Somewhere back in, oh, October and November I guess, I started the yearly Grading The Tigers series. Sometime about two or three weeks later, I got tired of writing the series and never returned to it. (Whoops).

With pitchers and catchers reporting in nine days, I guess I have to get those grades finished up soon, huh? So I'm going to do it in accelerated form rather than the up close and personal look I used before.

Today we'll do the starting pitchers: Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Rick Porcello and (re-hashing) Brad Penny. Incompletes are issues to Phil Coke, Andy Oliver, Jacob Turner, Duane Below, Doug Fister and Charlie Furbush.

Continue reading this post »

Who would you rather have: Danny Worth or Brandon Inge?

As with any topic that involves Inge, I suspect a lot of people snapped right to a judgment on that question.

"ANYONE BUT INGE!!!"

But is it really that simple?

Lynn Henning asked and answered the Worth or Inge dilemma at the Detroit News. While money may play a part of it - Inge is owed $5.5 million and will likely be given every opportunity to earn it during spring training - a key factor is versatility. Worth has it; Inge does not.

Henning writes:

For all his flexibility, Inge offers value only as a third baseman. And that value isn't what it once was due to his age and relative decline in defensive skills. In short, he isn't the One Man Infield Left Side he was five years ago.

Here, Worth has a significant edge. He can play third base almost as well as he plays shortstop and second base, which is very well indeed.

Inge, the king of making outs, does have an ace up his sleeve with his past history of power. He showed that in force during the first half of 2009. It has been missing since. Worth will never be confused with a hitter, let alone a guy who can hit 15 or 20 home runs. So it seems fair to give Inge anywhere from a slight edge here to a bit bigger advantage.

However, as Henning pointed out, Inge is not the same player he used to be. You don't need me to make a fancy graph to show you the direction Inge's defense has gone: down. The slick-fielding, should-have-won-a-Gold-Glove fielder from six seasons ago just hasn't returned to being the player he was before the knee problems of late 2009. So Inge's best selling point - his defense - is quickly moving toward "average."

Continue reading this post »

Much attention has been given to the Tigers’ decision to begin the 2012 season with Miguel Cabrera returning to his former position at third base to make room for Prince Fielder at first base. There seems to be a consensus in the national media, and among unnamed baseball executives that the national press talks to, that there is no way Miggy can pull it off at the hot corner. I disagree.

I’ve done a little math and my calculations say that the Tigers will be better off defensively with Miguel Cabrera at third base, Delmon Young at DH, Ramon Santiago at second base and Ryan Raburn in left field, than they would be if Cabrera were to DH. Feel free to poke holes in this theory, or the math, and I won’t take offense, but I submit that reports of Cabrera’s demise as a third baseman have been greatly exaggerated.

Let's run a comparison of the alternatives that the Tigers have using the players on their current roster. In the first scenario, Cabrera is at third base, Santiago at second, Raburn in left, and Delmon is the DH. Call that scenario "Team Miggy". In the alternative scenario, Cabrera is the DH, Brandon Inge is at third, Young is in left field, and Raburn is at second base. Call that alignment "Team Inge." We're not even considering offense in this analysis. We’re just talking about the overall team defense right now.

I’m going to use UZR/ 150 for comparison purposes. No defensive metrics are perfect, but I think this is the most reliable measure that can be used, that takes into account the impact of a player’s defense in terms of runs saved or allowed over the course of a season. UZR by itself won’t work because it is a cumulative statistic that is dependent upon varying number of innings played. When doing comparisons between players with different inning totals, UZR/ 150 is the only way to go because it equalizes out when projected over 150 games.

A complete explanation of UZR can be found at Fangraphs.com. To summarize, a player with a UZR/ 150 of plus 6.0 would allow six fewer runs than the average player at his position over 150 games of play, while a player with a negative 3.0 allows three more runs at his position than the average player. The larger the number of innings in the sample size, the more accurate the result will be, so I have taken two seasons of work, from 2010 and 2011, and combined them using Fangraphs' tools.

These are the numbers used for our comparison, from fangraphs.com:
3B -- Inge + 3.3, Cabrera TBD (we’ll come back to him), (Kelly + 7.1)
2B -- Santiago + 9.2, Raburn - 18.8
LF -- Young -7.8, Raburn + 9.1, (Boesch - 2.8)

Now, let’s add them up. Team Miggy has Santiago plus 9.2, plus Raburn at positive 9.1, plus Cabrera to be determined. That’s a total of plus 18.3 without Cabrera’s number, which is certain to be a negative something. Team Inge has Inge + 3.3, Raburn - 18.8, and Young - 7.8. That’s a total of negative 23.3. Swap Kelly for Inge at third base and the negative falls to 19.5 runs..

Continue reading this post »

Update: Dave Dombrowski confirmed today that the Tigers are still interested in Cespedes. According to the Detroit News:

The Tigers might not be Cespedes' most likely destination at this point, but Dombrowski said "it's correct to say" the Tigers haven't declared themselves out of it.

Cespedes has established residency in the Dominican Republic and he has been declared a free agent by major league baseball, but still needs to be cleared by the U.S. Government for entry into the USA before he signs a contract.

Original Story: When the Tigers signed Prince Fielder, they surrendered their first round draft pick to the Milwaukee Brewers as compensation. Worse yet, they also gave up the slot money that goes with that draft pick under the terms of the new collective bargaining agreement. Unlike they have done in seasons past, the Tigers will not be able to go "over slot" and reallocate the money that they’d have spent on a first rounder and pick up an equal talent in the later rounds of the draft by throwing a little extra cash in his direction.

After the Tigers announced that they had signed Fielder to a nine year, $ 214 million deal, there was some speculation that they may be out of the running for Cespedes. As it turns out, the signing of Fielder could have exactly the opposite impact on the Tigers’ pursuit of Cespedes.

By my count, the Tigers’ first pick in the June, 2012 draft will the the 91st selection. There are 31 first round picks, another 30 "sandwich" picks given to clubs as compensation for losing a Type A or B free agent, and the Tigers will choose 26th in each round based on their 95-win season in 2011. That’s 90 players who will be chosen before the Tigers ever get to pick.

For an organization that has so few top prospects in their system, this is not a good situation. Losing a first rounder as compensation is not new for the Tigers. They had no first-round pick in 2010, after they signed Jose Valverde. But they had a supplemental first round-pick because they had offered arbitration to Fernando Rodney, who declined in favor of greener pastures. The Tigers then gave Nick Castellanos $3.45 million, which was more bonus money than any non first-round pick had ever gotten, thus acquiring their lone blue chip position prospect.

This time, however, is different. Not only did the Tigers not offer arbitration to any of their departing free agents this winter, but the rules of the new CBA place strict limits on bonuses that can be given to drafted amateur players. Major league contracts, such as those given to Rick Porcello, Justin Verlander, and Castellanos, are a thing of the past.

To make matters worse for Detroit, there are also limits placed on the amount of money that a club can give to an international free agent. The Tigers gave Danrys Vasquez a million dollar signing bonus at the age of 16. There will be no more big bonuses of that kind, either.

There is one notable loop hole in the new way of doing business, though. That is, the rules for international players don’t apply to Cuban amateurs age 24 or above.

Enter Yoenis Cespedes, the heralded Cuban star, who has recently been declared a free agent by the MLB after defecting and establishing citizenship in the Dominican Republic. The Tigers are said to be one of six clubs (that we know of) interested in Cespedes. Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski has personally flown to the DR to watch Cespedes work out. Other members of the front office have reportedly watched him, as well.

Continue reading this post »

February is here. Pitchers and catchers will report to Lakeland in less than three weeks, and the Tigers have all but a couple of spots left on the roster to be filled. One or two of those spots is in the bullpen, an area where the team struggled last year despite possibly the best one- two punch (or is that eight- nine punch) in the league.

Jose Valverde will be the closer. Joaquin Benoit will be the primary set up man. Phil Coke and newly acquired Octavio Dotel will form a left- right combo to handle the seventh inning. That leaves three spots in the pen to be filled. Those spots were sore spots for the Tigers in 2011.

Despite Valverde being a perfect 49 for 49 in save chances, and combining with Benoit to lead the league in save percentage, the Tiger bullpen ranked eleventh in the league in ERA and issued the second highest walk total. Tiger relievers also allowed the second highest OBP in the league. This is an area that needs improvement.

Having a full season of Coke in his natural role should help. But the loss of Al Alburquerque for at least the first half of the season may offset any help that Dotel brings to the troubled relief corps. Following is a look at the candidates to fill out the last three spots in the 2012 Tiger bullpen:

Continue reading this post »

(Note: This is less about Leyland, more about inefficiencies So I do hope you'll read it and not skip to the comments.)

Anyone familiar with Moneyball knows about market inefficiencies. Playing "Moneyball" didn't mean that Billy Beane and the Oakland A's were targeting on-base percentage specifically. It meant that he A's were trying to find good players that the free agent or trade markets just didn't value nearly as much as their on-field contribution should have been worth.

So first there was the search for on-base percentage. That made sense because not making outs extends the inning and leads to more runs. More recently, defense has been a market inefficiency. (The Tigers were ahead of the curve on this one when they went into 2009 after signing the maligned Adam Everett. They also quickly jumped off of that curve soon after.)

So what market inefficiencies exist today? Smart baseball front offices are trying to figure the answer to that question out right now. They're hiring people to gather databases of stats and create new ones. They're combing through data looking for any advantages they can find. But what happens when all of that is said and done, and the team takes the field?

Thus, a thought put forth this week by Baseball Prospectus' Ben Lindbergh is that the way teams are managed and coached might be an area where teams can find additional gains. After all, managers and coaches are typically paid a handful of coins compared to most players on the team -- Tampa Bay Rays excluded. But they can play an important role in the players' developments and how games are played on the field.

Continue reading this post »

The Tigers are (apparently) among six teams negotiating with Cuban outfielder Yoenis Cespedes, Jim Bowden of MLB Radio and ESPN.com reported last night on Twitter.

Marlins, Cubs, White Sox, Orioles, Tigers are 5 of the 6 clubs that have been the most serious in negotiations with Cespedes agents

— JIM BOWDEN (@JimBowdenESPNxm) January 31, 2012

6 Teams are seriously negotiating w/ the agents for Yoennis Cespedes who is expected to travel to US in nxt 7-10 days for face to face mtgs

— JIM BOWDEN (@JimBowdenESPNxm) January 31, 2012

I say "apparently" because it's hard to tell from Bowden's tweets if this is new information or not. Over the past few weeks, we've heard that six teams are chasing Cespedes and that the Tigers are one of them. Bowden does use the word "negotiations," which indicates this is probably new information. Cespedes was declared a free agent last Wednesday, which was kind of lost among all the Prince Fielder news. Teams could not negotiate with Cespedes before then. So this would tell us even after signing Fielder, they still want to do more.

Continue reading this post »

After the signing of Prince Fielder to a nine year, $214 million contract, it would appear that the Tigers have completed construction of their 2012 lineup (Yoenis Cespedes notwithstanding). One key spot on the roster, however, remains open for discussion, and possibly open for the addition of a veteran free agent, and that would be the fifth and final spot in the starting rotation.

The open spot was last occupied by Brad Penny, who is now a free agent, and who is reportedly exploring an opportunity in Japan. Penny went 11- 11 for the Tigers in 2011 despite posting the highest ERA and the highest WHIP in the league among all starting pitchers that qualified for the ERA title. Rather than filling the void with a player who provides that level of performance, one would expect the Tigers to have some of the prospects in their own organization audition for the job in spring training.

Following is a look at the candidates who are in the Tigers organization who might earn a job in the rotation in Detroit:

Continue reading this post »