Archive for Tigers

On the surface, Joe Jimenez secured his seventh save in eight chances last night. He survived loading the bases on three consecutive hits with two outs by striking out Trey Mancini. Delving into his splits since ascending to closing for the Tigers, Jimenez owns a 15:6 K:BB, 3.09 ERA, 1.71 WHIP and 5.10 xFIP in 11.2 innings since August ninth. He’s yielded a 53.1 fly ball rate and 17.6 home run per fly ball percentage resulting in three home runs along with a .292/.370/.521 slash line against. Less than optimal. Fantasy owners will take the production of seven saves over his last 13 appearances but should proceed with caution due to the inflated WHIP and xFIP predicting some regression to the mean. Read the rest of this entry »

Two factors could make this a very intriguing trade deadline. First, with seven teams within seven games of each other in the Wild Card race in the American League along with 11 teams in the National League, the sellers face tough decisions. Second, due to a rule change, the July 31st trade date will be a hard deadline with no waiver transactions in August. So, the onset of the second half will not only dictate which players may be traded, it could change how teams finish within their divisions. Read the rest of this entry »

Pedro Strop is close to returning for the Cubs, but will he also return to the ninth inning? Because nothing is ever easy in fantasy baseball, the answer is not clear.

Joe Maddon has stated previously that he does not have to go with a single closer, yet he has leaned heavily on Steve Cishek in Strop’s absence. Still, that should raise some doubt about whether Strop will have save opportunities all to himself when he comes back from his IL stint for a strained left hamstring. His return could happen in a matter of days, as he is scheduled to throw a bullpen session on Saturday and then may rejoin the team without having to go on a rehab assignment.
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May the fourth be with you, and the force be strong in the unyielding chase for saves. During a game with twists and turns in the win probabilities, the Giants outlasted the Reds despite trailing by eight runs at the end of the third inning. Raisel Iglesias incurred his second blown save giving up a game tying home run to Stephen Vogt in the top of the ninth inning. It’s been a tumultuous season for Iglesias, who seemed to be turning the corner of late, but he’s been asked to record more than three outs in three of his last four outings and five times of his 14 outings this season.

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Last week, Paul Sporer had some highly encouraging things to say about Hunter Dozier in his piece on early batter breakouts. Paul noted that Dozier has radically changed his approach in the early going, and with another week’s worth of data to consider, at least one of his changes remains staggering to ponder. Last season, Dozier was more aggressive than the typical major league hitter, swinging at 50.1 percent of the pitches he saw. Just over a month into this season, he has become extremely selective, lowering his Swing% to less than three-fourths (37.0 percent) of what it was in 2018.

The improved production that we have seen from Dozier — the higher walk rate, lower strikeout rate, higher Avg and OBP and possibly also the increased power as well — can all be traced back in part to this one change in approach. It’s still early enough in the season that it is more than reasonable to ask if his improvement is for real. If we answer that question by looking at the peripherals that underlie Dozier’s improved fantasy stats, we’d have to say it does look real.
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We went into Thursday’s skimpy slate of games with eight of the majors’ closer situations marked as committees in our grid, and we are now up to nine. A.J. Minter (shoulder) made his return from the IL on Thursday, and while he did not pitch in a save situation, he was called upon with one out in the ninth inning after Chad Sobotka let a 9-0 lead over the Cubs shrink to a 9-3 lead. Prior to Thursday night’s game, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Minter would share save opportunities with incumbent closer Arodys Vizcaino.
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The Yankees have seemingly endured a season’s worth of hardships in less than a week, but through their first four games, they didn’t have to worry about Aroldis Chapman. He tossed scoreless innings in each of his first two appearances, but in Tuesday night’s game against the Tigers, Chapman was at the center of the drama.

Not able to muster much offense against Jordan Zimmermann, Daniel Stumpf and Joe Jimenez, the Yankees found themselves knotted with the Tigers at 1-1 heading into the top of the ninth. Chapman entered the game and started off well enough, striking out John Hicks on three pitches. The tide turned quickly, though, as he walked Niko Goodrum and then allowed a first-pitch RBI double to Dustin Peterson. Chapman would give up two more singles in the inning, including a Jordy Mercer hit that brought in Peterson.
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The other day, my wife asked me what my next column was going to be about, and I told her it would be my annual Bold Predictions piece. She wanted to contribute a prediction, and when I asked her what it would be, I realized it would be the perfect addition to this column.

So the first-ever Bold Prediction for Mary Beth Melchior is this: J.T. Realmuto will break the all-time single-season record for home runs for a catcher.
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In this series, I have focused on pitchers who are likely to close for teams that project to be sellers at the deadline, as well as the potential replacement closers for when said pitchers get traded. For most teams, that has meant taking a look at a total of four or five relievers. In the case of the Tigers, there are really only two relievers who matter: Shane Greene and Joe Jimenez. Ron Gardenhire has named Greene as his closer, With Alex Wilson gone, Jimenez remains as the only viable closer-in-waiting, and it’s no secret that he is being groomed to be the Tigers’ next closer.
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Note: As was the case in a previous analysis of Statcast measures and their correlation with power metrics for hitters, I owe a debt of gratitude to Alex Chamberlain. He did a lot of heavy lifting for this column, running the correlations and discussing interpretations with me.

It won’t be the first or last time, but I did a silly thing on Twitter. In announcing a pick for the Pitcher List Experts Mock, I decided to tout the player I chose by citing one of his achievements, as captured by a Statcast metric.

Fun fact: Trevor Williams has the 3rd-lowest avg. exit velocity allowed on flies and liners over the last two seasons (min. 400 BBE), behind only deGrom and Kluber. Just took him in Rd 21 of the #PLExpertsMock. @JustinMasonFWFB, you’re up!

— Al Melchior (@almelchiorBB) December 13, 2018

(Justin, by the way, made his pick very promptly.)
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