More Site News

Well, now that the cat is out the bag, I can formally announce that I'm moving on over to Bless You Boys.What this means is that I'm 99% sure I'll be abandoning this blog for the duration that I'm at BYB. It's been fun since I've started to write semi-regularly in here and I hope anyone that stops by here follows on over there where I won't be changing a thing as I bring the nerdy math, PITCHf/x breakdown, and some prospect talk.

Big thanks to Kurt for inviting me a couple weeks ago and a huge thanks to Ian for making that site the biggest Tigers blog on the internet. I'm excited and honored to write for it.

I've enjoyed growing this blog from rants about Jim Leyland a couple years ago to trying to bring an advanced look into the Detroit Tigers roster construction and an analytical view point at what would be best for the club.

Thinking Out Loud What Most Tigers Fans Will Hate

I have no silly intro for this. I've been mulling it around since I wrote about the very first rumors of a Granderson trade bubbled up a few weeks ago: Should the Tigers shop Justin Verlander?

I'm only inspired to write this after Eddie Bajek and Kurt both made similar statements on Twitter. Safety in numbers I suppose.

Here's why I think it is time:

Time To Question Dave Dombrowski?

So today is the day all the media has their reactionary pieces to easily the biggest deal of the Winter Meetings thus far (and likely to be the biggest one of the Winter Meetings once they conclude). This little nugget, via Ian, really, um, intrigued me:

The way I heard how the Granderson trade began was that Arizona was trying to get Edwin Jackson at the GM Meetings and was told Max Scherzer was too little of a return, but felt Scherzer and Daniel Schlereth was too much. So Diamondbacks GM Josh Byrnes' first call was to Cashman because he assumed Granderson fit the Yankees' needs so ideally, and that the Yanks had resources that Detroit wanted.

 Am I the only one that finds this concerning? I know this is going to come off as sounding like "the blogger knows more than the professional sports franchise" but I find this quote to be baffling. Max Scherzer isn't enough for Edwin Jackson? Is it that he strikes out more guys than Jackson? That he's younger and already had a better full season than Jackson's ever had? That he's cheaper? That he's farther away from arbitration? I'm failing to see where it is that Scherzer doesn't stack up with Edwin Jackson in the eyes of the Detroit Tigers.

I'm going to assume that the Tigers have a lot more information at their disposal than I do. I'm also going to assume that Dave Dombrowski can run a professional franchise better than I can. However, I do not follow the reasoning here.

What would a Scherzer-for-Jackson deal have meant?

The Trade (Foolish Projections Ahead)

I was going to write this earlier this afternoon after news broke that the Tigers have agreed to deal Curtis Granderson, but I couldn't collect my thoughts enough. Bill, Lee, Matt, Kurt -- and I'm sure Ian, too -- all have thoughts from the emotional side of the issue. They're far more eloquent than I am, so I won't re-hash the things they've said already.

But, being this is Tigers by the Numbers, well, let's get to the numbers after the jump . . .

What to Expect From Adam Everett

We've got our shortstop. Adam Everett has returned for the paltry price of $1.55 million. He apparently was looking in the $3 million range, but signs for half of that. Do we get our money's worth?

Basically, if he repeats his 2009 season, we easily get about 4 times the surplus value of Everett. But, I'm going to say this: he needs to play more.

I know, I know, his bat is awful. It's a pain to watch him stink it up at the plate at the bottom of the order. But that's not where his money lies. Valuing Adam Everett occurs at the jump. . .

Site Changes

After much thought and consideration, I've decided to grab a domain name. Due to this, I've dropped the previous "Fire Jim Leyland" moniker. It was a more difficult decision than it probably should have been, but I was willing to give up the 5-6 hits I was getting from people typing in a combination of fire, Jim, and/or Leyland in a search engine.

Also, you probably noticed, but in case you haven't (and given the sporadic writings around here, I'm sure most haven't) I threw up the generic google ads. I figured why not? Can't hurt. And I'm up to $2.20 in the month since I've done that. So I'm looking to be living large in my retirement from blogging earnings in or around 2093. It will be amazing.

But the biggest piece of news is that you can now get here by www.tigersbythenumbers.com, as I've changed the name to Tigers by the Numbers. I figured I like the Tigers, I like numbers, and I essentially am putting the two together in every post, it makes sense.

In the mean time, I'm restoring my blog roll to the right -- sorry Kurt, it for some reason won't add your site! I also will probably mess with some of the templates over the next couple of days, so if things seem out of whack, that's why. On the whole, I'm pretty apathetic about the look of this blog as I think the content of it is what is most important. I'm just looking for something clean and easy and will maybe test run a couple of them for a few days each to see what I like the best.

Is Bobby Crosby a Good Move?

Here's a look at a few graphs that should explain whether getting Bobby Crosby is a good move or not:

 

 

Revisiting 2009 Draftee Wade Gaynor

Around this time last year, I took an interest in trying to adjust the offensive numbers put up in the college baseball landscape so I could get a grasp on what constitutes "good" offensive numbers in college baseball. With the metal bats, 300+ division 1 teams, and a talent pool that is very, very spread out, the elite college hitters put up offensive numbers that compared to what we're used to Major Leaguers putting up are just mind boggling.

I've written about my methods over at Baseball Analysts last winter. Overall, my methods really haven't strayed from that article. That is still how I correct for the park factor and for the strength of schedule.

The only things that have changed have been the weightings I give the categories in my "score" category. My "score" is a hodge-podge formula that is completely back-of-the-envelope on what I think the weightings should be -- like heavily penalizing K% (strikeouts divided by plate appearances) and rewarding BB%. I also use adjusted Weighted On Base Average (wOBA) and Isolated Power (IsoP; slugging percentage minus batting average) that get adjusted by park factors and strength of schedule. I'm really just rambling the things I wrote in the article I already linked to.

Before I move on I want to say this: The biggest single-season sample size I have is 354 plate appearances. So, immediately the Small Sample Size alarms should be ringing in your head. Most players are coming in around 250 PA's which is about 35% of a full, major league season. That is the biggest thing to keep in mind.

The second biggest thing to keep in mind is that these always, always need scouting reports to accompany them. Sure this is fun and all (for a nerd like myself), but the numbers don't mean anything if there's glaring holes in a players swing or someone isn't going to stick in center field like they have during their college careers.

With all that said, I've just input the numbers for the Sun Belt Conference and took a look at Wade Gaynor, the Tigers 3rd round draft pick out of Western Kentucky University. Lets see what they say after the jump. . .

PITCHf/x Profiling: Robbie Weinhardt

One of the 308 college relievers that the Detroit Tigers took in the 2008 draft is Robbie Weinhardt. He spent the last couple of months in the Arizona Fall League pitching for the Peoria Javalinas. Because of this, we get some decent-sized amount of data on how good of stuff the former Oklahoma State Cowboy features as parks in Peoria and Surprise, Arizona were fitted with PITCHf/x cameras.

Before we start, I will say that the following post is using only the data from Peoria as I haven't learned to correct for park differences. Also, I did not break up the fastballs between two- and four-seam fastballs. I feel that the change-up's were all labeled correctly -- except one, which I believe was a breaking ball. Speaking of the breaking ball, I've elected to go with labeling them as a Slider. Whether it's a slider or a curveball ... I don't know. I'm not sure it matters so long as the labeling is consistent.

Now, on with the PITCHf/x graphy goodness after the jump

Evaluating Baseball Managers: Billy Martin

Just wanted to take a moment to pass along this fantastic link. Chris Jaffe, a writer at The Hardball Times, has a book coming out about baseball managers and their tendencies. It seems like a great read and something I'll be looking to pick up.

Well, today's excerpt was about former Detroit Tigers manager, Billy Martin. It focuses mostly on his time with the Twins, but it's a fantastic look into what a gambler he was. Here's the part I enjoyed/was shocked about the most:

Martin’s approach to the base paths demonstrated how he wanted his team to play. In the second game he managed, Minnesota’s Rod Carew stole home. This was no fluke—by the end of the month, Carew had three steals of home and by the season’s conclusion he tied Ty Cobb’s single-season record with seven such swipes. Three of them came on triple steals. On another occasion, Cesar Tovar stole home as part of a successful triple steal. Four triple steals are the most by any one team in the last half-century, and probably the most since the deadball era.

On another occasion, opponents tagged Tovar out at the head of another triple steal—which Martin called when the Twins enjoyed a six-run lead. Graig Nettles, of all people, was once thrown out stealing home. Technically he was picked off of third and made a break for it, but he must have had a good-sized lead to draw a throw, as pitchers normally do not try picking runners off of third. Even slow-footed Harmon Killebrew, at age 33, stole eight bases that season. He had 11 the rest of his career. Billy Martin truly did not fear a damn thing.

Say whaaa? A triple steal? I've seen double steals fairly frequently, but the triple steal has never even entered my mind as a possibility in a baseball game. Ever. And I like to think that I'm fairly outside-the-box thinking. Maybe I'm not. That is astounding.

But, please, click through to read the entire thing. It's a great read from what is shaping up to be a great book. If you do like what you read and want to pre-order it, I would really recommend doing it through the publisher, as that nets Chris the most money, and lets face it, making money in from publishing a book (especially one in this sort of niche-market) is not easy.

Fun With Projections, Fanning the Milton Bradley Flames and Polanco v. Sizemore

Like I mentioned in my last post, the CHONE projections for hitters have been released. Sean Smith does a ton of good work from the CHONE projections, to TotalZone defensive metrics for the minor leagues, to the Wins Above Replacement database Lee is using for his top 20 tigers series. So head on over to Sean's site and waste away your afternoon looking at various CHONE Projections that I don't cover below.

About a month ago, I advocated trading for Milton Bradley after reading a piece from Patrick Hayes proposing it. Nothing has dissuaded me from still hoping Bradley comes to Motown and now we have CHONE projections to use to see how good he could be next year.

How does Bradley look for 2010? And what about other Tigers of interest? Find out after the jump...

Trading Curtis Granderson

The media and internet has been quite a-buzz with rumors of Curtis Granderson potentially being shopped by the Detroit Tigers. I want to say this right off the bat: I think Dombrowski is listening to offers, not shopping him. There's a difference between the two. And I see no reason for Dombrowski to not listen. You don't know if someone's willing to trade you the moon for him if you're not open to the discussion.

I've valued Curtis Granderson to be quite the bargain back when Lynn Henning was hitting him with the "Trade This Tiger" dart-toss of a column. He finished the 2009 season with 3.4 Wins Above Replacement and now with the Bill James and CHONE projections (hitters only, thus far) being released, we can get a pretty good read on his value. In the past, the Bill James projections have been a bit inflated (probably has to do with the level at which he is regressing the past numbers) and CHONE has proven to be a beast of a projection system as of late. Let's examine him (again). . .

Anatomy of a Player: Placido Polanco

Given the slow amount of news that trickles out at this time of the baseball season for non-playoff teams, I figured that it'd be the best time to take a break from toying around in Excel and posting about the Tigers. But, I'm back now and here to continue my Anatomy of a Player series (which can be found in the right side bar).

Below the jump, you'll find graphs on the value that Placido Polanco has brought to the table since his first full season in Detroit, 2006. . .

Anatomy of a Player: Miguel Cabrera

Update: I had to change some of the graphs as I had the data in the wrong chronological order. It should be fixed now.

I had stared a series I was going to call Graphic Value but I've decided to change the way I'm going to attack breaking down the Tigers. I'm going to start on an individual basis in something I'm tentatively calling Anatomy of a Player and you will be able to find the series in the sidebar to the right.

My first player will be Miguel Cabrera. I was going to start with catchers, but I don't have multiple-year catcher defensive data at the ready, so I can't go with Gerald Laird.

Below the jump you'll find graphs galore. I'm trying to make the value each player has more visual. However, I'm stuck with Excel 2003 (yeah, I know.) and until I upgrade and check out different graphing features, the only way that seemed right to me was a lot of stacked bar graphs. You'll see what I mean as I show where Miguel Cabrera's value comes from and how much value he has over the average (and replacement-level) player at his positions over the last four seasons after the jump. . .

Scouting Andrew Oliver with PITCHf/x

The Arizona Fall League started up and there will be PITCHf/x cameras turned on in Surprise and Peoria, ARI. Tigers 2009 draft pick, and one part of the Big Four they signed to over-slot deals, Andrew Oliver has made his debut under the bright, uh, lens of the cameras. Before that though...

Andrew Oliver is probably best known for his battle with the NCAA over representation and the MLB draft. On the diamond, he's a lefty with a good breaking ball and low-to-mid 90's fastball. From the left side, what more can you want, really?

PITCHf/x data and graphs abound, after the jump.

Graphic Value: Offense

This off season, one of the things I've got planned is a break down of the components of each aspect of the game as they relate to the Tigers players. My plan is separate as many components apart and graph them to make them easier to understand. I've never had a problem looking at a set of numbers and picking out what part of that player's game drives most of their value. This will be a series I'll be calling Graphic Value because, well, I'm not that creative when it comes to names.

First up, we've got offense. My offensive statistic of choice is Weighted On Base Average (wOBA), as created by Tom Tango in The Book. You can find the formula here. What's great about this, is that it's based in Linear Weights which has proven to be the most accurate way to measure offense. It is scaled to mirror On Base Percentage (OBP), so .335 is right around average, .360 is good, .380 is great and .400+ is elite level offensive ability. wOBA properly weights the ability to get on base with the ability to hit for power.

After some help from Steve over at STL Sports Scene, where I first saw these graphs and got the idea from, I've got a stacked bar graph displaying the value of each component as they relate to each player. Click the graph to enlarge.

Here we see all of the components that go into the wOBA formula and how much each player gets out of their skill set. These are only players with 100+ plate appearances with the Tigers, except for Alex Avila who had just 72 PA's. I knew someone would probably inquire about him so I've included him despite the incredibly small sample, of which, you can't fully conclude anything.

wOBA rewards the home run as the best hit (and event) that a hitter can have. Therefore, they're mostly the biggest component of a players offensive value.

Some quick hits about the graph:

-Look how big the 1B (singles) bar is in Magglio Ordonez's graph is. He was a singles machine. Unfortunately, his HR section is just about as big as Placido Polanco's.

-Alex Avila's bar is just 72 PA's, but his incredibly limited sampling showed a well-rounded offensive game. However, I don't expect that to be his true talent level at all.

-In case you didn't notice, these are all summed and the top of each bar is the total wOBA of each player. Aubrey Huff is in last, and that is only his wOBA from his time in Detroit. To be positive about a trade I did not like, Huff walked at a decent clip. So, there's that.

-There are some players that provided negative value with the stolen base, however these were very, very small. They were Raburn, Thames, Guillen, Inge and Santiago. The most negative value from the stolen base of the players I've looked at was Guillen at -0.004. To say it's a tiny impact is an understatement. The best, by the way, was Josh Anderson at 0.012.

Exploring Milton Bradley's Potential

Over at MLive, Patrick Hayes has his thoughts on how the Tigers should be fixed. It's a lot of stuff that I plan to be covering in the future (tentative plans, I should say) but here's his Right Field solution:

Right Field: The outfield needs a makeover, and it's going to start here. Trade Jeremy Bonderman to the Cubs for Milton Bradley. Both make roughly $10 million per year. Bradley is signed for one more year than Bonderman, but the Cubs are desperate to get rid of him, so it's conceivable they'd pay that final year if the Tigers take him.

Jim Leyland is known for working well with head cases. Gary Sheffield didn't produce in Detroit, but he didn't make waves either. So what you say? Well, in NY he was calling Derek Jeter "not all the way black" and Joe Torre a slave master. He's had nothing negative to say about his Detroit tenure. Bradley is not as crazy as Sheff, this can work.

Before signing with the Cubs, Bradley had a career-year in Texas, with a .999 OPS. Once he escapes the racism in Wrigleyville and comes to the more laid back environment in Detroit, he'll be just fine.

And for those who think Bonderman's still young and can bounce back? You might be right. But it's time to get some of the Seay/Lyon/Bonderman radio-controlled car driving crowd out of here, you know? The Starter: Milton Bradley

It's interesting and outside the box, for sure. I know the Cubs are anxious to get rid of the PR Nightmare that has been the I-won't-bite-my-tongue and contract that comes with Bradley, but I'm not sure they'll deal for another terrible contract of a guy who can't stay healthy and is making minor improvements.

Quick thought without doing any math on it: I like the deal and if it's on the table, Detroit should take it and run.

Now, let's do some back-of-the-envelope math after the jump . . .

Andy Van Slyke's Impact on the Tigers

So, Andy Van Slyke has been asked not to return or is going to explore other opportunities. Who knows what the real reasoning is and who initiated the parting of ways, but the only coach leaving the coaching staff is Van Slyke.

As the Tigers 1st base coach, he handled the base running and the outfield positioning and defense. So, what has Detroit done under Van Slyke in those two categories? Let's find out, after the jump. . .

Miguel Cabrera's Interesting Weekend

Ian, Kurt, J. Ellet have all discussed the Miguel Cabrera incident(s) over the weekend. I think there are some key things to keep in mind when discussing this:

1) The incident with his wife is of no business to us, the fans/public. The only information on it that we are "entitled" to (for the lack of a better term) is the public information that is known through the police. It's his home, his marriage, his problems that we shouldn't be privy to really knowing. I'm not even comfortable reading things like his gold chain was broken and both him and his wife were roughed up.

(more after the jump...)

Joe Mauer: Cheater

And I love it. I have zero problems about this and wish it was always this obvious. It's these cat-and-mouse games that make baseball so fascinating.

Best of the Best: Defensive Single Seasons in Tigers History

I'm currently engrossed in learning how to use MySQL, a database program, which will help me do some great lists of the best _____ in Tigers history. Whenever I get it figured out and the code working, I'll be creating a series of the ten best Catcher's in Tigers history, ten best first basemen in Tigers history and so on and so forth. Those will all be in the side bar to the right, just  below the 'about me' in a section called Best of the Best.

In lieu of that, however, I bring you a different list that didn't take any database code.

Sean Smith's released Wins Above Replacement numbers for every player in the major leagues since 1871. You can peruse them at his site and, if you like 'em, support him by donating $25 to use them however you'd like. I did that and got the hitters and pitchers files. That is what I'll be using to look back into plunge into Detroit Tigers history. What I'll be focusing on here, is defense.

Sean Smith has created TotalZone which he uses to judge defense through play-by-play box scores from Retrosheet. You can read his methods here.

So this begs the question: Who had the greatest defensive season in the history of the Detroit Tigers? Find out the answer after the jump...

Radio Interview Reminder

I am going to be on the Radio tomorrow around 11:30 AM on WXOU Radio to talk Sabermetrics and the Tigers.

Edit: You can listen to my appearance on WXOU Radio this morning right here.

Position Player Value Breakdown

Inspired by these cool graphs, I've taken to a less-asthetically-pleasing graph of value breakdown. I don't have a cool graphing program, so these are just Excel graphs. I also couldn't decide which I liked better -- horizontal or vertical bar graphs -- so I've got them both, for your view pleasure.


Click on both images to enlarge.

What these graphs show is, obviously, how each player I've looked at arrive at their cumulative value. I didn't include "Replacement" runs which turns "Runs Above Average" into "Runs Above Replacement" and then, when you divide by 10, you get "Wins Above Replacement."

Predictably, Miguel Cabrera's value lies in his immense talents at the plate. But what I find most interesting from these graphs, is the way it depicts the "invisible" value that players have -- defense and position.

Taking Gerald Laird, for example, I've included defense into his numbers. Fangraphs doesn't carry defensive estimations for Catchers because it's hard to figure out what to give to them. There have been some attempts, but I'm going off of this leader board put together over at Beyond the Boxscore on August 5th. For Laird, what I've done is taken his 16.12 runs above average in his first 711 innings and extrapolated it out over his 981 innings which gives him 22.4 runs above the average catcher. That is what I mean by "invisible" value. You know that Gerald Laird has been excellent in throwing out runners this year, but did you know that when you include passed balls and his reputation around the league are added in, his defense makes up about half of his total value?

Tigers fans have lamented the offense this year -- and for good reason -- but Gerald Laird brings much more to the table than his paltry batting line this year.

Quick hits about the graph(s):

-Miguel Cabrera's offense alone (40.2 runs) is more than anyone else's total value in these graphs (Laird, 32.1 and Granderson and Polanco are both at 31.2 total).

-Marcus Thames should probably be gone next year. He's only going to be more expensive and while his $2.275 million didn't break the bank this year, it's just money being wasted.

-Clete Thomas may have a long swing that leads to a lot of K's, but his defense this year has been unreal; +13.4 runs this year already.

Leave any questions you've got in the comments, I'll answer them. I also want all criticism on what would make these graphs better understood/look better.

I'll Be on the Radio Part Deux

So, I had to cancel my radio spot last Thursday, but there's good news: You can hear me mumlbe about sabermetrics and the Tigers as I've been invited again despite having to cancel at the last minute, and should be on the air this Thursday. I'll give specific times in the next day or two, but the show runs (I think) from 11-2, so you can listen live at WXOU Radio. Please pass it around!

I'll Be on the Radio

Got some free time tomorrow around lunch time? Flip on your internet and listen to me mumble through Tigers related topics and sabermetrics on WXOU, the Oakland University radio station. My friend Kyle's offered me the chance to come on anytime I would like tomorrow, so tune in starting at 11:30 am. You can listen live right from the WXOU website. Pass it around!

I unfortunately had to cancel at the last minute.

Curtis Granderson's Trade Value

So there's been much scuttlebutt about trading Curtis Granderson. Ian's covered this once before and did so again today. Kurt covered it in-depth today as well. I'm sure Billfer and Lee will chime in with thoughts at some point. This all comes in relation to Lynn Henning writing his weekly "Detroit should trade _____" articles, and he picked Granderson to be the focal point. He's not new to this at all, writing before about trading Granderson and spending many written words about dealing Magglio Ordonez.

It begs the question: Should the Tigers trade Curtis Granderson?

I'm of the opinion that no one is off limits. The closest the Tigers have to an "untouchable" player is Miguel Cabrera followed by Curtis Granderson. But, no one is truly untouchable. Albert Pujols is not even untouchable. It'd just take a package that's too large and franchise-crippling to make a deal for him.

Everyone is down on Granderson this year due to his .248/.331/.457 line. He's also been beyond terrible against left-handed pitching, posting a paltry line of .169/.241/.234. That's awful. I'm not going to defend it. OK, maybe I will try. He's got a .211 BABIP this year against lefties. That's the lowest he's had against southpaws in his career. He had a .296 BABIP against lefties in 2006, .211 in 2007, and .292 in 2008.

What does that mean? He'll probably regress to the good in 2010 and post a more respectable, league-average line against left-handers.

Including 2009, his career BABIP against lefties is .254. So, he's currently 43-points below his career average BABIP against LHP. Let's normalize that up to .254 and assume that they're all just singles. This just adds on 3 more hits, but raises his split against LHP to a line of .188/.259/.253 for an OPS of .512. Still awful and well below the .258/.323/.411 average line for LHB vs. LHP's. The average BABIP for LHB's vs. LHP's in 2009 is .304. Just for fun, we'll normalize Granderson's line out to that league average BABIP for LHB's vs. LHP's. Doing so, we get this: .225/.292/.292 for an OPS of .584 -- again, awful.

What we know for sure is that he's absolutely terrible in 2009 against left-handers. He's also shown to be awful against southpaws in 2007. But, he was average or better in 2006 and 2008. So what do we believe his true talent is? Somewhere in the middle.

This is why the love affair with split stats -- even platoon splits -- are a dangerous game. The small samples lead to misleading results. He's closer to his career .617 OPS against LHP than he is to his terrible sub-.500 OPS this year.

That was a lot of words to basically try to warn of pinning a player's value on his platoon splits only. Because, he's facing about triple the amount of right-handers than left-handers (2146 PA's versus RHP and 659 versus LHP in his career). Remember how everyone, including me, was up on arms about Dusty Ryan not getting the chance to play and how he was better than his 29 PA sample this year showed? Well, Curtis Granderson only has 28% of his plate appearances against southpaws.

So what is Grandy's true value? How about a 3.2 Wins Above Replacement season this year? What was he last year when he was much better against lefties? 3.8 WAR. Granderson's appeared in 140 of 143 Tigers games this year -- 98%. Give him 98% for the final 19 games and we're predicting another 18-19 games played for Curtis. We'll give him 19. We can expect about 0.43 WAR in those 19 games. Add that to his 3.2 already accumulated and he's on pace for a 3.63 WAR season -- not far off from his "much better season" from last year.

His offense is down 15.8 runs from 2008, but his defense is up 10.2 runs over 2008. After all the math gets crunched out, he's pretty close to his value from 2008.

With that said, and in an attempt to wrap up this rambling piece, what is he worth? He's currently 28 and posted WAR's of 3.6 (I'm projecting that out) in 2009, 3.8 in 2008, and 7.4 in 2007. Weight that out and you get 4.42 WAR over the last three years. Let's use that going forward. I think that he'll age well given his body type and work ethic, so instead of knocking off 0.5 WAR the rest of his contract, I'll take off 0.25.

2010: 4.4
2011: 4.15
2012: 3.9
2013: 3.65

If we use Sky Kalkman's Trade Value Calculator, that would look like this:



What we see here is I've projected him for 16.1 WAR over the next four seasons. His 2013 season is an option and there's a $2 million buyout, which essentially cuts his salary from $13 mil down to $11 mil. The projection puts him at $79.1 million in performance value while he'll only be costing the Tigers $34.8 million and that gives the Tigers a surplus value of $44.3 million.

Essentially, he's underpaid, if this back-of-the-envelope methodology is accurate (which I'm not saying it is infallible) by $44 million.

Now, if we know 0.5 wins off each year for aging we get this:

2010: 4.4
2011: 3.9
2012: 3.4
2013: 2.9

What's that look like in value?

Basically projecting 14.6 WAR which is worth $72.3 million in that time frame and will be a surplus value of $37.6 million.

In short: he's under paid and under valued. Even if we start him at 4 WAR next year rather than 4.4, you get the following value:

There's $30.4 million in surplus value.

Basically, Curtis Granderson's surplus value to the Detroit Tigers is too great to be traded. Here's a table of research done by Victor Wang.

To get fair value for Curtis Granderson in the three projections we would need to get back:

First projection of $79.1 million: 2 top-10 hitting prospects (as ranked by Baseball America; $73 million in value) and one Grade-B pitcher (graded by John Sickels; $7.3 million). Total package value of $80.3 million.

Second projection of $72.3 million: 2 top-10 hitting prospects ($73 million in value).

Third projection of $65.1 million: 1 top-10 hitting prospect ($36.5 million), 1 top-10 pitching prospect ($15.2 million) and a Grade-B pitcher ($7.3 million), one grade-B hitter ($5.5 million). Total package value of $64 million.

Here's Baseball America's top 100 prospect list from before the season if you'd care to gander at the top 10 hitting prospects or top 10 pitching prospects.

Basically, Granderson's not going anywhere. But there's no harm in fielding offers for him.

Jeremy Bonderman PITCHf/x

Jeremy Bonderman's had a couple of relief appearances in September and I've been meaning to put the PITCHf/x nerd in me to good use with his couple outings. Billfer's covered the raw numbers, so I'm here to bring the visuals. Last time we saw Bondo, he was bad in a June start against the White Sox. I took a look at Bonderman through the PITCHf/x lens in July when he was reported to be a potential relief candidate in the future. Here's his pitch flight path from that start:


Now, here's his pitch flight path from his two relief outings thus far:

In eyeballing the graphs, his fastball seems to have some more arm-side run and his slider's been getting more sink. Billfer's raw numbers he posted back this up, as well.

And now for enough graphy goodness to last you through the night, first, his average release points in relief:

Pretty close cluster together. Consistent release points are a good thing.

Here's how his release points look on all 36 pitches in September from Bondo:

Re-confirming the tight cluster of release points.

Here's the strikezone plot:

This is from the catcher's point of view (as all the release points are, as well), so he's really working inside to the left side of the plate a.k.a. to right-handed batters. Speaking of that, here's how he's worked right and left-handed hitters:

The number inside of each slice of the pie graphs is the actual number. I forgot to include the percentage for the total pitch selection, but thus far he's gone with 72% fastballs, 28% sliders. Also, I did not correct for varying park factors that could be coming into play. PITCHf/x in different parks is not created equal, unfortunately. So, things can be skewed due to multiple parks we're pulling this data from. All other caveats apply.

Like Bill said, small sample alarms are sounding pretty loud. Let's not read too much into this, but given how flat and non-sinking his pitches seemed to be in his start against the White Sox back in June, it's nice to see him making some improvements and hopefully build upon the great 19 starts he had in the beginning of 2007.

I plan to have a similar post on Nate Robertson in the next couple of days. At least, that's the tentative plan.

Ernie Harwell

I'm not sure how I should go about this. I'm a Tigers fan, thus, I am an obligatory Ernie Harwell fan. He's revered by both Tigers fans and the national baseball media. He's quiet, unassuming, humble, and always went out of his way to keep the focus of anything he did on or near a baseball diamond on the actual game. Like the cold rebuffings he kept giving when brought into the booth by FOX during the 2006 playoffs. He seemed uncomfortable and unwilling to give tales upon tales of "how things used to be" when he started and, rather, wished the focus of everything was on the game at hand.

But here's the tricky part: I'm just 23. I don't listen to games on the radio and have grown up in an age where baseball is readily available on television. Ernie broadcast his last game as a full-time announcer on September 29th, 2002. I was 16.

I liked baseball when I was 16. I also liked girls, music, friends, and doing anything I could to cause trouble. I have always been a big sports fan, but it wasn't until I was around 19 that I became a baseball fanatic and fell in love with the numbers-side of the game of baseball.

Needless to say, I am not a baseball fan born and raised by Ernie Harwell. Yet, I think the biggest compliment that some anonymous blogger from the complete other side of the state like myself can give him is this: I didn't grow up in the glow of a radio listening to Ernie paint a baseball picture in my mind, yet I've got more of an attachment to Ernie than I've got to Mario Impemba, Rod Allen, Josh Lewin, Kirk Gibson, Ken Daniels, Mickey Redmond, or any other broadcaster who's ever come in, around, or through Detroit on their broadcasting career -- regardless of sport.

I don't even have an Ernie Harwell memory. I'm sure there's plenty of people who remember this one specific call from Ernie in this one specific game in this one specific year (probably 1984). I don't. I have the couple of times he's been in the booth filling in while Rod has been gone, or the aforementioned FOX interview during the '06 playoffs. But, here's my dirty little secret: I wasn't really paying attention then. I was busy watching baseball.

I guess in this entire ramble-y, poorly written post what I'm confessing to is just wishing to have been born in a different era. The era of television. Where you don't need the game painted in words for you. Where you don't, actually, need anyone at all to talk about the game. Because you can see it. In an air conditioned house with a beverage and good food.

Through all of the advantages I've got in getting a baseball fix -- the internet, television, MLB.tv, the Extra Innings package on cable -- I'd like to have fallen asleep listening to Ernie Harwell, like some got to do.

More Jarrod Washburn

UPDATE, 6:33 PM: In replying to the comments, here's Washburn's Hit Tracker Online card. True home run distances of the 10 HR's allowed (one wasn't measured and it was in Anaheim) are as follows, starting with the most recent:

355
409
392
354
360
439
441
447
382
450

And of those, only the 441 foot bomb from Cuddyer, 360 foot bomb from Mike Sweeney, and the 354 foot shot from Kenji Johjima were labled "JE" which is "Just Enough's." You can't add the Carlos Pena homer in there (355-feet) because that was roped right down the right-field line.

As far as the "short porch" (in comparison to Safeco), it is true because Safeco kills right-handed hitters. That said, he's had only 4 homers allowed to left field, and of those, only the Sweeney and Johjima homers were classified as "lucky" or "just enough." Cuddyer's was barely out to dead centerfield.

His average true distance and speed off the bat is 402.9 feet -- 403 -- and 103.71 MPH. Does anyone know the average true distance and SOB in the major leagues this year?

In prepping for an article to write for Beyond the Boxscore (and is moving very slowly at the moment), I've compiled the UZR totals from Fangraphs for both infield and outfield defense for each team.

Some clues Washburn would regress in Detroit:

Seattle infield defense: +9 runs above average

Detroit infield defense: +17 runs above average

Seattle outfield defense: +56 runs above average

Detroit outfield defense: +18 runs above average

Detroit's defense has been upper echelon this year, but the outfield defense doesn't compare to the M's. Heck, Franklin Guttierrez has been worth 20.9 runs this year in the outfield by his lonesome. Yes, one player has saved more runs above the average defender for the position than all of Detroit's outfield defenders combined.

Add in that Safeco Field favors left-handed hitters and kills right-handed power bats (or right-handed bats in general) while Detroit suppresses both a bit (not as much as Safeco), and the BABIP factor and Washburn was screaming regression to the mean in a big time way. Unfortunately, we gave up a back-end starter under club control until 2014 for him.

Fans Scouting Report

Tom Tango's been running his Fans Scouting Report for the last few years and he's got the balloting open again. Hopefully every blogger links to it, as it's a great wait to supplement the UZR defensive data that's cited daily around the blogosphere.

Before you vote, please keep this in mind:

Try to judge 'average' not as an average player at that position, but an average player at any position. If you think that Willie Bloomquist has an average arm, then mark him as average, regardless if you've seen him play 2B, SS, 3B, LF, or CF.

DO NOT CONSIDER THE POSITION THE PLAYER PLAYS!
DO NOT CONSIDER THE POSITION THE PLAYER PLAYS!
DO NOT CONSIDER THE POSITION THE PLAYER PLAYS!

Go vote on the Tigers (or whatever team you watch the most) now!

Jarrod Washburn vs. Lucas French

So, I stood alone on the Jarrod Washburn acquisition at the trade deadline. I felt it was a latteral move at best, and I understand the whole "veteran presence" and not having a rookie's innings limits like French will have. Being very stats-based, I'm prepared to go against the grain on certain moves (like the Aubrey Huff deal, as well...). So, let's revisit it.

First off, it's pretty premature to make any comparisons. Both Lucas French and Jarrod Washburn have thrown minimal innings (22.1 for French, 25.1 for Washburn) for their new clubs, but it's worth a look.

First, the traditional surface numbers:

Jarrod Washburn:

6.04 ERA, 25.1 IP, 13 K, 6 BB, 24 H, 8 HR allowed (though 4 came in one game).

Luke French:

4.43 ERA, 22.1 IP, 15 K, 13 BB, 27 H, 3 HR allowed.

Traditional numbers are a mix. French leads in ERA, but drags behind in the K:BB ratio.

Let's move onto Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP).

Washburn:

7.21 FIP.

French:

5.33 FIP.

FIP looks at just strikeouts, walks, home runs allowed. It divides it by innings pitch and adds around a 3.2 qualifier to put it on the ERA scale. French wins this as well, mainly because of the homer's allowed. Washburn hasn't been overly good, but his 8 homers kill his FIP and that's largely due to 25% of each fly ball he's given up going for a homer thus far. That's nearly double league average.

Let's look at xFIP (from the same source as above).

Washburn:

5.17

French:

5.86

Washburn wins this because xFIP regresses the home runs allowed by a pitcher back to the league average. Luke French gets hurt here because of the walks he's allowed while not striking out a substantial amount.

However, my favorite pitching metric is currently tRA. It is essentially a better FIP number that simulates defense-independent ERA simulators. It is based on each batted ball type a pitcher gives up. If he's getting hit hard with a ton of fly balls and line drives (the two more damaging of the FB/LD/Ground Ball batted ball types), his tRA will be higher. tRA* is the regressed version of tRA and would be what xFIP is to FIP. We'll look at tRA* since regressing is better than not regressing.

Washburn:

5.01

French:

5.08

Here, it's pretty much a dead heat. To get tERA, you must divide by .92 since 92% of all runs are earned. When we do that, Washburn's tERA is 5.45 while French's is 5.52 -- again, virtual no separation. Before the trade, the tERA's for both Washburn and French were 5.86 for Washburn and 5.49 for French.

Commenter Scott pointed out that you multiply by .92 -- I don't know what i was thinking when I wrote this. So, their tERA's are 4.61 for Washburn and 4.67 for French.

StatCorner also has Wins Above Replacements, as well. Since Washburn's come over, based on a WAR sample that uses tRA, he's provided -0.3 wins above what a replacement pitcher would bring to the Tigers in the same number of innings. French has given the Mariners -0.2 wins above what a replacement level pitcher would provide given the same number of innings.

Essentially, the two have been nearly identical once you account for Washburn's bad luck with the home run ball this year.

So, then, what is the difference between the two?

Around $3.3 million dollars in salary. I'm sure you know which one is getting paid more. My opinion on the deal hasn't changed, thus far. Here's to hoping I'm proven wrong, though.

One Way to Brighten a Day

I don't plan on doing this for every email that gets sent my way, but the chance to write for Beyond the Boxscore and a prospect site like Project Prospect does give this little ol' blog some exposure. I guess I should've addressed the name of it in a side bar, but I didn't, and I won't. I feel the content speaks for itself.

But, it's good to know that I'm officially a blogger of some sort on some level. As evidenced by this coherent and wonderfully thought-provoking email I got last night from a Mr. Don Draper:


I just wanted to document the first hate-email I've received since starting this blog. The smile it brought to my face when I first read it on my phone last night was definitely worth it.

Where ever you are, Mr. Don Draper, and whatever your real name is, I appreciated the email. Thanks, a bunch!

P.S. Kudos on the Mad Men reference, as well.

Re-evaluating Aubrey Huff

I just penned a piece over at Beyond the Boxscore about the Huff deal. After sleeping on it, I'm far less enthused about this deal. Given the lack of positions for him to play, and the likelyhood that he won't be a major upgrade (or an upgrade at all), I feel it was a move to just make a move. I find it unlikely to make a major impact on the club.

Here's to hoping I'm wrong and he goes on a massive rampage offensively for Detroit!

A Look Back at Rob Deer

Here's a nice look back at Rob Deer and that era of baseball over at American Polymath -- a monthly online magazine. I found it a good, quick read that hopefully has interest among other Tigers fans.

I'm only 23, so guys hitting 30 homers are common place to me. So, for someone like Rob Deer to hit 21 home runs in 8 straight seasons, and have it be quite the accomplishment is something that I can't get my head around. In fact, he finished top ten in the league in homers in 1986, 1989, 1990 and 1992 and in those years he hit 'just' 33, 26, 27 and 32 long balls.

In other baseball history stuff, I came across this link thanks to Syshter ball. It's a link to some newspaper clippings about Josh Gibson who was dubbed The Basher for his prodigious power. I find the Negro Leagues and Gibson endlessly fascinating. Apparently the Negro Leagues statistics used in the Baseball Hall of Fame will be released sometime next summer, which, of course, will be fantastic.

Aubrey Huff's Value (Easy Math Ahead)

We got our left-handed bat that everyone clamored for at the trade deadline, it just took a couple of weeks. It comes in the form of lefty-slugger Aubrey Huff from the Baltimore Orioles.

But, what should we expect?

Well, the ZiPS projections for the remainder of the 2009 season has him projected for a slash line of .265/.331/.439 which would be a wOBA of .334. The league average wOBA is currently sitting at .329. If we give Huff 4 plate appearances per game, he'll have about 180 PA's to do some damage. If you convert the wOBA's into runs, you get roughly 0.78 runs above the average hitter. Let's be generous and say he goes on a big tear and outplays his projection, we'll call him a +1 run above average hitter the rest of the way.

Defensively, Huff's only been a first baseman in 2009. In fact, since 2007, he's only played 48 games at the hot corner, so if he takes over for the hurting/slumping Brandon Inge, it's a gamble. However, eyeballing the numbers, he looks to be an average defender at both 1st base and 3rd base. So, we'll just go with average, or 0 runs saved/allowed defensively.

Positionally, let's just give him the biggest boost we can and say Inge can't play 3rd the rest of the way. This is how Huff would reach his peak value, so we'll roll with it. Positional adjustment over the course of 162 games for a 3rd baseman is +2.5 runs. Pro-rated to 45 games, that's 0.69 runs in his favor.

Add this up: 1 for batting, 0 for defense, 0.69 for position and we get a grand total of 1.69 runs above average. To get to replacement level, we're looking at around another 5.5 run bonus in Huff's favor, that makes him 7.19 runs above replacement -- call it 7.25 for ease. To get wins, you divide by 10 (actually 10.5, but 10 is just cleaner) and you then get 0.725 wins.

Aubrey Huff, if he plays an average 3rd base, out-performs his projections for the rest of the season at the plate would bring around 0.75 wins. Three-quarters of a win. That is $3.6 million in on-field value. He'll make about $2 million the rest of the way, which means he's got $1.6 million surplus value to the Tigers.

But, that's not where his entire value lies. He'll be a Type-A free agent this winter. Dave Dombrowski is notorious for not going to arbitration, so I'm not sure if he'll get offered arbitration or what. We'll say he does and he turns it down and Detroit picks up two draft picks in return. Victor Wang's done research that says that's around $5 million in total value.

$1.6 million in on-field surplus value + $5 million in off-field surplus value = $6.6 million total surplus value.

But, the Tigers traded away Brett Jacobson. John Sickels rated him a B- pitcher, but we'll call him a B for this example. That is worth $5.5 million. But, Jacobson's one of the 84 college relievers Detroit took in the 2008 draft, and that lowers his worth. Lets cut that in half since relievers grow on trees. So, he's got a value of $2.75 million, now.

$6.6 million in total Aubrey Huff value - $2.75 million in Brett Jacobson value = $3.85 million in total surplus value in the Detroit Tigers favor.

Now, that 0.75 Wins Above Replacement figure is an absolute peak value for Huff -- full time 3rd baseman, average defensively. He's probably more in the 0.25 to 0.5 WAR range. If he were...

0.25 WAR, that'd lower his value to $4.3 surplus value; the total deal to $1.55 million in surplus value in Detroit's favor.

0.5 WAR, that'd lower his value to $5.5 surplus value; the total deal to $2.75 million in surplus value in Detroit's favor.

So, any way you slice it, Detroit wins the trade and marginally help themselves towards winninga a division title. Any little bit helps, though I agree with Kurt when he says:

He brings a veteran bat and should immediately make the club better. Not by leaps and bounds mind you, but better none-the-less.

We're not leaps and bounds better, but we are better.

Edit: Forgot to mention that I like that we didn't give up my favorite of the college reliever 2008 draftee's: Robbie Weinhardt. I thought he was better than Ryan Perry coming out of college.

Is it Time To Move Polanco Down in the Lineup?

It's no question that Placido Polanco's struggled with the bat this year. Judging from his advanced numbers, it's a bit luck (low batting average on balls in play [BABIP]), but part of the low BABIP is due to hitting about 3% more fly balls than normal.

But, that aside, is it time to move him down in the order? He's at -5.7 Weighted Runs Above Average this year at the dish. Polanco's value with the bat is tied in his abilities to hit .320 or better because he doesn't walk much (just 5.4% of his plate appearances) but he also doesn't strikeout much (7.1% of all PA's). He also doesn't hit for power (.112 Isolated Power), so he's a guy who needs to hit for a high average to allow the few walks he does take to bump his on-base percentage into a reasonable state.

This year, he's hitting just .263 entering play this afternoon and that leaves his OBP at a measily .317. His normally higher average also bolster's his slugging percentage over the .400 mark normally, but due to his bad average, he's fledgling at .390.

The way I'm going to analyze the lineup is through David Pinto's Lineup Analysis tool over at Baseball Musings. The most used lineup for the Tigers in 2009 has been:

Granderson
Polanco
Ordonez
Cabrera
Guillen
Laird
Inge
Raburn
Everett

The Birchman brought this up in the comments, and proposed the following lineup:

Clete
Guillen
Cabrera
Granderson
Thames
Inge
Polanco
Laird
Everett

Now, I don't like Guillen in the 2 spot. He's struggled at the dish this year, so I'd put Inge (yes, even with his struggles) in the 2 spot.

How do these lineups stack up against each other and what would be the optimal lineup with both sets of personnel? Glad that you asked...

The most common lineup for Detroit would average 4.652 runs per game. Coming into this afternoon's tilt with the Baltimore Orioles, the Tigers had scored 488 runs in 106 games, for an average of 4.604.

If you extrapolate their actual rate of runs scored, you get 746 runs per 162 games. If you use the most common lineup would score about 754 runs over the course of a season -- remember, this doesn't count days off for guys or account for injuries, so that's the reason for the discrepancy. The Tigers have just 55 games left after today's series finale, which would mean if they used their most common lineup every game for the rest of the year, they would score around 256 more runs this year.

Now, if they employed the proposed lineup, they would average 4.792 runs per game. Extrapolate that over an entire season (a.k.a. everyone in that line up play 162 games, which isn't reasonable), you get 776 runs scored -- some 30 run improvement (or, about 3 wins worth). Now, just for simplicity's sake, the most common lineup averages 4.652 but the Tigers have averaged 4.604 which is a difference of 0.048 runs between the two for injuries and resting players. So, let's take that off of this lineup's projection and you now get 4.744. That comes out to 769 runs -- so just about 7 runs slashed from the 162 game average. Over the next 55 games, your'e looking at 261 runs scored which is just about 5 runs (half a win's worth) over the most common lineup.

But, that begs the question, what would be the best lineup?

Well, for the most common lineup Detroit's used this year, it'd be:

Cabrera
Inge
Ordonez
Polanco
Granderson
Raburn
Everett
Guillen
Laird

That batting order would score 4.814 runs per game and 780 runs -- a 4 run improvement over our proposed (and better) lineup. But, subtract the 0.048 for reserves/injuries and the best lineup using these nine would be 4.766 runs or 772 per 162 and 262 the rest of the way.

Using the proposed batting lineup, the most optimal one would be:

Cabrera
Inge
Laird
Thames
Clete
Granderson
Polanco
Everett
Guillen

And that lineup would produce 4.888 runs per game (792 per 162 games). Over a 55 game span the rest of the way, that lineup would produce 269 runs. Subtract 0.048 runs per game, though, for reserves/injuries over 162 games and that becomes 4.84 R/G which is 784 runs in 162 games and 266 runs the rest of the way.

For what it's worth, the most common lineup, if rearrange to score the fewest runs possible, would include this order:

Everett
Laird
Granderson
Guillen
Raburn
Ordonez
Inge
Cabrera
Polanco

And they would average just 4.369 runs per game (708 per 162/240 rest of the way).

And for the proposed lineup, the worst order would be:

Everett
Laird
Granderson
Guillen
Polanco
Clete
Inge
Cabrera
Thames

And that lineup would score 4.442 R/G (720 per 162/244 the rest of the way).

The results aren't that dramatic for the most common and the proposed lineup's (about 4 runs), but any little bit helps in such a close division race.

Tigers Find Answer to Offensive Woes

And it comes in the form of Alex Avila.

Wait, what? A Double-A catcher who has become the teams best prospect and is just about 13 months removed from being drafted is getting the call to the show? Apparently. Billfer, Ian, and Kurt all have their reactions (and I'm sure Lee and Matt will chime in soon, too) posted, and I encourage you to read them since I'm going to echo all of their sentiments.

Like Ian said, this smacks of 2007 and Cameron Maybin and Andrew Miller getting rushed to the show. Like Bill said, Avila's struggled in the last 28 days posting a .191/.280/.393 line. His Major League Equivalency, according to Minor League Splits, for the entire season is .204/.280/.333. Is that really an improvement over Dusty Ryan's .160/.276/.200 given that he's getting one plate appearance for every 11 that Gerald Laird gets.

I get that he's left-handed and we could use a left-handed bat. I get that apparently Dusty Ryan isn't a favorite of Jim Leyland's (shown by his playing time) and whether that's due to him being a right-handed hitter or not is anyone's guess (has he ever addressed it?), but this move doesn't make sense anyway you slice it. Not to me, and apparently, not to the rest of the Tigers blogosphere that have chimed in thus far.

Reasons why this is bad:

-He'll accrue service time that he otherwise wouldn't have. And that's precious, no matter how little it is until the rosters expand.

-He now must stay on the 40 man roster this winter when he didn't need to be on it in the first place. This gives us less flexibility in the offseason.

-Dusty Ryan gets jettisoned for no reason whatsoever, despite posting a total line of .261/.342/.391 -- a line remarkably similar to a catcher we traded for in the offseason. Oh, and he's just 24 years old, still.

It's not that Avila's an awful player -- he's got an above average bat for the position, has a great arm and quick release as his Double-A caught-stealing numbers are fantastic (last check, over 50% gunned down), and he's only getting better in his time behind the dish. But, he was a 3rd baseman deep into his career at the University of Alabama and, thus, is still raw behind the plate. If someone like Dusty Ryan who's come up through the minors as a catcher, posted an acceptable line for a catcher, and isn't even 25 until September 2nd can't stick in the back-up role, then why should Avila be any different?

This just brings immense flashbacks of a certain outfield prospect getting rushed to the bigs and then disappointing. I don't expect much of anything from Avila in the majors.

Since he's coming up, he better be getting 2 starts every 5 games to both spell Laird and get enough use to warrant starting his service time clock and putting him on the 40-man roster.

I'm Not One For Self Promotion But...

...But look at me! I'm writing for Beyond the Boxscore now. Truly puzzled at how it came to be and entirely thrilled at the opportunity. My first article was a look at the Jake Peavy trade on deadline day. Go scope it out, if you would.

Rick Porcello's Start Through PITCHf/x

Rick Porcello didn't get the win after being rightfully taken out for Fernando Rodney (yes, I do back the move Jim Leyland made), but he had a great start. First, the numbers:

8 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 3 K, 91 pitches (67 strikes), 15 groundouts, 6 flyouts.

Porcello was dominant tonight and kept the ball on the ground when he didn't record a strikeout. Now, because I love graphs and am trying to learn the best routes to graph the things I want to look at (a.k.a. would like to be a Harry Pavlidis clone!), I've got an abundance of graphs.

First up, his selection of pitches to both right-handers and left-handers tonight. Click all images to enlarge:

I'm hoping I split up his fastballs correctly (I think I'm close, but I'm not entirely sure). Splitting two and four-seamers apart seems to be tricky. Same with curveball's and sliders -- Porcello's seemed to be identical so I lumped them in together as sliders, but don't take that moniker for 100% accuracy.

Anyways, you can see he abandoned the slider to LH hitters, although PITCHf/x only recorded 86 of his 91 pitches tonight. He did the same with RH hitters, but swapped out the slider for abolishing his change-up.

Now, his release points total:

I wish I'd gone with a different dot set and not this 2-D one (Harry's 3-D dot sets are much more clear). Live and learn. It's late and I'm tired and don't want to go back and change it. I've noticed it in the various times I've privately looked at his PITCHf/x data, but Rick Porcello releases his breaking ball a touch higher than his other pitches.

The strikezone plot really shows how much he pounded the zone tonight:

When he missed, he missed above or below the zone. I count 5 or 6 pitches being off the edge but between the chest and the knees. He really, really attacked the zone with all of his pitches, tonight.

And finally, the flight paths graph:

I know it's sometimes tough to read/comprehend when there's more than 3 or so pitch flights, but I included them all. But, his four-seamer (FF; blue line) was pretty straight tonight, and you can see the sink and arm-side run on the two-seamer (FT; orange line) that makes it such an effective pitch for Rick. His change-up (CH; white/yellow-ish line) mirrored his two-seamer almost identically. There's a gap of about 9 MPH between the two and giving a glance back to the release point chart shows just how tough his change-up is to recognize. Same release point + same flight path + 9 MPH difference between the two = great, great pitch. I think his change-up would grade out as a plus pitch on the scouting scale. Then again, I'm just a kid who's pretending to be a PITCHf/x guru, let alone know a lot about scouting. And the slider/curveball/breaking ball (SL; red line) has a bit of sweeping action but great downward movement.

All in all, this will be what Rick Porcello provides at the major league level at his best. I feel the strike outs will come with more regularity later in his career, but the Josh Beckett comp Scott Boras and the media was throwing out before the 2007 draft is completely false. He's a ground ball machine with above-average to plus ratings on his 2-seam, change-up and breaking ball and he can dial it up when he wants to the middle-90's. He's very much apart of the new hybrid of guys like a Roy Halladay or Brandon Webb that get gobs of ground balls and incorporate enough strikeouts to be a legitimate good K pitcher.

In short: Roy Halladay/Brandon Webb at his best, Derek Lowe at his worst. Yeah, I said it. Lofty expectations.

Jarrod Washburn Acquisition

So, the Tigers acquired Jarrod Washburn today in the only move they made. I've already voiced my opinion on this trade both in the chat, at Bill's site, and on Beyond the Boxscore's comment section. Let me lay this out:

Luke French: young, cost-controlled lefty with average stuff pretty much across the board. His move to Triple-A Toledo this year led to a jump in K's and in overall performance. He's pitched to the tune of a 3.87 FIP in Detroit thus far and accrued 0.6 Wins Above Replacement in just 7 games (5 starts, but we'll go with games). Lets stretch that out to a potential 12 more starts as the Tigers have 62 games. Now, with off-days and some youngsters like Rick Porcello in the rotation, there'll be re-ordering in the rotation to help preserve Porcello's inning count for the year. But, let's run with the 12 starts and assume Luke French would stay in the rotation for those 12 starts his spot would get. 0.6 WAR in 7 games stretched to another 12 games would equal a total WAR of 1.6. that's below-average production, but if you stretch it out to a full season's worth, it's above-average in the neighborhood of 2.8 WAR.

Don't think French is a true 3.87 FIP-er? Okay, knock off half a win from that war. He's giving you 1 WAR this season at 20 years old in his rookie year. Not shabby. That's nearly $5 million in value.

Jarrod Washburn has a 3.75 FIP and has accrued 2.7 WAR in 20 starts. Stretched out over another 12 starts, he's roughly on pace for 4.3 WAR, or an additional 1.6 WAR. I don't think he'll maintain his current pace, but since he's an established big leaguer, lets just say he keeps his current pace up.

So, really, he's giving us likely half a win more than Luke French would give us. That is worth about $2.65 million on the open market.

However, it wasn't a one-for-one swap, as the "cost of upgrading" to Washburn's talent level over French as Bill put it, was an additional prospect: Mauricio Robles. Robles is a lefty who can sit in the low-to-middle 90's with a good breaking ball but is inconsistent. I don't think he'll be this generation of Tigers fans' John Smoltz, but he's a high upside/incredibly low-floor guy. He wasn't rated in the Tigers Top ten by John Sickels, so I can't put a value to him.

Now, Jarrod Washburn's contract runs out this year, but he's slotted to be a potential Type-B free agent. So, we can offer arbitration and if he turns it down, pick up a compensation round pick. But, like Dave Cameron noted in his write-up, it's very plausible that mid-30's pitcher coming off of his best season in over half-a-decade, very well could accept the arbitration. Given he made $10 million this year, that'll like mean a raise and likely mean $12-15 million salary for the 2010 season.

For a team with a payroll that's apparently strapped, I don't think we added much and, at best, it's a lateral move. I don't think it's the worst trade in a decade like Dave Cameron's article paints it, but I don't think it's a win like most Tigers bloggers and fans think, either.

Detroit Tigers Trade Deadline Chat

I will be joining Billfer, Kurt, Lee, Ian, and Big Al as a panelist in the Tigers Trade Deadline chat. You can chat here or at any of their respective (and great) sites.

Valuing Roy Halladay

Bill already beat me to this, but I was planning on taking a look at Roy Halladay's value versus the package we'd be giving up. The reported package asked for was Rick Porcello, Casey Crosby and Ryan Perry. Bill's got Halladay at possibly adding about 4 wins to the Tigers the rest of the way. Sky Kalkman's Trade Value Calculator had Halladay at 3 wins the rest of the way as of July 15th. He's estimated Halladay to be worth 6 Wins Above Replacement next year as well, so we'll run with that and say that Halladay will give about 9 WAR to whatever team he goes to if he's dealt before the deadline tomorrow. That's a value of $46.1 million. He makes $22.8 million over that time span, meaning he he has a net value of $23.4 million.

Victor Wang's done some great research on the value of prospects for the Hardball Times. Erik Manning's summarized the research into this table. Rick Porcello was the 7th rated pitcher (21st player overall) in Baseball America's preseason top 100 prospects. Research values that at $15.2 million in value. Casey Crosby is just 20-years-old until mid-September and was graded a C+ by John Sickels. That is valued at $2.1 million. Finally, Ryan Perry turned 22 in February, and John Sickels graded him at a solid B. That puts him at $7.3 million in value.

Total that all up, Porcello, Crosby, and Perry are valued at a collective $24.6 million. Given that Halladay's projected to provide about $23.4 million for the duration of his contract that runs through 2010, that's a very even deal.

But, here's the one drawback of the deal: Mike Ilitch and Dave Dombrowski said before the season that the payroll is pretty maxed out. Given that we haven't really shed any money and opened the season with a payroll of $115,085,145 million. In trading Porcello, Crosby, and Perry, we're not dumping more than a couple of league-minimum salaries and taking on board the full ~$7 million left this year on Halladay's salary plus the $15.8 he makes in 2010. I'm not sure the Tigers can add that type of money to the books without clearing something out first.

Speaking of money: the Tigers traded Josh Anderson to the Kansas City Royals for cash-money as Kurt dubbed it. Dayton Moore's certainly got a love-affair for bad OBP players with little to no power, huh? My condolences to Royals fans. Hopefully he isn't used as much and as poorly as Jim Leyland used him.

Revised Casey Fien Scouting Report

In the comments of my Casey Fien Scouting Report, Harry Pavlidis had some insight. Since he knows how to better classify pitches than myself, I heeded his advice and re-classified the pitches.

First, the strike zone plot:

The differences were that the "change-up" is actually a slider. Harry also said that he threw two four-seam fastballs (FF) and the rest of the heaters were of the two-seam variety (FT), while the rest were sliders. I've changed that.

The release points:

And now here are the pitch flights:

Hopefully, if I classified the wrong fastball's as four-seamers, Harry can correct me again. If not, I'll just compare the pitch flights to his New Arms of the Week post at Beyond the Boxscore.