Tigers make strides in philosophy.
Written by Joe Veno on June 23, 2009 – 10:58 PM -Remember in 2008 when the Tigers scored a thousand runs and won 100 games?
Yea, I don’t either.
They built a team that didn’t have a defense. And it cost them. Not to mention, some of their acquisitions–Edgar Renteria being one–did not pay off as many thought they would.
But this season, guess which team leads in UZR? That is right folks, it’s the Detroit Tigers.
They are, however, only 13th in Defensive Efficiency. But even that is a serious step up, as they finished 24th in that area during their forgetful 2008.
After adding Adam Everett to the roster this off-season, the Tigers now have three up-the-middle defenders that are better than average. Curtis Granderson, Placido Polanco–along with Everett–are all quality defenders, and all as mentioned, play up the middle.
So the Tigers “philosophy” changed, and in a very good way.
Brandon Inge mans the hot corner, and year in and year out, he’s one of the best defenders at his position. This season is no exception as his UZR leads the team at 9.7.
As a matter of fact, eight of the ten Tigers defenders that have played at least 100 innings in the field, have contributed positively to the Tigers improved D. That is eight players with positive UZR’s.
Impressive.
This of course does not take into account what Gerald Laird has done behind the plate. What he does cannot really be summed up in the numbers.
But…Laird is third in caught stealing percentage in all of baseball. So even he is doing his share to help prevent runs from scoring.
The Tigers addressed the defensive side of the ball, and now they are winning baseball games.
Is their a correlation there? 
Posted in Defense, Detroit Tigers, Team Analysis | 6 Comments »
June 24th, 2009 at 11:29 AM
nice piece. but how far is that rotation going to take them? verlander is back to being one of the best in the game. i hope he is in the cy young conversation, but what about the rest? is porcello going to be reliable in a division series? bonderman is back on the DL. so is dontrelle ( one of the worst contracts imaginable–so was that whole trade, but dont get me started again on that…)
gallaraga? what are your thoughts?
June 24th, 2009 at 12:17 PM
1990 Braves: 26th out of 26 in defensive efficiency. 4.58 team ERA.
1991 Braves: 4th out of 26 in defensive efficiency. 3.49 team ERA. No addition to the starting rotation.
Defense does matter. It makes your pitchers better. Smoltz, Glavine, and Avery all improved their ERA by a pretty significant margin. And that was the difference in finishing with the worst record in MLB and losing 1-0 in 10 innings in a World Series game 7.
June 24th, 2009 at 3:32 PM
Does that hurt those pitchers’ reputations? Because they had a defense like that?
June 24th, 2009 at 3:34 PM
Whatever the pitching does, they will benefit from a good defense. Haha. That is what I think.
June 24th, 2009 at 5:46 PM
lazy…
June 24th, 2009 at 10:16 PM
Ok, here we go…
Verlander and Jackson are obviously great. Verlander because he is Verlander. Jackson because he doesn’t walk anyone anymore, and because his fastball has actually been good this season, unlike in previous seasons. Velocity-wise it was good, but its pitch type value has always been in the negatives. So basically, a new-found command of the fastball looks to be what has transformed Edwin.
I don’t know about Galaragga. Watching the WBC you would think he is the next Josh Beckett. But listening to Keith Law and looking at the numbers, you don’t see that. He doesn’t strike many out, walks a bunch, gives up a bunch of home runs. He doesn’t have a pitch that has done anything positive this season. Judging on what I have heard, he feels like a back end starter, even though his velocity gives us the feeling that he should dominate. Velocity can be deceiving.
Porcello should be awesome. His early numbers don’t suggest that. But he’s 20.
And Bonderman has one start and I didn’t watch it. So I can’t draw any kind of conclusion. His velocity was down, but he may just need to build the arm strength up.
If Bonderman stays healthy, I like the rotation. But a lot of it depends on how good Porcello is at such a young age too, and two question marks in Bonderman and Galaragga.
It could be better, but it could be worse too…