Tiger Geist

I’ve been looking at numbers for the Tigers, and I’ve come up with four moves that they can make, inexpensively (relatively speaking), to improve the current ballclub.  I don’t follow fantasy baseball, so I’m not nearly as good as picking random players that other teams are ready to move or discard as others; however, I’m trying to trend what type of player Detroit could use in the short term, while they figure out any bigger moves.

1) Designate Nate Robertson, recall Clay Rapada.

Best blog name ever BTW.  Its an easy call, and its ‘relatively’ cheap.  Rapada doesn’t cost anything, and Robertson is not helping the team, and Leyland’s lack of faith in him further taxes the bullpen.  Rapada can be used in a very similar role to Bobby Seay, who is on pace to pitch 2,487 inning this year.  It also might help ease some of the pain between Leyland and the front office.  Interesting tidbit– out of 20 pitchers on the 40 man roster, only five are left handed (Robertson, Willis, Seay, Rapada, and French).  If Robertson could possibly find talent and improve, he could help with #2:

2) Do something with Dontrelle Willis that doesn’t involve him being on the 25 man roster.  Replace him with a left handed starter.

I don’t care if they put him in the broadcast booth while Dan Dickerson is out; he cannot remain on the active roster.  Release him, demote him, it doesn’t matter.  What does matter is Detroit needs a competent left handed starter in the rotation;  they’ve gotten along alright so far with either 5 right handers or more recently four right handers and three innings from Willis.  If they have a chance this year, it will come down to head to head games against Minnesota, who sport two of the best left hand hittters in the league.  13 games remain against Minnesota, including four of the last seven games.
Lucas French seems like the most likely internal candidate;  it seems a competent back of the rotation guy could be had for cheap otherwise.  I could go with Zach Miner in the short term, but I think a left hander will eventually have to be in the rotation full time.

3) Find a catcher.

Notice I didn’t say ‘backup catcher’.  Dane Sardinha is awful.  Gerald Laird isn’t much better.  Based on Laird’s career, it seemed he was at his best when you could watch his workload.   Now I’m not sure what they’re going to do, as you can’t catch Laird 120 games and expect Sardinha to catch 35 or so.  There has to be some backup catcher somewhere else in the world that can hit .225.  If not, bring up Dusty Ryan.  Ryan hit .318 late last year in Detroit, including .429 against left handers.  He’s hitting .308 against lefties in Toledo right now.  Platoon him for now; Laird still can get the bulk of the starts.  My only concern here is that Toledo’s staff isn’t exactly lighting up the league either;  I have no idea if the rotation is lacking talent, or if Ryan isn’t helping them.  Want to keep Ryan in Toledo?  Find a 35 year old defensive catcher.  He’ll hit at least .200.

4) Find a right handed backup center fielder.  Platoon him with Curtis Granderson.

I’ve been staring at this stat all week — Granderson just doesn’t hit left handed pitching well.  He’s hitting around .220 against lefties in 2009, which is at his career average.  When he had his best year in 2007, hitting .302 overall, he actually only had an average of .160 against left handers.  As he’s struggling a little this year, give him some extra help — just have him work against righties.  This gives you the option of finding a decent defensive center fielder who can hit left handed pitching at .275 or above.  This HAS to be easy and cheap.  Internally, you’d think that Brent Clevlen would be an easy option — he’s warming up in Toledo and hitting .275 against lefties for the year.  He would also probably give you better defense in a reserve role at a corner outfield position then Raburn.

The case against Ryan Raburn here is he actually hits right handed pitching better then he hits left handed pitching, and he’s really not hitting either very well.  And Granderson is still pretty good against righties.  This move would allow you to start your backup CF and Magglio against left handers;  you can then pinch hit with Granderson for either Magglio or the CF if the situation presents itself.