Archive for the '2005 Tigers' Category

While the winter meetings were exciting for some teams, they were downright boring for the Tigers. Carl Pavano is going to the Yankees, and Troy Glauss went to Arizona, so two of the Tigers top targets are out play.

Ken Rosenthal, in a recent column, projected that the Tigers would land……Adrian Beltre. This is a guy with six full seasons of major league experience, and he’ll only be 26 come April. Even his 2002 and 2003 seasons, where he struggled, were better then what we had at third base in either of those seasons. I say get it done.

The Free Press, on the other hand, are still saying we’re going after Rentaria. I don’t like this nearly as much. If you want a nice run down of what’s happened, and what’s on tap, you can check out Billfer’s piece over at the Detroit Tigers Weblog. He points out that Renteria isn’t much of an upgrade over Brandon Inge.

I’ll be covering this over at the Hardball Times, but the Expos/D.C. move took yet another twist. In what should have been the final chapter, the D.C. council passed a bill, but it deviates greatly from what the mayor and MLB agreed to. Should be interesting.

I’m out of town all weekend. Travelling to Louisville for the holidays. I am looking forward to a tour of the Louisville Slugger bat plant. I’ll probably get my installment of the debate piece up before I leave, but then I won’t be checking until late Sunday.

No news is bad news. At this time, I haven’t heard anything with regard to the Tigers. No trades, and no signings, with a lot of players signing with other teams. I guess it’s better then making bad trades and bad signings, but it makes for a frustrating time. If Troy Percival is the best they can do, then I’m not too optimistic for next season.

And if you want a great look at what happens at the Winter Meetings, the guys over at All Baseball are actually there and writing reports. It’s great stuff, and I highly recommend you check out the write-ups at the Cubs Reporter, Rich’s Weekend Baseball Beat, Mariner Musings, and Dodger Thoughts. It’s all great stuff. In fact, I’m pretty jealous I’m not there as well.

I also bucked up and paid for premium access to Baseball Prospectus. I wanted access to some stories by Neil deMause for my Hardball Times piece, but I’ve found the other content to be well worth the price. Their book is also an annual buy of mine.

And if you haven’t gotten it yet, I highly recommend the 2004 Hardball Times Annual. It’s well worth the price, and it’s a great resource. And I bought it before I started writing for them, so I can say that objectively.

My son was teething, so it made for a rough weekend. I did get a chance to play Settlers of Catan again this weekend against some family members, and the game is really growing on me. I also finished in first place in my fantasy football league, so I’ll go into the playoffs as the number one seed with an 11-3 record.

After quite a bit of research, and quite a bit of writing, I finished the first installment of a historical look at the Montreal Expos for The Hardball Times. I appreciated Aaron Gleeman for inviting me to write for the site. Look for the second, and probably more interesting, installment in the next couple of weeks. I also appreciate the comments I received via email (which taught me even more).

A lot is going on in the free agent market, and so far, the Tigers haven’t been involved. But, apparantly Peter Gammons said the Tigers are the mystery team who’s heavily involved in signing Carlos Beltran. I’ll believe it when I see it, but Scott Boras owes the Tigers a little bit for taking Ivan Rodriguez off his hands when nobody wanted him, so maybe something can be worked out.

The other tidbit I’ve heard is the Tigers are looking at Edgar Rentaria. Not sure if this is true, but with Carlos Guillen on the shelf, this might not be a bad pickup. Guillen can play third, and a move over there would solve some of Tram’s problems. He’s got two gold gloves, but his Fielding Runs Above Replacement over at Baseball Prospectus puts him at a below average fielder. I’d save my money for some pitching.

And that gets us to Carl Pavano. At first, I didn’t like them going after him because I figured he’d be overpriced, but I’m rethinking that. Yes, he’s only had one good year. But he doesn’t walk many batters, nor has he given up a lot of homers the last two years. His strikeouts might not quite be where I’d like them either, but how about this for an opening day rotation:

1) Carl Pavano
2) Jeremy Bonderman
3) Mike Maroth
4) Nate Robertson
5) Jason Johnson/Wil Ledezma

If Bonderman, Robertson and Ledezma can all take steps forward, and Maroth can pitch solid like he did last year, that’s pretty nice, even if Pavano matches his 2003 numbers, and not his 2004 numbers.

Winter meetings are this weekend, so there should be quite a bit of news. Hopefully the Tigers will be in the thick of things.

Have a great weekend.

I’ve been busy this weekend working on a new project which hopefully you’ll all be able to see this week. I’m hoping you’ll enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing about it.

One thing I did have a chance to do is break out my new copy of Settlers of Catan, by Mayfair Games. I had played the game once, and nearly won my first time, but more importantly I had a blast playing. Along with baseball cards, I collect and play war games. I own a lot of out of print Avalon Hill games, and my ten year project is to learn Advanced Squad Leader.

Anyway, I set up a game and ran through it solo. Fortunately, I won. I just hope my six month old son grows up to like these games.

In the meantime, if you want to check up on the most current news and happenings, here some places I recommend you go.

Blade finished his analysis of Cesar Geronimo in our ongoing debate on which of Sparky’s teams was the best. You can check it out at Reds Cutting Edge. I’m hoping to get my response up in the next couple of days.

Billfer has done a nice piece on the Tigers of the future, as he goes through their top 10 prospects. As always, he does a fantastic job of breaking things down.

And if you haven’t had your steroid fix yet, I highly recommend you check out Only Baseball Matters. Not only do you get a ton of facts, but you get a ton of passion.

I’ve also been trying to figure out Diamond Mind Baseball. A reader bought me a copy of the simulation, and I’ve been having fun with that as well.

This looks like it’s trumping just about everything right now. I’m going to opine on this over the weekend, but in the meantime, John Perricone has a nice running series of articles on the whole issue of Steroids and Baseball. Either you can click on the link at the top, or you can click here.

***UPDATE***

First off, I’m not an expert on any of this. I have no idea what falls within the realm of performance enhancing drugs or not. Or what’s considered a steroid or not. For most of my 20s, I was a gym rat. Most weeks I was at the gym 4 to 5 times, and I also did a lot of running. I tried a few supplements, most of which didn’t do anything for me. One did. I took Creatine for about a month, and even though it’s probably not considered a banned substance, it was definitely performance enhancing. So I’m not sure what qualifes and what doesn’t, or if it’s as arbritrary as what’s considered an “assault weapon,” but I do know the stuff gave me an extra push.

So what about Barry Bonds, and to a lesser extent, Jason Giambi. I’m going to assume that the leaks are in fact truthful, which is why Giambi got the “lesser extent” tag. He admitted he was a knowing user. So that leaves us with Bonds, and three different scenarios.

Scenario 1 – Barry Bonds never took steroids

I think it’s safe to say this is an unrealistic scenario. Again we’re assuming the leaks are factual, and from the sound of it, Barry admitted he took something. Which leads us to…..

Scenario 2 – Barry Bonds took steroids but didn’t know it?

In this case, Barry was misled as he admitted in his testimony. For a lot of people, this probably doesn’t sound like a viable alterantive, but Anderson was supposed to be a good, long time, so-called friend of Bonds. Is it unrealistic that his friend might try to dupe Barry for a few bucks? There’s a lot of greedy people out there, so that’s a definite yes. I know if a friend of mine handed me a pill and told me it was high powered vitamin, I’d probably take it. Of course, I trust my friends implicity.

Scenario 3 – Barry Bonds took steroids and he knew it

Now we have intent. Obviously, this would be the worst possible outcome, making Barry essentially a cheater. But as I stated before, what qualifies, and what doesn’t? Does that even mean anything? If he took Andro three years ago, which is now banned, does that mean he cheated?

So what’s my completely uninformed opinion? Basically I’ll go with 2.5. Anderson lied to him, but Barry, in the back of his mind suspected what he was doing wasn’t right. His punishment will probably be….nothing, other then all of his records from here on out will be under scrutiny. Steroids might not be able to help you hit a ball better, but it would definitely allow someone to perform better at an older age like Barry’s been able to do.

No, Tram or Morris didn’t get the nod by the voters. The Tigers will be playing the Red Sox in Cooperstown at the annual Hall of Fame game. I’ve been to the Hall of Fame once, about 12 years ago, and I’d like to go again. Probably once my son gets a little older.

And since we’re on the subject of the Hall of Fame, the new ballot was released the other day. Of the new candidates, Wade Boggs appears to be the only guy I’d consider for a first ballot election. He may not have hit a ton of homeruns, but he’s fifteenth all time in doubles. In his first ten seasons, he never hit below .302, and with a career OPS+ of 130 and 3,000 career hits. I think it’s hard sell not voting him in.

Jack Morris and Alan Trammell once again are on there as well. Morris is a lot closer then Tram as he got about twice as many votes last year. If Jack can pick up some support, he might have a solid shot in the next couple of years. Tram on other hand, isn’t probably going to get in. As much as he deserves to be in there.

Two other guys who I feel should get the nod, if not next year but soon, are Goose Gossage and Bert Blyleven. Gossage in my mind is the best closer ever. He had it all, and pitchers were afraid to face him. Blyleven was one of those guys who didn’t hit the magic Win number because he played on a ton of mediocre teams.

As always, the guys who vote on occassion can defy what most of us view as reality. To illustrate this, last year Terry Pendleton and Cecil Fielder got votes from someone.

If I had to make a prediction, I’d say Boggs and Ryne Sandberg get in this year. Bruce Sutter will miss by a small margin, and get in eventually.

Jilly Dybka has put together a collection of baseball poetry. There’s a few in there about the Tigers, and it’s worth checking out.

The Tigers made a splash this afternoon, inking former Angels closer Troy Percival to a two year deal, paying him $12 million. A couple of years ago, Troy was probably the best closer in the American League, if not all of baseball (Think pre-Gagne and Smoltz). The operative part of that sentence is the phrase “a couple of years ago.” Since then, he’s steadily declined, and although he’s arguably our best arm in the pen, he has a degenerative hip problem (Thank you Pat Caputo. I heard this on his radio show this evening) that could rear it’s ugly head at any time.

On the face of things, he had a solid 2004 season. He was 2-3, with a 2.90 ERA, and he saved 33 games. But it’s not so much his 2004 numbers that bother me as much as how they compare to the past couple. Let’s take a look at a few things. First off, strikeouts/9 innings

2002 10.86
2003 8.76
2004 6.00

That’s some serious decline. What about WHIP? Probably a more telling stat then ERA for a closer.

2002 1.118
2003 1.135
2004 1.248

Again, a decline. Finally, let’s look at Percival’s “Stuff”

2002 26
2003 8
2004 -5

That’s not good. He’s gone from a top line dominating closer to what could be considered a less then average thrower.

As a basis of comparison, here were some other 2004 Tiger reliver’s “Stuff”

Ugueth Urbina 8
Jamie Walker 8
Estaban Yan 3
Al Levine -18
Danny Patterson -15

So Percival was not nearly as bad as Danny Patterson or Al Levine, but not nearly as good Urbina, Walker, or even Yan.

I know this contrary to what a lot of the press is saying, but this deal only makes sense if we keep Urbina and use him as a setup man/spot closer. Percival is at an age and condition where he can’t neccesarily close back to back games, so we need Urbina to spot him. We turn Urbina into the pen work horse, and we pick our spots when we use Percival.

In order to warrant the $6 million a year, we need at least comparable numbers to 2003, if not somewhere between 2002 and 2003. But even then, this is a guy who hasn’t thrown more then 58 innings since 1998. I don’t know if the team can warrant paying $6 million for 50 innings of work. I think we could have done better had we found two decent relievers for $3 million a piece, or used the $6 million as a down payment on a top line starter.

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