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Could Have Used That Doug Fister Reunion Tour
This past off-season, the Tigers had some holes to fill on the roster. They needed an outfielder with thump, so they signed Justin Upton. They needed a new closer, so they signed Francisco Rodriguez. And they needed a starting pitcher to fill out the back end of the rotation.
Doug Fister
Some fans suggested bringing back Doug Fister. The thinking was that he had a pretty rocky 2015, so he’d be relatively cheap; and that with the return to the friendly, familiar confines of Comerica Park, Dougie would have a nice bounce-back effort in 2016. Well, the bouncing back part has played out exactly as those Fister supporters predicted. Only he’s doing it for the Houston Astros.
The Tigers chose to go down the Mike Pelfrey route and it has been quite the nice little first-half disaster. Pelfrey has started 14 games. He’s registered one win. And with a whopping 103 hits allowed, it puts him second in all of baseball in that not-so-sparkling department.
Fister, on the other hand, has been nothing short of brilliant. After a couple of shaky outings to open the season, he has been lights out. In the month of May, Fister was 3-0 and the Astros won all six of his starts. Thus far in June, Dougie Fresh has pitched four times and grabbed the W each time out. So with a little simple math, we see that the ‘Stros are a very handsome 10-0 over the last two months when the big fella takes the hill. Not too shabby at all, especially for a free agent pitcher that could only fetch a one-year deal on the open market over the winter.
The Tigers had the right idea in bringing aboard a tall, veteran right-hander to complete the pitching staff. They just happened to pick the wrong one. And they are paying the price every fifth day.
Hey, That’s Hard to Do
Generally, it is very hard to maintain an astronomical ERA in baseball once you’ve thrown enough innings. Sure, if you only pitch a couple of times out of the pen, and one of those appearances gets out of hand, you could walk away with some crazy ERA of eight or nine, or even higher. But once the innings pile up a little more, you naturally start to record some outs in succession and the ERA has no place to go but down. Maybe if you really struggle, you can keep it in the mid-6 range all summer. Nate Robertson had that down to a science.
The reason we bring this up is because the Tigers’ Mark Lowe has pitched 26 times this year for a total of 21 innings, and still has a double-digits ERA -- 10.71.
Such a combination of innings pitched and ERA is almost never seen. Common sense suggests that if you are performing badly enough to accumulate such an unsightly stat line, you also won’t be around long enough to rack up the IP on the other side. In a way, Lowe is making pitching history.
(Let’s not forget that my brother Sam was the Big Ten ERA leader for the conference champion Michigan Wolverines in 2007. Okay, so he only tossed seven frames, but a 0.00 ERA is pretty tough to argue with. If the Tigers still need an arm out of the pen later this summer, they could do worse than pulling bro Sam away from his medical duties for a couple of weeks to get out some tough lefties in late-game situations -- as long as I get 10% of the cut for this very nice referral.)
First Team to 86 Wins Is Champion
There are certain divisions in baseball that possess a very strong team at the top of the standings. The American League Central is not one of them.
No matter how hard the Tigers try to drop out of the race, they just can’t seem to do it. Even at a very modest 35-35 through the season’s first 70 games, the Tigers still find themselves just 4.5 games out of first place. Cleveland occupies the throne for the moment at 39-30 with the defending champion Royals just percentage points behind. The tumbling White Sox are in the mix, too, a game back of the Bengals. Minnesota, baseball’s worst team by a wide margin, sits a very comfortable 18 games from division supremacy.
If Brad Ausmus can figure out a way to win some of the games that aren’t started by Justin Verlander, Michael Fulmer, or Jordan Zimmermann, this club might actually bring a little drama to those lazy August and September nights. It doesn’t mean these Tigers will ever catch fire and run away with the crown, but you might not have to display such heroics to capture this year’s least threatening big league division.
A Miguel Cabrera Statistical Oddity
Miguel Cabrera
The great #24, future first ballot Hall of Famer Miguel Cabrera, has racked up monster numbers every single year of his career. Consider this: aside from Miggy’s rookie season in 2003 when he only appeared in 87 games, he has finished in his league’s top five for at least one of the three major hitting categories every single year (BA, HR, RBIs). So for 12 straight years, 2004-2015, Cabrera has been a top fiver somewhere on the year-end leaderboards. It’s a startlingly impressive run of durability and production.
But this year the streak is in danger of coming to an end. At this juncture, the big man is on the outside looking in. He’s got 15 long balls, three shy of the top-five lead pack. He’s driven in 43 runs, and 50 is the magic number for upper-tier status. And lastly batting average, where Miggy has crushed the competition to the tune of four titles in five years, he comes in at a very good but not great .309 clip, a handful of knocks short of the .321 he’d need for this purpose.
There is plenty of season remaining, 92 games representing more than enough plate time to restore proper order to these stat boards. But for now, the former Triple Crown-winning Cabrera is nowhere to be found in the newspaper’s League Leaders section. Just a fun little nugget to pay some attention to throughout the summer, especially if the Tigers start to slip from playoff contention.
A Good Walk Spoiled
Steven Moya
Steven Moya is a key Tigers’ prospect and about to see his fair share of playing time the next couple of months with J.D. Martinez sidelined. The monstrous 6’7”, 260-pound outfielder has shown he can wallop, cracking dingers at a healthy pace throughout his time in the minors. He even notched his first MLB homer the other day in Kansas City. The only real negative that jumps out regarding Moya is the giant’s inability, at least thus far in 2016, to reach base via the walk.
He’s been to the plate 50 times for the Tigers this year. And he’s collected a grand total of one base on balls. A small sample size to be sure, but still one that requires some attention as his playing time increases. Even the best of big league ball-strikers need to combine those lasers with a decent chunk of freebies. Otherwise, your on-base percentage will basically equal that of your batting average, and that becomes problematic.
The organization obviously wants a hulking presence like Moya to be swinging the bat and driving the ball out of the park. But he needs to remember to take a couple of pitches along the way.
