Fielder’s Fielding Impact on the Tigers

The recent acquisition of Prince Fielder has many present and future implications for the Tigers. One of the primary topics of conversation that developed from that signing and the subsequent reassignment of Miguel Cabrera to 3b is the Tiger’s defense. The fair assumption that most have been making is that the change from Cabrera to Fielder at first base hurts the team defense, that the change from Inge/Kelly to Cabrera at 3b hurts the team defense, and that generally, the team defense is now inferior to where it was a year ago.

Everyone seems to be expecting the worst with this change, specifically for Doug Fister and Rick Porcello, two groundball heavy pitchers. I have heard the sentiment expressed that the Tigers now have three DHs (Cabrera, Fielder, and Young). Highly respected baseball people have wondered aloud just how long the Tigers can ‘survive’ with this arrangement. Many have suggested that Cabrera is very likely to not last at 3B over the course of the entire season. Is it really doom and gloom for the Tigers this season?

Young, Plouffe Return for Twins

When the Twins decided to demote Trevor Plouffe earlier this season I, along with quite a few others in the blogosphere thought the move was a poor one. Plouffe was hardly an elite prospect entering the 2011 season, but his status as a former first round pick gave some credence to his scorching hot start for the Twins AAA affiliate.

Sadly the Twins decided to send Plouffe back to AAA despite him showing some glipses of his phenomenal power by hitting three home runs and five total extra base hits in his first 72 Major League plate appearances. The decision was made after Manager Ron Gardenhire repeatedly blasted the young infielder to the media following series of errors.

Denard Span Set To Begin Rehab Assignment

Despite missing the past month and a half with a concussion Denard Span has still been the Twins team leader in WAR. The fact that he was able to accumulate 2.7 WAR in just over two months of play was remarkable and meant that when he went down, the Twins were left with a massive void in center field to try and fill.

Thankfully for the Twins rookie Ben Revere stepped up and capably filled his shoes, posting a .275 batting average (empty though it may have been) while playing electrifying defense in center field, and causing havoc on the bases - showing why he's been such a highly regarded prospect for so long now.

Now Span is ready to begin a rehab assignment, and given that he's missed so much time it's likely the stint will be somewhat lengthy. Twins fans could expect him to play at least a week of games before actually returning to the team. Even then it's likely that he'll have some rust to shake off.

Regardless, getting a player of Span's caliber back at the top of the lineup where his .750 OPS and .361 OBP can help load the bases for Joe Mauer and Co..

What'll be interesting to see is precisely how Manager Ron Gardenhire decides to go about balancing both his bevy of outfielders, as well as his lineups. For now it would seem that the plan would be for Delmon Young, who is set to return tomorrow, to stay in left, Revere to remain in center, and for Span to slide over to right while Michael Cuddyer mans first base.

Who will bat second is still up in the air however. Alexi Casilla has a slightly better OBP than Revere, but Gardy seems to really like Revere's presence at the top of the order, and his elite contact skills would fit Gardy's small-ball style perfectly.

Twins Make a Bevy of Moves

Already wracked by injuries and under performance with three everyday players on the DL, and only two players batting over .227 entering this afternoons contest against the White Sox, the Twins have sent two more players to the disabled list, and demoted one other.

This time it's slugging DH Jim Thome, and 4th outfielder Jason Repko who will be placed on the 15 day DL, while backup catcher Steve Holm has been demoted. The players being called up are Ben Revere, shortstop Trevor Plouffe, and either Danny Lehmann or Rene Rivera.

Twins Power Outage

The Twins slow start is among the more surprising storylines to the start of the season. This is a club that has won the AL Central six times in the last ten years and never finished lower than third place (2005 and 2007) during that same period. To put it mildly, the Twins have been about as wildly successful as any club can be (excluding the post season). However, the Twins find themselves in an unusual position, last place.

It is still very early in the season, so normally I would feel it is too early to panic. On the other hand, everything seems to be going wrong for the club. Franchise player, superstar catcher Joe Mauer is on the disabled list with “leg weakness”, an absolutely terrifying “condition” given he had knee surgery in the offseason and is signed to a hefty 184 million dollar deal that runs until 2018. Francisco Liriano is having a completely perplexing year pitching with 18 strike outs to 18 walks, 4 home runs and a downright awful ERA of 9.13. Finally Justin Morneau has started very slowly in April after having serious problems with a concussion last season. It just seems like a year where everything that can go wrong will go wrong for this organization.

Twins, Young Come To Terms, Avoid Arbitration

It took nearly right up until the deadline, but the Twins and outfielder Delmon Young, one of just four remaining holdouts in all of baseball, have come to terms on a 5.375m contract and avoided arbitration. The deal covers Young's second arbitration season and is for 75,000 less than the mid point of the two offers and 125,000 short of my 5.5m estimate. It's also the final arbitration deal for the AL Central's off season.

Prospect Profile: Dayan Viciedo

Dayan Viciedo

Profile: 5'11" - 240lbs - BT:R - TH:R - 2011 Age: 22


Tools:

• Hit: 40-50
• Power: 60-70
• Eye: 25-35
• Range:  40-45
• Hands: 45-50
• Arm: 60-65
• Run: 40-40

Prognosticating A Liriano Extension

I've mentioned more than once that the Twins are likely working on an extension with Francisco Liriano (and quite likely Delmon Young) as we speak (ok, not as we speak, because you're reading this... but you know what I mean). It's only logical after all. In 2010 Liriano was one of baseball's best pitchers, and clearly the ace of the Twins staff. His velocity was back and once again he was making hitters look foolish, showing that he was nearly all the way back to his 2006 form.

Tigers Sign Ryan Raburn to Two Year Contract

In my most recent Tigers Payroll Estimate I pegged Ryan Raburn as being in line for 1.5m in arbitration. Given a repeat of his 2010 or 2009 performance, which I think is likely, I'd have then estimated him at about 3.5m in 2011. So when the Tigers announced that they had agreed on a two-year extension with Raburn for just 3.4m - about half of my expectation of what it would cost for his 2010 and 2011 seasons - you can be assured that I raised an eyebrow.

I'm quite confident that the reason for my surprise wasn't because my estimates were off, to the contrary I'm confident that I'll prove to be very close in far more of my estimates than not - but rather that the Tigers got a great deal. How good? Well, we could simply say that the Tigers got Raburn for perhaps half of what it would've cost through arbitration and leave it at that, but we can do better.

Amongst all Major League left fielders who had enough at-bats to qualify, Raburn's 2.1 WAR in 2010 would've been tied for 11th with the Twins Delmon Young. And just 0.1 WAR behind Juan Pierre of the White Sox and Bobby Abreu of the Angels.

Would've been, except Raburn didn't have enough at-bats to qualify.

In just 371 at-bats, or about 3/5 of a season, Raburn managed to provide as much production as players with nearly twice as many plate appearances. Indeed, if you were to project Raburn's production over a full 550 at-bat season, he'd have been worth 3.1 WAR, which would've left only this list of players ahead of him:

Josh Hamilton (8.0), Matt Holiday (6.9), Carl Crawford (6.9), Carlos Gonzalez (6.0), Aubrey Huff (5.7), Brett Gardner (5.4), and Ryan Braun (4.2).

Not bad company, and given that Huff started a whooping 24 games in left, you could be forgiven if you excluded him from the list.

What's perplexing is that if you were forced to judge Raburn strictly on the amount of praise or neglect he gets from Tiger fans, you'd be almost certain to come away with the impression that he was a bench player at best.

I don't want to come across as a Raburn apologist - he's a player with some clear weaknesses - specifically in the field and as a hitter with a pretty severe platoon split against right-handed pitching. He's clearly not in the top-tier of the games left fielders like Crawford, Holliday, Gonzalez, or Braun, but he's also a better player than 20 or so other teams are going to run out on a daily basis - and probably better than anyone else in the Central.

At the same time, his weaknesses are probably not as bad as they're made out to be. While Raburn is frequently his own worst enemy, getting bad reads, taking questionable routes, and bobbling balls, we should probably cut him some slack. During his time with the Tigers, Raburn has been used primarily as a utility player, logging time at every position other than shortstop and catcher. Thankfully he finally seems to have settled in left field, and his defense there (+2.8 UZR for his career) hasn't been that bad at all.

Further, during the past two seasons - those in which he's come closest to regular playing time - his performance against right handers hasn't necessarily been bench-worthy as he posted an .800 OPS against them in 2009 and a .753 OPS in 2010.

In the end however, Raburn is mostly about mashing left-handed pitching, and frankly, there aren't a ton who do that better. Raburn's .929 OPS vs lefties in 2010 was good for 26th best in baseball overall (Victor Martinez was 1st and Miguel Cabrera 8th!). In 2009, his .976 OPS was 22nd best and better than anyone else on the Tigers, Cabrera included.

I've seen some questions about how Raburn will fare in a full-time role. Count me in the group of the unconcerned. Raburn might not make it pretty, but I expect his defense will be around league average or just slightly worse. And offensively, he hasn't been nearly the liability vs righties that some seem to think.

Overall, I expect Raburn will provide an OPS in the neighborhood of .820 with defense that shouldn't be worse than 5 runs below average. Over a full season that should be worst at least 3 WAR, and there's plenty of potential for more. If I'm right that would mean the Tigers are in line for at least 6 WAR over the next two years. In free agency, that would probably be worth at least 20m. The Tigers will get it 3.5m.

Sheesh.

Twins Nearly Traded For Heath Bell?

But were scared off by character issues?

So says Scott Miller of CBS.

"The Twins, according to sources, had what they viewed as a workable deal to acquire Padres closer Heath Bell after Joe Nathan was hurt this spring but veered away because they were nervous over character issues. Bell's outspoken manner at times can grate on teammates."

First of all, what is a 'workable deal?' And if those character issues are enough to steer them away from Bell, what made them so intent on trading for Delmon Young who didn't exactly come with a sterling reputation? I know Matt Garza had his own issues, and I believe that Delmon gets an overly bad rap for his bat throwing incident. But at the same time, the guy threw a bat at an ump. There is also the issue of Torii Hunter, who's vocal style occasionally grated his teammates the wrong way.

No, the Twins aren't big on bringing in "character issue" guys, but who is? The Twins have/had a serious need at a position that most people (yours truly not included) view as awfully important and difficult to fill. How bad must Bell's issues have been to keep the Twins from pulling the trigger? My guess would be significant.

But despite Bell's vocal style, I can't recall ever once hearing his teammates grouse about his style. He certainly never threw a punch at anyone in the clubhouse as far as I know. And I know he hasn't pulled one of these.

I guess the whole idea of a deal falling apart on makeup just doesn't strike me as very believable.

Twins Roundup: Week One

The Twins opened the season with two challenging road series, a four game set against defending AL West Champion Anaheim, and another against the rival White Sox and their upgraded pitching. All things considered, they did quite well by going 5-2.

The biggest question heading into the 2010 season for the Twins was how they'd hold up without closer Joe Nathan who was lost to season ending, and perhaps career threatening Tommy John Surgery. Into his vacated slid setup man Jon Rauch, and by all accounts, Rauch performed admirably. While he'll never be mistaken for Nathan with his 89-91 mph fastball, Rauch does what the Twins coaching staff wants all their pitchers to do - he pounds the zone. In doing just that he pitched four innings of relief, allowed just one run, and nailed down all four opportunities he was given.

Offensively the Twins battered the Angels pitching staff for 9 home runs in the first four games. In Chicago the much heralded pitching staff largely snuffed out the power, but the Twins continued to find ways to win, eeking out a 2-1 win behind ace Scott Baker on Saturday. The two most surprising, and promising, performances were by left fielder Delmon Young and shortstop J.J. Hardy, both of whom had things to prove for various reasons. Neither could've started much better than they did.

On the mound the Twins pitching certainly wasn't lights out, posting a 1.21 WHIP, but striking out less than 5 batters per inning. That's not a formula that can hold up over the long term, but thing should improve in that category. The most encouraging thing to see was Francisco Liriano, one more season removed from Tommy John Surgery throwing consistently at 94-95mph with the old bite back on his slider. He was a bit wild on opening day, walking five batters, but the old skill set seems to be back. If he can find a way to control it, the Twins could have the true ace they'll need to make a deep push.

Heading into week two, the Twins are going to be opening up brand new Target Field with a three game set against the Boston Red Sox and they'll have tough pitching matchups against Jon Lester and John Lackey to contend with. The Twins are a team that is going to hit, and if Jon Rauch can stabilize the back end of the bullpen enough to protect most leads, and the starting staff can hold up, the Twins will certainly be there at the end of 2010.