2011-12 Hot Stove Thread

Re: 2011 Hot Stove Thread

Oswalt's probably in the Clemens portion of his career, where any team will find a place for him as long as it's a one or two-year deal for decent money.

 

Re: 2011 Hot Stove Thread

Now that most of the juice is out of the game, a 40-HR type of slugger will be rare. I don't care where he would play, just as long as that stick will hit at least once every three innings.

 

Re: 2011 Hot Stove Thread

Where he plays is every bit as important.

 

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/teams/det/depthchart

Well, this year the DH spot seems to be empty, and next season when, or if, Martinez comes back, they can always deal one of the three if Cabrera at 3B does not work.

 

Delmon Young is abysmal in the outfield -- he will most likely be the DH most of the time, with Raburn or Dirks probably playing LF.

Martinez has two more years on his contract after this year.

 

Baseball Prospectus had a nice article about the Tigers' potential infield and how much having a really bad infield defense does or doesn't hurt a team. (Warning, lots of defensive metrics used).

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=15914

In summary:

1) The Tigers' infield defense will probably be historically bad. Besides Cabrera and Fielder, their middle infielders are pretty bad defensively.

2) Historically, you can outslug a terrible middle infield defense. Six of the last 12 Yankees teams have made their "Worst 20 since 1951" rankings, and still did just fine. Having a strikeout-friendly pitching staff helps (duh).

 

The Tigers' best move at this point would probably be to scour the 40-man rosters and the Class AAA rosters for a 28-32 year-old "Class AAAA" shortstop who is a wide-ranging defensive whiz but has never been able to hold a job because he can't hit over .230. You can't get these guys for nothing, but you don't have to break the bank for them.

Put a banjo-hitting .230-hitting glove whiz at shortstop and then you can slide Peralta, whose defense at SS is barely average in itself, over to 2B where he would probably be adequate to decent. Meanwhile the banjo-hitting glove whiz can allow Cabrera to play 2 steps closer to the line and help compensate for his lack of range.

 

Saw an interview Fielder did with the Detroit ABC affiliate sports guy after the presser yesterday. The guy asked him about his memories of hanging around the Tiger clubhouse way back when. Funny stories about how Sparky kept telling him to be ready to pinch hit and how upset he was when it finally dawned on him that Sparky was joking.

Another aside about the presser - Ilitch's hair was fabulous. He is also starting to look like Bert Convy (sp).

 

For those Detroit fans who were aficionados of Morgana, watching Fielder run the bases will be a trip down memory lane.

 

This comes as no surprise to those of us who understand that Derek Jeter knows how to win. [ducking]

 

The Brewers showed that a bad infield defense can get pretty far.