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Who's your daddy? This anti-Tiger killer team wants no part of Detroit

We looked at Tigers killers yesterday, and today we're looking at whatever the opposite of "Tigers killers" are.

By Rob Rogacki
USA TODAY Sports

Pedro Martinez once (in)famously said "I just tip my hat and call the Yankees my daddy" after a playoff loss to the Evil Empire during the 2004 ALCS. Martinez wasn't any worse against the Yankees compared to other opponents throughout his entire career, but during the 2004 regular season he was 1-2 with a 5.47 ERA. Pedro's real daddy? The Colorado Rockies, against whom Pedro had a 4.31 in 48 career innings.

Where am I going with this? Yesterday, we looked at Tigers killers and came up with a roster that would hypothetically go 130-32 against the Tigers over the course of a 162 game schedule. Today, we're going to think more positively and see which players have wanted no part of the Tigers throughout their career. The same criteria as yesterday -- a minimum of 75 plate appearances/innings pitched and at least one game played in 2013 -- apply for today's analysis.

Player POS PA HR RBI AVG OBP SLG OPS tOPS+
Jarrod Saltalamacchia C 78 3 6 .171 .192 .316 .508 39
Chris Davis 1B 114 3 11 .239 .272 .349 .621 58
Howie Kendrick 2B 157 1 23 .219 .248 .305 .553 47
Brendan Ryan SS 83 0 9 .194 .268 .222 .491 57
Trevor Plouffe 3B 131 4 10 .172 .223 .303 .526 47
Ben Zobrist RF 84 0 5 .209 .338 .239 .576 60
Brett Gardner CF 150 5 18 .226 .264 .387 .650 62
Ryan Ludwick LF 88 0 4 .167 .261 .244 .505 30
Shelley Duncan DH 90 2 9 .175 .267 .288 .554 56

A couple reactions:

  • First, I'm shocked that Trevor Plouffe is on the list. He seemed like a Tiger killer to me.
  • Also, I'm still advocating that we pitch around Chris Davis. We haven't really faced him since he turned into He-Man late last season.

For the pitchers, I lowered the requirement for 50 innings because there were only about 10 pitchers that qualified with a tOPS+ above 100 and more than 75 innings pitched. Also, I needed to find a reliever. Apparently the Tigers aren't very good at owning relievers.

Player POS W-L IP ERA WHIP OPS tOPS+
Jered Weaver SP 3-4 51.0 5.47 1.451 .801 141
Cliff Lee SP 6-9 123.1 4.52 1.451 .803 131
Bartolo Colon SP 8-10 151.2 5.52 1.596 .840 128
John Danks SP 4-7 92.1 5.36 1.560 .819 124
Kyle Lohse SP 7-6 111.1 5.66 1.509 .852 123
Jesse Crain CL 4-3 62.2 4.74 1.436 .835 152

Observations:

  • Francisco Liriano is technically still active, working his way through a rehab assignment in the Pittsburgh Pirates' farm system, but hasn't appeared in a major league game this year. He would have been slotted above Danks and Dickey.
  • If I had stuck to the 75 inning limit for starters, the next name on the list was Ubaldo Jimenez. Go figure.

Again, here are the lists for position players and pitchers, respectively.

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