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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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During the 2011 postseason, I wrote about Brandon Inge and the unusual circumstances of his season with the Detroit Tigers. In post entitled Brandon Inge’s Rare Feat, I explained that:

Based on my research, Inge appears to be the only player in the past 10 years with more than five years of major-league service who was designated for assignment, then was recalled by the major-league team that sent him down and then went on to play a significant role [for that team] in the postseason.

The Tigers had designated Inge for assignment last July after he batted .144/.202/.196 in 239 plate appearances. He reported to the Tigers’ Triple-A affiliate in Toledo, and hit his way back to Detroit in August. Upon his return, he batted .262/.315/.436 in 54 plate appearances and earned a spot on the Tigers’ postseason roster. He contributed a .429/.500/.571 line to the Tigers’ winning effort over the Yankees in the League Division Series and a .267/.389/.467 line in the Tigers’ loss to the Rangers in League Championship Series.

Heading into the 2012 season, Inge expected to play third base for the Tigers in the final year of his 2-year/$11 million contract. But Victor Martinez blew out his knee and was lost for the season, leading the the Tigers to sign Prince Fielder and move Miguel Cabrera to third base. The Tigers moved Inge to second base, where he split time with Ryan Raburn and Ramon Santiago. In twenty plate appearances, Inge hit .100/.100/.300. The Tigers released him on April 26.

Four days later, the Oakland A’s — desperate for just a replacement-level third baseman — signed Inge. In eleven games, Inge is producing for Oakland like he did for Detroit last postseason. In 50 plate appearances, Inge is hitting .227/.300/.545 with five walks, two doubles and four home runs. Two of Inge’s   homers have been grand slams, including this walk-off slam against the Toronto Blue Jays last week:

He’s also made some nifty defensive plays for the Green-and-Gold, including this catch of Omar Vizquel’s bunt attempt in the same game as the walk-off grannie.

Whether Inge will continue to produce for the A’s remains to be seen. Fifty plate appearances is a tiny sample size and runs counter to Inge’s career numbers: .234/.304/.389, .301 wOBA and 81 RC+.

Even so, Inge has already accomplished something few other major leaguers have: getting released from one team mid-season, signing with a new team that season, and making an immediate impact for the new team.

To be sure, there are dozens of players who’ve redeemed their careers in the the seasons following an outright release. Among pitchers who’ve recently turned their careers around after getting released there’s Brandon McCarthy, Ryan Vogelsong, Kevin Millwood, Clay Hensley, and Tim Byrdak. Among  position players, there’s Casey Kotchman, Melky Cabrera, and Jeff Francoeur.

But few players turn their season around with a new team following a release. Bobby Abreu’s been given a second chance with the Dodgers this season, after the Angels released him on April 26. After batting .208/.259/.303 in 27 plate appearances with Anaheim, Abreu’s posted a .296/.345/.444 line in 29 plate appearances for the boys in blue. Livan Hernandez has been useful out of the bullpen for the Braves this season, after getting released by the Astros at the end of spring training. In 22 1/3 innings, Hernandez has a 2.17 K/BB ratio and is stranding 81 percent of the runners on base.

Last season, the Rays released Cory Wade from their Triple-A affiliate in June only to see him become a steady reliever out of the Yankees bullpen.  The Rangers faced Arthur Rhodes in the World Series after they released him  August and he signed on with the Cardinals.

Pat Burrell turned his career around with the Giants in 2010, after the Rays released him in the second year of a 2-year/$16 million contract. At the time he left Tampa, Burrell was batting .202/.292/.333 with two home runs in 96 plate appearances. In San Francisco, Burrell batted .266/.364/.539 with eighteen home runs in 341 plate appearances and was a key component of the Giants’ first World Series Championship since the team moved to San Francisco in 1958.

Unlike Burrell and Abreu, there’s nothing in Inge’s career numbers to suggest he can sustain this offensive production for the A’s over the rest of the season. But Inge has proved us wrong before. And he may just do it again.

Ivan Rodriguez is reportedly slated to announce his retirement from baseball today. There will be much written about his impressive career, and much of it will focus on whether or not he will get into the Hall of Fame, even though his numbers pretty obviously warrant it. Personally, I think that sidesteps the issue of how such a great player had not one but two lame nicknames: “Pudge,” which would not be so bad if it had not already been used; and “I-Rod,” which involved the incredibly annoying “first initial-first syllable” lazy nicknaming thing. It makes it hard to give this post a decent title.

Rather than looking at a career overview, let’s focus on a few particular moments: Rodriguez’ three biggest in-game hits according to Win Probability Added (WPA).

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Calculations!

Every year, some players start hot, others start cold. In the past, when a player had a high BABIP to start the season, we said, “Oh, well he’s lucky. His numbers will come down.” But now we can say with greater certainty, using Fielding Independent wOBA (or FI wOBA), what a player’s wOBA would actually regress to, given their performance in other areas.

Let’s look at the top five BABIPs in the league with FI wOBA regressed to career BABIP rates (or CaB-FIw for Career BABIP FI wOBA).

David Wright: .536 BABIP, .503 wOBA, .424 CaB-FIw

Even if/when Wright’s BABIP comes back to his career .342 BABIP, his peripherals are off the charts. He is on pace for 30 homers, which is nothing miraculous for Wright, but he is also walking and striking out at a 12.5% rate.

Will that kind of patience continue? Eh, probably not to that extreme, but it certainly means Wright is seeing the ball well right now and could be poised for a really good year.

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By now, there is not much that Justin Verlander does that should surprise us. The Tigers ace has thrown not one, but two no-hitters and regularly displays the hardest fastball, in terms of average velocity, in the league. Since 2009, only Ubaldo Jimenez has an average four-seam fastball equal to Verlander’s in terms of velocity (95.4), and given Jimenez’s recently struggles Verlander essentially stands alone.

In his last start against the Kansas City Royals, Verlander entered the ninth inning having thrown 104 pitches. Up to that point, the righthander had not thrown more than 18 pitches in a single inning. He would go on to close the game out by throwing 27 more pitches, bringing his pitch total for the night to 131. What was more impressive than the fact that he threw 131 pitches was the fact that, in the 9th inning, he threw four fastballs that topped 100 mph. (Now, the gun in Kansas City that night may have been a little hot, but we are still talking about 98+ mph fastballs.)

It has been said that Verlander is one of those pitchers who generally gains velocity as the game goes on, and that such a trait is quite stable. I was curious about how Verlander compared to other hard-throwing starters who pitched deep into games. To be clear up front, there are not many pitchers who not only throw extremely hard but also pitch as deep into games as Verlander. I came up with two such pitchers: Felix Hernandez and CC Sabathia. Since 2009, Verlander, Hernandez, and Sabathia all averaged over 107 pitches per game, seven innings per start, and ~94 mph on their four-seam fastballs.

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