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| TODAY: Monday, May 15 | ||||||||||
| Detroit Tigers Special to ESPN.com | ||||||||||
Record: 69-92, 24th overall Payroll: $37.0 million, 22nd overall Runs scored: 747, 12th in AL Runs allowed: 882, 11th in AL What went right? No one went to jail. The Tigers finally traded Brian Hunter and his replacement, Gabe Kapler, hit 18 homers and played a good center field in his rookie season. Free-agent signing Dean Palmer tied his career high with 38 homers. Jeff Weaver went from being a college junior to a stud major league pitcher in under a year. Dave Mlicki was picked up from the Dodgers for peanuts and won 14 games. Luis Polonia came out of nowhere (the Mexican League, actually) to hit .324, and after never hitting more than 4 homers in a season before, hit 10 in just 87 games. What went wrong? Justin Thompson, the staff ace, was hurt and had a 5.11 ERA before shutting down after 24 starts. Brian Moehler, the No. 2 starter, was suspended for spending too much time with Bob Vila. Japanese import Masao Kida had a 6.26 ERA, and former No. 1 overall pick Matt Anderson was close behind with a 5.68 ERA. Deivi Cruz and Juan Encarnacion were the only two players in baseball with more than 500 at-bats and fewer than 15 walks. And Weaver went from stud major league pitcher to a bum in about 5.8 seconds. In retrospect, the critical decisions were: 1. Finally dumping Brian Hunter. After playing well in his first season with the Tigers, Hunter had a horrible .298 OBP as a leadoff hitter in 1998 and had clearly outlasted his welcome. The Tigers were able to find a taker for him, allowing them to give highly-touted rookie Gabe Kapler an everyday job. Kapler showed a live bat and impressed just about everyone with his defense, while Hunter almost single-handedly killed the Mariners' playoff hopes with a .277 OBP. 2. Bringing up Jeff Weaver. The Fresno State right-hander, drafted 15th overall in 1998, was so impressive in spring training that after just one start in Double-A the Tigers felt he was ready for the major leagues. And he looked ready, too, giving up two runs or fewer in 10 of his first 14 starts. But on June 27, Weaver gave up 7 runs in 1.2 innings to the lowly Twins, beginning a stretch in which he would give up six or more runs eight times in his last 15 starts. 3. The Gonzalez Gamble. In one of baseball's biggest trades of the last 10 years, Randy Smith gave up Kapler, Justin Thompson, young second baseman Frank Catalanotto, solid backup catcher Bill Haselman, and top prospects Francisco Cordero and Alan Webb, for one year of Juan Gonzalez and little else. It is absolutely true that the Tigers needed a superstar player to build their lineup around. But it is far from certain whether Gonzalez is the type of superstar the Tigers needed, and whether there is any talent left on the team to build around. Looking ahead to 2000 Three key questions 1. Will Gonzalez remain a Tiger beyond 2000? Smith is reportedly offering him an 8-year, $140 million contract that would make him the highest-paid player. But even if Gonzalez signs, was it worth all those players for him? And if he does sign, is it worth paying $17.5 million to a hitter who will be 38 years old in the last year of his contract? 2. Which Weaver will show up? The phenom who reached the major leagues after nine pro starts and was 6-3 with a 2.93 ERA on June 22, or the human pitching machine that went 3-9 with an 8.46 ERA after that? Weaver has been working on a cut fastball to help against left-handed hitters, who were merciless against him last year, hitting .310 and slugging .561. 3. Will Comerica Park be the hit that the Tigers hope it will be? The Tigers drew just over two million in attendance last year, even with the festivites surrounding the final year at Tiger Stadium. In 1998, the Tigers pulled in barely 1.4 million fans. If Comerica doesn't pull in at least 2.5 million fans per season, the Tigers won't have the additional revenue they hope will allow them to afford an above-average payroll. Can expect to play better Bobby Higginson. He's a much better hitter than he showed last year, when he battled a toe injury all season and hit just .239. Higginson is notorious for playing the game with enormous intensity, and may have put too much pressure on himself to turn around a lost season. With better health and Juan Gonzalez around to shoulder the load, Higginson should bounce back to his 1996-98 performance, when hit .299 with a .521 slugging average. Can expect to play worse We'd guarantee that Luis Polonia won't hit .324 with an 881 on-base + slugging again, except that we're not sure how he did it in the first place. Dean Palmer is 31, and moving from homer-friendly Tiger Stadium (where he hit 24 of his 38 homers) to the more spacious dimensions of Comerica Park.. Projected lineup C Brad Ausmus 2B Damion Easley 1B Tony Clark LF Juan Gonzalez 3B Dean Palmer RF Bobby Higginson CF Juan Encarnacion DH Luis Polonia/Rob Fick SS Deivi Cruz
Rotation/Closer Dave Mlicki Hideo Nomo Brian "Scuffy" Moehler Jeff Weaver C.J. Nitkowski/Dave Borkowski Todd Jones A closer look Enough ink (and electrons) have been used to discuss the ramifications of the Tigers' big trade for Juan Gonzalez. Suffice it to say that when you trade a 24-year-old outfielder (Gabe Kapler), a 25-year-old second baseman (Frank Catalanotto), a 26-year-old left-handed starting pitcher (Justin Thompson), the most highly-sought-after reliever in the minor leagues (Francisco Cordero), and a left-handed starter who pitched in Double-A at 19 (Alan Webb), you're taking a big, big gamble. Detroit hasn't put this much on the line since they built the Saturn. In return, the Tigers got a player who hit 340 homers before his 30th birthday, including 173 the last four seasons. And for all the deserved ridicule that Randy Smith got for this trade, he deserves credit for realizing that you can't build a great team without at least one truly great player, and the Tigers didn't have one. But was Gonzalez the kind of great player the Tigers really needed? Is another power-hitting slugger the right prescription? Last year, Detroit cleanup hitters combined to hit 37 homers, drive in a 105 runs, and slugged .486. In the context of other teams' cleanup hitters, it wasn't that impressive: while those 37 homers ranked sixth in the AL, the 105 RBI were tied for 11th and their slugging average ranked 12th. There's no doubt that Gonzalez should improve those numbers significantly. But was another power hitter really the Tigers' main concern? Take a look at their No. 5 hitters compared to the average of the other AL teams: Team HR RBI SLG Detroit 32 105 .482 AL 28 105 .479Dean Palmer and Tony Clark flip-flopped between the fourth and fifth spots in the lineup, but together they accounted for most of the playing time. While both were a little stretched to be a legitimate cleanup hitter, having both meant the Tigers had more than enough power to man the No. 5 spot. Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, the Tigers' leadoff hitters were a disaster compared to the rest of the league: Team Runs BB OBP Detroit 93 44 .328 AL 116 76 .349The Tigers' .328 OBP out of the leadoff spot actually ranked ahead of three AL teams (Anaheim, Minnesota, and Seattle). But their total of 93 runs scored was tied with the Twins for the lowest in the league; the Angels were the only other team not to plate their leadoff man at least 105 times. In reality, the Tigers' leadoff situation is even worse than it looks, because their best performer in the leadoff spot, Luis Polonia, must have been possessed by an alien: he hit 10 homers for the first time, after playing for 10 seasons and never hitting more than five homers before. No player had pulled off that trick since World War I. He also hit .324, his highest batting average since 1990 -- and remember, Polonia hadn't even played in the major leagues since 1996. As much as we'd like to believe in Polonia, his season looks like a monstrous fluke. And as good a season as Polonia had, he only drew 16 walks, and his .357 OBP was only average for a leadoff hitter. The leadoff situation for the Tigers became so desperate that in September, catcher Brad Ausmus led off seven times. What's truly frightening is that it was the right move. Ausmus' .365 OBP was the highest on the team. The Tigers' problems with getting on base are not restricted to the leadoff spot. As a team, they walked only 458, easily the lowest total in the AL, and their .322 team OBP was ahead of only the Angels. Will Gonzalez help out? A little. His OBPs the last two years were .366 and .378, higher than any hitter on the Tigers. But for a superstar, Gonzalez is pretty mediocre when it comes to getting on base. Twenty-one players, including Gonzalez, have had a slugging average of .550 or higher from 1997 to 1999 (min: 1000 PA). Of those 21, only one of them has had a lower on-base percentage than Igor: Name OBP SLG Sammy Sosa .351 .587 Juan Gonzalez .367 .608 Vladimir Guerrero .372 .571 Carlos Delgado .375 .564 Nomar Garciaparra .375 .571When Randy Smith traded for Gonzalez, his stated intent was to get another "middle-of-the-order" hitter that would help drive in runs. But ... 1) The Tigers already had pretty good production from their power hitters; 2) What the Tigers really needed was somebody to set the table, not clear it. You can't drive in many runs if there aren't any runners on base to begin with, and without any legitimate on-base threats to bat ahead of Gonzalez, his impact is going to be less than what the Tigers had hoped. A player like John Olerud (.430 OBP the last three years), who was available on the free-agent market, would have been a better fit for the Tigers' needs. All that, and Gonzalez was pretty expensive, too. Saturn or Edsel? Stay tuned. Rany Jazayerli, MD, is co-author of the annual Baseball Prospectus, a hard-hitting, irreverent, no-holds-barred look at our national pastime. Look for the 2000 edition in bookstores Feb. 1. He can be reached by email at ranyj@umich.edu. | ALSO SEE Tigers minor-league report ESPN.com's Hot Stove Heaters Tigers still waiting for final answer from Gonzalez  | |||||||||
