Speaking literally, Miguel Cabrera is still the same guy. He still responds to the same name, he still has the same identification. He still drives the same car, or cars. He’s still got the same family, he still eats the same breakfast, he still has the same genetic makeup, and while he might have an extra new scrape or three, scrapes are experience and experience is wisdom. Cabrera’s even basically himself in the ballpark. He’s got the same inside jokes, he’s got the same uniform and locker, he’s got the same glove and he’s got the same stance. If someone were to point at Miguel Cabrera, and ask you “is that Miguel Cabrera?” there would be only one reasonable answer, and that answer would be “yes, yes of course, this is a very dumb question.”

But it’s plain as day Miguel Cabrera is not still the same player. Which isn’t to suggest he’s in the throes of decline — he’s in the throes of short-term physical agony. Come next season, Cabrera should resemble himself, but right now, he’s playing hurt, meaning he’s playing less effectively, and people know. It’s kind of been talked about. Never was this more apparent than Tuesday, when, in a big spot in a one-run game, the best hitter in baseball was made to look helpless by a good Red Sox reliever Red Sox fans still don’t trust. With runners on the corners and one out, Junichi Tazawa blew Cabrera away with outside heat, and the Tigers felt just about finished. It was a dark moment for Cabrera, and it was a moment in which he also tried something different.

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The Cardinals felt like they were in a good position, handing the ball for Game 3 to Adam Wainwright. The Cardinals lost, not because of Wainwright, but because they couldn’t score. The Tigers felt like they were in a good position, handing the ball for Game 3 to Justin Verlander. The Tigers lost, not because of Verlander, but because they couldn’t score. Verlander, on Tuesday, turned in one of the better postseason starts all-time, I’d say. Over eight innings he struck out ten and was made to pay for one mistake. But John Lackey and the Red Sox bullpen kept the Tigers shut out, with Koji Uehara slamming the door. And Uehara’s outing was not without its moment of interest.

It was bad for the Tigers when Miguel Cabrera struck out with two on in the eighth. It was bad for the Tigers when Prince Fielder struck out right after. But according to the play log, the worst play all game for the Tigers was Jhonny Peralta‘s ninth-inning double play. After Victor Martinez‘s leadoff single, the Tigers’ win expectancy was an estimated 35%. After the double play, it dropped to 5%. Hope was torn down as quickly as it was built up, and Alex Avila’s closing at-bat felt like a formality. The game effectively ended on Peralta’s grounder, and that grounder came on a pitch that followed a 1-and-1 fastball.

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When constructing his current roster, Dave Dombrowski (and Mike Ilitch) chose to prioritize offensive production, and were willing to sacrifice defense in several positions in order to get more thump into the line-up. Miguel Cabrera, despite being hobbled with injuries that leave him unable to run, is playing third base. He moved to third to accommodate Prince Fielder, who told the Tigers he didn’t want to DH when he signed a $214 million contract to play first base for them. And the Tigers weren’t overly interested in creating a long term logjam at the DH position, since they were already paying Victor Martinez a lot of money to serve as their DH once he returned from injury. The plan was always to fit these three guys into the same line-up, and in 2013, that’s what the Tigers have done.

In some ways, it’s not that hard to say that the plan worked. The Tigers won the AL Central again, and they’re now three wins away from reaching their second consecutive World Series. They finished second in the majors in runs scored, so the decision to give up defense in search of more offense was successful, at least in terms of maximizing run scoring.

But trade-offs work both ways, and while the Tigers reap the benefits of playing three designated hitters on offense, they also suffer the consequences of punting defense at the infield corners. For instance, I present the 9th inning of last night’s game.

After watching their bullpen blow a four run lead, Rick Porcello was trying to keep the game tied and push it into extra innings. Rick Porcello is a ground ball pitcher, and he started the inning facing Jonny Gomes. He got Gomes to hit a ground ball, but then, it all went really wrong.

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Nothing against Jarrod Saltalamacchia, but I just had to look it up to make sure that the game-winner was hit by Jarrod Saltalamacchia. It was an important hit to win Game 2, of course, and it was sharply struck, but that was a fairly obvious run-scoring situation, and more importantly, what people are really going to remember is David Ortiz. What was on people’s minds at the time was David Ortiz and his first-pitch game-tying grand slam. In the same way the US didn’t win gold by beating the Soviets in 1980, the Red Sox didn’t beat the Tigers on the strength of Ortiz’s slam, but it was the slam that provided the moment. What came after only make sure the slam didn’t go to waste.

Naturally, there’s the same issue as there was with Jose Lobaton: we don’t yet know how this will really be remembered, in the long run, because the series still has at least three more games to go, and an eventual Red Sox loss would color everything that came before the decision. The magnitude of Ortiz’s heroics will be determined over the course of the following week. But one does still get the sense this won’t be forgotten as quickly as Lobaton’s bomb, even if the Sox do lose, just considering the circumstances and the identities. The moment became an instant legend. So who do we blame? That’s how we’re supposed to do this, right? Who screwed up, to allow Ortiz to bring the Sox back? Or did no one screw up, and did Ortiz just pull some more magic out of his tuckus?

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After examining the National League Championship Series umpires yesterday, I will look at the American League Championship Series umpires today. Even though the ALCS umpire crew is led by fan “favorite” Joe West, they are generally neutral in their strike calling.

For each umpire, I have include their 3-year average K%, BB% and Zone% for both left-handed and right-handed hitters. To get the Zone%, I looked at the number of called strikes and balls in the league average called strike zone. The strike zone used is the same one that is used for FanGraphs hitter and pitcher Pitchf/x Zone% values.

Also, I have created a 100 scale which shows how much more or less an umpire’s values are compared to the league average. A value over 100 is always pitcher friendly (a lower BB% means a higher value).

Additionally, I have included a heat map of the umpire’s called strike zone compared to the league average zone. It subtracts the percentage of called strikes divided by the total of the called balls and strikes of the umpire from the league average. For example, if the umpire called a pitch in the zone a strike 40% of the time and if the league average is 50%, the output would be -10% (40%-50%) or 0.10.

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When the Tigers fell behind the A’s two games to one in the series, they knew they’d need either Max Scherzer or Justin Verlander to pitch well if they were to advance. As it turned out, they needed them both — Scherzer recorded some critical outs in Game 4, and then Verlander recorded a lot more of them in Game 5, starting in what would’ve been Scherzer’s place. For eight innings on Thursday, Verlander was virtually unhittable, removing any would-be suspense from a potentially suspenseful game. At times on Tuesday, the A’s would’ve figured this would be Scherzer’s start, if necessary. At times on Tuesday, the A’s would’ve figured they’d have Thursday off. It was in Game 4 that the A’s were in position to lock this series up. In Game 5, they never really stood a chance.

The question coming in was whether the Tigers or A’s would emerge from this triumphant. The question in the middle innings became whether the A’s would so much as get a runner on base. Nobody reached until Josh Reddick’s walk in the bottom of the sixth. Nobody got a hit until Yoenis Cespedes‘ single in the bottom of the seventh. There wasn’t suspense until the game’s final batter, and by then Verlander had been removed. On October 6, 2012, Coco Crisp led off Game 1 of the ALDS with a home run against Verlander. He hasn’t given up another postseason run to the A’s in four starts, whiffing 43. It’s an all-time record, and it’s active, pending the future.

For eight innings, Verlander mowed the A’s down. With one swing of the bat, he was given all the run support he’d need. After Verlander was gone, the A’s couldn’t seize their one final chance. This was a Game 5 decided by three separate fastballs.

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Justin Verlander didn’t have a Justin Verlander year, you may have noticed. Sure, he had 200 strikeouts and a decent ERA, but he wasn’t the guy that won all of the hardware in 2011 and could’ve won more in 2012. But that was because he had to work something out mechanically.

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One of the weird things you just get used to when you’re a hockey fan is the vague, non-informative reportage of injuries, especially around playoff time. If a guy has a broken foot, it’s a lower-body injury. If a guy sustained a concussion, it’s an upper-body injury. No one ever goes into specifics until a playoff run is over, nominally so as not to give the other team some kind of advantage. If a guy’s playing through pain, you don’t want the other team targeting his sore spots, after all. Once a team is eliminated, or wins the Stanley Cup, everything comes out, and everyone admits what they’ve been dealing with. By the end, nobody’s healthy.

Tony Paul’s suspicion is that, whenever the Tigers are done playing baseball, everyone will come clean about what’s going on with Miguel Cabrera. It’s no secret that Cabrera’s playing hurt, and we’ve all heard about his litany of aches and pains, but we might not have a true understanding of how bad things have gotten. I don’t know, that’s speculation, but Cabrera most certainly doesn’t look like himself. He most certainly didn’t look like himself — or perform like himself — in September, as nagging pains mounted. The Tigers, like everyone, are more than just one player, and they’ve still got a shot at a title, but they’d have a better shot with a healthy Cabrera, a Cabrera who doesn’t presently exist.

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Ahead of game five, Oakland manager Bob Melvin had a tough choice to make. Both Bartolo Colon and Sonny Gray were available on full rest. And though he has indicated that Sonny Gray is his starter, what this post presupposes is: what if he hadn’t told us who was starting. Who would we choose to be his starter?

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Prince Fielder ranks 12th among active players in hit-by-pitches, and you can spare us all the fat jokes because Reed Johnson ranks fifth. There are guys for whom getting hit is basically a skill, and this seems to be the case for Fielder, as he’s happy to find another way to reach base. Some of the balls that’ve hit him have hit him in the back. Some of the balls that’ve hit him have hit him in the butt. Some of the balls that’ve hit him have hit him in the elbow. Bringing us to a Prince Fielder HBP on Tuesday.

Fielder led off the bottom of the second inning against Dan Straily, and after falling behind 0-and-2, he got drilled by a fastball that ran up and in. The next guy struck out and the guy after that hit into a double play, so what happened to Fielder hardly mattered in the end, but this nevertheless seems like an excellent opportunity to gauge reader opinion on something.

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