With this All-Star break forcing to watch so little baseball, we now have a moment to drink up the frothy milkshake of statistics from the first half. So, you and I, we shall dissect the stats and find out who has been lucky, unlucky and a little of both.
The minor leagues are a vast landscape of prospects, fillers and veterans. Each year, players from all three of those category impact the major leagues — sometimes for the better, sometimes not. But before they make their September callups or injury replacements, let us familiarize ourselves with some of the standouts.
International League (AAA)
IL Leaderboards
Brad Eldred (.374 OBP, .695 SLG, .465 wOBA, 197 wRC+)
Yesterday, in these pages, I suggested that possibly — if not probably — Detroit right-hander Justin Verlander could have entered the seventh inning of his Sunday start against Pittsburgh in pursuit of his third career no-hitter. The basis for that suggestion rested on the fact that both of the hits he allowed before that seventh inning were (a) of the infield variety and (b) hit in the direction of Miguel Cabrera, who is generally speaking considered to be something of a defensive liability at third base.
With that in mind, I provided video footage of the two hits — a bunt single by outfielder Alex Presley and an infield hit for catcher Michael McKenry — allowed by Verlander through the first six innings. With regard to each hit, I asked the learned, bespectacled readership to answer a single question — namely, “Do you think a league-average third baseman would convert this batted-ball into an out?”
Now here are the results:
In this, their long-overdue rebuilding year, the Chicago Cubs have redefined terrible on the North Side. They currently sport an Major League Baseball-low 24 wins and have a dreadful duo of punchless offense and impotent pitching.
But they are not without trade chips as they approach a dark second half. Bryan LaHair and Jeff Samardzija — who possess an attractive blend of affordability and upside — and Ryan Dempster, Geovany Soto and David DeJesus will all get a number of inquiries as the deadline approaches. But the team is particularly eager to sell one asset more quickly than the others. His name is Alfonso Soriano.
Signed to a double-albatross contract — awarding the 36-year-old an $18 million salary through 2012, 2013 and 2014 — Soriano has no hopes of playing at a value commensurate with his income. However, he’s not without his strengths, and for certain teams looking for a power-hitting righty, Soriano might be the right fit.
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While pretty much everyone knows that you “can’t predict baseball,” if there was one feeling shared by the majority of analysts before the season started, it was that the Detroit Tigers were going to easily win the American League Central, perhaps with some token resistance from Cleveland. That is not how things have gone, as presently the Tigers not only find themselves trailing Cleveland, but also surprising division leader Chicago. The Tigers are clearly built to “win now,” and with almost two-thirds of a season to play, being four games out of the division lead (not to mention wildcard possibilities) is hardly insurmountable. This is especially so since neither Chicago nor Cleveland are juggernauts themselves. The Tigers are thus in a position to buy, so what do they need?
This week officially has a theme – after Ted Lilly (strained shoulder), Roy Halladay (strained lat) and Jered Weaver (strained back) landed on the disabled list over the last two days, Ken Rosenthal is reporting that Doug Fister (strained side) has now joined the party, and is heading back to the DL with the same injury that caused him to miss most of April. There’s been a lot of straining going on as of late.
Fister was deactivated after his first start of the year with a costochondral strain, and the hope was that a few weeks of rest would cause the issue to resolve itself. He was able to make five starts – and pitch well in those five starts, posting 3.47 xFIP during May – but the issue has returned, and now Fister is back on the DL for another period of rest.
Losing Fister for a few weeks isn’t the end of the world, but the injury’s recurrence has to concern the Tigers beyond just the time he’ll spend on the sidelines. Muscle strains have a history of lingering, and if Fister has to pitch through the injury all season, it could be a continuous issue. It does not appear to be serious enough that it prevents him from being effective when he is able to take the mound, but his ability to remain in the rotation on a consistent basis for the next four months has to be a question at this point.
To make his start on Friday, the Tigers have called up Casey Crosby from Triple-A, whom Marc Hulet rated as the Tigers fourth best prospect before the season began. Crosby is the anti-Fister, throwing good stuff from the left side with well below average control, and hoping he can get enough strikeouts to offset all the walks. His last two starts have been two of his best, as he’s run up 16 strikeouts against just one walk in 15 innings pitched, but he’d walked 15 batters in his three previous starts, so consistency is probably going to be an issue.
It’s certainly worth the Tigers time to give the kid a look and see if his stuff can translate to the big league level even with spotty command, but with Fister’s status up in the air, you can probably add the Tigers to the list of teams that may very well be hunting for a big league starter at the trade deadline. That list has gotten very crowded in the last few days.
The word is out that former Tigers and White Sox outfielder Magglio Ordonez will officially retire this weekend. Many tributes will probably be written to Ordonez, who had a lengthy and productive career. Except for his monster career year in 2007, Ordonez was not really ever the superstar some thought he was (nice job, Scott Boras), but he was a good hitter who got a lot of mileage out of a combination of good power and great contact skills. David Laurila has a great interview with Ordonez that was published earlier, in which the retiree mentions his biggest moment, his walk-off home run in the 2006 ALCS that put the Tigers into the World Series. All things considered, that was probably the right choice — it does not get much bigger than that (without being in the World Series itself). Win Probability Added (WPA) sees that as Ordonez’s biggest playoff hit at .387:
That was a great moment for the Tigers and their fans, but just considered on a individual game basis, Ordonez had many more dramatic hits in the regular seasons. As a farewell to a guy I kind of thought had already retired, let’s look at the three biggest according to WPA.
On Tuesday, Dan Szymborski utilized his ZIPS projection system and the standings as of Monday night to re-cast the projected standings for the end of the season in a piece for ESPN Insider. In those standings, the Detroit Tigers were still listed as the projected winners of the AL Central, nudging out the Indians by a two game margin with their projected final total of 87 wins.
Since that article was posted, the Indians completed a three game sweep of the Tigers, even beating Detroit with Justin Verlander on the mound this afternoon. The sweep widened the Indians lead to six games (with 118 to go), and made the Indians the new favorites to end the year as the division winners.
The Detroit Tigers are in third place in the American League Central at 20-21. They’re not where they — and many of us — expected them to be at this part of the season. Yes, the starting rotation’s been inconsistent, other than the supremely good and consistent Justin Verlander. The bullpen has sprung a few leaks, and leads the American League in losses with eight. But it’s the offense that’s been the most disappointing.
Through 41 games, the Tigers have scored 180 runs, just the seventh-most in the American League. The Rangers have scored 236. Even with Evan Longoria sidelined, the Rays are ahead of the Tigers with 184 runs. The Yankees, who haven’t had a hit with a runner in scoring position in two weeks (or so it seems), have scored 189.
It’s been a strange season for Detroit Tigers stater Max Scherzer and its only the third week of May. Well, maybe strange is too strong of a word. Perhaps interesting is a better choice. And it certainly has been interesting.
Scherzer’s first start of the season, on April 8 against the Boston Red Sox, ended after only 2 2/3 innings. The righty gave up seven runs on eight hits and two walks and was pulled before the end of the third inning. Of his 80 pitches, there were 51 strikes — 16 called strikes and four swing-throughs. The other 31 strikes were either hits or foul balls. Velocity didn’t appear to be an issue. His fastball averaged 93.5 mph, his two-seamer averaged 94.6, his slider averaged 86.6 and his change-up averaged 85.1 — all faster speeds than he recorded on average in 2011. But he threw too many pitches over the heart of the plate, resulting in hits and runs.
