OT: Andrew Romine, Tigers' Unsung Hero
August 4th, 2016 at 10:56 AM ^
new Tom Brookens
August 4th, 2016 at 11:07 AM ^
I was so ecstatic when he rejoined the club as a coach and was terribly bummed that he wasn't even interviewed for the managerial position after Leyland left. I know some people did not like his work as the 3rd base coach, but he was outstanding as a manager in the minors.
There's a 15 year old book called the History of the Detroit Tigers and there is a chart devoted to all the third basemen that he had to share time with during his tenure.
Cheers to the Pennsylvania Poker.
But yes, I fully agree we need to put out an APB on that guy.
Every jersey I played in, regardless of sport, had to be #16. Because of him, Gary Danielson was my favorite Lion. And John Chabot became my favorite Red Wing. If Brookens would've been named manager of the Tigers, I guarantee I'd have a season ticket plan.
Oh, and I fully believe there's a Tommy Brookens curse. Think about it: We were the winningest team of the 80s with him. We trade him for Charlie Hudson. Tigers have their worst season in years, Charlie Hudson gets drunk, runs into a telephone pole and misses the last 1.5 months of the season.
Brookens gets hired as manager of the Class A team in 2005 and the Tigers return to the World Series in 2006. Every year that they made the post season with him back in the Majors, we won at least the ALDS. In 2.5 seasons since he was let go, we have zero playoff wins to show. Not just series wins, but a single win an a series.
We need him back.
Whether he really should have been or not, Brookens was pretty much the primary 3B for 5 seasons ('80, '81, '85, '87 & '88) was a platoon starter there in 2 other seasons ('82, '83) and saw part-time duty there in 2 other years ('84, 86)
He was more often a primary or platoon player than he was a a super-sub. He had more than 400 plate appearances 5 times.
In contrast, Romine has 90 plate appearances this year.
if you believe in WAR, over Brookens tenure with Detroit, he was NEVER a negative WAR player, so he was always a positive asset. Which is probably why Sparky kept sending him out there year after year after year.
August 4th, 2016 at 10:58 AM ^
Donny Kelly will always be my favorite example of this type of player.
August 4th, 2016 at 10:59 AM ^
Or "Donnie", however you want to spell it.
August 4th, 2016 at 11:01 AM ^
August 4th, 2016 at 11:35 AM ^
August 4th, 2016 at 12:05 PM ^
DKB was the man! Donny Kelly Baby!
August 4th, 2016 at 11:02 AM ^
He's pretty versitle in that he can play most postions and is a pretty decent infielder. He's a good example of someone you'd want in a back-up player. They use him quite a bit late in games at third base where he is a defensive upgrade over Nick C. He's not the greatest of hitters, but comes through in that department from time to time.
August 4th, 2016 at 11:03 AM ^
I hate these kinds of articles. No, the guy who is worth 0.1 WAR is not an unsung hero. He's just a generic dude on the team. Are we going to talk about the unsung hero Anthony Gose (0.2 WAR) or unsung hero Kyle Ryan (0.3 WAR)?
It's the ZOMG DONG KELLY all over again, and it's pure BS.
August 4th, 2016 at 11:08 AM ^
Dude is going to be in rookie ball in a couple weeks.
August 4th, 2016 at 11:13 AM ^
but I agree with you. The reason this team has turned things around is quite simple. Everyone is finally contributing. They are getting production out of the bottom of the lineup and the pitching has been significantly better all around
August 4th, 2016 at 11:16 AM ^
Know what WAR doesn't measure? Versatility. All teams carry an extra infielder, and all teams carry an extra outfielder. Romine is both and not by just a little bit. People trying to compare Andrew Romine to Don Kelly miss one itty bitty point, Romine is just a better defensive player no matter the position.
August 4th, 2016 at 12:00 PM ^
WAR actually does measure versatility. Your worth increases the more you can play harder to replace positions. Furthermore, Romine is a shortstop. Every shortstop in the league can play every other infield position. I'd be shocked if the vast majority of them can't play CF at Romine's defensive level, which has actually been shitty (UZR -23 runs (-2.3 WAR) per 150 games). It's not some special attribute that only he possesses, we just use him in a different way.
August 4th, 2016 at 11:19 AM ^
August 4th, 2016 at 11:32 AM ^
like VORP and BABIP, are stupid pretend made up stats that people THINK are important for baseball or tell an important story, but really don't.
August 4th, 2016 at 12:02 PM ^
That could be same about any stat in baseball... The RBI, for instance, doesn't tell the whole picture because some players get tons more RBI opportunities than others (i.e. Miggy, VMart, Castellanos all get tons more RBI opportunites because of the guys hitting in front of them as opposed to Iglesias who has guys like McCann, Collins, and Aviles hitting in front of him)... batting average depends heavily on sample size. OBP can be heavily skewed if a player walks a ton (i.e. Bryce Harper this season or Adam Dunn his entire career)
The fact of the matter is that a baseball player cannot be judged by one stat alone, and a lot of sabermetric statistics help to give a more rounded picture of a player. All stats are flawed in their own way, but all are helpful in their own ways as well
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August 4th, 2016 at 11:06 AM ^
I'm not saying Romine is amazing... But I never understand why Detroit fans pick the utility man/25th man as the person to be super critical of. Do they think that every other team has an all-star as their last position player?
Romine gets the job done. He's only had 78 ABs all season, which I bet is a lot lower than people would think. Ausmus uses him selectively and in defensive replacement situations. He's batting .231, which is not great, but also not at the Mendoza line (like inexplicable fan favorite Saltalamacchia). (EDIT: In fairness, Salty has a similar OBP and has 9 more HRs in about twice as many ABs).
August 4th, 2016 at 11:09 AM ^
Salty also seems to get nothing but clutch hits.
He's the anti-Castellanos.
August 4th, 2016 at 11:11 AM ^
No... He's hit two big homers.... And struck out a lot. He has 72 strike outs in 162 ABs. That's dreadful. It's easy to remember a walkoff/game tying homer... But when you're K'ing almost every other AB....
August 4th, 2016 at 11:46 AM ^
Do you even WATCH the Tigers?
Castellanos is batting .341 with runners in scoring position, and.318 with a 1.025 OPS with RISP/2-outs. Castellanos has been the definition of clutch this year.
Oh and by the way, last year he batted .342 with RISP and .346 with RISP/2 outs.
Saying that Castellanos hasn't been clutch is patently ridiculous.
August 4th, 2016 at 11:52 AM ^
Castellanos has been clutch this year. Absolutely clutch. But stats don't appease feelingsball fans who just know in their gut that Castellenos can't drive the runner home from 2nd base.
Those numbers say nothing about game situations.
Ok Mr. "Throw out negs because he can't just admit that he is wrong".
http://www.fangraphs.com/statsplits.aspx?playerid=11737&position=3B&sea…
Castellanos:
High leverage situations (aka game most on the line)
.324/.385/.415
Medium leverage situations:
.318/.345/.636
Low leverage situations (aka game least on the line)
.266/.312/.429
You can read about leverage here:
http://www.fangraphs.com/library/misc/li/
Nick's average and OBP are the HIGHEST when the game is MOST on the line. Yeah, he hasn't had big power numbers in those situations, but perhaps he is more focused on just delivering a hit and not swinging for the fences.
Anyway, I repeat what I said earlier, Nick Castellanos has been the DEFINITION of clutch this year, and to say otherwise is to prove you are either not watching the games or know absolutely nothing about baseball.
It just amazes me in this day and age of imformation being easily and readily available that people still decide to believe whatever stupid stuff pops into their head instead of spending the 2 minutes it takes to look up what reality is.
August 5th, 2016 at 12:58 AM ^
I've got NO problem with people relying on their gut feeling on a guy, unless it just flies in the face of reality. I hadn't looked up Nick's situational hitting numbers either until I saw someone posting that he hadn't been clutch, which absolutely flew in the face of what my gut told me from following the team this year (I listen to games on the internet when I can and always check out the box score) and I recalled Nick getting a ton of big hits.
If you're gonna bag on a guy for sucking in big situations, it probably behooves you to take the 30 seconds to go to Fangraphs and be sure he isn't batting .324 in high leverage situations first. I understand 15 years ago having a misconception of players actual production, because you would have to be watching/listening/checking every game to really know what was going on. But these days for baseball there are sites that break everything down so that you can, in about 2 minutes, know EXACTLY what they have been doing out there. So having such a backwards view of a player is just plain laziness.
That kind of statistical analysis hasn't really come yet to football.. Football still requires the eyeball test a lot of the time. That's why Brian's UFR's are a million times more valuable than a stat sheet IMO.
August 4th, 2016 at 11:10 AM ^
Salty got off to an incredible start, possibly people are still thinking of him along those lines.
If Bryan Holaday were raking, people would probably be on Salty's case more. As it is, we clearly need some more production out of our catchers - hoping that UVA product John Hicks gets the call from Toledo soon.
August 4th, 2016 at 11:21 AM ^
Not sure why you brought up the name of a Texas player other than Saltalamacchia once played for Texas.
August 4th, 2016 at 12:15 PM ^
They chose Salty over Holaday. If Holaday was raking this season for the Rangers, Tiger fans would be upset that they traded away the catcher that is hitting well.
August 4th, 2016 at 11:14 AM ^
Who is being super critical of Romine? This article is praising him for finally getting his season numbers above the replacement level. It's not impressive.
August 4th, 2016 at 11:19 AM ^
I didn't say anyone was super critical. I said Detroit fans seem to have a history of bitching about bottom of the roster-type players, which is kind of ridiculous. Every team has Romines/Kellys. If your last position player has a positive WAR, then you should be happy with that.
August 4th, 2016 at 11:30 AM ^
August 4th, 2016 at 11:32 AM ^
I'm assuming Aviles' time on the team is running out.
August 4th, 2016 at 11:19 AM ^
August 4th, 2016 at 12:07 PM ^
I think its against the rules to have to catchers hit at the same time against a single RHP. But I may be wrong.
You must have meant "two catchers." It was kinda hard to tell at first. Almost like you made a typo, or something.
August 4th, 2016 at 11:07 AM ^
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August 4th, 2016 at 11:13 AM ^
August 4th, 2016 at 11:27 AM ^
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August 4th, 2016 at 11:22 AM ^
He does what the Tigers need him to do, but I don't understand the need for two of these guys on the team. Both him and Aviles essentially do the same thing. Romine plays hard and has a necessary role, but I rarely find myself saying "I really admire his skills and what he proved to this team".
I'd like to see them move on from one of the two in the off-season...I'm assuming that'll be Aviles because I think he's probably a one year guy, but there is no need to carry two weak-hitting, former shortstop utility players. When our outfield had both of them in it, I was worried.
August 4th, 2016 at 12:23 PM ^
August 4th, 2016 at 12:27 PM ^
The Tigers probably have both of them because they need athletes who can run the bases and be put a few places in the field due to the incredible lack of athleticism Cabrera and Victor show outside the batters box.
My guess is one of Romine/Aviles is there for injuries/days off and the other is the 2nd guy in when you need a bunt or fast runner to score a winning run and you only have slow fat guys on base.
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That's terrible rationale. The Tigers do not need to carry two of the same guy. How about an additional outfielder...you know, one that plays outfield by trade. Doesn't have to be a "fat guy". Find me another team that has two backup shortstops serving super-utility players.
They're not the same guy. Romine is the very definition of replacement level. Aviles isn't even close to that. He's not an MLB caliber player, yet he's held his roster spot all season.