Article: Charting The Competition: Detroit Tigers

[alarp33]

 

  On 1/22/2016 at 5:05 PM, Brock Beauchamp said:

Unlike Nick, I'm bearish on the Tigers, just as I was bearish on them in January of last year.

 

Could they be decent? Sure, they certainly have the talent... But man, it's going to not only require a few 30-something guys to rebound, it's going to require a few more 30-something guys to sustain last year's performance level.

 

I think that's a stretch. While they made a few good acquisitions this offseason, is it enough to offset the combined 7.5-ish WAR they lost in Cespedes and Price? I'm... Skeptical, to put it mildly.

 

I don't think the Tigers are a terrible team (sub-70 wins) but I think they'll struggle to reach 75 wins unless everything goes right... And, like I said earlier, expecting everything to go right on a team full of 30-somethings is a tall order.

 

"Is it enough to offset the combined 7.5-ish WAR they lost in Cespedes and Price?"  If you want to look at it that simply, sure.  Justin Upton and Jordan Zimmerman had a combined 7.9 WAR last year.  

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

  On 1/22/2016 at 5:34 PM, alarp33 said:

"Is it enough to offset the combined 7.5-ish WAR they lost in Cespedes and Price?"  If you want to look at it that simply, sure.  Justin Upton and Jordan Zimmerman had a combined 7.9 WAR last year.  

Sure, so their big acquisitions offset a 74 win team's offseason losses. And then we're back to talking about whether a handful of 32-37 year old players will have bounce-back seasons or even maintain their 2015 production...

[Mike Sixel]

Wow, I just clicked on run differential for last year. wow, the Tigers were bad. Wow.

[markos]

 

  On 1/22/2016 at 5:42 PM, Brock Beauchamp said:

Sure, so their big acquisitions offset a 74 win team's offseason losses. And then we're back to talking about whether a handful of 32-37 year old players will have bounce-back seasons or even maintain their 2015 production...

The April-July team that traded away Price and Cespedes was .500 at the trade deadline. So I think it is more accurate to say that they more-or-less replaced the losses of a 81-win team that was tore down at the deadline.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

  On 1/22/2016 at 5:05 PM, Brock Beauchamp said:

I think that's a stretch. While they made a few good acquisitions this offseason, is it enough to offset the combined 7.5-ish WAR they lost in Cespedes and Price? I'm... Skeptical, to put it mildly.

Zimmermann and Upton have averaged almost exactly 7.5 WAR combined per season over the last 4 years.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

  On 1/22/2016 at 5:42 PM, Brock Beauchamp said:

Sure, so their big acquisitions offset a 74 win team's offseason losses. And then we're back to talking about whether a handful of 32-37 year old players will have bounce-back seasons or even maintain their 2015 production...

See markos' post and my previous posts.  They were basically .500 at the end of July, and had already suffered a lot of blows by that time (Victor Martinez, Simon, and Sanchez were all terrible, Cabrera had missed a month, Verlander was missing and/or bad up until that point, their bullpen was a mess, etc.).

 

You want to pile more bad luck on top of that?  It could happen, that can be your pessimistic projection, but it's nothing like a neutral luck projection right now, which has to be close to .500. At that point, getting a few games above .500 doesn't take much -- a dead cat bounce from V-Mart, or Cabrera staying a little ahead of his aging curve, etc.

 

Not a return to 2011-2014 greatness, but definitely projects to be relevant in the division and/or wild card races.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

  On 1/22/2016 at 5:49 PM, Mike Sixel said:

Wow, I just clicked on run differential for last year. wow, the Tigers were bad. Wow.

Someone else noted this in another thread, but Detroit actually had strong offensive components last year.  OPS+ of 106 (2nd in the AL), 1st in AVG, 2nd in OBP, 5th in SLG.  But only 11th in runs per game.  Not sure how or why it happened, but I suspect they could score more runs in 2016 even if they wind up with worse components.  (So to Brock's point, Cabrera could regress and Victor Martinez fail to bounce back, and they could still score more runs.)

 

 

 

Run prevention will be the bigger challenge, particularly in the back half of their rotation.  Will they get "good Pelf"?  Can Norris, Fulmer, etc. effectively fill it out?

 

 

[HitInAPinch]

 

  On 1/21/2016 at 6:21 PM, Nick Nelson said:

 

i.e.  The reason Verlander's legs wore out last year.  UFDA.....

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

  On 1/22/2016 at 6:16 PM, spycake said:

See markos' post and my previous posts.  They were basically .500 at the end of July, and had already suffered a lot of blows by that time (Victor Martinez, Simon, and Sanchez were all terrible, Cabrera had missed a month, Verlander was missing and/or bad up until that point, their bullpen was a mess, etc.).

 

You want to pile more bad luck on top of that?  It could happen, that can be your pessimistic projection, but it's nothing like a neutral luck projection right now, which has to be close to .500. At that point, getting a few games above .500 doesn't take much -- a dead cat bounce from V-Mart, or Cabrera staying a little ahead of his aging curve, etc.

 

Not a return to 2011-2014 greatness, but definitely projects to be relevant in the division and/or wild card races.

I've said multiple times the Tigers might be good if things go right... But I don't believe things will go right for a team with that many 30-somethings and little help on the farm to back it up. Hence my skepticism that they'll be significantly better than they were in 2015.

 

Will they have better luck than 2015? Sure, probably. Will it matter once you factor in the age of their best players and the loss of Price and Cespedes? Of that I'm not so sure. I don't think the Tigers will be a terrible team but I think aging will chip away at their win total through regression and/or injury.

[markos]

 

  On 1/22/2016 at 6:30 PM, spycake said:

Run prevention will be the bigger challenge, particularly in the back half of their rotation.  Will they get "good Pelf"?  Can Norris, Fulmer, etc. effectively fill it out?

It's never good to have to rely on the "there is no way they could be that bad again" hope when looking toward the next year, but in the Tiger's case that may be true. Their #4-#9+ starters last year were terrible - they averaged over 6+ ERA and ended up with -6 bWAR. They don't necessarily need "good Pelf" to see improvement. If Pelfrey can give them a 5.00 ERA over 150 innings next year, that would be a 15-20 run improvement over what they had last year out of the #5 spot.

[Brock Beauchamp]

I feel like I'm having a Groundhog Day moment. I'm just going to cut and paste my thoughts on the Tigers from February 2nd, 2015:
 

  Quote

I don't see them finishing outside the top three if their luck is neutral.
 
But given the potential age issues with Verlander, Miggy, and Martinez, it's not hard to imagine the Tigers' 2015 looking a lot like the Twins' 2011. The Twins completely collapsed that season and they were younger than the Tigers are going into this season.

That kind of collapse is unlikely but given how many of the Tigers' key players are over 30, it's not unimaginable that they could crash hard and fast.

Second verse, same as the first.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

  On 1/22/2016 at 6:59 PM, Brock Beauchamp said:

I don't think the Tigers will be a terrible team but I think aging will chip away at their win total through regression and/or injury.

Projections already account for age and regression (and somewhat for injury, in terms of past playing time).

 

Here's Fangraphs take on them right now:

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=ALL&teamid=6

 

That's a projected 82 win team, most of it on offense.  That's with Miguel Cabrera having his worst WAR season since 2008.  That's with Kinsler having the worst season of his career. That's JD Martinez's WAR dropping by half in his age 28 season.  That's with a pitching staff projected to be 4th worst by WAR in all of MLB, including Jordan Zimmermann projected to have the worst season of his career, prospect Michael Fulmer contributing only 9 innings, and their 3 new bullpen acquisitions dropping from 3.7 WAR in 2015 to 1.6 for 2016.

 

Sometimes, it feels like you are double-counting the regression here...

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

  On 1/22/2016 at 7:55 PM, spycake said:

Projections already account for age and regression (and somewhat for injury, in terms of past playing time).

 

Here's Fangraphs take on them right now:

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=ALL&teamid=6

 

That's a projected 82 win team, most of it on offense.  That's with Miguel Cabrera having his worst WAR season since 2008.  That's with Kinsler having the worst season of his career. That's JD Martinez's WAR dropping by half in his age 28 season.  That's with a pitching staff projected to be 4th worst by WAR in all of MLB, including Jordan Zimmermann projected to have the worst season of his career, prospect Michael Fulmer contributing only 9 innings, and their 3 new bullpen acquisitions dropping from 3.7 WAR in 2015 to 1.6 for 2016.

 

Sometimes, it feels like you are double-counting the regression here...

Fangraphs projected the Tigers to win 84 games in 2015, I believe.

 

*shrugs*

 

I don't put much stock in projections. For young teams, there are crazy variables that cannot be accurately measured. For old teams, there is a higher probability one or more older players won't just underperform, a few might get injured and miss most/all of the season. Projections can estimate Cabrera will miss, say, 10 games but they certainly can't project he'll miss 120 because he's now 33 years old and not very athletic.

 

I give younger teams the benefit of the doubt and older teams the opposite. The Twins are a young-ish team, the Tigers are not. The Twins have a lot of upside in young players both in MLB and on the farm, the Tigers do not. The Twins have wiggle room for guys like Berrios/Kepler to arrive and dominate should someone falter (in the fashion of Duffey, who basically saved 2015 for the Twins). The Tigers have to hope and pray a bunch of established veterans stay on the field because there's little untapped upside on the team and no help to be found from the farm should one or two players go off the rails.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

  On 1/22/2016 at 7:08 PM, Brock Beauchamp said:

I feel like I'm having a Groundhog Day moment. I'm just going to cut and paste my thoughts on the Tigers from February 2nd, 2015:
 

Second verse, same as the first.

The 2011 Twins weren't particularly younger than the 2015 Tigers, judging by average ages on B-Ref.  Remember Thome and Pavano were huge parts of that team, and I think you've been over-estimating the Tigers age in a couple discussions.

 

2015 Tigers OPS+: 106

2011 Twins OPS+: 85

 

Closer on pitching staff

2015 Tigers ERA+: 85

2011 Twins ERA+: 89

 

So even with their troubles, they were well ahead of the 2011 Twins.

 

Of course, the Twins staff was pretty thoroughly mediocre too, while the Tigers staff was/is much more stars-and-scrubs.  If they can replace the scrubs, which they seem to have done in the bullpen and as markos suggests they could do in the very back of the rotation, they should bounce back OK.  The 2012 Twins staff was pretty much sunk when Scott Baker went down with an elbow injury in August 2011 (although they gamely tried to rest and rehab him back to spring training).

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

  On 1/22/2016 at 8:19 PM, spycake said:

So even with their troubles, they were well ahead of the 2011 Twins.

Well, sure... But there are very few 2011 Twins in baseball. Things went badly for the 2015 Tigers but the 2011 Twins were a colossal train wreck. If something could go wrong, it did, and in spectacular fashion.

 

That's why the 2015 Tigers won 11 more games than the 2011 Twins.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

  On 1/22/2016 at 8:12 PM, Brock Beauchamp said:

Fangraphs projected the Tigers to win 84 games in 2015, I believe.

 

*shrugs*

 

I don't put much stock in projections.

And they were on pace for 82 wins when Cabrera went down, and even 79.5 when they waved the white flag at the trading deadline a month later.  They didn't massively underperform across the board in 2015, they had a few big individual underperformers and then, as I said, they threw in the towel on the season.  Acting like they already went all 2011 Twins is an exagerration that is coloring your outlook for them.

 

You are free to predict that "they'll struggle to reach 75 wins unless everything goes right" -- but let's be clear, that is more based off your pessimistic feelings about them going forward than any neutral projection based on actual 2015 data.

 

Simply put, you are letting your narrative select the numbers, rather than letting the numbers dictate the narrative.

Edited January 22, 2016 by spycake

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

  On 1/22/2016 at 8:32 PM, spycake said:

Simply put, you are letting your narrative select the numbers, rather than letting the numbers dictate the narrative.

If you say so. I look at the Tigers and see an old team. Old teams often underperform. If that's an unreasonable narrative, so be it.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

  On 1/22/2016 at 8:39 PM, Brock Beauchamp said:

If you say so. I look at the Tigers and see an old team. Old teams often underperform. If that's an unreasonable narrative, so be it.

How do you define "old team"?  That definitely feels stronger in your narrative than in the numbers.  Their 2015 team had an average age of 28.3 on offense, and 28.7 on the pitching staff, versus 28.5 and 28.3 respectively for the whole league.  They didn't really sign any older guys, except 2 years older at closer.  Only 3 guys in their whole lineup, and 2 guys in their whole bullpen, will even be 30+ in 2016.  Outside of Victor Martinez, the oldest guy on the team will be 34.  Their rotation is headed by a 30 year old.  They're not particularly young, but they're not particularly old either.  They're basically average.

 

I guess it's just not as interesting to say they're an average age team with an .500 projection?

 

The narrative that is unreasonable to me is that they're so old that "they'll struggle to reach 75 wins unless everything goes right" in 2016.  That seems based more on sticking with your pre-2015 prediction and the raw 74 win total than what has actually taken place in Detroit the past year.

[Monkeypaws]

I hope the Twins make Detroit their patsy(filter evaiation) in 2016. I could see it go either way frankly, but I like the Twins chances: youth and energy over old stars.