Archive for Detroit Tigers

Matt Bowman isn’t your stereotypical baseball player. The St. Louis Cardinals rookie right-hander majored in economics at Princeton, and his senior thesis looked at how much a win is worth in free agency. He doesn’t fit the physical profile, either. A slender 6-foot-even, he looks more like… well, an Ivy League economist.

Last year he pitched like one. In 140 innings for Triple-A Las Vegas, Bowman went 7-16 with a 5.53 ERA and a 4.95 K/9. To little surprise, he was left unprotected by the Mets, who had selected him in the 13th round of the 2012 draft. The last thing he expected was for a team to gamble on him in the Rule 5.

“I was surprised that I got picked up,” admitted Bowman. “I didn’t feel that I deserved a 40-man spot with the Mets and I certainly didn’t think that any team would be looking at me as someone who could contribute, or even hide, on a major league roster. When my agent said the Cardinals picked me up, not a whole lot of it made sense. These guys are perennial contenders and I was coming off a terrible year in Triple-A.”

The 25-year-old’s level of honesty and humility are also atypical. When I asked if he’s surprised at how well he’s pitching, I received an answer I wasn’t expecting. Read the rest of this entry »

I was at Progressive Field when Michael Fulmer made the second start of his big-league career on May 5. He wasn’t very good. The Detroit Tigers right-hander gave up a four spot in the first inning and ultimately left having allowed 10 hits and five runs in five innings.

The game in Cleveland exemplified his early outings. In his first four starts, the 23-year-old rookie surrendered 14 earned runs over 19.1 innings. Then he discovered a changeup. Or, perhaps it could be said, the changeup found him.

To say Fulmer has since found success would be an understatement. Over his last 11 starts, the former Mets prospect — Detroit acquired him at last year’s trade-deadline for Yoenis Cespedes — has allowed a grand total of 11 runs over 70 innings. On the season, he has a record of 9-2 to go with a 2.41 ERA.

Fulmer talked about his ascent — including the changeup that seemingly fell from the sky — prior to last night’s game. The pitch will be on display this afternoon when he takes the mound at Fenway Park.

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Fulmer on his development: “There’s hesitation when you first start out. When you’re 18 years old and going into pro ball, you don’t know what to expect. You see big-league guys playing on TV and you’re like, ‘Oh man, that’s going to be so cool. Then you get to the Gulf Coast League and you’re playing at noon. It’s hot and it rains every day. That’s not what I was expecting. I’ve had to learn how it all worked, step by step, at every level along the way.

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Shin-Soo Choo and Jurickson Profar could have been pitchers. Both attracted the attention of scouts as hard-throwing amateurs. Choo starred for South Korea when they won the 2000 World Junior Championships and was named the tournament’s top pitcher. Profar excelled on the mound for Willemstad, Curacao when they won the 2004 Little League World Series and again when they lost in the finals the following year.

Each feels he could have gone on to pitch at the highest level. A big difference is that Profar didn’t want to pitch. Choo thought he was going to.

“I found out when I got to the States (in 2000) that I would be a hitter,” explained Choo, who originally signed with Seattle. “I thought I was coming here to be a pitcher. But I wasn’t the one making the decision. At first I was confused. Now I’m happy, because I get to play every day and not every five days.”

Making it to MLB as a position player was Profar’s goal from the start. Read the rest of this entry »

James McCann remains a work in progress, but he’s established himself as more than Detroit’s catcher of the future. The 26-year-old University of Arkansas product is entrenched as the Tigers’ primary backstop, having earned the lion’s share of playing time thanks to solid defense and strong leadership skills.

The one thing McCann hasn’t been providing is offense. The second-year player is slashing just .208/.259/.324, with five home runs. Those numbers have come over 53 games, as McCann missed three weeks in April with an ankle injury. Last season, he logged a .683 OPS in 114 games of big-league action.

McCann talked about his defensive game, including his game-calling and improved framing, earlier in the season.

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McCann on processing information and reading hitters: “There’s a stat for everything. You can look up what guys are hitting on 1-1 counts against sliders, and probably even what they’re doing in long sleeves versus short sleeves. That’s how crazy it gets. The information available to us is endless.

Read the rest of this entry »

Collin Cowgill might be the most ambidextrous person in MLB. Currently playing for Cleveland’s Triple-A affiliate, the Columbus Clippers, Cowgill explained his handedness as follows:

“I throw left-handed, hit right-handed, dribble a basketball right-handed, shoot a basketball left-handed. If I was going to dunk, I would dunk right-handed. I shoot darts left-handed. I golf right-handed. I bowl left-handed. I write and eat right-handed. I shoot pool left-handed. I kick right-footed. If I was going to punch you, I’d punch you right-handed.

The 30-year-old outfielder has done all of this naturally, for as long as he can remember. The first time he was handed a ball, he threw it left-handed. The first time he stepped in a batter’s box, it was right-handed. He tried switch-hitting at one point, but realized he was better from the right side and stuck with that.

Hand dominance at the dish is another area in which he’s different. Read the rest of this entry »

Do hitters focus better in the late innings of close games? Once the eighth and ninth roll around, does their mental acuity shift into a new gear?

Human nature suggests it happens. Faced with an impending work deadline, most of us will see our mindset kick into now-or-never mode. On the other hand, we routinely hear players say that every plate appearance matters. If you’re a professional, you’re going to take pride in never giving away an at bat.

I recently ask a cross section of players, managers and coaches — and one mental skills coordinator — for their opinions on the subject. Here is what they had to say. Read the rest of this entry »

Brewers pitching prospect Jon Perrin issued his first free pass of the season on Friday night. Accompanying that solitary walk on his stat sheet are 47 strikeouts and a 2.50 ERA over 36 innings of work. Pitching for the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, Perrin has essentially been the Midwest League equivalent of Greg Maddux in his prime.

His long-term goal isn’t necessarily to be the next Maddux. Nor is it to be the next Josh Tomlin, a more realistic control-and-command comparable. Perrin aspires to be an attorney.

The 22-year-old right-hander graduated from Oklahoma State before being drafted by Milwaukee last year in the 27th round. He took his LSAT over the winter, and if he gets an acceptance letter from his target school there’s a good chance he’ll bid baseball adieu. Read the rest of this entry »

Dick Egan has had a long and successful career. Currently a special assistant to the general manager in Detroit, the 78-year-old Egan has been in the game for over five decades. A few months ago he received a Legends in Scouting award.

His coaching and scouting acumen have exceeded his ability to retire big-league hitters. Pitching out of the bullpen for the Tigers, Angels and Dodgers from 1963-1967, Egan put up a 5.15 ERA.

The first of his 74 career appearances came on opening day, at Tiger Stadium. Egan recalls it being cold — “I think it was about 20 degrees when we arrived in Detroit” — but he got off to a hot start. The left-hander replaced Jim Bunning in the eighth inning and fanned the only batter he faced.

“They got me up, brought me in, and I struck out Nellie Fox with three straight sliders,” said Egan. “Bob Scheffing, our manager, told me he’s never seen Fox look that bad. Unfortunately, it didn’t carry over to the rest of my career.”

The following year, Egan threw a pitch that carried a long way. Read the rest of this entry »

Christin Stewart is the top power-hitting prospect in the Detroit Tigers system. He aspires to be the best overall hitter.

The 22-year-old outfielder got off on the right foot after being drafted 34th-overall last summer out of the University of Tennessee. Swinging from the left side, the muscular slugger slashed ..285/.372/.508 and bashed 10 home runs in half a season. He did the bulk of his damage in West Michigan, where he helped lead the Whitecaps to a Midwest League championship.

Stewart is highly touted, although the accolades come with cautions. Baseball America has lauded his plus bat speed and raw power, but also opined that he’s “an aggressive hitter whose swing gets long.”

This past summer, I asked the first-year pro about the latter assessment.

“There’s not a lot of movement in my swing,” Stewart told me. “I think I have a short swing to the ball. My extension through the ball can get a little long at times, and maybe that’s what they mean.”

Phil Clark, West Michigan’s hitting coach last year, had a different take. He concurred with his charge on length, but then to pointed to the start, as opposed to the finish. Read the rest of this entry »

Alan Trammell is about to fall off the Hall of Fame ballot. In his 15th and final year of eligibility, the long-time Detroit Tigers shortstop will once again fail to garner sufficient support from the BBWAA electorate. His Cooperstown chances will now rest in the hands of the Veterans Committee.

The following conversation with Trammell doesn’t address his Hall of Fame worthiness. I considered broaching the subject when I spoke to him this past summer, but ultimately opted against it. After all, what could he have offered besides humble platitudes?

I talked to Trammell about defense. More specifically, we discussed positioning and the proliferation of shifting. He knows the subject(s) well. A prolific defender in his day, Trammell — now a special assistant to the general manager — spends much of his summers tutoring infielders in the Tigers’ minor-league system.

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Trammell on defensive positioning in his era (1977-1996): “We were positioned very little. Our coaches gave us some direction, but it was more of us making those decisions. They wanted it that way. In the first half of my career, we didn’t have any video — our primary scouting report was watching our opponent. That’s how we did it. The video and all that is great — they’re great tools — but you need a combination. You should never lose sight of how important it is to watch the game.

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