Going to the game this afternoon. Thought about being the guy with random other team's gear on (Cubs), but I picked up some Tigers merchandise last night. Let's be friends. Yay AL baseball!
I remember when I tried to be a Cubs fan (NL team) upon moving to Chicago as a summer associate. It didn't take. The Cubs were 9 games over .500 in early June and their fans were insufferable, which made their collapse to 67-95 particularly hilarious. Hopefully Tigers fans are beat down enough right now that you can find them enjoyable. Enjoy CoPa, should be a lovely day.
Immediate review.... Love the park... Here with a bunch of coworkers and I'm not trying to be their friend so I've posted up on the mezzanine next to the jungle bar instead of in our shitty seats. This is how I prefer my non-Cubs baseball... Beer in hand, party deck, refills within 15 feet. Feels like Reds game, but with educated folks 9.2/10
At the risk of jinxing my boy Matt Boyd, he certainly seems like a better-than-swingman pitcher at this point. ERA is now under 4 in about 65 IP and he's averaging 7.5 K per 9. Not amazing, but that's where Tillman, Hellickson and Aaron Sanchez are this year. His walk numbers are a little higher, so his ERA and FIP are higher, but he's pitching, from the left side, a lot like Chris Tillman this year. We'd take Chris Tillman as a our 4th starter.
Alex Presely is up and starting over Upton? Neat. Although his shitty MLB career stats are better than what Upton has provided this year.
Since June 8, Kinsler is .253/.318/.442. That's an OPS of .760. Quietly pretty mediocre. Last 8 games: .125/.282/.313
Kinsler had a wRC+ of 108 in July and 117 coming into today in August. For a 2B who is still a + defender and baserunner, that's not mediocre.
He's really developed into a quality arm this season. This season has sucked balls, but Fulmer/Norris/Boyd could keep them out of the cellar for the foreseeable future.
June was his worst offensive month, and I'm guessing if the cutoff endpoint is June 8, I'm sure he had a nice first week and then a bad 3 weeks. Kinsler wasn't as good as his numbers his first two months because he's a 2B in his mid-30s and those numbers over a full season would have made him a top 5 candidate for AL MVP instead of a top 10 one. I can live with that.
Random Q: Who was that midget Mud Hen 2B that was up with the Tigers for like two months at the end of the season like 5 years ago?
Yes, I cut it off when he stopped being awesome. So over his last 277 PAs he's been mediocre. Obviously he's going to end up having a nice season when the ups and downs even out over the course of the year - 2+ great months followed by 2+ so-so months averages out to very good at the end of the day, and I'm assuming he'll probably get hot again for a while. I just noticed last night his average had dropped to .284 and wondered when that had happened. It turns out it dropped precipitously into the .290s in June, then he was a solid for while, then he's had a rough week. I'm not saying saying he should be DFA'd or we should start Machado over him or it corresponds to the Tigers win-loss record or I don't think he's handsome, I'm just analyzing his season in segments based on something I noticed.
I made the end point statement just to say that, if his wRC+ was 98 for June, and the first end point was June 8, I'm assuming the last three weeks were something pretty terrible. Wasn't knocking your use of that point. Kinsler can be a weird player. He had a weird first year with us, too, where he had a really good first half, followed by a weak second half. When his power numbers dip, he doesn't walk enough at this point to make up that value.
Welp, another solid pitching effort wasted. Thanks, offense. Thanks in particular, Justin Upton, for being so shitty you're not even playing.
I think maybe he hit too many homers early, but, like you said, his production through June 7 was rididculous and he wasn't going to keep it up. His Fangraphs lines are definitely very weird, not the least of which weirdness is that his defense WAR has been inversely proportional to his wRC+. Or that he wasn't a plus baserunner last year. His Ks are up this year, as is his ISO, so we know what is going on there. At the end of the day, he's a very good 2B and has been since he arrived - he's going to be a 5 WAR player 2 of his 3 years in Detroit.
Andrew Romine with the big walk! Who plays 1B in the 9th? Collins to LF, Romine to first, Presley to CF?
starting pitching has been great. the regression of wilson/greene/krod has been really annoying though ...
Dan and Jim noted right at the start of this run that guys who put up as good of #s as Boyd did in AA/AAA usually pan out. the Ks were this missing link. going from a 4-5 k/9 to 7.5 has had a huge impact, and closer to the 1 k/ip figures he had in the minors ...
Wilson's fall has been so disappointing. For most of the first 4 months, he was probably the best reliever we've had for the last decade just in terms of his peripherals.
It was going to happen at some point given how much they've all pitched (although I feel like they've pitched a lot - I haven't looked at stats). I think J. Wilson needs a break, in particular, while Greene and KRod will probably be fine. Alex Wilson has been better. With August hopefully comes the blowtorch that is Joe Jiminez, although he has struggled a little bit adapting to AAA.
Tigers need to clean house with the front office. Get rid of Avila and Chadd. They blew it this off season adding all that additional payroll, now we have little to no roster flexibility this offseason. All moves will probably be by trade. Illitch cannot be happy with a 200 million payroll, and a .500 season
I don't think you understand how the Tigers operate. If Ilitch is mad about the team's performance considering the payroll, the first person he would have to fire would be himself.
They got rid of Dombrowski. And Avila signed the guys, not Illitch. Illitch just opened his wallet for him.
So Avila should have listened to Ilitch and signed Chris Davis to play LF instead of Upton? I get that everyone hates Upton because he's been awful this year. He's still 28 years old, and the idea that this is who he's going to be for the next 5 years is just an overreaction. Players have bad seasons. It's unfortunate that he's having one now, but he's still likely a 3-4 win player for at least the next 2-3 years.
Not just Upton. Every move he made the past offseason backfired, except for one. That all comes down to scouting and player evaluation. It's why teams like the Red Sox and Giants continue to win. The best position player the Tigers developed the past 10 years was Castellanos. And the best pitching was Porcello 9 years ago. And that's if you include every prospect we traded too. Tigers have proven they can not evaluate talent, yet they brought back the main guy in charge Chadd to be the A Assistant GM.