Archive for the '2007 Tigers' Category

Well, it’s that time of year.  Time to look back on what will soon be what was and look forward to what will be.  In a lot of ways, on a personal level, 2006 was one of my best.  I got to watch my son grow another year and he’s gone from being a baby boy to a little man and while he can be a handful, my wife and I made it through it.  Probably the only downer has been my job, although that is going to be resolved sooner rather then later.

As far as the website, a ton of great things happened.  I covered my fourth Tigers season and boy was it a good one.  I never thought I’d see the Tigers play in a World Series this soon but the team defied all expectations.  They fell one series short, but it’s hard to look back at that and still not be happy with how the team did.  Baseball was back in Detroit for the first time in a long time and man was it fun.

2006 was also the first year in a while that I didn’t work on a historical diary on Tigerblog, but the concept is catching on.  I wrote up the 1976 Reds diary for my friend Blade, and the 1906 White Sox, 1926 Cardinals and 1986 Mets were all covered on other sites.  And you can bet there will be more next year, including a five team cooperative diary covering the 1967 American League Pennant Race.

This was also the first year where I finally formalized the baseball blog network I had been working on.  Baseball Historians now covers more then half of the teams in the league and the hope is to be covering all 30 by the beginning of the season.  All of the sites cover current events for each of their teams but they all also have a historical bent to them.

2007 is shaping up to be just as good.  I’m going to be in another book in addition to my two appearances in the last two Hardball Times Annuals.  I’ll only give you a teaser, but I’ll be interviewing a Tigers icon for the Hardball Times in the next couple of weeks and I’m really looking forward to that.  And I’m also looking to expand my role on SABR’s Business of Baseball committee this year.  And the Tigers 2007 season, which will be fifth covering them on Tigerblog, is shaping up to be just as good as 2006.

With that, I hope each of you have a safe and happy New Year.  I’ll see you on the other side in 2007.

Things have been quiet with the Tigers lately.  Bonderman did sign his four year deal, but the Tigers haven’t done much in the offseason since the Gary Sheffield trade.  Not that it’s a bad thing, it just means I have to make up things to write about.

So unless something happens in the next couple of days, I probably won’t be updating Tigerblog until after Christmas so I hope all of my readers have a safe and happy holidays.  I’ll be doing a year in review around New Year so hopefully you’ll stop by and check that out.

Christmas came a little early for Tiger fans.  This is simply a huge signing and it’s one more indication that the Tigers, under Dave Dombrowski, are headed in the right direction.  The Tigers signed a back loaded four year deal with Jeremy Bonderman that will pay him $4.5 million in 2007, $8.5 million in 2008 and then $12.5 million in 2009 and 2010.  I don’t know what’s more difficult to believe, that we signed Bonderman to such a bargain contract or he’ll only be 28 at this time in 2010.

While Jeremy Bonderman was third on the team in wins (14) and fourth amongst the starters in ERA (4.37), he had the best “numbers” in my opinion.  This is reflected in his 3.31 Fielding Independent ERA (FIP).  For those of you keeping score, the only pitcher in the American League who had a better FIP in 2006 was Johan Santana (3.16) and nobody in the American League other then Santana struck out more batters the Bonderman’s 202.  Yes, Kenny Rogers and Justin Verlander had great seasons, but they also finished in the top ten in run support in the American League.  Jeremy Bonderman may have won less games, but he definitely earned them.

And the way contracts are going these days, $12.5 million two years from now probably won’t look that high considering you have a guy who could be competing for a Cy Young in the very near future.

The Tigers won three “This Year in Baseball” awards this season.  Recently unveiled by MLB.com, Joel Zumaya won setup man of the year, Jim Leyland won manager of the year, and Sean Casey won blooper of the year for the 5-7-3 put out in which he didn’t run on the play.

Congrats to Leyland and Zumaya.  For Casey, I feel bad because I thought that gaffe was beaten to death and a lot of the criticism was unwarranted.

Jeff Bagwell announced his retirement today and baseball is worse off for it.  Bagwell was truly one of the great underrated stars.  He broke out in 1994 with a early 2000 Bondesque season and never looked back.  In 15 seasons, he topped 1,500 runs and 1,500 RBIs and he joins a club of players who have notched a career .400 OBP.  From 1996 to 2001, he had at least 30 homeruns, 100 walks, 100 RBIs and 100 runs.  For all that, he played in only four All Star Games through out his career and his only MVP came in that strike shortened 1994 season.

Bagwell should be a first ballot Hall of Famer although the fact that he didn’t nail any of the big milestones (3,000 hits or 500 homeruns) means he’ll probably have to wait it out a year or two.  Regardless, there’s no doubt that Bagwell was one of the very best players through most of the 1990s and into early 2000.

***UPDATE***

As I thought, Bagwell might have a tough time getting into the Hall.  Buster Olney is on the fence.  I guess that’s one more thing we disagree on.

The Tigers outfield got a little less crowded today when the team failed to tender a contract to Alexis Gomez.  Rather then taking their chances at arbitration, the Tigers will let the left hander test the market.

It’s funny the route some players take.  Alexis Gomez was the heir apparant to Carlos Beltran in Kansas City until they found out he was three years older then they initially thought .  Now he’s already become a journeyman of sorts.

The Tigers signed former closer Jose Mesa to a one year, $2.5 million deal last night.  I really hope the Tigers aren’t blinded by all of those saves because Jose Mesa has been pretty mediocre the past few years.  His strikeout to walk ratio last year was pretty attrocious (39/36) and he hasn’t a WHIP under 1.37 since his last solid season in 2002.  And this is also the guy who’s threatened Omar Vizquel because of some comments the Giants shortstop made about Mesa in his book.

Taken by it self, this is an unusual signing.  A friend of mine said he felt a deal must be in the works for one our other relievers and I tend to agree with him because take by itself, this one doesn’t make sense.

The Tigers and Brandon Inge came to an agreement on a four year, $24 million deal.  I like this deal on a few different levels.  One, it’s bargain, at least in this day and age.  $6 million for a gold glove caliber, homerun hitting third baseman isn’t all that expensive.  A lot of people will look at Brandon’s batting average (.253 last year, .241 over his career) as a reason to argue against this deal but in my opinion, we could do a lot worse then having Brandon over at third base for the next four years at $6 million a season.

And I’ll also admit I’m a big Brandon Inge fan.  If given the choice of a player’s jersey to wear, I’d probably choose Inge’s.  He’s been on the Tigers longer then any other player and he was given up for dead after the Tigers signed Pudge Rodriguez prior to the 2004 season.  He lost his spot, accepted a role as a utlitly man and when Eric Munson didn’t work out, Inge took over for him at third.  I’m still convinced Inge will walk away with a gold glove at some point during the time of this contract.

One thing I found interesting is that since 2000, the Tigers roster has completely turned around.  Brandon Inge came up in 2001 and he’s the only Tiger on that team that’s played for Detroit continuously since then.  There have been a lot of changes since then, most of them for the better.

The Tigers didn’t take part in the Rule 5 draft this year, but the Brewers did on their behalf.  Edward Campusano was taken seventh in the Rule 5 draft by the Brewers, who then turned around and sold the prospect for an unspecified amount of cash to the Tigers.

Campusano could end up being the left handed relief pitcher the Tigers were looking for although he’s short on experience.  He’s 24 and he split time at Low A and Double A in 2006 where he was completely dominating.  He struck out 81 batters in only 55 1/3 innings last year with only 17 walks.  You have to take that with a grain of salt though because he’s playing at a level that he should have finished a couple of years ago.  According to Baseball America, he missed the last month of the season with injuries.

Kevin Goldstein liked the pick.  Baseball America appeared cautiously optimistic.  Campusano is kind of an unknown.  I checked both Sickels Prospect Book going back a few years and Baseball Prospectus and couldn’t find anything on the kid.  Baseball Cube did have his numbers and up until this past season, he had spent all of time floating between A Ball and Rookie Ball.  So I guess we’ll have to wait and see how he does when spring training rolls around.

Apparantly Wil Ledezma isn’t being slated as the Tigers’s option as the left handed specialist coming out of the bullpen.  Andrew Miller doesn’t look like he’s in line for the job either and it looks like both he and Ledezma are being looked upon to bolster the Tigers’ deep rotation or are trade bait.  Regardless, it sounds like the Tigers are looking for an experienced lefty to replace Jamie Walker in the bullpen.

And with the Winter Meetings comes the Rule 5 draft.  The Tigers have done well in past years in the rule five draft and have picked up guys like Wil Ledezma (who I’m still high on) and Chris Shelton.  Detroit Tigers Weblog breaks down the details on the draft and talks about two players the Tigers might be interested in.

The Detroit Independent Baseball Scribes announced their 2006 award winners today.  You can check out the full story at Detroit Tigers Weblog.

No major surprises.  Carlos Guillen got my first place vote and Pitcher of the Year was close with Kenny Rogers edging Justin Verlander.  Even though Jeremy Bonderman didn’t have a great win/loss record, those 200 strikeouts go a long way in my book and he probably didn’t get enough credit this season.  Regardless, it’s hard to dispute Rogers’ impact on this pitching staff.

And I agree completely with Bilfer.  If the Tigers sign anyone the rest of the year, it should be Jeremy Bonderman to a long term deal.

Detroit Tigers Weblog did a nice job breaking down Baseball America’s Top Ten Tiger Prospects so be sure to check out his commentary.  Cameron Maybin tops the list with Andrew Miller coming in second place.

I’m really interested in seeing where Maybin starts at in 2007.  His West Michigan Whitecaps coach, Matt Walbeck, is now the coach at Double-A Erie so I could see him starting there.  The problem is, that’s a big jump for a player of Maybin’s age so Lakeland might make as much sense.

Andrew Miller should make the big league club and I see him filling Jamie Walker’s role as a left handed relief specialist.  Third is Brent Clevlan and he’s a player without a spot.  With Maybin being the Tigers centerfielder of the future, I’m curious to see what happens to Clevlan and Curtis Granderson.

While those top two guys are very impressive, it gets pretty spotty after that.  Granted they just traded three prospects for Gary Sheffield, but the minor leagues are still a bit bare, at least when you’re talking about depth.

I try not to be too much of a baseball snob, but when it comes to Brandon Inge, it’s hard not too.  I’ve probably had a particular conversation with over a dozen people about Brandon Inge and I’ve never gotten anyone to agree with me.  That conversation is about how good of a fielding third baseman Brandon Inge is.  They’ll agree with me that he’ll make some nice plays now and then but when I say Brandon has a gold glove in his future, people usually bring up his fielding percentage or the 45 errors he’s made at third base the last two years as reasons Brandon should never take a fielding award home.

I recently got my copy of the 2007 Bill James Handbook in the mail and once again, I feel vindicated.  In the book are the +/- fielding leaders.  For those of you who don’t own the Fielding Bible (which extensively details the ins and outs of +/-), a plus rating is how many more plays that fielder made when compared to an average fielder at that position.  Likewise, a negative rating is given for fielders who made less plays then average.  Standing atop the third base list for 2006 is Brandon Inge at +27.  This year’s AL Gold Glove winner, Eric Chavez, isn’t even in the top 10.  Joe Crede, who I thought was going to walk away with the award, had a good showing at +22.  Inge also led the majors with a 3.44 range factor.  I know Inge is an average hitter (low average but with some good power) but I can live with him as our regular third baseman until we see some regression in his skills at third base.

Also in the book are updated park factors.  I find it particularly interesting to find trends and the Handbook does this by presenting 2006 park factors as well as park factors for the combined 2004-2006 seasons.  It was even harder to hit a homerun in 2006 in Comerica Park (79 factor in 2006 vs. 86 for 2004-2006).  Comerica Park was the second hardest place in the American League for a left hander to hit a homerun with a 72 park factor.  Only Kaufman Stadium in Kansas City was tougher (69).  And over the past three years, it’s been easier to get a triple (155 factor) in Comerica Park then any other ballpark in baseball.

As time has passed, I find myself buying more and more baseball books.  Some I find indispensible while others are more personal favorites.  The following are five books that I think would all be useful on any baseball fans books shelf.

2007 Bill James Handbook – Stats, stats and more stats.  If you want to know who led the majors in pitches thrown over 100 mpg (Joel Zumaya by a land slide) and if you want to know who the best baserunner in baseball is (Chone Figgins), this is the book for you.  It’s numbers heavy and outside of descriptions on each of the sections, there’s not much in the way of traditional essays.  Then again, with all of the numbers, there’s not much room for words.

The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2007 – I’m a little biased here, but this book also is a must for baseball fans.  You get an extensive stats section as well as a ton of graphs and charts. And where the Bill James Handbook is going to be where you go for obscure numbers, the Hardball Times Annual will be where you go for some excellent essays.  This year’s Hardball Times Annual is as good as last years, which in my mind, is a tall task.

2007 Baseball Prospect Book – This is self published by John Sickels and this is the first place I go for minor league stats and analysis on minor league prospects.  Sickels writes up short essays on hundreds of minor league players and gives them all a grade to help distinguish who he thinks is going to be a future star compared to who he thinks will be a career reserve player.  Good, good stuff here.  And if you collect all of the past books, you have a great resource for past minor league stats.

Baseball Prospectus 2007 – For a long time, this stood on its own.  And while the Bill James Handbook and the Hardball Times Annual are more reviews of the past season, BP2007 will get you ready for the 2007 season.  The team essays are always spectacular as are the player essays.  I know I’m ready for the season when I’ve had a chance to flip through my copy of BP.

ESPN Pro Baseball Encyclopedia – The thickest book of the bunch, this is for the baseball historian in all of us.  You get a player register for every player who ever laced up a pair of spikes as well as a ton of extras.  You can even find the American Legion champions going back to 1926.  Whenever I’m starting any research on a player, the Encyclopedia is the first place I go to.

And of course no offense to any other publications out there.  I’ve never bought Ron Shandler’s Forecaster but after reading Fantasyland (one of the best baseball books of 2006), I might check it out.  And I’ve never bought a Baseball America book, but not because of any particular problem with them.  It just seems all of their books overlap with one of the five I highlighted already.

Regardless, it’s a great time to be a baseball fan.  I remember patiently waiting for the Street and Smiths to come out.  Now you get choices galore.

It was a quiet weekend for the Tigers.  I was out of town with friends and one of them thought he saw Alex Gonzalez had signed with the Tigers.  It made no sense, but we waited 20 minutes for the ESPN ticker to get all of the way back through each college football score to find that Gonzalez had actually signed with the Reds.

The Tigers did sign seven minor league players on Friday.  Craig Dingman, Mike Hessman, Kevin Hooper, Vic Darensbourg, Jackson Melian, Tim Byrdak and Steve Torrealba.  Jason Beck runs down this list with bios so be sure to check out his column.  Billfer also talks about the signings. 

The Tigers signed Sean Casey to a one year, $4 million deal.  I like this deal when you combine it with the Gary Sheffield trade.  Assuming Shef does what he’s supposed to do, we don’t need another power stick even though that’s the bill for a first baseman.  In addition, and I hate to get all mushy, but even though I was against the Tigers trading for Casey during the season, he’s such a likable guy that he’s grown on me.  And for $4 million, you get a decent stick for a pretty good price.

Jamie Walker hit it big today. He signed with the Orioles for three years and he’ll make $11.5 million.  In my mind, that’s way too much for a lefty specialist and while I wish Walker the best of luck, I don’t really see the Orioles getting their money’s worth out of this.  Then again, we’re paying Todd Jones another $5 million for next year.

Justin Verlander became the first Tiger since Lou Whitaker in 1978 to win the AL Rookie of the Year.  He’s the first pitcher since Mark Fidrych won it 30 years ago.  That’s quite a long time with no top notch rookies.  He did it by getting 26 of the 28 first place votes.  It looks like one person didn’t vote for him at all while the other two first place votes went to Francisco Liriano and Nick Markakis (huh?).  Jonathon Paplebon came in second place, but it was a distant second.

Verlander’s exploits shouldn’t be too surprising if you stop by here periodically.  He won 17 games with a 3.63 ERA and a 1.33 WHIP.  For a guy who throws 100 mph, I would have expected more then 124 strikeouts, but he kept his walks down (60) and I think the strikeouts will come with time.  He also had that huge start against the Yankees in the ALDS even though the rest of his post season was subpar.  Congratulations to Justin Verlander.

Alright, I’ve let this trade sink in a little more and no matter how much I second guess myself, I still think we got a good deal.  Pat Caputo did his best to convince me otherwise on the radio (he thought we gave up a little too much) and he made some great points but I still think having a big bat in the lineup like Sheffield’s will go a longer way then hanging on to the three pitchers we gave up.

In other news, Brent Clevlan has been red hot in the Arizona Fall League.  This column summarizes how all of the Tigers are doing in the winter leagues.

I was recently interviewed on Outsider Radio about the Tiger’s prospects in 2007.  You can download the interview here.

This is cool.  Very cool.

The Tigers traded three of their pitching prospects today for Gary Sheffield.  The Gary Sheffield who’s drawn more walks (1,293) in his career then he’s struck out (971).  The Gary Sheffield with a career .398 OBP.  And the Gary Sheffield with 455 career homeruns.  Of course everything comes with a price.

Humberto Sanchez took the minor leagues by storm in the first half of the season last year and was involved in trade rumors for Alfonso Soriano.  Then he hurt his elbow and ended up throwing only 123 innings because of it.  Whelan was a closer in waiting but he was probably at least one full year away from making it to the big league club.  Same goes for Claggett, who’s probably closer to two years away.

I like this deal.  A lot.  Gary Sheffield, whether he’s 38 or not (which he’ll be Nov. 18) , is one of the premiere hitters in baseball.  He does it all.  I likened him to a Barry Bonds light back when Bonds was winning MVPs.  He gets on base, takes a walk, doesn’t strike out and he drives in runs.  He’ll be playing mostly DH and probably spotting Craig Monroe and Magglio Ordonez out in the corners through out the year.  He seems to have a great relationship with Jim Leyland and that will definitely help.  So if Sheffield plays the whole season, you should expect something to the tune of 30 homeruns, 110 RBIs and .290/.390/510.  He’ll make an ideal hitter in that three spot.  Oh yeah, we also locked him up for three years and he’ll make $28 million in 2008 and 2009.

Out of all the Tigers’ pitching prospects, Humberto Sanchez was the one I would most like to see dealt away.  Prior to 2006, he was fairly mediocre.  He had a career 4.73 ERA through Single A and Double A and was actually set to repeat Double A in 2006 until he started tearing hitters up (86 strikeouts in 71 2/3 innings with a 1.76 ERA).  He’ll turn 24 one day after Sheffield turns 38 (Nov. 19).  He started equally well at Toledo but struggled in his last three starts before getting shut down in Auguest.  That elbow worried me too.

Wheelan and Claggett are both 22 and Wheelan played High A while Clagget played Low A.

So we gave up three pretty good arms, but as we all know, there’s no such thing as a pitching prospect.  And two of them look like relievers, making the deal even more sweet.  While having a good bullpen is pretty important, it’s also something that’s pretty easy to build through free agent pickups.

The big if is whether Sheffield will be able to stay healthy.  He won’t be playing in the field nearly as much so that should be a huge bonus.  Plus we have the coolness factor of Sheffield possibly hitting his 500th homerun in 2008.  No player has ever hit his 500th homerun in a Tiger uniform (Eddie Mathews already had 503 when the Tigers picked him up late in 1967) so we’ll have the homerun count down to look forward to as well.

Justin Verlander should be the first Tiger to win the rookie of the year since Lou Whitaker did it way back in 1978.  In the meantime, Verlander was honored by his peers as the best American League rookie.

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