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If anyone knows of how I can listen to today’s game between the Tigers and Florida Southern, please drop me a line or leave a comment.

 ***UPDATE***

It looks like you can pick up a live boxscore at Florida Southern’s website.  Not as good as radio but it will do.  A thank you goes to David at The Dugout for the heads up.

Once again, it looks like the Tigers are throwing around the idea of going one lefty short in their pen instead of force feeding us just any old left hander.  Wil Ledezma doesn’t really fit the bill because he’s a starter and it looks like one of the many non-roster/minor league deal lefties they brought in won’t be up to the task so Jose Mesa’s name is being thrown around as a “right handed” alternative.

Big mistake.  If you look at the numbers that really matter, Mesa was a wreck in 2006.  Yes he pitched in Denver but he didn’t strike out many batters and he walked a ton.  Yes, lefties hit “only” .270 against Mesa but his OBP against was a sky high .378 and lefties slugged .444 against.  That’s an OPS against well over .800, which isn’t good considering that you’re expecting the guy to “shut down” left handed hitters.

In addition, 2006 was sort of an exception so it might be a fluke year.  In 2005, lefties hit .309 with an OPS against of almost .900 and in 2004, lefties hit .331 against him.  2003 was an odd year because he was very good against lefties but not so much against righties but the point is, I don’t think Mesa is a guy that we want coming into a critical situation to get even a decent left handed batter out.

In a recent prospect smackdown, John Sickels compares Tigers outfield prospect Cameron Maybin and Reds outfield prospect Jay Bruce.  They were drafted two spots apart in 2005 and both look like potential stars for their respective teams and they were also born a day apart.  This is some really good stuff and if you don’t know much about Cameron Maybin, Sickels provides some pretty solid details into his makeup.

The end result is that Bruce might turn out to be a better major leaguer, but they’re both expected to be stars in their own way.

It may be snowing outside today, but an actual, live baseball game is within reach.  The Tigers play their annual exhibition spring opener against Florida Southern and then on Wednesday, the spring schedule actually begins against the Mets.  WXYT isn’t picking it up but if the Mets radio station is, I’ll be picking it up and I’ll try to blog it live as I’m hoping to be here to listen to the game.  Thursday’s game against the Phillies will be the first radio broadcast on WXYT.

The Tigers radio schedule is here.  It looks like there’s anywhere from two to three games a week but with my Gameday Audio subscription, I’m hoping to listen to more of the games then just what WXYT is picking up.  Baseball is here though.

In what could be one of the more interesting non-position battles, Mike Maroth will most likely be battling himself for the fifth spot in the rotation. It’s his job to lose, but it’ll be interesting to see how a rough spring by Maroth combined with a good spring by someone like Wil Ledezma will start bringing out the doubters. Regardless, Maroth says he feels great and he’s ready to pitch. It looks like he’s scheduled to pitch on Thursday, which is a game that’ll be on the radio so if you can get to one (or a feed), I’m sure it’ll be interesting to see how he’s doing.

I’ve heard rumors to the effect that Marcus Thames would attempt a conversion to first base and it looks like it’s becoming reality.  Contrary to a lot of people I’ve heard talking about this, moving to first base isn’t an “easy” transition.  It’s a unique position and in addition, you have a guy going from the outfield moving to the infield, which in itself has it’s difficulties.  This came up in a conversation at my SABR meeting yesterday and most people agreed that Gary Sheffield, when he was thrust into playing first base last year for the Yankees, shouldn’t have been playing there.

That’s not to say it can’t be done though and it’s good they’re working with Thames now.  While I still think Thames and Craig Monroe are basically interchangable and we could get more for Monroe on the trading block, dealing the current starter may be the way to go.  It looks like the Tigers front office thinks otherwise though and would rather have the depth.  That’s probably a prudent move with Monroe getting hurt last year and Magglio Ordonez’s injury history but that doesn’t make it any better for Thames.

The linked story is very good and it even goes into how Al Kaline, one of the best fielding outfielders ever, had problems playing first base.  Good stuff from John Lowe.

Apparantly the Tigers front office had been keeping their eyes out on Yorman Bazardo well before the trade that brought him to Detroit.  In this story, it talks about how Tigers assistant general manager Al Avila was the scouting director for the Marlins when Bazardo was signed out of Venezuela.  So as soon as Bazardo was designated for assignment, the Tigers pounced.

One of the things I’ve heard about Dave Dombrowski and the Tigers front office is how sharp they are.  Dombrowski himself is technically sound and knows all of the rules and he’s also been rumored to be one of the guys other general managers like to deal with.  He usually comes to a decision on trade offers pretty quickly and doesn’t waffle or keep the other side hanging.  So it’s no surprise that Dombrowski has been able to get some gem deals done since he’s been with Detroit.  And the last time we made a trade with the Mariners (Carlos Guillen), things worked out pretty well.

While the Gary Sheffield trade should go down as a good one, the Neifi Perez trade probably won’t  I know the Tigers didn’t give up much for him, but having him around and potentially taking away at bats from a guy like Omar Infante is a bad thing.  Now Neifi Perez is looking to prove his worth in camp after Jim Leyland made some negative comments about him during the offseason.

I’m sure Perez is a nice guy and at one point in time, he showed enough with the mitt to earn a gold glove.  Those days are pretty far behind us though.  PECOTA has Perez at a .246/.273/.339 line with a -3.3 VORP and average defense.  That’s not going to cut it for a team that’s a contender.

Former Tiger lefthander Jamie Walker took a comebacker to the head today at spring camp.  Fortunately, it looks like he’s okay and while he suffered a minor concussion, I guess it could have been a lot worse.  Walker will make his return to Comerica Park on April 30, 2007 when the Orioles play their only series in Detroit.

Yesterday I talked about how Justin Verlander got a red light in Will Carroll’s health report.  Today he finished out the starting pitchers and the only other pitcher he noted was Mike Maroth who also got a red light.  This can’t be a huge surprise after Maroth was on the shelf for most of 2006 and when he did come back, he wasn’t his usual self.  For now, Maroth is slated as the team’s fifth starter (remember in 2003 when he was the team’s opening day starter) but he could face some serious competition if he still hasn’t fully recovered from his injury.

Jim Leyland called him a “work of art in the making” the other day and that’s what Tiger fans are hoping for when they talk about top prospect Cameron Maybin.  It’s also nice to see Maybin has been putting in some extra time working out in centerfield.   With the way Curtis Granderson played the field last year, it might be harder then we think to move him to one of the corners then initially thought.

Curtis Granderson led the Tigers and the American League in strikeouts in 2007.  While on the face of it, this is a bad thing especially for a lead off hitter but he also walked 66 times, which was second to only Carlos Guillen.  He was also tied for first with Brandon Inge with 4.1 pitches per plate appearance.  Regardless, had he cut that strikeout total down to even 150 and considering his .338 batting average on balls in play, he probably would have added about 7 more hits.  If he gets it down to 130, then we’re talking close to 15 hits and we’re really making a difference.  He might have even hit another homerun or two.

Now Granderson comes into spring training with a new, more compact swing that he’s been working on with hitting coach Lloyd McClendon.  The end result cuts out any unneccesary movement in the batters box and in Granderson’s swing.  He made a good first impression in camp yesterday and if it means Granderson can get on base a little more, it’ll just mean more RBIs for Gary Sheffield and Magglio Ordonez.

Granderson’s PECOTA card looks pretty nice.  He comes out at .265/.342/.463 with 21 homeruns.  With a 20% breakout and a 47% improve rate, I can see Granderson hitting his 75th percentile line, which puts him at .283/.362/.504 and 24 homeruns.  Oddly, over his entire range, Granderson’s strikeout total pretty much stays the same (130 give or take).

***UPDATE***

Here’s a little more on Granderson and his strikeouts.

Will Carroll continued his positional health reports series and in today’s installment, he talks about starting pitchers.  The only Tiger he had comments on today was Justin Verlander who gets a red light because of his work load last year and his pitching style.  The red light doesn’t neccesarily guarantee that Verlander will get injured in 2007, it just means he has a very high risk of getting injured.  Several red lights go through the season without getting injured but I hope Jim Leyland keeps Verlander on a tight leash in 2007, maybe giving him an extra day off here and there, to keep his workload down.

Gary Sheffield didn’t have many nice things to say about Joe Torre and the Yankees yesterday.  He said Torre took the fire out of him and that he wasn’t happy about being benched in game three of the ALDS against the Tigers.  He also spoke out about how the Yankees have treated Bernie Williams.  The veteran outfielder was only offered a minor league deal without a definite spot on the team and for now Bernie Williams is sitting things out to explore other options.

While Sheffield played well in New York, I think even being a big fish in a big pond could have affected him.  Now on the Tigers, he’s the stud.  There’s no doubt he’s the best hitter and once the fans start to appreciate his talent, I think he’ll respond in kind. 

WXYZ has recently added a great new feature to their website called The Dugout.  It’s a great one stop source for news about the Tigers and it compiles and highlights newspaper articles and blog entries (they were nice enought to include Tigerblog) along with video all in spot.   Be sure to check it out.

It looks like Gary Sheffield received a warm reception today in the first full workout of the season for Tiger hitters.  With good reason because Gary Sheffield may very well be the best hitter the Tigers have had in the last 20 years.

A lot of people forget that early in Sheffield’s career, he carried the injury prone label.  He missed quite a bit of time in 1991, 1994, 1995, and then in 2006.  If he would have played full seasons in 1991, 1994 and 2006 and hit 25 homeruns in the season where he missed a lot of time (which was well within his capability) he’d have 41 more homeruns and be on the verge of the 500 mark.  Oh yeah, and he has 1,293 career walks against only 971 strikeouts and he’s never struck out 90 times in a season.  This is a guy who gets on base and rakes the ball and I’m excited to see him in a Tiger uniform.

This time it’s Alan Trammell, who turned 49 today.  Happy Birthday Tram, and best of luck with the Cubs this year.

It looks like Jim Leyland wants the Tigers to improve on two things in 2007.  He wants better production from his hitters with two strikes and better baserunning.  One thing I took out of the article by Jason Beck was that Carlos Guillen and Placido Polanco were amongst the top seven in the American League in hitting with two strikes.

Whenever I think of two strike hitters, I think of Lou Whitaker.  He always had a reputation of being a solid hitter with two strikes so I decided to check it out.  According to this page, Whitaker was a .218/.321/.355 hitter with two strikes on him (although the data appears to be incomplete). Hardly spectacular.  He was pretty good on the first pitch though (.313/.307/.553) so maybe he should have swung away more often.  

This doesn’t measure the effect that Whitaker might have had on a pitcher.  If he went to 0-2 then worked the count and fouled off a couple of balls, maybe taking the at bat to five or six pitches, then he’s making the pitcher work regardless of whether he got on base.  I couldn’t find any numbers on what Whitaker’s career pitches per plate appearance were so it’s hard to tell. 

This is a nice story about Andrew Miller and how he’s probably on the cusp of being ready to pitch in the minors, the Tigers are going to going to take him on a more normal prospect track.  I’ve read in several places that Miller will start the season at the High A Lakeland Tigers along with centerfielder Cameron Maybin.  If you would have asked me a couple of months ago, I would have said they’d start at Double A but it seems like this is the more prudent move.  They’ll both get some time in the sun and I’m sure by the midway point, one or both will be at Erie once they prove their stuff.

Regardless, keep an eye on those Lakeland box scores (or make Tigers Minors a regular stop) because it’s going to be fun watching that team with our two best prospects there.

Dmitri Young recently made some comments about how he was treated last year and Jim Leyland didn’t waste much time in firing back.  Leyland took responsibility for Young’s release and also said that Young’s arguments were out of line.

You could see it coming last year though.  Young started hitting the ball out of the gate but then really tapered off.  You figure if the bat wasn’t there, he’d be on a short leash and that ran out.  It does look like he has a solid shot at making the Nationals though, with Nick Johnson still injured.

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