have never gotten that chance to let his 2010 option vest last year; he didn’t get white hot until after his extended benching. By the time his option did vest, the fervor by fans (myself included) had completely faded.

We don’t have any other viable left handed options (Robertson and Willis are dead to me). A team doesn’t need a left handed starter, but you like to have one and we don’t have any other options

I agree on Willis but not on Robertson. Robertson’s career numbers as a starter aren’t all that hot (gawd, try not to look at his reliever numbers) but his 2009 starter campaign wasn’t all that bad (warning: tiny sample size). I’m not saying that Coke can’t beat him for a starting job, but I’m not writing Robertson off completely from the rotation.

We have plenty of lefties in the Pen. Seay, Ni, and maybe even Schlerith (I think he will at least start in the minors though) are productive left handed relievers Coke in the pen would just add to a relative strength.

This is the strongest evidence I’ve seen since the trade that Coke will make a run at a starter’s job. Many of us figured Seay to be traded or non-tendered; we now know neither have happened. The organization may believe that Fu Te Ni isn’t ready to take an increased role just yet and wants to play it safe (seeing as the farm system is damn near nothing but relief arms, I sort of believe this myself). How Bobby Seay still has a job is the most perplexing thing to me right now (leadership, stability perhaps?), and I’m not sure what to make of it in the context of Phil Coke. Schlereth (going to take a while for me to get that one right first try!) should start in the minors; he’s not going to make the big league team out of spring training as most scouts say he’s at least a season out from making any kind of sizable impact in any big league bullpen, let alone facing all the lefties that are heir-apparent there right now.

There is view out there that Coke is better suited to be a reliever than a starter, but we have yet to see him as a starter in the bigs, the best comparison we have is his 2008 season in the minor leagues. Coke’s 2008 ERA at AA Trenton as a starter (20 starts in 23 appearances) was 2.51 while his ERA as a reliever at AAA Scranton (1 start in 14 appearances) was 4.67.

To be fair, most folks are wary of any pitcher that is currently hurling relief becoming a starter. Just look at the intensity cast upon Joba Chamberlain. He’s been starting two seasons now and the talk about his pacing into a starter’s job still hasn’t died down. Cautious optimism is my default emotion in all things minor league, especially when it comes to pitching. AA Trenton dominated their league that season, however I have to wonder how smart it is to take a guy who started in AA, skipped AAA, relieved in the bigs and now make him a starter in the bigs. He’s only 25 right now. I feel like if the Tigers are going to try and develop him into a starter, they’ll take their time and do so at AAA Toledo instead of throwing him right into the thick of things right away.

Coke was projected as a starter with the Yankees and was converted into a reliever not because of his performance, but because of organizational need. I may be missing someone, but in 2008, when they switched Coke and brought him up, the left handed options in the Yankees bullpen were Damaso Marte, Billy Traber, and Kei Igawa

Through all of this, I don’t think i’ve seen this mentioned yet. It’s an interesting angle. I wonder if it’s similar to Arizona viewing Scherzer as a relief man, while the rest of the league sees him as a starter? For our organizational needs, I’ll defer to my previous statement that Coke may be better suited stretching out in AAA instead of with the Tigers out of the gate.

One big knock on Coke is his high home run rate (4.2%) in 09, but 7 of the 10 home runs he gave up were in the shoe box they call Yankee Stadium

Eh. The stadium bias numbers (which are, by definition, fudge numbers) aren’t all that bad for the new Yankee Stadium compared to the old place last time I cared enough to check.

Coke’s 2009 home/road split in ERA is pretty disturbing, the only mitigation i can think of at the moment is that if you take out one appearance against the Cubs on August 1 (1/3 inning 6ER) the numbers are much more comparable

 His 2009 away splits are really strange. He has a bit of an easier time striking guys out on the road, but his ERA is a soaring 6.85 on the road. His WHIP is also +0.471 on the road compared to Yankee Stadium. That scares me a bit. Scarier (yet really means nothing) is that Joe Mauer absolutely owns him. If you take out that ChiSox game on August 1st, he’s still posting a 5.03 ERA on the road. That’s not exactly a convincing case for me.

As a reliever in 2009 Coke’s LH/RH are pretty comparable. Righties were a bit better and struck out significantly less, but there aren’t many left handed starters that deviate from that trend

Maybe I don’t read enough splits for relief men but his platoon stats are something else. Righties had a .030 higher BA and struck out almost as often as they walked. Lefties are as effective as Dane Sardinha is on any given day. All this really tells me is that he’s a lefty specialist out of the pen, not anything about his qualities as a starter.

All in all, I sit on the fence. I still feel like Miner/Robertson/Bonderman/Gallarrrrrraga will be competing for the 4-5 job. I see no reason to force Coke into that race aside from some healthy competition for the kid.

pitching at comerica (national) park.

One big knock on Coke is his high home run rate (4.2%) in 09, but 7 of the 10 home runs he gave up were in the shoe box they call Yankee Stadium

nice stat, there; hopefully, if quality is constant or improves, that number will decrease. I also expect that if he does get a shot in the rotation, that number would decrease simply due to regression towards the mean and a larger sample size, though I have no evidence to support that.