Six spring training stories: second basemen, outfielders, pitchers and more

Good summary of the state of things heading into ST. In reading your comments, it strikes me that two of the six are really the most important.

The battle at second may be interesting, but probably will not make much difference in Tiger wins and losses. There are enough competent candidates to ensure that. Same goes for who will be the fourth outfielder.

Phil Coke’s success as a starter will determine if and when a minor leaguer gets his shot. If needed, either Furbush, Oliver or even Turner will probably perform well enough.

The two big issues seem to be: 1) Do we have the lefties we need in the pen and, 2) health. Health is beyond DD’s control. But he could do something about adding a lefty to the pen. If there is a DD deal during ST this will be it.

We can talk about Thomas and Schlereth and Coke and the state of the bullpen all we want, but I personally think the health (or lack thereof) of Joel Zumaya looms HUGE over this bullpen. If he’s healthy, there’s your eighth inning right there — none of this futzing-around with patching things together using a conglomeration of 3 or 4 different guys in huge-pressure situations. Zoomer in the 8th frees up Leyland to use the other guys earlier, in more specific spots where they’re more likely to succeed.

Just my $0.02, of course.

I have a hard time seeing them signing a guy before the end of Spring Training. But never say never.

Or do you mean trades? Hmmm.

As PawPaw stated, I think the battles at 2B and OF#4 are interesting, but won’t have a huge affect on the ending record of the team. However, they probably do have a pretty big effect on 2012 and how our organization views players going forward. I think guys among Wells, Boesch, Thomas, Worth, Sizemore, and Rhymes become instant trade chips if they are not in the plans this season. All of them are old enough that it’s time to fish or cut bait.

With most of our important decisions made, I won’t be dissecting the performances of the 25-man guys as much this season, I’m really looking forward to seeing some of the other 40-man guys and non-rosters…I’m amped for Turner, Oliver, and Furbush starts. Some of the “toolsy” positional guys will be fun to watch as well…and oh yeah, Adam Wilk.

I think that 2B is pretty much Sizemores to lose, but they aren’t going to just hand it to him like they did last year. I know Rhymes played well last year, but he was playing well above his skill level. Rhymes K rate was the lowest in Detroit than it has been at any other time in his professional career, his ISO was also the highest it has ever been, his UZR (small sample size I know!) wasn’t that great, it was better than Sizemores but people talk about his defense as being so great when it is really just average. I think Rhymes has a position with this team in the future but I don’t think it is as a starter.

I think we are looking at Boesch and Thomas as the back-up outfielders. The left-handed bats coming off the bench is too nice to pass up, especially with all our starting outfielders being righties. Plus, they both bring a different thing to the plate, Boesch has the pop to be big contributor and Thomas is decent with the stick but is a decent defensive upgrade at both corners and won’t hurt us in center.

Not terribly concerned with the lefthander in the bullpen. Personally, I think LOOGY’s are overrated. I know they serve a purpose, but I think that anyone in the pen should be able to come in and get one guy out regardless of if they are right or left handed.

Phil Coke is the one that I will be watching most closely. Honestly though, I don’t have terribly high expectations out of him. I see him as more of a 5th starter (even though he is starting in the 4th slot) so if he gives us 5-6 semi-decent innings then I will be happy with it. By semi-decent I mean, no more than 4 or 5 runs 75% of the time he pitches.

With Zoom, I hope with the addition of Benoit, the continued growth of Perrry, and the Potato closing things out I don’t think we need to rely on Zoom too much. I can see him being a 7/8th inning guy but only being used to keep Benoit and Perry from pitching 2 or 3 days in a row. I hope that the reduced innings will allow us to keep him for an entire year.

Guillen…well is Guillen. I hope that we have him for the rest of the year after he returns, he brings so much to the team with his bat. I think he showed that he is adequate at second, similar UZR to rhymes in the same amount of plays… For this year I would rather have Guillen as much as possible, I think as an all around player he is the best option at 2B.

The rest of the team? Injuries happen to every team, it is all dependent on how the replacements play. It is bad enough we dissect the logical arguments to everything Tigers…lets not dissect the things that are completely and totally unpredictable.

1. The three big IF’s (partially covered in the article above, but…)
a. Will Rick Porcello rebound from a poor sophomore season and regain his form showed in 2009?
b. Will Brad Penny stay healthy?
c. Will Phil Coke make the transition back to starting pitching?
d. If all three of the above don’t work out, will Andy Oliver be able to step up, command his pitches well enough to hold a starting job in the major leagues?
2. Will Magglio remain healthy? If not, the Tigers are screwed for a No. 3 hitter.
3. Second base, as indicated above, together with the NO. 2 slot. Expect a drop in Avg and OBP from AJax due to a natural regression in his BABIP, but taking a big hit in OBP in both the 1 and 2 slots would be a big blow to run production for Maggs and Cabrera. I have little doubt that someone steps up and claims this job. Unlike the rotation there is depth here.
4. The LOOGY’s in the bullpen. They didn’t bother to replace Phil Coke. Dan Schlereth is still pretty raw with about six solid appearances under his belt and Brad Thomas is, well, just not very good, especially against righties. And if they don’t cut it, will JL nix the pavlovian moves to get lefty match ups by taking out perfectly effective righties?
5. Now we get to that outfield backup discussion. I’m not all that concerned about Raburn, either at the plate or in the field. He’ll be as good as Cuddyer and much better than Juan Pierre.

Pitching/Health are going to be the biggest obstacles. On paper we have a decent starting 5. But, our starters have to get out of the gate a lot better then they did last year including JV. Last season first half, when the starter were lousy the bullpen was good, when the starters were good then the bullpen was lousy. The pitching needs to come together as one. Outfield, I forsee Thomas/Wells making opening day roster. Kelly will not make the team. We have to good of influx of extra outfielders and infielders to keep Kellys weak bat. As far as the infield goes it will be Seizemore starting at 2nd and Ryhmes backup (besides Santiago) until CG gets back then Rhymes gets sent down.
As I’ve mentioned before, we must play better on the road. Our home/road record was upside down dramatically last year. We need to play closer to 500 on the road. With pitching and health we have a chance to do that. I like our 4 & 5 starters better this year then last. Some of the things the tigs should emphasize in spring training this year is, stealing bases, hit and run, and more importantly, getting the runner home from 3rd with less then two out. Glad spring training is here.

assuming he’s had time to come up with some new walk-up music.

I think I’m more interested this year than in years past to see how some of the more advanced minor league pitchers do… like Oliver, Furbush, Turner, Below, and Villarreal.

I fall asleep at night thinking about a 2012 staff that includes Verlander, Scherzer, Porcello, Turner, and Oliver.

but have we heard anyone use the “he’s in the best shape of his career” description yet for any of the Tiger pitchers or catchers that are in camp?

I like this years team. We have some infielders/outfielders and some pitchers fighting for spots. The cool thing is, in most cases we potentially have a backup plan if things dont pan out except maybe catcher. Lets face it, a few of these kids are going to be on the team this year. And any of the 3 outfielders/infielders could have a break out year and there wont be a question the rest of this season or next to see who is ready. I hate to say it, but right now I think the Chisox are the best team in our division based on paper. We may have a slight edge in the bullpen, and poissibly starting pitching. With that said, health, luck and performances to ones potential may be the factor down the stretch.
For us to win the division we have to do it day in and day out without any hicups. Especially when we play our own division. We cant let Cleveland & K.C. kick our tails again this year, and we better play better against the two teams within our planet.
But, as JL says, no team is perfect. Havent we had the division lead or very close to the division lead the last 3 yrs at All Star Break, and we didnt show up the 2nd half? We cant wait for 2012 to correct that problem.