(I decided to break this deal down in two separate posts, because there are too many angles to fit it all into one. Texas fans, we’ll talk about this deal from the Rangers perspective in a separate article.)

The Detroit Tigers were a very good baseball team, but with Omar Infante heading for free agency and too much money committed to other players to keep him around, they had a hole at second base. They also had too many designated hitters, with Victor Martinez’s presence forcing both Prince Fielder and Miguel Cabrera to play the field even when they really couldn’t. With Cabrera’s body breaking down in September, it became pretty clear that something had to give, and an obvious solution was moving one of their DHs could open up some money for them to fill their second base hole.

Instead of making a series of smaller transactions that accomplished that goal, the Tigers instead just found a way to directly exchange Prince Fielder for Ian Kinsler, filling their hole at second base, freeing up their DH logjam, and saving enough money to potentially keep the rest of their core in tact. This is a pretty fantastic start to the off-season for Dave Dombrowski.

Before we get too much further into the commentary, let’s break down the specifics of what swapping Prince Fielder for Ian Kinsler actually works out to.

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This evening, Jon Heyman broke the story that the Detroit Tigers are on the verge of sending Prince Fielder to the Texas Rangers for Ian Kinsler. We don’t have all of the details yet, so there could be more to it, but at the very least, it is a very, very interesting trade. Dave Cameron will have more on this later, but let’s take a brief look now, shall we?

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Former Texas Ranger David Murphy has reportedly agreed to a contract with the Cleveland Indians. As of this writing, the details are still coming out, but the deal is said to be for two years and about $12 million. It sounds like the new standard contract for platoon players in their thirties — see Jonny Gomes and David DeJesus for recent examples. Cleveland might very well be planning to platoon the left-handed-hitting Murphy with Ryan Raburn in right field. The combination could provide enough production at the right price to overcome concerns about flexibility while also filling out Cleveland’s lineup and allowing them a chance to take another shot at the playoffs in 2014 if they make some additional moves.

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The 2013 season was a banner season for players going on the disabled list. The DL was utilized 2,538 times, which was 17 more than the previous 2008 high. In all, players spent 29,504 days on the DL which is 363 days more than in 2007. Today, I take a quick look at the 2013 DL data and how it compares to previous seasons.

To get the DL data, I used MLB’s Transaction data. After wasting too many hours going through the data by hand, I have the completed dataset available for public consumption.  Enjoy it, along with the DL data from previous seasons. Finally, please let me know of any discrepancies so I can make any corrections.

With the data, it is time to create some graphs. As stated previously, the 2013 season set all-time marks in days lost and stints. Graphically, here is how the data has trended since 2002:

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Last week, the Texas Rangers caught many off-guard when they announced they had signed young left-hander Martin Perez to a four-year deal that guarantees the pitcher $12.5 million dollars. Perez has thrown just over 162 innings at the major league level, but the club made him the fourth member of its current rotation that now under team control through the 2016 season.

The benefits for Perez are obvious. The contract eliminates any financial risks that come from injury, a frequent occurrence with younger pitchers. Perez willingly sacrifices potential greater income knowing that he can take care of himself and his family with his new contract. The deal also gives Perez the potential to stay with the organization that has drafted and developed him through the 2020 season. For the Rangers, the deal allows them to control the costs of a pitcher they obviously think very highly of should he continue to show the improvements he did in the second half of the 2013 season.

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Although the end of regular baseball is sad for both fans who blog and those who do not, for the former it at least provides a time to look back on the season and write about certain achievements. For me, it is a nice time to whip out some silly awards based on toy stats. On Monday, we looked at 2013’s Joe Carter–Tony Batista Award winner, which compared RBI totals with linear weights runs created. Today, we look at a more specific situational stat that someone (not me) suggested a few years back and that I have looked at annually. It is not the same thing as clutch, but does use situational metrics to see how much a player contributed on offense beyond what is measured by traditional linear weights, in this case by looking at the specific game states the player faced. For better or worse, we call the winner of this award the King of the Little Things.

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From last year until forever, maybe, one-game playoffs are going to be a part of our postseason viewing reality. Entire seasons are going to come down to nine-inning snapshots, meaning everything’s going to ride on winning those nine innings. One of the best ways to maximize win probability is to be aggressive with the bullpen. To be aggressive with getting it involved, and to be aggressive with changing it up. Starters, as a rule, get worse as a game goes on. Relievers are good, especially fresh. Almost every one-game playoff preview we write here will suggest a starter not last too long, because that tends not to be the sensible course. Monday night, there was a one-game playoff between the Rangers and Rays. The Rays opted not to use their bullpen at all. The Rays will face the Indians in Cleveland on Wednesday, in large part thanks to David Price.

So much of the pregame discussion focused on Price’s poor personal history against the Rangers over his career. Nevermind that Price has gotten a lot better, and that the Rangers have changed, and that they never met before in 2013. The talk was that Price struggled against Texas, especially in Texas. The Rangers, in theory, could go in with confidence, and Price came away with a complete-game seven-hitter, the Rangers scoring just twice and not really threatening after the sixth. Price didn’t pitch like he’d pitched against Texas. He pitched like he’d pitched overall.

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The Rays knocked off the Rangers by three Monday night, and the game, presumably, was not decided by a successful pick-off in the bottom of the first. However, it was a pick-off most interesting, given the actions of James Loney at first base. So while the pick-off is not what people will be talking about Tuesday, it seemed like this should be opened up for a poll, in order to gauge reader opinion.

Following, the play, along with the pertinent rules. Is this obstruction, or is this good defense on Loney’s part? Elvis Andrus was quickly erased, and the Rangers’ odds of winning dropped more than four percentage points. Who’s to say what the inning could’ve become? Do we even need to worry about the context or significance when talking about a rule-book gray area?

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In just a short while, the Rangers and Rays will begin determining the American League’s second wild card. In a less short while, the second wild card will have been determined. One of these teams is going to live to play the Indians, while the other will not live, which I guess means it dies. It will subsequently be revived, in time for offseason roster maneuvering. One-game wild-card playoffs were introduced last year as a means of increasing excitement. Because of those wild-card playoffs, this particular one-game playoff feels a little less dramatic, but even so, a lot is resting on 9+ innings. Whole seasons, and their fates.

So why is this game being played? Because, of course, the Rangers and Rays finished with identical 91-71 records. It’s not the sort of tie you break by looking at head-to-head record. This has to be sorted out on the field, and as luck would have it, Monday was otherwise a scheduled off day. There’s no arguing that the Rangers and Rays have achieved an identical number of wins. There’s something to be said, though, about their respective paths.

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Here is a quick look at the called strike zone and strikeout and walk rates for the three home plate umpires over the next three nights.

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