When the Tigers turned in their roster for the ALCS, there was one major change – Delmon Young (strained oblique) was out and Danny Worth was in, so Detroit will have to go forward without their starting left fielder. While losing any player off your roster at this time of year isn’t good news, Young’s loss probably won’t make much of a difference in the outcome of the series.

Young performed well for Detroit in their ALDS win over the Yankees, but in reality, he’s a pretty mediocre player. Even after being acquired by Detroit, Young hit just .274/.298/.458 during the regular seson, good for a 101 wRC+. Essentially, he was a league average hitter, and that’s only if you ignore the disaster that was his 2011 season in Minnesota.

Young’s true talent level is probably closer to his Detroit performance than his Minnesota performance, as he showed some power in 2010 and does have some undeniable athletic ability, but even at his peak, he’s an overly aggressive hitter who hits a lot of ground balls and is a mediocre fielder at best. He can be useful when he drives the ball regularly – as he did against the Yankees – but when he’s not hitting the ball out of the ballpark, he’s basically useless.

Read the rest of this entry »

Bottom 3rd, 1st and 2nd, 2 outs – Robinson Cano flies out to center field.

Bottom 4th, Bases loaded, 1 out – Russell Martin pops out to first base.
Bottom 4th, Bases loaded, 2 out – Brett Gardner fouled out to third base.

Bottom 7th, Bases loaded, 1 out – Alex Rodriguez struck out.
Bottom 7th, Bases loaded, 2 out – Nick Swisher struck out.

You can talk about whether Joe Girardi should have pinch hit for Martin all you want, but the Yankees had six opportunities to drive in a bunch of runs in a hurry, and all they got was a bases loaded walk. A-Rod is going to be fitted for goat horns again, but half the team made huge outs when the Yankees needed a hit.

You also have to give some serious credit to Doug Fister and Joaquin Benoit, who both threw some really good pitches when they had to. Benoit’s seventh inning change-ups, in particular, were just ridiculously nasty, and he threw some of his best pitches of the year when they counted most.

Last night, Kirk Gibson’s Diamondbacks jumped on the Milwaukee Brewers, scoring five runs in the first inning and opening up an early lead. However, despite having a bit of a cushion, Gibson made the wise decision to pinch hit for his starting pitcher – Joe Saunders – in the bottom of the third inning, trusting his bullpen to handle the last six innings of Game 4.

Gibson’s willingness to not ask too much from a mediocre starting pitcher was one of the best decisions any manager has made in October, and Joe Girardi would do well to follow a similar path.

Nova, like Saunders, posted an ERA that’s quite a bit better than his underlying performance suggests is likely going forward. Neither are terrible pitchers, but they both rely on pitching to contact and hoping the ball ends up in their teammates gloves, a strategy that can lead to rallies spawning quickly and with little notice. Like Gibson, Girardi should recognize that he has a plethora of superior arms in the bullpen, most of whom could offer a better chance to keep the Tigers off the board than Nova can. In fact, if the Yankees have one big advantage tonight, it’s the depth of their bullpen.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tonight, the Tigers and Yankees face off in a winner-take-all battle, and just like both teams drew it up, the pitching match-up for the elimination contest will be Doug Fister versus Ivan Nova. Okay, so that’s not how either team drew it up — the rain in Game 1 on Friday made for some wonky rotations, and now both teams will try to keep their seasons going without their best pitchers on the mound.

Understanding that a round one exit will be looked at as a failure, Joe Girardi has stated that CC Sabathia is available out of the bullpen if needed tonight, despite throwing 106 pitches on Monday. However, Jim Leyland has categorically stated that Justin Verlander will not appear in tonight’s game.

Maybe Leyland is bluffing. Maybe he’ll change his mind if the Tigers are trying to preserve a small lead as the game goes on. If he doesn’t, though, this might be a decision he regrets for quite a while.

Read the rest of this entry »

After hitting 44 home runs in 2002 and 2003 combined, Adrian Beltre launched 48 home runs in 2004, putting together one of the great seasons any third baseman has ever had. Because his monster season seemingly “came out of nowhere” (despite the fact that he was considered an elite prospect and reached the majors as a teenager), and because he wasn’t able to sustain that kind of offensive performance in Seattle, that year is often referred to as one of the great flukes in baseball history. It is common to hear people point to it as evidence of the “contract year” phenomenon or suggest that he starting used steroids in order to get himself a big paycheck in free agency.

For those people, though, 2011 is becoming a bit of a problem, because Adrian Beltre is doing it again.

In 2004, 7.1% of Beltre’s plate appearances (including the postseason) resulted in a home run. In 2011, 6.4% of Beltre’s plate appearances have resulted in a home run, a rate just slightly less than what he put up in his “fluke” year. If you give him the same number of plate appearances as he had in 2004, he’d have 43.4 home runs this year, just 4.6 fewer than his breakout season.

It gets even better. Because of the offensive downturn of the last several years, home runs are no longer as common now as they were back then. Relative to the average hitter in the National League in 2004, Beltre’s HR/PA ratio was 151% above average – this year, it’s 145% above average.

It’s not really a fluke if you do it twice. It’s not really a contract year push when you do it immediately after signing a long term deal that doesn’t expire until 2016. It’s just evidence of what’s been true all along – Adrian Beltre is one of the best players in baseball.