OT - Brandon Inge walk off grand slam
Title says it all. Walk off Grand Slam to beat Toronto 7-3. That gives him 2 HR and 8 RBI the last two games. Raburn has 0 HR and 2 RBI all year. Glad the Tigers kept him.
/s
Inge was overrated for virtually his entire career with the Tigers. Yeah, he played hard and got dirty and played a lot of positions, blah blah blah. I like him as an individual.
But he was/is not a good offensive baseball player. He strikes out too much, hits for a low average, and doesn't have the power to make up for it. Detroiters loved him for being a Tiger, not for his abilities as a player.
Granted, he probably does not have a natural eye for seeing pitches and would have never been a great offensive player. But your assertion is a crock. He had ten years to spend an off season learning how to shorten up his swing and hit for contact. In fact, a few times over his career he did that for a while and his average jumped up. He's a strong guy who would still get extra base power from swinging for contact (or, you know, at least doing it with two strikes).
But he never did, because he thinks he's a power hitter. That's why he struck out on so many curveballs. Always sitting on a fast ball and trying to hit it out.
Brandon Inge overrated himself and pretended to be something he isn't, then refused to change for the good of his team or even his own career.
However the only people who really overrated Brandon Inge are the people who hate Brandon Inge.If you overrate a player, you think he's better than he really is. I don't think Inge's critics have been doing that.
Inge was a good-to-great fielder and an okay hitter for most of his career. Within the last year or two, though, his fielding has declined to "average" and his hitting has declined to "abysmal". I think most of the hate directed toward him was not directed to the man but instead directed to the inexplicable fact that he was still there. He was terrible last year. He was terrible in spring training. And yet somehow there he is on the field, committing throwing errors and racking up strikeouts. It just didn't make sense.
If you look at the Red Wings you see a number of former stars and fan favorites like Osgood, Draper, and Maltby who were given reduced roles as their skills declined and eventually told they just weren't good enough to be a Red Wing anymore. That has to be done if you want to field a championship contending team, no matter how much you like what they did over the past 10 years.
As for Brandon Inge the Oakland Athletic, yeah, one of his big swings finally made actual contact with the ball. He was 0 for 4 with 6 men left on base in the game up to that point. His average is still .146. He hasn't managed a multi-hit game this year... in fact, he's got 2 strikeouts for every one hit. One hard swing (at a hittable pitch for once instead of one that's headed for the dirt in front of home plate) does not make for a turnaround, no matter how you spin it.
Calling Inge "an okay hitter for most of his career" is a stretch. In his 12 MLB seasons, he's batted above .250 (and had an OPS above .720) three times. Basically, aside from 2004-06, he's always been an enormous liability at the plate.
Believe it or not, the season is much longer than 2 games, and on top of that, Dombrowski and Leyland know a whole lot more about baseball than you or I do.
I can't believe this is even a topic....Inge is gone, let it go, I'm sorry you can't wear your precious #15 jersey to the game anymore. Look I'm happy for him, truly I am. Now that he's no longer here I have no quarrel with him, but if you honestly think the Tigers would be better off with him then you are an idiot.
His OBP is .208 and his avg is still a meager .146, Raburn hasn't been any better but his track record speaks for itself. I bet you're mad that we let Jair Jurrjens go too, or Scott Sizemore for that matter. An Inge thread when he's not even a Tiger.........GET OVER IT.
Inge was a likeable player who couldn't conrol the strikezone and became a prodigious out-making machine. #moneyball
Once the Tigers accumulated a number of professional hitters, even fans who loved his dirt-dog persona couldn't justify his declining defense at the expense of outs.
i think I finally figured out why I hate Brandon Inge so much. It's because of things like this post. (I see the /s, but don't care.)
Brandon Inge started his career in Detroit as a useful utility player who was a very good fielder with some pop in his bat. Eventually he became the full-time third baseman. He had a couple seasons as an excellent defensive third baseman, and his numbers at the plate were palatable. At some point, his high strike out rate started to get real tiresome. Then, his defense started to decline as well. He also refused to go back to his utility role, bitching about the suggestion, believing he had "earned" the right to be the everyday third baseman. This is when my distain for him began.
Then, for the rest of his career, anytime his name would come up, his legion of followers would defend him regardless of his on-field performance. "He brings his lunch pail to work everyday" or "he's a blue collar guy," they would say. "He's batting .210," I would respond. But there was no reasoning with them. Then, the couple friends of mine who were loyal Inge lovers would seem to tell me EVERY time he got a hit, especially if it was a home run. They'd point to his one or two "clutch" hits and act like I was clearly wrong about his baseball skills. Meanwhile, his average hovered around his abysmal career numbers, he struck out consistently, and was GROSSLY overpaid.
So, at least for me, I think I irrationally hate Brandon Inge so much because people irrationally loved him so much. Sports fans whose opinions I mostly respected made ludicrous arguments to support him.
I think you summarized Inge well with a couple of things missing:
- Inge got HUGE money from the organization that was hard to justify when he was at his best and was laughable when he was at his worst.
- Leyland continued to play him and defend him like he was Brooks Robinson even when it became apparent that he was a replacement level player at best.
- Decisions were made the last couple of years to keep Inge on the team either because of his contract or his history with the organization even though other players were more deserving of the roster spots.
- As you alluded to, when Inge was faced with these situations of getting beat out but somehow managing to stay on the roster he said some silly things rather than taking a utility role and being happy about it.
The other part of the Inge situation was timing. He was the face of the Tigers when they were horrible and people respected him because he played his butt off and played great defense while the team was horrible. We needed someone to root for and he was a logical candidate. He then stayed with the team when they became good and sort of personified their revival.
When they became good it because apparent that he was beneath their standards yet his biggest supporters and Inge himself could not admit that to themselves. Had Inge just said humbly "I'm not cutting it right now and until I improve I understand why I'm not playing." Instead he talked about how he'd proved himself, he earned his spot, he didn't understand why he wasn't playing, etc.
Great posts (both of you) -
I'd like to add a couple of things that pissed me off and caused me to start disliking him.
I began to not like Inge when the Tigers signed a flippin' Hall of Fame catcher and Inge had the audacity to bitch about having to switch positions. Pudge was a damn Hall of Famer. Shut the hell up & move spots.
Then, a few years ago, with 20 homers at the all star break (and aching knees), he decided to participate in the home run derby. After putting up a donut in the derby, his knees got worse and he sucked (more than normal) the rest of the year.
It's that kind of thing - not thinking about the team first - complaining about a position switch, or participating in the all star game, putting himself before the team that pisses me off to this day.
I'm not a big baseball fan. I am a Tigers fan, though. Given that, I couldn't care less what Inge does in Oakland. This walk-off is fool's gold. Good luck, Oakland.
Good for Inge. As long as it wasn't angainst your Tigers shouldn't you be a little happy for the guy? It's not like the guy doesn't know he is/was barely hanging in the show.
They should put him back in the Home Run Derby, for old times sake.
The most notable thing about Inge, to me, is that when Rod and Mario asked viewers to call in their player of the game, the player was inevitably Inge. Didn't matter if Inge was 0 for 5 with three strikeouts. Cabrera and Jackson could have driven in eight runs apiece and still Inge would lead the voting. He definitely cornered the honky vote.
well hell, since this thread is still on the front page and Oakland is playing right now should we do a liveblog?
Inge goes down swinging on first at-bat. BA drops to .143 and OBP drops to .204. On the plus side he was leading off the bottom of the second, so he didn't strand anyone.
Good bye baseball!!!