How Was The Game? (May 22, 2013)
All over the place.
Tigers 11, Indians 7
The Tigers jumped out to a first inning 2-0 lead and then Justin Verlander (4/5-4, 59 IP, 3.66 ERA, 2.47 FIP, 2.1 WAR) gave a run back in each of the first two innings with some help from terrible “non-error” defense from Torii Hunter. But then the Tigers offense came alive with 4 in the 3rd and Verlander looked like he figured something out and shut the Indians down in the 3rd and 4th. In the 5th, the Tigers added 3 more runs and Verlander came out for the bottom half and gave up three more runs. And then the rain came and the game was halted before the inning could be completed. After a 62 minute delay, Verlander came back out to finish the 5th and qualify for a win. Then relief ace Smyly gave up 2 in the 6th to make it 9-7. After a scoreless 7th, the rain came again and we waited another 50 minutes for the 8th inning in which Miguel Cabrera hit a ball to the warning track that Michael Bourn knocked over the fence for a two run homer. The game was exactly as head-shakingly chaotic as the first several sentences of this post and I wrote it that way so you could feel the game in my words. It was one of those baseball games that just wore you down even though your team led the entire way. The win improves the Tigers to 25-19 and gives them a short, two game sweep of the Indians and sends them home to face the Twins behind Rick Porcello (2-2, 38 IP, 5.92 ERA, 4.38 FIP, 0.4 WAR) whom I argue is on his way to a breakout year. It’s unclear for certain what caused Verlander’s odd start, but there are some rumblings of sign stealing, which I can’t really dispute give that nothing else seems to be wrong with him. We’ll have to wait and see where things go from here, but the Tigers got the win and that’s good enough for me on this night. Also, if you missed it, here’s my piece from earlier on Max Scherzer’s dominate performance from Tuesday.
The Moment: Don Kelly scores on a double steal in the 5th.
Three Reasons Max Scherzer Dominated the Indians
Max Scherzer pitches for the Tigers and is also known for having two different colored eyes. Some Tigers fans like to joke that when Scherzer is pitching poorly he is pitching from the brown eye and when he is pitching well he is pitching from the blue eye. I’m not sure if that’s a real medical condition, but if it is, Max Scherzer was all blue eye on Tuesday.
He threw 8 innings, allowed 2 H, 1 R, 1 BB, and 7 K and retired the last 22 batters he faced in order. It wasn’t his highest strikeout performance, but it was superb in every way. Here are three reasons he toasted the Indians.
1. Everything Was Down
Look at this. Scherzer threw just four of his 118 pitches in the top 1/4 of the zone and none of them were put in play. He didn’t hang breaking balls and he didn’t lose his delivery and start missing his spots.
2. His Fast Ball Was On
Not only did Scherzer have all four pitches working, but his fastball was particularly potent. The graph above shows the separation between his pitches by velocity and horizontal movement, but it’s also of note that his average fastball last night was an entire MPH faster (94.4 according to Pitch F/X, 95.8 according to BrooksBaseball) than his best average fastball so far this season (93.4 and 94.2 respectively). [Graph reflects Pitch F/X)
3. He Verlandered Them
Not only was Scherzer commanding his pitches and throwing harder, but he also got better as the game went on. His last pitch was his hardest fastball of the night, topping out at 98 MPH. You can see that he threw harder on average as the game went on as well with some of his best fastballs coming at the end of the game.
So while you didn’t need me to show you that Max Scherzer was great against the Indians on Tuesday, now you know why. He commanded his pitches well, his fastball was better than in previous starts, and he got better as the game went on. Scherzer is 4th in baseball in pitcher WAR with 2.3 so far and had his best start of the year last night.
How Was The Game? (May 21, 2013)
A masterpiece.
Tigers 5, Indians 1
The Tigers began the night trailing the Indians in AL Central and gave the ball to Max Scherzer (6-0, 62.1 IP, 3.61 ERA, 2.34 FIP, 2.3 WAR) to quiet the sizzling Tribe and to straighten out the Tigers staff. He did both with a brilliant performance in which he went 8 innings with 2 hits, 1 R, 1 BB, and 7 K including a string of 22 straight batters retired to end the night. It was the top of the Tigers lineup that did the trick in the 6th with a solo homerun from Dirks (and an RBI single in the 9th!) and a 2 run shot for the scorching hot Miguel Cabrera. It was everything the Tigers needed after a taxing, slugfest of a series in Arlington over the weekend. Scherzer was at his absolute best after the first inning and put the Indians down in order in every inning thereafter. They’ll look to sweep the short series tomorrow night behind Justin Verlander (4-4, 54 IP, 3.17 ERA, 2.46 FIP, 1.9 WAR) who will be in search of a bounce back start after struggling in Texas.
The Moment: Scherzer strikes out Stubbs to end the 8th and finish a string of 22 straight batters retired.
A Brief Note on Miguel Cabrera and Matt Tuiasosopo
In studying the Tigers offensive statistics so far, I spent some time looking into Jhonny Peralta, whom I have generally defended, but decided that his extremely good numbers so far (3rd in SS WAR) are driven somewhat by a high BABIP which isn’t very interesting.
Then I thought about writing about why Matt Tuiasosopo, the Tigers RH platoon OF, should play a little more but realized there isn’t really any extra PA for him unless you’re willing to bench Victor Martinez, whom I’m not giving up on at all.
Yet in the course of this perusal of Tuiasosopo’s numbers, something very amazing caught my eye. He’s crushing the ball, but that’s not what I mean. There is a belief, one which I share, that a baseball player can do pretty much anything across 60 plate appearances, or a 10 to 14 day stretch. Tuiasosopo has 51 PA at this moment in time. So I’m not shocked that he’s doing well. I’m shocked at how it compares to someone else on the team. First, for reference, he’s Tui’s line:
.366/.490/.561, 189 wRC+ (51 PA, 2 HR, 7 R, 15 RBI, 19.6% BB)
That’s excellent. It’s a small sample, but it’s excellent. He’s 89% better than league average at the plate so far this year. It won’t continue, but that isn’t the point. The point is that Tuiasosopo’s best 51 PA – his small sample peak – still don’t measure up to Miguel Cabrera’s entire season.
Cabrera’s line, despite covering 197 PA or a quarter of a season rather than 10%, is better. Here it is:
.387/.457/.659, 199 wRC+ (197 PA, 11 HR, 34 R, 47 RBI, 10.7% BB)
Cabrera isn’t getting on base at the same rate as Tuiasosopo, but he’s outslugging him by a lot. Cabrera is 99% better than league average at the plate this year. This post is meant to illustrate how awesome that is. Tuiasosopo is crushing the ball over a small sample and he still isn’t on Cabrera’s 200 PA pace (In Cabrera’s last 55 PA, he’s at 220 wRC+ BTW). That’s nuts.
Miguel Cabrera’s wRC+ for the season is better than Babe Ruth’s career wRC+. Now obviously that won’t continue. He won’t be Babe Ruth (although for a second I did actually think about removing the word “obviously”). But right now he’s outhitting everyone. Even great hitters. Even players who are having the best couple weeks of their lives.
Chris Davis is the next closest qualifier to Cabrera with a 182 wRC+. If you drop the threshold from qualified to 50 PA, Tuiasosopo is as close as anyone gets. To find someone with a higher wRC+ than Cabrera, you have to find your way to Matt Adams’ 43 PA.
And just for fun, even though it isn’t a meaningful number, over the last week Miguel Cabrera leads baseball with a 344 wRC+. It’s a small sample, but that’s just silly.
Miguel Cabrera has the 29th best career wRC+ of all time at 150. This is his peak. It has to be. The last three seasons have been his best three and this one looks like it might top them all. We may be watching one of the best dozen or so hitters of all time at his absolute best.
How Was The Game? (May 19, 2013)
Um…ridiculous?
Rangers 11, Tigers 8
Entering the bottom of the 5th inning, the Tigers lead the Rangers 4-1 behind two Miguel Cabrera (.387/.457/.659, 1998 wRC+, 2.8 WAR) homeruns and solid pitching from Doug Fister (5-2, 54.2 IP, 3.62 ERA, 2.74 FIP, 1.7 WAR). Then things just went indiscriminately crazy. I mean it. The Rangers got 4. The Tigers got 3. The Rangers got 4. That was three consecutive half innings. It was 9-7 at that point. Then 11-7, then 11-8 on Cabrera’s third homer. I don’t think it’s necessary to rehash exactly how it happened at each interval other than to say that the offense did its job, but the pitching and defense struggled in different ways at different times. I’m really not even sure if the Tigers were giving the game away or the Rangers were trying to give the game away. There were many runs and Miguel Cabrera did something that has happened just a couple times in history. He hit 3 HR in a game and lost…for a second time. The Tigers drop to 23-19 after dropping 3 of 4 from Texas this weekend after Verlander, Sanchez, and Fister all struggled. The Rangers are a good team and you’d be plenty happy with a split on the road and that just escaped their grasp. The Tigers will get Monday off to reset the bullpen and will turn to Max Scherzer (5-0, 54.1 IP, 3.98 ERA, 2.44 FIP, 1.9 WAR) to get the team on track Tuesday in Cleveland.
The Moment: Cabrera homers…three times.
How Was The Game? (May 18, 2013)
Just an ugly one.
Rangers 7, Tigers 2
If I was asked to describe what went wrong today, I’d probably mumble “defense” and walk away angry. The Tigers made 2 errors, allowed a run scoring passed ball, lost a ball in the lights for a triple, and probably did something else I’m forgetting to churn out 7 runs for the opposing team. Anibal Sanchez (4-4, 55.1 IP, 2.77 ERA, 1.79 FIP, 2.6 WAR) wasn’t that sharp, but his 2.2 innings, 9 hits, 6 runs (5 ER), 2 BB, 2 K line belies his true effort. He wasn’t good, but he wasn’t that bad. The offense didn’t really deliver, but those kinds of nights are easier to shake off than ones that were wrought with miscues on defense. Yet the 23-18 Tigers will still head into tomorrow’s game with a chance to split a 4 games series on the road against one of the best teams in the league and will send Doug Fister (5-1, 50 IP, 3.06 ERA, 2.76 FIP, 1.5 WAR) to the mound on Sunday Night Baseball to do so. If you haven’t already, I’d also recommend you check out my piece from Saturday on Rick Porcello, whom I argue is on his way to a breakout year.
The Moment: Torii Hunter strikes out, but then singles after the HP umpire rules it a foul ball.
Rick Porcello is Breaking Out (You Heard Me)
Now the Rick Porcello skeptic is going to look at his 5.92 ERA and just ignore this post in favor of his or her preconceptions about the Tigers right-hander, but I urge you to read on. Rick Porcello is about to have his breakout season. Really.
First, let’s point out that his start on April 20th against the Angels was a mess. 0.2 innings and 9 runs. But it certainly wasn’t all his fault, it was only somewhat his fault. There were infield singles galore in that inning and he should have gotten out of it with only a run or two to his name. I don’t mean to deflect the blame, but merely want to to point out that type of strange inning can happen to anyone and that he induced 7 groundballs in 2/3 of an inning. Normally, that should get you a lot of outs. If we remove that start from his line this year, he has a 3.85 ERA. Again, I’m not trying to just wish it away – it happened – but I do want to point out that other than that one inning, he’s having a very solid season for back end starter even by a conventional, inch deep approach to analyzing baseball.
But let’s also turn to the peripheral numbers. Rick Porcello is striking out 6.39 batters per 9 so far in 2013 and that is the highest number of his career. In his first two years he was about 4.7 K/9. In 2011-2012 he was 5.0-5.5 K/9. He’s added nearly an entire strikeout per 9 this season, which is always a good thing.
He’s also walking fewer batters than ever. In his first season he walked 2.74 per 9 and in his last three he’s been around 2.1-2.3 BB/9. This year, he’s walking 1.89 batters per 9 inning. Look at how his strikeout rate and walk rate are bowing apart on the graph. That is a sign of improvement.
He’s striking out more hitters and walking fewer. In other words, he’s getting better at two of the aspects of the game a pitcher can truly control. But there’s more.
Rick Porcello’s groundball rate is rising too. In his rookie season he got 54.2% GB, but that number dropped to 50.3% before rising each of the last three seasons into this year’s career high 54.9% groundball rate. Not bad. More groundballs are always better than more flyballs.
And then there are the homeruns. Typically Porcello has allowed 0.8 to 1.0 HR/9, but this year that number is 1.42. Now that may sound worse, but it’s actually good. The reason being that most people consider HR to Flyball rate to be inherently driven by luck and that over a large enough sample, every pitcher regresses toward giving up about 1 HR per every 10 fly balls. Porcello has generally been in that range for his entire career. Until this season. This season that rate is 1 in 5. Again, this is a good thing because we would expect that number to come down toward his career norm, thus shrinking his HR rate as the season goes on. In other words, Porcello has given up more runs that he should have this year because he’s been unlucky with flyballs and that luck will change.
Put this together and we have this story: Rick Porcello is striking out more batters than ever, walking fewer batters than ever, getting more groundballs than ever, and is allowing more homeruns per flyball than we would generally expect. All of this points toward the 24 year old having his best season to date.
I’m buying it. Everything we know about what makes pitchers successful tells us to look at strikeouts, walks, and homeruns and the percentage of balls in play he allows on the ground versus in the air. All of those numbers – all of them – are trending in the right direction for Rick Porcello. Lots of people talked about his great spring and the trashed it when he struggled a bit early, but here were are on May 18th and Porcello is starting to make himself look like a very good starter.
Fangraphs furnishes a metric called xFIP which gives us an expected ERA for a starting pitcher based on his strikeouts and walks plus a regressed version of their HR rate adjusted for park effects and league average. Rick Porcello is posting a career best 3.42 xFIP right now. That xFIP is 27th best in baseball among pitchers with 30 IP or more. He’s tied with Jordan Zimmermann (who has a 1.69 ERA) and is getting ace-like attention this season.
I’m not trying to make the case that Porcello is a #1 starter or even a #2, but rather that Rick Porcello is poised for a breakout season and that you should take notice. Heck, look at how his xFIP has declined in every season of his career. He’s often a whipping boy for fairweather fans and idiot radio hosts, but Rick Porcello has always been a durable starter and now he’s having his best season yet.
And he’s still just 24.
The Nine Best Tigers Hitters of the Last Decade
The following post is an installment in our weekly The Nine series and pertains solely to the site’s namesake, the Tigers. The question it seeks to answer is who are the best Tigers hitters of the last decade. It doesn’t answer who the best players are, but simply their offense performance. Defense and baserunning are not considered and the minimum PA threshold has been set at 600 PA. This isn’t a counting list that you can conquer by playing 10 seasons reasonably well. As long as you have had at least one full season of plate appearances as a Tiger from 2004 to now, you are eligible. The list is based on the best single offensive catch all metric, Weighted Runs Created Plus (wRC+) and does not control for position, sorry Pudge.
9. Andy Dirks (705 PA, 113 wRC+)
It might not seem like it, but across several seasons, Dirks has gathered more than one full season of PA and has performed very well at the plate. It doesn’t stand out, but his .289/.339/.447 career line is solid and he makes up for the lower walk rate with a low strikeout rate. He doesn’t over swing and it yields good results. In just over a full season of PA, he has 19 HR, 105 R, 76 RBI, and 10 SB. Put that together and you have a very nice player by any measure.
8. Victor Martinez (761 PA, 114 wRC+)
Martinez’s numbers are slightly depressed off a slow start to 2013, but his 2011 season was very strong and his career .304/.356/.433 line as a Tiger is quite good. His strikeout rate is under 10% and he’s done a nice job of driving in the batters who get on base ahead of him.
7. Rondell White (898 PA, 114 wRC+)
Does that name ring a bell? White played two seasons in Detroit (04-05) and was actually a pretty decent hitter other than having a low walk rate. He hit .290/.342/.470 as a Tiger and hit 31 HR wearing the Old English D. He wasn’t much in the field or on the bases, but his performance at the plate wasn’t anything at which to sneeze.
6. Curtis Granderson (2896 PA, 115 wRC+)
Granderson spend time in Detroit from 2004-2009 and gave the Tigers some solid offense in addition to his once great defensive chops. His .272/.344/.484 line puts him 6th on this list and 4th among players with more than 1000 PA and his 102 HR ranks fourth among Tigers hitters since 2004.
5. Chris Shelton (899 PA, 117 wRC+)
Yup, that Chris Shelton. He crushed the first two months of 2006 to get himself on this list and he didn’t hang around too long after he started coming back to Earth, so he ended his Tigers tenure with a .281/.348/.477 line with 35 HR. His peak was short, but for six weeks in 2006, Big Red was the man.
4. Carlos Guillen (3384 PA, 120 wRC+)
Guillen was often underrated in his time and often injured in his time as well. When he was on the field, he was a very good offensive player, providing a .297/.366/.476 line from 2004-2011 that included 95 HR as a Tiger. He walked more than league average and struckout far less to go along with his high average and solid power. Man, if only he wasn’t made of a substance more fragile than glass. He played just two seasons of 150+ games in his 8 seasons.
3. Magglio Ordonez (3531 PA, 125 wRC+)
Ordonez’s injuries and dwindling power at the end belie his overall contribution to the Tigers when he was healthy during his stint with the Tigers from 2005-2011. His .312/.373/.476 line was excellent along with 107 HR and a very low strikeout rate (11.9%). He also provided that amazing near MVP season in 2007 in which he hit .363/.434/.595 line good for 170 wRC+. Plus, you know, the homerun in the 2006 ALCS.
2. Prince Fielder (873 PA, 152 wRC+)
Prince is the newest Tiger on this list having just joined the team at the beginning of last season, but his offensive mark has already been made. He’s hit .305/.410/.526 since joining the team and has been near the top of the league in most offensive categories including his 39 HR and walk rate over 13%.
1. Miguel Cabrera (3590 PA, 159 wRC+)
Well, yeah. As a Tiger Cabrera has hit .326/.403/.580 with 191 HR and a 11.3% walk rate. I’m not sure what needs to be said other than that it is entirely possible he is getting better and could pull away from the pack as the next couple of years go on. This will be his 6th season as a Tiger. Let’s break it down list this:
2008-2010: .314/.388/.567, 109 HR, 147 wRC+ in 2017 PA
2011-2013: .341/.423/.597, 82 HR, 173 wRC+ in 1573 PA
Good luck anyone trying to climb to the top of this list. And to AL pitchers.
How Was The Game? (May 17, 2013)
The pitchers’ duel we didn’t get yesterday.
Tigers 2, Rangers 1
The duel we were promised on Thursday came on Friday with Nick Tepesch and Rick Porcello (2-2, 38 IP, 5.92 ERA, 4.37 FIP, 0.3 WAR) fronting the effort. Porcello only went 5.2 innings but he allowed just one run on a solo homerun and struck out 6 Rangers, who happened to be the team with the lowest K% in MLB entering the day. The offense came primarily from Cabrera (185 wRC+, T-1st in MLB), who had 3 hits and a walk as he scored one of the Tigers’ runs and drove in the other. Both bullpens held serve and the Tigers won their 23rd game in 40 tries, which put them on pace for about 93 as we arrive at the Sparky Anderson threshold. Through 40 games, the Tigers look to be one of the best teams in baseball featuring the top pitching staff and a top five offense. They will look to win their 24th game tomorrow behind Anibal Sanchez (4-3, 52.2 IP, 2.05 ERA, 1.45 FIP, 2.6 WAR) who will look to guarantee the Tigers leave Arlington with no worse than a split.
The Moment: Tom Brookens sends Dirks home in the 3rd despite a very low chance of success – and having a Lamont moment.
How Was The Game? (May 16, 2013)
A wacky disaster.
Rangers 10, Tigers 4
When you see Verlander and Darvish in the program, you expect a level of pitching that you did not receive on this night. Darvish struggled early, allowing 4 runs in 8 innings including a homerun to Don Kelly, but the story was Justin Verlander’s (4-4, 54 IP, 3.17 ERA, 2.44 FIP, 1.9 WAR) meltdown in the 3rd inning. He walked in two, allowed two to score on a double, and surrender a 3 run homer and was pulled after 2.2 innings and just 70 pitches. You don’t often see Verlander get taken out for being ineffective, but it happened today. His velocity was there in spades, but his command was lacking like it was against the Indians and there will be a lot of whispers about something being wrong with Verlander. It’s likely a mini-funk and a reminder of how spoiled we are to rely on him start after start. He’ll try to wash this one out of his mind and get back on track for his next outing. The game also featured Ian Kinsler giving new meaning to “head first slide” and Lance Berkman striking out on a pitch that hit the backstop on the fly. The Tigers will try to do the same and will be back at it tomorrow with Rick Porcello (1-2, 32.1 IP, 6.68 ERA, 4.47 FIP, 0.3 WAR) on the hill coming off three solid outings.
The Moment: The Rangers chase Verlander after just eight outs and as many runs.
New English D 