This Week's Poll: To Release or Not Release Magglio Ordonez
by Ian Casselberry on Jun 9, 2009 12:00 PM EDT
in Detroit Tigers News
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PrintIt's become the hot topic in Tiger Town, at least among the traditional media that covers the Detroit Tigers. Should the team release Magglio Ordonez?
- Lynn Henning says Maggs should be cut loose.
- Jason Beck thinks Ordonez shouldn't be written off.
- Drew Sharp (sigh) says Magglio should go.
- Jim Hawkins doesn't think so.
The pressing concern is the contract option for 2010 that kicks in after 135 starts or 540 plate appearances. (An option for 2011 would vest with 270 combined starts and 1080 PAs between 2008 and 2009.)
As Billfer points out at The Detroit Tigers Weblog that releasing Ordonez to avoid those clauses would surely invite legal action from the MLB Players Association. Kurt adds at Mack Avenue Tigers that Maggs has been hitting well over the past month, so such a move would make poor baseball sense.
But what do you think? Maggs does seem to have lost his power, and $33 million over the next two years is a lot to pay for a guy who can still hit, but apparently no longer drive the ball. That brings us to this week's poll question:
Should the Tigers release Magglio Ordonez?
You can find the poll on the right sidebar below the FanPosts block. Or you can vote here. And if you have suggestions for future poll questions, shoot me an e-mail. Please add your thoughts in the comments.
How did our last poll go?
Hey, we ended up with a pretty close poll! (Although, to be fair, leaving it open for an extra week probably allowed Verlander to catch up to BigMig.)
If you can only choose one, which Tiger should be an All-Star?
33% Justin Verlander
13% Brandon Inge
38% Miguel Cabrera
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I voted to keep him
But only because there wasn’t an option of ‘Try and trade him’.
And how on earth did Brandon Inge get more votes than Edwin Jackson? I’m an Inge fan as well, but c’mon.
Lynn Henning- On the take
Comes across on this subject as a very angry man. I feel that he has single-handedly created this drumbeat to drop Maggs and I don’t know why. Does he really think that Magglio Ordonez’ contract over the next two years is the Tigers biggest salary snafu?
I usually enjoy his insights, but I think Ilitch must have lined his pocket to get this idea going and save Big Mike some cash. The only other person behind it is Drew Sharp, and he was a day late and a dollar short in piping up. But that’s not unusual.
I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if Little Caesar flexed some muscle to try and drum up support for dropping one of the most popular Tiger players of this era. I’m not naive; money talks and nobody has the ability to do more talking in Detroit than Ilitch.
Seriously, Maggs has been pumping singles into right field for the last month and all of a sudden Henning wants to cut him?
Henning...
…is almost always wrong on everything. He’s also been chirping for two years that Guillen is “done,” Polanco is overrated defensively, defended the Sheffield trade to the bitter end, and he’s eternally in love with Brandon Inge.
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NO WAY!!!!
Hes Hitting Over .340 Since May 1st!!!…….hes the only bat thats hot!!!!…..Hes Got tO Stay….Why Cut Him?….Makes No Sense…None
by BennieBladesFan on Jun 9, 2009 12:33 PM EDT reply actions
Bad idea.
Does anyone think that the club should be doing anything that would make Detroit a LESS desirable destination for free agents? Players and agents will notice. No way Maggs release could be explained by anything other than finances, and that’s a violation of the CBA.
BABIP
Maggs career Batting Average on Balls in Play is .316
Maggs 2009 BABIP is .329.
So a BABIP that’s 13 points higher than his career average has yielded an OPS of .718. That’s about the same as Coco Crisp who gets paid $12M less than Ordonez.
Over the course of his 28 day “hot streak” his BABIP has been .400.
Basically, if you’re banking on “May Ordonez” being the guy we get for the rest of the year (let alone his $33M ‘10 and ’11) you’re playing with fire. He’s been extraordinarily lucky and it won’t last.
Even if he manages average production in 2009 is that worth letting those options vest in ’10 and ’11?
It seems like BABIP has become the gospel this season.
Any stat that ends up with a thesis that a player has been “lucky” or “unlucky” is just a diversion in my book. I say leave it to Billy Beane and fantasy baseball. It completely fails to explain Magglio’s ’07 and ’08 seasons. He was in the .370s in ’07 and from what I remember his “luck” included pounding singles into the gaps, almost every game.
Either he’s been an extremely lucky hitter for the past three years, or a very good hitter. I’ll take the latter.
But he was really lucky in ‘07. You don’t destroy every one of your career numbers (aside from HR) at the age of 33 without a fair amount of luck.
What’s the diversion here? Am I deverting attention that Maggs is hitting well this season? Am I diverting attention from his 4 HR and .500 SLG? No, that’s because he isn’t producing either of these things.
Additionally you’re kind of proving my point. Maggs BABIP in 2007 was .334. Why in 2009, just 18 points under that is he hitting so much worse? Why isn’t he hitting for power? How on earth do you see this man generating numbers similar to an MVP season
If you want to stick with Maggs because you think he can repeat ’07 or even ’08 for this season and in ’10 and ’11 I think you will be sorely disappointed before too long.
Diversion
“Hey look at my left hand waving in the air, see it, do you” SMACK punched you in the face w/ my right hand!!
Now that is a diversion
Then consider yourself diverted.
Popped in the face by Sabermetrics.
looking deeper
Magglio is hitting a career-high ground ball rate, a career-low line drive rate, almost a career-high infield fly ball rate, and a career-low HR:FB rate. It’s hard to have power when you’re pounding the baseball into the ground or popping it up in the infield, I should think.
Doesn’t that suggest the power outage might be related to his swing as much as anything?
by Kurt Mensching on Jun 9, 2009 2:40 PM EDT up reply actions
I mean that it is a diversion in that it clouds his actual skills with statistical minutiae. According to Baseball Reference his BABIP in in 2007 was .381, not .334 as you claimed.
His BABIP in his career with Detroit (exluding this season) is around .335
His BABIP in Detroit minus ’07 is around .320
That doesn’t make a .329 so outlandish, especially considering that the last two years he has been .381 and .334. If anything, it means he is a BETTER hitter, not a luckier hitter. As MackAve has suggested, he may be driving more ground balls this year. Either way, I believe he is the same hitter.
I mis-typed, .334 is his 2008 BABIP.
Question still stands however. If we assume that his “career” BABIP is .335 why is he hitting so poorly at .329? Why does it take a .400 BABIP for him to hit .341/.407/.427 with no HR and 7 doubles?
And yes of course it’s his swing, it sure isn’t his throwing. But unless you’re suggesting that he has some kind of mechanical flaw it’s a swing that just isn’t generating power or loft anymore. It happens to all of them. They swing the bat just as hard and it just doesn’t go as far.
But hey, if you want to invest $33M in the hopes that he can hit .363 when he’s 37, you’re certainly entitled to that opinion.
Hey, if you want to piss off his teammates, piss off his agent (Scott Boras), scare off free agents and hurt the Tigers’ chances of making the postseason this year because of his BABIP in order to save some money in the future, you’re more than entitled to your opinion, too.
by Kurt Mensching on Jun 9, 2009 4:01 PM EDT up reply actions
You’re right, Detroit will never be able to sign a free agent again because players will be so angry that Maggs only got $42 million dollars playing in Detroit. A virtuous bunch those baseball players.
Actually now that I think about it, teams cut and trade players all the time and are still able to field baseball teams with good personnel. I don’t think Granderson and Cabrera will quit tomorrow if Maggs is released.
I also don’t think you know what 24 other guys are thinking. It seems more likely to me that baseball players understand that they’re involved in a business and if a guy is putting up poor numbers relative to his inflated contract, he might have problems with management.
Offensive production is another issue. If you look beyond batting average Larish has actually put up better numbers than Maggs this year and has hit more than double Maggs’s XBH in a little over a third of the ABs. I think getting him back into the lineup will be more productive and yes, cheaper.
But that isn’t a silver bullet. With or without Maggs’s poor production The Tigers need a bat.
Trust me if Magglio was actually hitting well beyond needing a .400 BABIP to hit .300 with no HR power I’d be happy risking his contract options in ‘10 and ’11. But he isn’t and there isn’t much beyond hope to support the notion that he’ll be able to put together a productive season.
I am willing to be wrong on this one, but I just can’t believe this is even on the table up in Dombrowski’s office. He’d buzz off his John Edwards hair before he cut Maggs…like a prior poster said, they didn’t dangle $70,000,000 (US) in front of a 30 year old coming off major knee surgery intending not to pay him. At least, that is, if he were to remain healthy.
He’s remained healthy. He is not going anywhere. Can you imagine the backlash if Ordonez was cut and the Tigers didn’t make the playoffs? Guess what the general public would see as the reason? It wouldn’t be the lack of a decent back-up catcher, I’ll tell you that. Paying the money you owe a fan favorite who is still producing, whatever the production level may be, is good business just as much as saving that $20,000,000. Cutting Magglio is what a team like the A’s or Twins would do, or any other small market team that always seems to be committed to “next year.”
I know Maggs has lost a step and I agree with Henning that we really need another bat. I have no idea how cutting Maggs would help that situation. If anything, we simply have an expensive #2 hitter for next year if Polanco isn’t around.
Whats Up With Drew Sharp????
……I dont understand the negative things against him….I dont know much about him…EXCPET HE LIKES MICHIGAN STATE!!! GO GREEN!!!!
by BennieBladesFan on Jun 9, 2009 2:46 PM EDT up reply actions
I think Bilfer’s point is still the most valid: its suicide in your relationship to your players and potential free agents to cut him in an effort to save money, not to mention the legal ramifications. The Tigers have almost no track record of this kind of move – heck, they even paid Dmitri Young by allowing him to vest his contract the year before he was released! – and they’re not going to start with a guy who gave them a huge moment (2006 walkoff tater) and a batting title, who still hits in the middle of their order and will still end up over .300 by the end of the year. If we think the Tiger lineup struggles now…what would it look like without Maggs??
The Tigers also had every reason to believe they’d be “overpaying” Ordonez by the end of the deal when this contract was signed – he was a 30-year old guy coming off an injury-plagued season, as you’ll recall, and they were a train wreck of a team. In exchange for a little more time and the option at the end, they were protected against his recurring injury up front and his injuries late with the plate appearances clause. If he’s healthy…he gets paid. For them, it was the cost of doing business as they were only one year removed from 119 losses to attract Maggs to Detroit. At least he’s EARNED his money…unlike some of their other deals: Sheffield, Willis, Mesa, Perez, Robertson, etc.
The point is, this discussion is meaningless. They’re not going to bench or release him. The only way he avoids vesting his contract is if he gets hurt and can’t play or someone inexplicably wants to trade for him.
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Release him...
… and you can kiss the season good bye. Who exactly gets it done in his stead? And if you say one of the Toledo kids, you’re an idiot.
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