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Detroit Tigers 2021 Season Preview

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The day is here. A full season of baseball, we have many reasons to hope, lays before us. The Detroit Tigers’ opening contest, a home divisional matchup with Cleveland, begins at 1:10 this afternoon. It will be, we must begin by noting, the first opening day without Al Kaline as a part of the Tigers organization since 1954.

The leading public projection systems don’t particularly care for what they see in the Tigers roster this year (PECOTA: sixty-six wins; FanGraphs: seventy-one wins), but even seventy wins would feel like a good accomplishment for a team that hasn’t bested that mark since 2016.

With championship contention out of the question, the focus turns to individual accomplishments. In that regard, most of the spotlight rightly belongs to Miguel Cabrera. A full, healthy season puts in play for him in 2021 two major offensive milestones: 3,000 hits and 500 home runs. Cabrera’s place in Cooperstown already is assured, but these are lifetime-achievement benchmarks it’s difficult to imagine absent from his resume. Cabrera enters the season second on both the active hits (2,866) and home runs (487) leaderboards, trailing only Albert Pujols in both categories. Most observers are targeting August and September for Cabrera to hit these historic points. In the meantime, it will be fun to watch him pass other big names– Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Barry Bonds– on his way there.

The rest of the Tigers roster has perhaps more modest goals for this season. The PECOTA projection system sees a few interesting individual achievements of varying significance for a handful of players. Will Opening-Day starter Matthew Boyd finish the season with an ERA under 4.00 for the first time ever? Will Buck Farmer post his first career save? Will Jeimer Candelario go all year without being caught stealing for the first time since 2017? Will Cabrera hit his first triple since 2016?

Detroit fans definitely like Farmer’s odds. As fun as it would be to see Cabrera leg out another triple, I think I’m rooting for Farmer, if only because that might help my nickname for him– Deer Hunter– finally gain some traction.

The Candelario item highlights a broader strategic shift toward what seems like it will be a more aggressive style of play coming from new manager A.J. Hinch. After leading the Houston Astros from the bottom all the way to the top and then losing his job and serving a one-year suspension for his role in the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal, Hinch found a new home with the team for which he played an unmemorable season of third-string catcher nearly a decade ago. Although there is and will remain a cloud over it, Hinch’s managerial championship pedigree and association with some of the game’s brightest minds (a little too bright, perhaps) in Houston, together with his playing experience that includes time behind the dish in Detroit and his relative youth (he’ll turn forty-seven next month), all suggest he could be the best version of what the Tigers thought they’d found in Brad Ausmus back in 2014.

While Hinch appears to be a steady hand at the helm, this ship will sail only as far as ownership allows. As some of the team’s top pitching prospects begin to ripen, the task of finding run support for that budding rotation remains at the feet of Chris Ilitch. When the iron is hot, will he spend like his father did to add key free agents and push the team back into the top tier of contention? Or will he continue to churn the roster, keeping the team mired in a hunt for nothing more than intransigent mediocrity? I really like the Julio Teheran signing this offseason, but it’s moves of a different kind– think Prince Fielder or even Justin Upton, like Teheran, also a former Atlanta Brave– that soon will be needed. Is the young owner truly motivated to win? We’ll know before long.

For now, we have at our own feet that pure and exciting thing for which there is no need to wait: the Detroit Tigers are playing baseball today.

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RKB: When the joke doesn’t land where you want it to land

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Following his first career walk-off hit, an eleventh-inning homer against the Toronto Blue Jays on Sunday, July 21, Detroit Tigers right fielder Nick Castellanos shared his feelings about Comerica Park, his baseball home for the entirety of his seven-year MLB career:

This park’s a joke. It’s to the point where, how are we going to be compared to the rest of the people in the league for power numbers and OPS and slugging and all this stuff, when we’ve got a yard out here that’s 420 feet straight across to center field? We get on second base, third base, and (opposing players) looking like, “how do you guys do this?” We play 81 games here, I don’t want to hear it about your two you hit that are questionable.

There’s no reason that I hit a ball 434 feet off Anibal Sanchez and it goes in the first row. That shouldn’t happen.

Let’s just say Miggy played his whole career in Yankee Stadium or Great American Ballpark or whatever – him and [Barry] Bonds are already the greatest hitters, period, there’s no discussion – but the fact that he’s played in Pro Player Stadium, the Marlins’ old park and then Comerica Park, there’s a discussion.

We do have ways of comparing player performances independent of the parks in which they performed, of course, but that’s beside the point. Castellanos wanted the Tigers to trade him prior to this season, and he probably still wanted that to happen as last month’s trade deadline approached. If I had to guess (I don’t have to, obviously), he made this statement because he’s frustrated with the lack of interest in his services from other teams and believes his fairly average batting numbers– which, he believes, would be much better if he played half his games in a smaller park– are to blame for that lack of interest. Subsequently developed information from local media sources apparently desperate to stoke fan outrage seems to confirm this:

Castellanos almost certainly would have more homers if he played in a hitter-friendlier park, but there isn’t a single MLB team or salary arbitrator (see Art. VI, Sec. E, Part 10(c) (defining admissible statistics in salary arbitrations)) evaluating him based on his raw, unadjusted hitting numbers. As long as he’s talking about those numbers, though, this may be the point to note that his career line at Comerica Park (.287/.339/.470) is better than the one he’s posted in road games (.264/.312/.454). The fact that this year’s split is running very strongly in the opposite direction likely is fueling his current frustration, however.  Continue reading →

Tonight’s World Series watch party is cancelled

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The Boston Red Sox had the nerve to win the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers last night before I was ready to be done watching baseball for the year. I didn’t necessarily want to keep watching these two teams play each other, since Boston seemed to hold a fairly convincing edge over L.A., but that pairing was the only option here at the end.

The primary purpose of this post is to record in this digital log book the above image of an advertisement for a watch party for game one of the 1907 World Series (excuse me, World’s Championship) between the Detroit Tigers and Chicago Cubs. I like the idea that, long before teams were inviting fans into their otherwise-empty arenas to watch road championship games together, fans were gathering to watch an intern tack scribbled game updates on a “giant bulletin board” outside the newspaper office. There being no television at that time, and radio broadcasts of games still being more than a decade away, this proto-ESPN Gamecast offering was your best option if you didn’t want to wait until the next day to find out what happened. Thankfully, October 8, 1907, was a fairly warm and dry day in Detroit (high 68, low 41, no recorded precipitation), but one imagines this was no guarantee.

Speaking of a lack of guarantees, there was no guarantee that Steve Pearce even was going to play in the World Series, much less be named its most valuable player. He started the season as a member of the Toronto Blue Jays, joining the Red Sox by way of a June 28 trade. He wasn’t a regular starter for Boston, and the thirty-five-year-old likely would not even have had the opportunity for significant postseason playing time but for an injury to Mitch Moreland.

My in-progress model generally supports the decision to name Pearce the MVP. In the postseason, only Yasiel Puig did more to contribute to his team’s championship chances than Pearce, and those two clearly separated themselves from the rest of the pack. (A nod here to Josh Hader, whose amazing performance as the tip of Milwaukee manager Craig Counsel’s aggressive bullpen spear kept him at or near the top of the cWPA leaderboard even after the Dodgers eliminated the Brewers in the NLCS.)

And here begins the MLB offseason. This week, watch for Clayton Kershaw’s Wednesday deadline to decide whether to opt out of the last two years of his contract (in which the Dodgers would owe him roughly $35 million per year), as well as Saturday’s deadline for teams to make qualifying offers to free agents, a crop of players that includes Pearce, as well as Manny Machado, Bryce Harper, Josh Donaldson, Dallas Keuchel, Andrew Miller, Andrew McCutchen, Craig Kimbrel, Yasmani Grandal, Nathan Eovaldi, Cody Allen, Jose Iglesias, Adam Jones, Adrian Beltre, and many others.

‘I’ll Never Forget It.’ (via Detroit Free Press)

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f1ed3bbd-5f15-439a-852b-af784061e788-ap_681010014This article was originally published Friday, Oct. 11, 1968 in the Free Press, the day after the Detroit Tigers won Game 7 of the World Series in St. Louis. Here’s the exact reprint of what Tigers outfielder Al Kaline wrote as it appeared in the paper.

ST. LOUIS — We had our strongest arm going for us and he won it and we won it the way we have all year, but coming from behind.

Mickey Lolich’s arm is the strongest on our staff. It’s never sore the day after he pitches, the way it is for most pitchers, so I thought he could do a good job even though he had only two days’ rest.

Mickey didn’t pitch as many innings this season as Bob Gibson, so I think he had an advantage there given Gibson had the three days’ rest.

I was surprised that Mickey had such good control though. We had to have the well-pitched game and he gave it to us.

Gibson was great again. I think he was better against me than he was in the first game when he struck me out three times. I got a hit in that one but he shut me out this time.

He had a couple bad breaks — Jim Northrup’s ball that went over Curt Flood’s head was the big one — and when you’ve got a tight ball game going like this, you’ve got to have the breaks and we got them.

I said after the first game that Gibson was one of the best pitchers I’ve ever faced — after seeing him three times I’ve got to say he’s the greatest.

I can see how Flood had trouble with Jim’s ball. In Busch Stadium, on a warm day when people are in shirtsleeves, it’s hard to see a line drive come off the bat. And besides that, the field was in poor condition because of the football game they played here Sunday.

At the start of the Series I remembered what Tony Kubek said about playing in the World Series, that you’ll never be as nervous in your life as you are before the first game … until the seventh game and then it’s worse.

The worse for me, and I think all of us, was the first game. After that we settled down. I wasn’t very nervous today. There wasn’t the wild celebration in the clubhouse that we had after winning the pennant but inside I was as happy and excited.

It always means more when you have to work for something and of course, I’ve been around 16 years and this is my first pennant and first Series.

And then, the way we won it made it doubly good, the way we played all year, from the time of that nine-game winning streak right after we lost on opening day.

It’s been my greatest year in baseball. I’ll never forget it.

(via Detroit Free Press)

[UPDATED] WTF: Bos to the Races, Part II

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While there were positive indications that the Detroit Tigers’ new pitching coach was connecting well with his charges, Chris Bosio’s tenure in Detroit already has come to an end. On Wednesday, general manager Al Avila– without consulting manager Ron Gardenhire— fired Bosio “for ‘insensitive comments’ directed toward a team employee on Monday.” It eventually emerged that Bosio’s “insensitive comments” were of a racial nature, and now we know that, according to Bosio,

he was fired because he used the term “spider monkey” in a conversation that was overheard by an African-American clubhouse attendant. Bosio insisted that the term was not directed at the clubhouse attendant, nor was it said in a racially disparaging fashion.

Bosio said the comment was made in reference to Daniel Stumpf, a white pitcher currently on the disabled list.
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“I’ve got protect myself someway, because this is damaging as hell to me. . . . I’ve got to fight for myself. Everyone knows this is not me. I didn’t use any profanity. There was no vulgarity. The N-word wasn’t used. No racial anything. It was a comment, and a nickname we used for a player.”

Bosio elaborated on the “nickname” aspect:

“Someone in our coaches’ room asked me [Monday afternoon] about Stumpf,” Bosio told USA Today. “And I said, “Oh, you mean ‘Spider Monkey.’ That’s his nickname. He’s a skinny little white kid who makes all of these funny faces when he works out.

“The kid [clubhouse attendant] thought we were talking about him. He got all upset. He assumed we were talking about him. I said, ‘No, no, no. We’re talking about Stumpf.’

“And that was it. I swear on my mom and dad’s graves, there was nothing else to it.”

Stumpf has not exactly rushed to his former coach’s defense, however. He told the Free Press that he had no knowledge of the alleged nickname: “Spider Monkey is not a nickname I have been called or I’m familiar with.”

When I first heard the news, I couldn’t help thinking about the public clashes between Bosio and Gardenhire pertaining to bullpen strategy that emerged during spring training as both men adjusted to their roles with their new team, particularly in light of the fact that Gardenhire named Rick Anderson as Bosio’s replacement. Anderson is a Gardenhire man through and through, someone Rod Allen referred to as Gardenhire’s “best friend.”

Bosio has indicated that he plans to explore legal action against the Tigers. If he pursues a claim for wrongful termination, he may face an uphill battle. As a coach, Bosio is not a union member, so state and federal law– rather than any collective bargaining agreement– would govern his employment and any legal claims arising therefrom. Since 2013, Michigan is a right-to-work state, meaning that employers like the Tigers generally can terminate their employees for any reason or no reason at all. Of course, it’s possible that team policies (as might be contained in an employee handbook) or Bosio’s employment contract with the team limited the team’s ability to fire him, however. Seemingly looking in that direction, Avila stated that Bosio’s conduct violated both team policy and his contract.

Without being able to review the Tigers’ employee handbook or Bosio’s contract, it’s difficult to offer much more in the way of an assessment of how a lawsuit between Bosio and the Tigers might go. What is clear is that, with the team’s record since the Rally Goose graced Comerica Park with its feathery presence having fallen below .500 thanks largely to two consecutive series sweeps, the Tigers have found their new diversion from the quality of their on-field performance.

UPDATE: The Athletic now is reporting a new version of the event that led to Bosio’s termination, citing four team sources:

Bosio called the attendant, who is African-American, a “monkey,” according to four team sources. The remark was directed toward the young man, who was collecting towels from the coaches’ room at the time, during a post-game gripe session in which Bosio was lamenting about a pitcher.

During this exchange, Bosio made a derogatory comment about one of the Tigers pitchers and then gestured toward the attendant before adding, “like this monkey here,” the sources said. The attendant pushed back at Bosio for the comment, and an additional team employee witnessed the exchange. Bosio was provided an opportunity to apologize to the attendant after his outburst but declined to do so, according to multiple sources.
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All four sources who spoke to The Athletic disputed Bosio’s account.

Regarding potential legal action involving Bosio, this new report also notes:

If Bosio decides to pursue a lawsuit against the Tigers, it will not be his only pending legal action. Bosio has multiple liens and judgments against him and he continues to be embroiled in proceedings with his ex-wife, Suzanne, for whom he filed for divorce in 2012 and was granted a divorce in 2014.

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Previously
WTF: Bad Company? – 6/26
WTF: Busted – 6/13
WTF: Bos to the Races – 5/22
WTF: Welcome Back Kozma – 5/9

Related
2018 Detroit Tigers Season Preview
Highlights from MLB Network’s visit to Detroit Tigers spring training

Saving Detroit: It’s over

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In a deal that went down to the final moments of Thursday night’s waiver/postseason trade deadline, the Detroit Tigers have traded franchise starting pitcher Justin Verlander to the Houston Astros in exchange for three prospects. Early reports indicate that the Astros will be taking on a substantial portion– but not the entirety– of Verlander’s remaining contract.

Verlander has spent the entirety of his thirteen-year major-league career with the Tigers, who chose him with the second overall pick out of Old Dominion in the 2004 amateur draft. In 2006, Verlander’s first full season in the big leagues, he earned American League rookie of the year honors as the team advanced to the World Series just three years after losing 119 games in 2003. That season kicked off the latest golden era for this historic franchise (“the Verlander Era,” I think we now can safely call it), a run that realistically ended in 2016; practically ended with the death of former owner Mike Ilitch in February of this year; and officially ended tonight. Verlander was a six-time All Star with the Tigers, winning both the AL Cy Young and MVP awards in 2011 (and he was robbed of the former award last year) and winning memorable postseason duels with the Yankees and A’s, among others.

Verlander has been the consistent face, leader, and spokesman of this Tigers team, and he was the author of many of its greatest hits. (Speaking of hits, Verlander earned his first major-league RBI last night in Colorado during what proved to be his final appearance in a Detroit uniform.) With respect to Miguel Cabrera, who came to Detroit in 2008 after winning a championship with the Florida Marlins, no player has been more closely associated with this team over the past decade-plus than Verlander.

That 2006 season also marked my return as a fan to baseball and the Tigers, so it’s as difficult as can be for me to envision Verlander playing for another team, even if he’ll still be in orange and, undoubtedly, dominating in the postseason. I will be watching, though, thankful for everything he did to help the team I for whatever reason care about and hopeful that he finds what he wants in Houston.

We now awake to a very new morning on Woodward Avenue and hope that the Tigers’ management and ownership pursue the rebuilding process with the same tenacity and persistent demand for excellence Verlander modeled for everyone in his days wearing the old English D.

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Previously
Upton There – 8/31
A bad time for a bad season – 8/29
Jordan Zimmermann takes tennis lessons – 8/20
Tigers Notes, 8/8/17 – 8/8
Decoding the Upton Myth – 8/2
Even the umpires just wanna go home – 7/21
Yo, a J.D. Martinez trade comp – 7/19
Martinez trade triggers premature referendum on Avila – 7/19
Michael Fulmer has righted the ship – 6/27
Tigers in Retrograde – 6/19
Fixing Justin Upton – 5/31
Soft in the Middle Now – 5/30
Reliever Relief, Part 2 – 5/11
Reliever Relief – 5/8

Related

ALDLAND’s full Justin Verlander archive

Catching Fire: Checking in on Justin Upton

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juptigk

Everyone knows Justin Upton has had a tough go of things during his first season in Detroit, and it’s reasonable to expect that there would be an adjustment period associated with his move to the American League– new pitchers, new parks– after spending his first nine seasons in the National League.

When we last checked in on Upton, in late June, things finally seemed to be heading in the right direction:

Especially exciting for Detroit was that two of [the Tigers’ home runs in a win against the Mariners] came off the bat of Justin Upton, who finally appears to be heating up for his new team after suffering one of the worst offensive stretches of his career.

jupwrc20gmavg

Upton has not continued in that direction, however; in fact, I seem to have caught him precisely at his peak. Here’s an updated version that same graph from the June post, above:

jupwrc20gmavgAug16

That earlier snapshot of Upton’s offensive production was through June 20, the date highlighted on this graph. Since then, Upton’s offense is declining again, and this graph (for reasons unknown to me) doesn’t even include the team’s two most-recent games, in which he went 0-7, striking out four times and grounding into two double plays.

jupmonthlysplitAug

At the moment, this season is the only full one of Upton’s career in which he has performed as a below-average batter, and, as the above all indicate, he’s been particularly bad of late. (Like, 6-wRC+-for-the-month-of-August bad.)

After the Mariners (coincidentally, the same team against which Upton appeared to break out back in June) completed a frustrating series sweep of the Tigers in Seattle early this morning, critics corralled their critical criticisms in Upton’s direction. Detroit hitting coach Wally Joyner came to Upton’s defense, however:

He’s a good player. He wasn’t sitting on the corner when they gave him the contract. He’s earned it. There’s a reason for that. Remember it. Nothing’s changed. He’s just a little bit unlucky right now.

He’s not OK with it and I’m glad he’s not OK with it. He’s working hard and he’ll be fine. He’s unlucky. He’s not playing like [crap].

Is Joyner right? Has Upton, of late, merely been unlucky?   Continue reading →

Farewell, again, dear Prince

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Nearly three years ago, Detroit Tigers fans said goodbye to Prince Fielder, whom the team traded in the 2013 offseason to Texas in exchange for Ian Kinsler. At the time, many were glad to see him leave, though some, including this author, were not. All must agree, however, that when Fielder left Detroit, he became barely a shadow of his former Ironman self. In his two years as a Tiger, he didn’t miss a single game. Excluding his rookie year, in the eight years he spent in Milwaukee and Detroit, he missed a total of thirteen games, playing the full 162 in four of those eight seasons. That’s an impressive accomplishment for any player.

If one wanted to be cold about it, one might note that, 2014, Fielder’s first in Texas, was a year of insult and injury for Prince. Not only did his trade replacement, Kinsler, make the All-Star team on his way to completing the second-best season of his career, but Fielder underwent season-ending neck surgery in late May, appearing in just forty-two games for his new club. He seemed to bounce back in 2015, posting a .305/.378/.463 line in 158 games, but it has been trouble again for Fielder in 2016. Despite his team’s success, Prince arguably was the worst position player of the first half of the season, and things weren’t looking up in the second half. After playing in all but five of the Rangers’ games through July 18, Fielder again went on the disabled list and, after undergoing a second neck surgery, is expected to miss the remainder of this season.

It may not just be the rest of the season he misses, however, as shocking reports emerged this afternoon that Prince’s career may be over:

If true, then, as a number of people have pointed out, Prince will finish with a .283/.382/.506 line, .304 TAv, .377 wOBA, 133 wRC+, 26.8 fWAR / 23.8 bWAR / 30.3 WARP, and 319 home runs, the same number of home runs his father, Cecil, with whom he seems to have reconciled, hit in a career just one season longer than his son’s.

Although serious injuries seemed to dim his wattage following the trade to Texas, I always will remember Prince Fielder as a complete hitter who was one of the happiest baseball players I ever saw. His friendship with Miguel Cabrera was particularly endearing.  What follows are some of my favorite images and clips from Prince’s playing days:   Continue reading →

Aftershocks: What is Matthew Stafford’s future with the reorganizing Lions?

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marthaOne week after Detroit Lions head coach Jim Caldwell elevated Jim Bob Cooter to offensive coordinator, dispatching former OC Joe Lombardi in the process, team owner Martha Ford brought the real thunder yesterday, terminating general manager Martin Mayhew and president Tom Lewand. Other front-office employees may have been fired as well, but available reports have been unclear on further details.

This is precisely the move the Lions needed to make, and while it probably should have happened years ago, Martha Ford has signaled that, under her watch, her family no longer is willing to accept losing and will take an active approach to building a winner. The biggest question now is how the team will go about hiring its new GM, and the experts already are suggesting possible successors.

A more concerning question arose amidst the breaking Mayhew/Lewand news, however, when a reporter covering that story stated that Matthew Stafford’s future with the Lions after the current season “is very much in doubt.” That reporter attempted to elaborate later in the day with remarks that seemed to lack internal logic, claiming, on one hand, that Stafford wasn’t smart enough to understand Lombardi’s offense, while observing, on the other, that he would be one of the top free-agent quarterbacks ever if Detroit released him. Is Stafford good or bad, Mr. Rapoport? Stafford’s teammates have aggressively bitten back against this new narrative, but the initial report gives credence to some recent rumblings about the quarterback’s future in Detroit. Would the Lions really trade or release Stafford? Should they?

This at least appears to be the dawning of a new era for the Lions, so it’s too early to know what options actually will be on the table for the team’s new GM. It is clear, though, that trading or releasing Stafford should not be one of them.    Continue reading →

ALDLAND Archives: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Lion: A tale of two teams?

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Last night, the Detroit Lions opened NFL preseason action by stomping– when the Dan Orlovsky scores on you, that qualifies as a “stomping”– the New York Jets, 23-3. Before Lions fans run off to soil their newspaper pages, web logs, Twitter feeds, and MLive.com comment sections with flowery projections of now and present greatness, some perspective may be helpful, and I’m not even talking about the manual/surgical realignment of Gino Smith’s jaw. We all hope the Lions have a good season and make a good showing on Thanksgiving Day, but if you are a fan of these or any other Detroit Lions, it will benefit your sanity to recall that a win (or four) in the preseason is but a nugget of fool’s gold.

Here, then, to cut through your Honolulu Blue hangover of victory is a selection from fairly deep in the ALDLAND Vault, such as it exists, that seems as likely as anything else we’ve published to be of perennial import. -Ed.

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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Lion: a Tale of Two Teams?

September 7, 2011

The NFL’s as-yet-unabridged preseason finished up last weekend, and the Detroit Lions turned in another dominant performance, posting a 4-0 record and notching an especially impressive win over the New England Patriots. Analysts and commentators repeat the common mantra that the preseason doesn’t mean a lot, but in the same breath, many of them are pointing to this year’s Lions as a team that could be a surprise success. . . . Read the rest . . .