Week 21... Signs of life?

Week 21
4 Wins, 2 Losses

Soooo, perhaps this team can compete in a playoff series after all? It seems to look more and more like it. You might ask "Are you crazy?!" and you might ask with good reason, but here is what I am seeing right now that makes me believe that this team might advance in the post-season.

Exhibit A: this past week the 1st place Detroit Tigers took a series in LA against the Angels. The Angels are another 1st place team and have a better record (74 - 48 when the series started) than the Tigers (65-58 at the time). The Angels (36-22), like the Tigers (40-20), play very well at home this year. Yet Detroit came in and took the first 2 games (and the Season Series) this week. Washburn and Verlander each won their games, and neither was especially dominating. Each gave up 8 hits and Verlander walked 4, but they didn't allow those runners to score.

Exhibit B: after taking down the Angels the Tigers came home to face the defending AL champion Tampa Bay Rays. Tampa is another good team (69-58 at the start of the series) who score lots of runs but don't allow many. But Detroit in Detroit is nearly unbeatable and they have proven it so far in this series. Friday they scored 6 runs and allowed only 2 (Porcello picked up the win). Saturday they seemed t0 sleep (again) losing 1-3 but Sunday Polanco provided an 8th inning 3 run HR to give the Tigers a 4-3 win. Once again, a good team beaten at a crucial time.

Exhibit C: this one is more historical. So far in Leyland's tenure as manager the month of August has not been a good month for Tigers' baseball. They were a combined 31-50 in the past 3 Augusts (2006-2008). In 2006 and 2007 they watched their division rivals over take them in the Dog Days. (Of course in 2008 they didn't worry about being chased). Yet this year the Tigers are 15-12 with one game to go. Whether is is the young talent coming up from the farm system (Avila, Thomas) or the pick ups of Guillen off of the DL and Washburn in a late trade. Magglio Ordonez has gotten hot with his bat (yes, I know that he still isn't hitting home runs but he is still the second best hitter since the All Star Break) (thanks to Spot Starters for doing the work on that). Cabrera is smok'n hot right now. Inge and Granderson are starting to warm up again after slowing way down. (Maybe it's the tattoos on Inge?) Who cares?

In the "month of August" (weeks 18-21) the hitters have scored 114 runs (4.38/ game) on 228 hits (.258 BA) and a Slugging % of .436. Compare this to July (weeks 14-17) where they scored 91 runs (4.14/ game) on 186 hits (.249 BA) and SLG % of .391 and they were 10-12.

This is a good thing because it appears that the pitchers are starting to show that they are human (at least the starters). The ERA for the starters has risen to 4.57 in August. The WHIP hasn't risen a great deal, but the number of HR they have given up has risen. Home runs per 9 innings pitched in August was 1.52, by far the worst month of the season for that stat.

I don't have the stats set up to break down the Bull Pen's numbers, but Tiger Tales has done a much better job of it than I could, so look here to see that the Pen is doing well.

Defensively the Tigers allowed 16 errors weeks 18 through 21, an average of .62 per game. This has been pretty consistent all year.

So, to wrap up- August is basically over and the Tigers made it through better than any time in the last 3 years. 80% of the season has been played and our Detroit Tigers are still in first place!

here are the standings....

Tigers 1st
Twins 2nd 4.5 back
W. Sox 3rd 6.0 back
Clev 4th 11.5 back
Royals 5th 19.5 back

I'm back!

My Blogger dashboard tells me that I have not posted since August 10th. I have to believe that 2 1/2 months is plenty of time for a break. So let's jump back into this - shall we?

Let's sum up- in 2008 the Tigers spent more money on payroll than anybody but the Yankees. They started out 0-7 and never really recovered. They flirted with .500 but only enough to tease all of their fans before sliding backward, ever backward. They ended up finishing 74-88 for the year, good enough for last place in the AL Central. Even the Royals were a better club! For those of you who are looking forward to a weekly recap of those last 6 weeks or so that I didn't cover here- well... the Tigers sucked. That should about cover it.

So, now what do they do? Well, conventional wisdom says that they need pitching. They don't have a solid closer (now that Todd Jones has hung up his spikes). They are weak in the set up roles (with Zumaya a huge question mark and Rodney a series of different symbols followed by an exclamation point! For example: "What the @#$% just happened?!") The starters are just as uncertain. Verlander is still amazing, but his numbers aren't. Bonderman is hopefully recovering from shoulder surgery. Rogers will (or won't) retire- he won't say just yet. Willis and Robertson are mainly there to drive fans (who remember how solid they can be) just crazy. They fired the pitching coach. Maybe that will matter, maybe it won't. I don't know.

Their defense wasn't exactly helping the pitchers this year. They are statistically worse almost everywhere. The only player who really shined this year defensively was a pitcher. Not exactly what you're looking for at a payroll just north of $138,000,000. So Jim Leyland announced that Brandon Inge would be the starting 3rd baseman in 2009. I'm sure that will plug some of the holes on the left side of the infield. But that doesn't solve everything. Polanco is still a great 2nd baseman. Cabrera seems to be getting pretty good at 1st base. Everyone is talking about Shortstop and Edgar Rentaria. I'm not sure that he is that much of a problem. He didn't hit for squat in the first half of the season, but after that he was improving. In fact he shows some real good stats as you can see at Tiger Tales. I think that, with the limited payroll options the Tigers have right now that there are other places to spend their money. The outfield will be another area to focus on. Center is solid with Granderson. Right seems solid with Ordonez (assuming that he stays in Detroit). Left has been a question mark for a long time, but Leyland said that Carlos Guillen will be the starting Left Fielder. I'm not sure about that, but Leyland is better at this than I am so we'll see.

So the Tigers have a lot of questions to answer and apparently not a lot of money to solve them with. I think that it is fair to say that nobody is going to pre-maturely buy their World Series tickets this year. Hopefully they will do better than last place.

Bad Pitching beats Good Hitting every time!

First off I owe an apology. It has been brought to my attention that while I was blogging more regularly the Tigers were winning more regularly. Since I have been away from Section 148 they have not played as well. So I offer my deepest and most heartfelt apologies to all Tiger fans! I honestly had no idea the impact such a tiny spec of the blogosphere could have on an an institution such as my beloved Tigers. I have let down not only all of my fans but all Tigers’ fans. It is inexcusable, but I ask for your grace none-the-less.

So where did the Tigers end up during my absence?

July: W/L 13-13

Runs Scored 152

Runs Against 129

Batting Avg .286

Slugging % .466

Runs Scored/Game 5.85

Starting ERA 5.14

Bullpen ERA 3.96

Runs Against/ Game 5.00

Where exactly do you look to start pulling this together? I must say that the offense seems to be cranking out runs pretty nicely. They did accumulate their 11^th shutout of the year last week, but even with those 0’s in the equation they average 5.07 runs/ game over the year. In the last 14 games they have averaged 5.65! Miguel Cabrera won the Player of the Month award! Ordonez is going for his second consecutive batting title! Maybe later I’ll look at the distribution of those runs (they score 0 runs 7/28 and 14 runs 7/30) but even so, almost 6 runs per game is pretty good and where the numbers showed they would be in the pre-season.

So how about them pitchers! Wow. Just “Wow!!”

Starting pitchers- well their ERA for the month was 5.14 and they averaged 5 2/3 innings pitched per start. To put that into perspective – June showed a 3.53 ERA and an average of 6 1/3 innings per start. What is probably contributing to this is the homeruns. July had 23 HR hit off of the Starters (1.38 per 9 innings pitched). June had 16 HR (0.87 per 9 innings pitched). The worst offender was Nate Robertson (his name is going to come up in a negative context a lot here) with a HR/9 of 2.59 (9 HR in 31 1/3 IP). Walks + Hits/ Inning Pitched (WHIP) was 1.42 in July (up from 1.33 in June). Again Nate had the worst at 1.85. That means roughly a combination of almost 2 baserunners per inning pitched. You put that many guys on base, and then serve up nice fat meatballs to knock out of the park 2.59 times per 9 innings and you end up with an ERA of 8.62 for the month for Mr. Robertson. Now in June he had a WHIP of 1.52 but HR/9 of only 0.87! Something horrible happened to Nate during July (and it’s not getting cured in August). But although Robertson was the worst, he was not alone. Verlander had an ERA of 4.70, Rogers’ was 4.73! The best pitcher was Galarraga with an ERA of 3.23 and WHIP of 1.21.

(If you would like to, statistically, dessicate Nate go here.) Apparently he is the worst starter in Tigers' history. At least he has that going for him!

So the Bullpen takes over somewhere in the 6^th inning and then what happens? The Bullpen’s ERA was 5.00 (43 earned runs in 97 2/3 IP). Their biggest issues seems to be walks, they do that a lot (59 BB in those 97 2/3 IP or 5.43 BB per 9/IP). The WHIP for the Bullpen was 1.52 for July. That is actually not any worse than June’s (1.52). But those homeruns again- HR/9 was 1.20 in July and only 0.36 in June! So you put a guy on and then let the guy behind him hit it out of the park.

Jones got demoted (and diagnosed with tendinitis) at the end of the month. But there really isn’t anyone who can close better than Jones on the team right now (at least when he’s healthy). Zumaya can’t seem to control that amazing fastball of his (7.85 BB/9). Rodney has been horrible in many of his appearances (5.45 BB/9). The best relief pitcher Detroit has right now is Bobby Seay. He had 1 earned run over 11 1/3 IP and struck out 13. He is really the only arm I would trust right now.

So, in spite of scoring 5.85 runs in the average game the Tigers allowed 5.0 in an average game in July. That certainly sounds like a .500 team doesn’t it? That, my dear Reader, is what we are looking at right now, a mediocre team. We have an outstanding line up, but below average pitchers which averages out to average. I hate to admit this, but this team will not catch the Twins or the White Sox to win the Central. I predict that the Twins will win it. They played .600 ball in July and averaged .9 runs scored more than their opponents over that time. The Tigers had the same run differential, but I just don’t see them doing anything but losing games late in the game as their weak pitching wastes good hitting.

Half way there...

Rockies 6, Tigers 7

Well, they are half way there. With the win yesterday over the Rockies the Tigers reached .500 for the first time this season. After today's game they will have played 1/2 of the season. They are currently 5 games behind the first place White Sox in the AL Central.

For the first half of the year the Tigers are batting .274 and slugging .435. They have scored 389 runs for an average of 4.86 (with the trend moving up). They have hit 146 doubles, 17 triples and 86 home runs while taking 278 walks and striking out 489 times.

They are pitching with a ERA of 4.64* for the Starters with 238 earned runs over 461.9 innings pitched. The bullpen has an ERA of 4.81 over 132.8 innings pitched. The Starters' ERA is trending down.

Interleague play ends today. Detroits eats National League teams for dinner (12 and 5 so far). I believe I heard a stat saying that Detroit was 31 and 9 over the past few years of Interleague play. Certainly this year playing National League teams has been a factor in their resurgence. Monday they start the 2nd half of the year against the Twins who are the also playing very well against NL teams (.600 ball over the month of June). Then the Tigers play against Seattle and Cleaveland before the Twins again.

Looking at June for all teams in the AL Central I see that the White Sox scored more runs than any other AL Central team (147 or 6.1 per game) and that includes being swept twice! The White Sox also allowed the fewest runs (101 or 4.2 per game). A really good combo. Detroit won more games but scored "only" 121 runs (5.0 per game) while allowing 102 (4.3 per game). The Twins scored 128 (5.1/ game) and allowed 116 (4.6/ game). The Indians scored 130 (5.2/ game) and allowed 125 (5.0/ game) and the Royals scored 122 (5.1/ game) and allowed 113 (4.7/ game). I hope the White Sox cool down before the Tigers play them again.

They are half way done and have a clean slate. They have to make up 5 games and play .610 ball for the rest of the year to make 90 wins for the season. They did better than that for June.

Let's enjoy this last game against the NL today.

1/3 of the way there

If the Tigers can get 6 more outs giving up less than 3 runs they will finish the first 1/3 of the year with a 23 and 31 record. Certainly that is nothing to get super excited about.

But I do see somethings about this team that are exciting (in a good way)-

• The starters' ERA is dropping. Including tonight's game the ERA for this week is only 2.35 for the starting 5.
• Jim Leyland is managing again. I say "again" because I felt that earlier this month he stopped managing and just hoped it would all turn around. Realizing that he has some great talent that he puts on the field everyday and he should be able to count on them to perform at a high level, I feel that he should have gotten more involved sooner. But, he is involved now- Jones was released, Cabrera is moved to 1st Base (and as of today to 6th in the lineup), Sheffield was taken out of Left Field. Even Brandon Inge is getting more playing time at 3B! I'm not sure what the "biggest" move was, but I put a lot of weight on the decision to bring Dontrelle Willis back to the bullpen and leave Galarraga in the rotation. In my eyes this was clearly a merit based decision. Galarrago currently has the lowest ERA of any starter on the team. He has 4 wins (despite having 2 fewer opportunities than the rest of the starting rotation). If Leyland continues to play those who perform over those who have higher paychecks then he is managing and the Tigers have a chance.
• The Tigers are "only" 7 1/2 games behind the first place White Sox. That is not where anyone expected them to be, but they can still win this thing (do I feel giddy after watching the Tigers beat up on Seattle again as I write this?). The White Sox have been hot lately, but they are only playing just above .500 ball. The American League Central is just not seeing any team take over. I think that every team (except the Tigers) has been in first place this year.

So there are some positive things to see here. They have proven that they can beat up on weak teams (Seattle, the Yankees(?!) and Texas). But they really struggle with better teams (White Sox, Boston, Arizona). They can score a ton of runs (19 in two different games!) but they can also totally fall on their faces. I've lost count of how many shutouts they have suffered (I think it's 8). See this article on how weird this Jeckle and Hyde thing has been. They have been outscored 261 to 274 so far. That has to change for them to really think about Playoffs.

Rainy Days and Sundays always get me down...

I apologize to those of you getting ready to tell me that it is supposed to be "Mondays". I tried, but that just didn't fit.

It's Sunday. In fact it's Mothers' Day. As a gift to all of their collective Moms the Lord sent rain to Detroit today. That allowed the Tigers to call their Moms without needing to explain why they hit 1 for 4 today and couldn't get the runner home when he was in scoring position. Of course it's entirely possible that they may have won today too. You don't really know with these guys.

What are they doing well?
Walks = 147 so far this year. That is actually a HUGE improvement over last year. The 147 is 3rd in the American League so far. In 2007 they ranked 12th (of 14) in walks with a total of 474. In other words- in 2007 the Tigers averaged 2.9 walks per game. So far this year they are averaging 3.9 walks per game. This helps to explain why the batting average can be .023 less this year yet their On Base Percentage (OBP) is basically the same as last years (.343 vs .345).

Runs = 180 YTD. That's still pretty good. 4.7 runs per game should win quite a few ball games. However, as good as that might be it is quite a bit less than they did in 2007 (5.5 runs per game) or 2006 (5.1 runs per game).

(Totally unrelated- as I write this the BoSox are doing to the Twins what they did to the Tigers earlier. The Twins came into the 9th up 9 to 6. It is currently 9 to 8 and Coco Crisp just stole 2nd to put the tying run in scoring position. What a great game! update- the Twins pulled it out with an infield grounder to SS to end it. Plus Craig Monroe hit 2 home runs in this game to give him 4 for the year. It's good to see that he found a home and is playing well. He was a huge part of 2006 for Detroit.)

Back to the Tigers...
What aren't they doing well?
Pitching- How does an Earned Run Average of 5.14 sound? Compare it to 4.57 (2007). Compare that to 3.84 (2006). If you just look at the starters so far this year the ERA actually jumps to 5.62 (including Dontrelle Willis' 4 runs in 5 innings before going on the DL).

Defense- Overall the Tigers aren't really any worse than previous years. In 2006 they averaged 0.62 Errors per game. In 2007 they averaged 0.61 per game and they are doing the same this year. But where the errors occur plays a part too. When you break it down by position you see that, although the overall error rate is slightly less this year, the infield is worse. 3B has the biggest decline- 0.391 errors per game (9/38). And for those of you wondering, Carlos Guillen has 4 and Miguel Cabrera has 5. Moving Guillen from Shortstop has improved that position from 0.303 per game in 2007 to 0.130 in 2008.

I'm not an expert at these defensive stats, so this is purely conjecture, but I have to believe that the drop in defense is not helping that Runs Against stat. Of course, by definition, an error cannot impact a pitcher's ERA. But that batter should have been out and instead they are still on base and the pitcher must face another batter. In 2007 (looking at Batters Facing Pitcher) the starters faced an average of 4.34 batters each inning. In 2008 that is up to 4.52 batters per inning.

What to do? Well, I am in the camp of people who believe that Brandon Inge should be given his old job at 3B again. I believe that he would save enough runs (and pitchers' arms) to balance out the drop in hitting from that position. Again, I don't see that this team can't score runs- they seem to do that quite well overall. Much more than that I see that they can't prevent the other teams from scoring runs. Brandon helps with that. Plus, he has played 30 of the 38 games so far this year anyway, so it isn't that his weaker bat hasn't been a part of the situation so far anyway. Brandon had 18 errors at 3rd base last year in 146 games (0.123 errors/ game). So far the Cabrera/ Guillen combo has achieved 9 in 38 games.

That's my $0.02 worth.

(all stats gathered from www.baseball-reference.com)