Jamie Walker

The following post by Brian Bluhm first appeared Nov. 17 at tigers-thoughts.blogspot.com.

It seems that success has its cost. Jamie Walker signing a 3 year 11.5 million dollar deal with the Baltimore Orioles marks the first free agent loss the Tigers actually will miss in quite a while.

He performed well while here and was likely underappreciated by the fans. However 3 years and 11.5 million is too much to pledge to a reliever that will not be used much in high leverage situations with Jones, Rodney, and Zumaya on the team.

Look for Ledezma to have a greater role in the pen next season and perhaps someone like Hamman getting a shot.

The Tigers will be receiving a pick between the first and second rounds as compensation for losing Jamie to the Orioles. Given the fact that the drafting has become much better in this organziation recently that is definitely a good thing.

Either way I am personally going to miss Jamie. He was a quote machine while here and seemed to really enjoy baseball. I wish him nothing but success. Hopefully the Tigers are able to replace

Tigers re-sign Casey

The following post by Brian Bluhm first appeared Nov. 16 at tigers-thoughts.blogspot.com.

 I am not sure on the terms at this point. This was far from the ideal solution to the 1B situation but I knew there would be problems going into this offseason with no real options available in the free agent market.

The Tigers will just have to run him out there next season and hope beyond hope that his decline goes on a holding pattern for a season and he is able to stay healthy.

This isn’t a move that keeps the Tigers out of the playoffs but it is a move that puts more pressure on Magglio, Carlos and Gary to stay healthy.

http://detroit.tigers.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?

Gary Sheffield: What Does He Mean For the Lineup?

The following essay, written by Brian Bluhm, was originally posted at tigers-thoughts.blogspot.com on Nov. 13.

 Gary Sheffield to the Tigers: What does it mean for the lineup?

Before starting into impact of Gary Sheffield on the Detroit Tigers current lineup I thought I would analyze the trade as a whole. First of all Sheff is often quoted as having a really bad attitude, and it showed up when he made his exit from New York. Just like almost every other location Gary whined his way right on the way out. Including throwing former Bobby Abreu under the bus by calling himself a superior player. Whether he is a better hitter is up for debate, but what isn’t up for debate is the fact that Sheffield is an amazing hitter. The other question is whether Sheffield is fully recovered from his wrist injury and will be back to his powerful line drive ways. I trust that management has looked into that situation enough to know whether Sheffield will be able to get back to his .290/.370/.500 ways.

As for what the Tigers gave up. Typically you are not going to get something as good as Sheffield even at the age of 38 without giving something up and I think that the trade market for Sheffield was likely to start heating up soon.

Humberto Sanchez – I wrote about him on this blog before. I really feel that he found his stride this year while on the mound but the question has once again moved to can he stay on the mound? He has never made it through a full season healthy. You look at his past and he has a ton of talent with a lot of question marks. The Tigers likely saw him as a future reliever with the young starters they have and the young ones that they had on the way. Personally I had him rated as the 3rd best pitcher in the system behind LHP Andrew Miller and RHP Jair Jurrjens.

Kevin Whelan – He was as good as a single A relief prospect can be, but still that is a single A relief prospect. Relatively new to pitching he has a 92-94 MPH fastball with okay life and a very good splitter. He had some issues with control this season and I had him as the 9th best prospect in the system.

Anthony Claggett – Another single A reliever. Very good stuff but still a risk.

Basically what I see from this package is quality but risky quality. The Tigers gave up quite a bit but at the same time if they were going to trade some of their top prospects these were the ones that I would deal.

On to the main part of this column; what will be the effect of Sheffield on this lineup? I have him penciled in as the Tigers cleanup hitter with Magglio moving to 5. I really think that a 3-4-5 of Guillen-Sheffield-Ordonez is the way to go. Its not White Sox quality but it is way up there and is a huge improvement over the Casey-Ordonez-Guillen that the Tigers ended the season with.

So using the lineup analysis from www.baseballmusings.com we can see what the theoretical run total for the Tigers will be next season.

A couple of assumptions to make this study more about what sort of impact a bat like Sheffield has on a lineup. First I will use the Tigers stat lines from last season. Second I will put Sheffield at a line of .290/.370/.500. (I will use Casey for this study even though I want him out of there and I will use his full season stats)

The following lineup and stat line (obp/slg) was used:

1. Granderson CF (0.335/0.438)
2. Polanco 2B (0.329/0.364)
3. Guillen SS (0.400/0.519)
4. Sheffield DH (0.370/0.500)
5. Ordonez RF (0.350/0.477)
6. Rodriguez C (0.332/0.437)
7. Monroe LF (0.310/0.482)
8. Casey/Shelton 1B (0.322/0.432)
9. Inge 3B (0.313/0.463)

Its going to be interesting to see if the Tigers upgrade from Casey at 1B.

If we assume that those were the production levels for each of the positions (I think 1B might have been a tad bit higher). That is the lineup that minus Sheffield produced 822 runs last season with a runs per game of 5.074. With Sheffield in the lineup you get a production of 843.5 runs and a runs per game of 5.207.

The ultimate lineup (according to the site used) for these stats lines is as follows:

Guillen
Sheffield
Granderson
Monroe
Ordonez
Inge
Rodriguez
First Base
Polanco

So adding Sheffield to the lineup from last season is a gain of around 21 runs. IF the pitching stayed steady (675 runs allowed) you can use the Pythagrean Theorem to estimate a record of 97-65.

Beyond the pure numbers I think that this is a good move to take pressure off of Magglio Ordonez who seems to enjoy flying under the radar. All in all its a good fit for a team that needed an upgrade offensively.

Now they just need to find one more batter with a decent obp and hope that some of the batters improve on last season.

Pleased to Meet You, Do You Know Our Names?

Reader(s),

Welcome to Sabers Drawn, a new blog-like endeavor undertaken by four Midwestern baseball fans just cocky enough to assume they have something worthwhile to contribute to the Internets. We’ve all tried this before in one form or another, but have been too busy to keep up with the demands of writing a compelling site, so this is an experiment to see whether a quartet can handle what two duos could not.

Our philosophies are pretty similar: we are all sabermetically inclined, although some of us are more radical than others. We come from different states and walks of life, but we share a passion for the pastime (specifically the Tigers) and an inability to understand how a guy with a .325 career OBP can possibly warrant a $136 million contract.

Much of the writing of this site will be geared toward the Tigers, but I’m sure we’ll discuss the other teams, as well. We hope you’ll join us.

-Zach