OT: Tigers 6/7/2011
So the Tigers are now on a 4 game winning streak and are looking to sweep the Rangers (who currently sit atop the AL West) tomorrow. Is this the mid season tease that they seem to always offer to keep me excited until at least mid August? Or does this team actually have something special in them this season?
I personally like the middle of the lineup and the rotation looks relatively solid. If the bullpen can continue their recent streak of reliability, I think they could be a contender down the stretch. Also, the Central looks fairly mediocre this year. The White Sox could be troublesome. Any thoughts?
"just keep winning, just keep winning..."
Is this the mid season tease that they seem to always offer to keep me excited until at least mid August? Or does this team actually have something special in them this season?
It's a tease.
Our starting pitching has been great, and if we can keep that up, then we're in pretty good shape. Plus the rest of our division has looked really week this season. Cleveland is falling back to earth, the white sox aren't living up to expectations, KC is well...KC, and the Twins are so far out of it I don't think they have a chance. We definitely can make a run for the division IMHO.
I'm with you. The starting pitching has been very solid and they're not relying on anyone having a career year. If Boesch can stay productive and give them another bat worth a damn...,,. I think they can make the playoffs.
Agreed. Verlander, Scherzer, and Porcello are all doing very well and they project to keep it up. All of their ERAs are either within a reasonable margin of their xFIP, and Scherzer's ERA is actually higher than his xFIP, mostly due to his past few starts. Penny has been exactly what you would expect out of the 4 or 5 spot in the rotation, and Coke was doing serviceable before he screwed up his ankle.
The middle of our lineup has been very good and I don't think it's beyond reason to think that Cabrera, Martinez, and Peralta will continue to hit well for the season. If Jackson and Boesch can continue to improve over the course of the season, I think our offense will do just fine.
Valverde is solid in the closer's role, so in my mind, the biggest X factor at this point is our middle relief. They were really shaky at the beginning of the season, but A2 has been lights out recently and he has a ridiculous K/9 rate. If our middle relief continues to improve, I think we will easily win a weak AL Central. Should be interesting to see if we can keep it together during the Dog Days!
I don't know about this being a mid-season teaser. With the way they have been hitting the ball and Magglio coming back soon, I can only suspect that they keep on rolling!
The starting pitching has been ok, and Verlander has been a beast hands-down. I'm not too thrilled with Schlereth. He looks like he belongs back in the minors for awhile. Despite not giving up a hit tonight, he looked pretty shaky in his one inning of work.
i'm not sure i want to call him back right now. We dont need another righty in the lineup. His defense is steadily declining. I really like Dirks and Wells. If boesch keeps up his hitting i just dot dont see a place for ordonez in the lineup.
My dream right now is they go after D. Wright. Keep inge out of the lineup.
Id rather see them go after Jose Reyes and move Jhonny P. to 3rd.
This is how it goes every year though. They will be hot until a little after the all star break and then flame out when everyone but Cabby and maybe now V-Mart goes cold. I hope I'm wrong but I don't see us winning the Central when we have Inge, Raburn, and Kelly playing signifcant time.
for some work. Guy got out of the 9th unscathed, but it wasn't for skill.
Compared to Benoit's early=season struggles, Schlereth's struggles are NOTHING. I think he'll work it out.
You don't walk as many batters as you strikeout and survive long in the majors. His ERA is a complete smokescreen right now (5.83!!! FIP compared to a 2.37 ERA). He's in line for a major correction.
EDIT: Didn't realize Schlereth was discussed in detail already in this thread
I had an argument yesterday with a friend that the Tigers were not one of the best teams in baseball and won't make the playoffs. I don't think they are one of the elite teams in the league...but they don't need to be. They just need to be the best in the division and get to the playoffs. Starting pitching wins in the playoffs and with Verlander, Porcello, and Scherzer...thats got to be one of the best (if not the best) 1-2-3 punch in the league.
Obviously the Indians are falling apart, the Twins have been decimated by injury (although you still can't count them out lol), the Sox don't have the bats, and the Royals...I like the Tigers chances.
We are just so streaky though lol
Scherzer has been pretty up and down lately. He is lucky he is getting amazing run support over his last few starts. When he is on he is probably 1B with Verlander though.
Uhh since when is the AL central not mediocre? I'm still not convinced. If Dombrowski and Leyland are brought back, I'm boycotting this team.
Since we were playing so well before they came?
floundered talent, bad contracts, leyland's love of playing to matchups, brandon fucking inge. it could be worse, I started watching baseball when we really stunk. Like Jeff Weaver, Bobby Higginson, Damien Easley days. We're better but I've personally seen enough. They've done a good job bringing respectability back but they can't get over the hump.
The last time I heard talk like that was in the late '90's with the Lions.
"Sure, they make the playoffs every now and then, and they finish 9-7 every year, but that's it. But we need to bring in someone who can get them over the hump."
And that brought us MATT FREEKING MILLEN.
Moral of the story? Messing with a good thing because you want a better thing is like dumping your moderately attractive girlfriend because you want a really hot girlfriend. Sure, you might land the hottie... but more likely you'll be home alone.
I'm not sure one playoff appearance and zero division titles (CHOKE) in seven years with Dombrowski and five years with Leyland is that much of a good thing. Especially not with one of the highest payrolls in MLB and a weak division. If they find a new way to give away the division again this year, then Leyland should go.
that we are 457-414 and the playoff appearnce was a World Series appearnce, I'm going to go ahead and call it a good thing. Then again, I had to sit through 1995-2005 when the team went 712-1,150. So yeah, I'm gonna enjoy having the current team, which is a pretty solid team.
There is absolutely no way this analogy can be applied to Michigan football. None whatsoever.
PS: That's a nice signature you have there
Even though the Tigers haven't exactly been the Red Wings under Mr. I's watch I think he has a bit more sense than WCF, Sr.
We just beat the hell out of the rangers in two consecutive games. I'm pretty sure they don't play in the AL Central.
...I'm pretty sure the Rangers are the defending AL champs and current AL West leaders.
It's clear that the Tigers have what it takes to win the AL Central. Now, can they get past the Yankees or Red Sox? I don't know about that, but I'm willing to be convinced or even given an unreasonable expectation.
I can has hate DUMBrowski too! I want to get that Smith fella back. I liked it way better before DUMBrowski came here and ruined what once was an amazing team.....
is the only way I know how to bottom line a manager, we are 7th in MLB in wins since Leyland took over
You mean you don't miss trading the whole team to San Diego or Houston every other year?
was starting to think that there was some rule against trading with any other teams!
lol I'm not one of those types of haters. Dombrowski has made a lot of mistakes over the years, which he'll even acknowledge. like I said this team can't seem to get over the hump. We've changed players, time to see someone fresh.
This regime is horrible. Bring back the old days...
Even as an Indians fan, I had an irrational and completely unfounded fondness for Bobby Higginson. I remember him going absolutely crazy in a brawl with the White Sox years ago. And I think beating up White Sox is something we can all get behind.
I can only counter your Bobby Higginson with mustache power.
Rob Deer sees your "mustache" and laughs:
Side note:
I recommend http://www.baseballcardbust.com/ for all of your embrassing baseball bard photo needs.
Paul Reuschel doesn't understand what the big deal is with Rob Deer.
And if you're feeling a little strange, it's because you were just molested by Paul Reuschel.
When did I say they were horrible? I'll admit were better. We've gone from terrible to mediocre. Woopty doo! BTW don't diss Bobby.
The Tigers have had a really weird season. They've been alternating winning streaks and losing streaks all year. I need to see more before I'm sold.
Cleveland coming back to earth is a good sign, though.
I'm always afraid of Chicago. There's no reason to think that Dunn and Rios won't figure it out at some point.....when they do they're likely to make a late season charge. Otherwise the division looks to be ours to lose. Cleveland has finally hit the skids because their starting pitching has been better than it really should be.
Since it's the "6/7/11" thread I think it's also fair to point out how weird it was to see the Tigers take almost no pitchers in the draft today. I think the farm system could use a serious restocking of position players so I was glad to see it. Especially getting a catcher with their first pick (even if it didn't come on the first day.)
Though I agree with your sentiment, I think the Tigers took a crap-ton of catchers in last year's draft.
We did draft a lot of catchers, and many are performing admirably in the minors. Perhaps DD will dangle them as trade bait since offensively-capable catchers are such a rare commodity?
I say we're contenders if we can find a replacement for Coke or if Coke regains some confidence on the mound. Guess we need to tune in tomorrow.
has actually been pretty decent with the exception of two starts against Seatle. His win/loss record isn't very good but part of that is the lack of run support he has gotten in his starts. The game against Boston where he allowed one run over 8, and the offense scored 0 for him is the perfect example of that.
And the people bagging on Schelereth have no clue what they are talking about, guy has a 2.50 ERA this season. Still needs some polishing in terms of his control, but he has been solid.
but ERA doesn't tell you a whole lot. It's based on things that pitchers don't control. His FIP is 5.83, which is much more indicitive of future performance.
Well, you're half right. xFIP is actually the better indicator of future performance. It's exactly the same as FIP except it uses the leauge average for HR rate, since data have shown that a pitcher's HR rate will vary fairly randomly from year to year. Here's a link to the definition:
i'm very aware of xFIP. The only reason I didn't use it was because there wasn't a big enough difference between the two of them for me to want to write it down. Also, for some pitchers such as Verlander or CC Sabathia, xFIP is completely irrelevant because they have track records of 1,000+ innings of allowing less HR's than league average, so keep that in mind as well when discussing xFIP in regards to certain pitchers.
Welcome to the world of advanced metrics, where a 2.50 ERA is quickly overshadowed by a 1.18 K/BB ratio, a 5.22 xFIP, and a 5.83 FIP. He's also gotten lucky with a 97% strand rate and a .241 BABIP. Granted, he is a reliever so you want to see that high (and it will most likely be higher than the league average for a starter, which is typically around 70%), but there is no way he is going to sustain that rate over the course of the season. Basically, his low ERA is more attributable to luck than his own skill.
Still, the guy is young and he's got potential, but he's still got a way to go before I would call him "solid."
But when Enrique Gonzalez is still on the roster, I'm cool with keeping Schlereth around to work out the kinks. Gonzalez has an xFIP of 6.69 (!!), a K/BB ratio of .33 (!!!), and an ERA of "Yes."
surprisingly enough in the last 10 games the tigers are 8-2. Needless to say Texas is 7-3 and the rest of the Al varies from 6-4 to 4-6 (Cleveland is 3-7...ouch!). With all that being said I'd like to see Sherzer settle down, he's been on and off for the last month. However, I'm liking SOME parts of the bullpen: Albuequerque, Benoit, Furbush, Valverde. I just wish they found a good 5 spot starter and would move Phil Coke back to the bullpen, I think he's a hell of a lot more lethal and his stuff is sharper in a few innings than in a start. But thats just my opinion.