Was Curtis Granderson a Victim of Bad Coaching?

We talked about how come mcclendon couldn’t help the hitters many times this past season. Players like Granderson, Inge, Thames, Clete, etc trying to pull everything for a 500 foot homerun instead of going with the pitch and hitting to all fields like Polanco, Cabrera, Maggs, Raburn, and Carlos.
The triumvirate in the subject heading, imo, will be gone after 2010. I look for Brookens to take over as manager and the Tigers will promote coaches like Leon Durham from their minor league teams.
A case similar to pitching coach chuck hernandez, just not meant to be put in a position to help players for lack of qualifications. The longer they are-were in the coaching positions, the more the outcome (players numbers) went south.

Brookens in 2010 would be nice, though I would have liked Manny Acta this year. Have Durham serve as hitting coach and Brookens replace the rest of the staff.

When was the team going down to Toledo? 3 am? Or maybe that’s where Miggy really was during the Chicago series and the team created the domestic dispute story to cover up the embarrassment of their big leaguers going to their farm coaches.

I feel I should point out that the Mud Hens hitters had much the same problems the Tigers did: striking out too much and stranding runners.

(Here’s the baseball-reference page for the Mud Hens)

Repeat after me:

“It will be okay.”

Again:

“It will be okay.”

Okay.

Relax. He’s gone. We sold high. It’s okay.

for the longest time that Lloyd should be gone. I find it sad that he’s still here and that Van Slyke was made the preverbial sacrificial lamb. Lloyd is still here because Leyland is still here. The only reason Hernandez got canned is because pitching sucked so bad in ’08 there was no one else to blame and even Jimmy knew that. Bring back Van Slyke keep Brookens and take it from there.

Really makes you wonder if the Andy Van Slyke spoke out against McClendon and that’s the reason he elected to “pursue other opportunities.”

Something about it doesn’t make sense from a motive perspective. I haven’t quite put my finger on it yet, but I will if I put more thought into it.

In several interviews he said he concentrates on OBP when leading off. The down-in-the-order theory seems to share the same premise as the home-run-derby theory, which doesn’t resonate much with me.

Maybe an established Tiger writer will read this McClendon rumor and do some investigating. It’s an interesting topic. Plus, the media loves a controversy.

Side thought: Could Granderson be part of a 1,000 run offense next year?

the problems are a lot worse than we’d imagined.

a) with all of the scrutiny of Maggs this season I can’t believe that we would not have learned about him ignoring the hitting coach (either before or after he turned it around)
b)I agree with Mike above. I don’t think the hitting coach makes that much of a difference. Reading quotes like this reinforce this my opinon: “I hate to say it, but a hitting coach is overrated,”— Derrek Lee.
c) There were a few signals that Granderson’s off-field accomplishments were not seen favorably by the Tigers’ brass. Leyland mentioned this earlier in the season and Al Kaline made a point of telling Jim Price on the day that Granderson received the Roberto Clemente award (of all days!).

I trust that DD traded Granderson on the high side. I don’t think a hitting coach will matter, but a manager that sits on Curtis and helps him to “focus” might make a huge difference with “my (ex) Tiger”

I think people are just looking for someone to blame at this point. Van Slyke may have gotten fired but it’s the hitting that got us into trouble and naturally the hitting coach is the guy to pit your pitch forks and torches at.

so maybe some facts: Lloyd McClendon was promoted to hitting coach in 2007. That year Curtis Granderson had his well known career year as a hitter. That year Magglio Ordonez also lead the league in batting average and doubles while smacking 28 home runs. Placido Polanco also had a very good year that season.
Back to Curtis: Following that 2007 season, Curtis batting average dropped in every following season but at the same time the amount of walks he took went up while his power numbers stayed stagnant for a season before spiking last season.
Other notable things on Lloyds tenure here: Both Polanco and Ordonez slumped at the beginning of the 2009 season. Each player managed to get their numbers back to being respectable.

These are all common facts, but worth remembering non the less. How likely is that a bad hitting coach got 3 players to have career years? How likely is it that big name ball players sneak down to Toledo for batting instruction without the media noticing? Isn’t it more likely that Curtis Granderson was maybe letting off field business be more important than the business giving him a paycheck?

If theres one person I think there is to blame for Curtis’ bad offensive year (which did include 30 home runs) it’s going to be Jim Leyland. Lloyd helps them swing the bat. His job does not extend off the field. Jims job is to make sure that his players are at their best physically and mentally for each and every game and that nothing is a distraction. Nobody wants to say “Curtis, stop being charitable.” But maybe something more should have been done by Jim.

(take note that I am among just a few people who actually like Jim Leylands methods. I’m unorthodox and I like that about him. But this is SOOOO not Lloyds burden to bear.)

Due to an unnecessary personal attack (and being off-topic).