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Saturday, February 18, 2012

Doing the math tells us Detroit Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera weighed 285-290 pounds last year

Reaches for The Calculus Diaries: How Math Can Help You Lose Weight…...but will need something bigger than an Ouellette.

Everywhere you look Detroit Tigers third baseman Miguel Cabrera is listed at 240 lbs. It’s pretty safe to say he hasn’t been that light since he was in Florida, but just how much has he packed on since joining the Tigers in 2008?

Well, we can figure out a ballpark figure based on some numbers provided by Buster Olney in a segment on Baseball Tonight.

“In the last two days I was in Tigers’ camp, and talking with some of Cabrera’s teammates, they’re hearing he’s lost 20-28 pounds so far,” Olney said. “On top of that, he wants to get down to about 250 pounds, which means he’s got about 15 more pounds to go.”

Did you get all of that? Cabrera has lost 20-28 lbs and he wants to lose 15 more to get down to 250. Okay, carry the one, and that means Cabrera was tipping the scales somewhere between 285-293 pounds before hitting the treadmill hard this winter.

For the sake of historical accuracy someone should really update the 2008-2011 media guides.

Repoz Posted: February 18, 2012 at 08:43 AM | 32 comment(s) Login to Bookmark
Tags: tigers

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1. AROM Posted: February 18, 2012 at 10:17 AM (#4063952)

Ideally weight should be a seasonal line entry, like games played, instead of an unchanging (well, for most at least) entry like birthdate.

But finding sources to do that for everyone would be tough.

2. Ron J Posted: February 18, 2012 at 10:42 AM (#4063962)

#1 I know that Stats has made a real effort to list meaningful weights since their first publication (1990). Wouldn't be perfect, but it would be as good as you're likely to get.

I wonder if there's as much in-season fluctuation for baseball players as for some hockey players (I doubt it). I know Doug Gilmour has a continual battle to keep weight on. Lasted at 175 pounds, he often was more like 160 as the season wore on.

3. Drew (Primakov, Gungho Iguanas) Posted: February 18, 2012 at 10:55 AM (#4063971)

Love how this is the story on Cabrera. Shouldn't we be talking about "suspension" and "rehab" and "forgiveness"?

4. KronicFatigue Posted: February 18, 2012 at 11:36 AM (#4063984)

According to HBO's new show "Luck", Jockeys get weighed after races. Provided it was agreed upon in the next CBA, I'm sure you could have a once a month official weigh in or something. Teams could protect themselves against players blowing up, and players could achieve bonuses for staying in shape. Might also give some insight on the wear and tear of a season.

5. AROM Posted: February 18, 2012 at 11:41 AM (#4063987)

I'd be content with a yearly spring training weigh in. Then posterity won't have to read "David Wells 175".

6. Pasta-diving Jeter (jmac66) Posted: February 18, 2012 at 12:27 PM (#4064005)

or "John Kruk 170"

7. McCoy Posted: February 18, 2012 at 12:32 PM (#4064011)

I'm sure they do weigh the players in spring training. They just don't release those numbers to the media or public and for the most part nobody is clamoring for those numbers.

I know that for some players at least their baseball cards will list newer weights as the years go by. Or at the very least they did that for Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa.

8. Booey Posted: February 18, 2012 at 01:03 PM (#4064025)

I think Tony Gwynn was listed at like 190 or 199 forever. Same with Puckett.

So the Tigers literally have close to 600 pounds of slugger playing at the corners...

9. Fred Lynn Nolan Ryan Sweeney Agonistes Posted: February 18, 2012 at 01:04 PM (#4064026)

"Matt Stairs - 5'9", 200#."

10. Never Give an Inge (Dave) Posted: February 18, 2012 at 01:20 PM (#4064036)

Does anyone care? It's not like he wasn't hitting.

11. McCoy Posted: February 18, 2012 at 01:22 PM (#4064038)

Tony's 1983 Donruss listed him as 185. His 1985 Topps listed him as 185 as well. His 1992 Post card listed him as 205 lbs. His 1993 Topps lists him as 215 lbs. His 2000 Topps card lists him as 220.

12. Booey Posted: February 18, 2012 at 01:26 PM (#4064041)

Tony's 1983 Donruss listed him as 185. His 1985 Topps listed him as 185 as well. His 1992 Post card listed him as 205 lbs. His 1993 Topps lists him as 215 lbs. His 2000 Topps card lists him as 220.

That's a little better then. Still sounds low, though. I'm 5'11, 225, and IMHO I don't think I look nearly as heavy as Gwynn did by the end of his career. :)

13. McCoy Posted: February 18, 2012 at 01:35 PM (#4064045)

Matt Stairs:

2011: 200
2009: 215
2008: 210
2006: 215
2004: 210
2002: 225
2001: 217
1999: 212
1998: 200
1993: 190
1991: 175

14. base ball chick Posted: February 18, 2012 at 01:41 PM (#4064050)

what gets put in the stats lines is what the TEAM says, not what the PLAYER says

jeff bagwell was always listed at 6' and he's at least 1 1/2" shorter than that. even he has said so - that he didn't know he was 6' until he started playing ball. david eckstein has said on the record, publically, that he's 5-6 BUT he was never listed as 5-6, always 5-8. jose altuve is 5-5 and HE has said so, the scouts have said so and he is listed as 5-7.

they LIE about the weight too. both over and under and they don't post what the guy REALLY weighs at ST or any other time.

15. puck Posted: February 18, 2012 at 01:41 PM (#4064049)

I think Tony Gwynn was listed at like 190 or 199 forever.

Hey, sounds like my driver's license.

16. Jim Wisinski

Posted: February 18, 2012 at 02:03 PM (#4064061)

jeff bagwell was always listed at 6' and he's at least 1 1/2" shorter than that. even he has said so - that he didn't know he was 6' until he started playing ball. david eckstein has said on the record, publically, that he's 5-6 BUT he was never listed as 5-6, always 5-8. jose altuve is 5-5 and HE has said so, the scouts have said so and he is listed as 5-7.

Scott Kazmir would need serious high heels to reach 6' tall like B-R says. A former Rays farmhand, Jon Barratt, is listed at 5'9" and 165 pounds but someone who saw him pitch said it was more like 5'6" 130 or so.

17. base ball chick Posted: February 18, 2012 at 02:36 PM (#4064068)

jim

yeh, i've seen him up (pretty) close and he is not any more 6' than bagwell. more like 5-9 170

not sure why the teams feel they have to print all these lies. i mean i get it during the steroid era where the ballplayers were cartooned by MLB into these overmuscled weightlifters, but now?

and besides, the guys (and scouts) on the other teams aren't checking the listed hieghts/weights of the opponents when they face em/watch em. it's not like if miggy cabrera hit the same way and was 5-9 175 they would pitch him differently than they do

18. KingKaufman Posted: February 18, 2012 at 03:37 PM (#4064088)

When I was covering Cal basketball for the student radio station, there was a guy, blanking on his name, who was a backup guard who was listed at 6-2. One year the coach, Lou Campanelli, decided to play this guy at small forward, and that year he was listed at 6-4. But he hadn't grown. He and I still looked each other pretty straight in the eye. He might have been a half inch taller.

I'm about 3 hairs shy of 5-11 and a half.

Edit: The guy's name was Ernie Sears, I'm pretty sure.

19. The District Attorney Posted: February 18, 2012 at 04:39 PM (#4064112)

I seem to recall stories in The Breaks of the Game along the line of "we're playing you at center, so you're 6'10" now". There can also be the opposite; I believe Kevin Garnett wanted to be listed as 6'11" rather than 7'0" because he didn't want to play center.

Whether the issue is that the guy is "too small", "too big", "too skinny" or "too fat"... it's pretty obvious why, once an acceptable fiction is agreed to, neither the player nor the team has any motivation to correct the record books' accuracy. (Well, I suppose the team might have motivation if an overweight player weren't doing well and the team wanted to be utter dicks about it, but, they wouldn't.)

20. McCoy Posted: February 18, 2012 at 04:57 PM (#4064117)

By the way, Miguel Cabrera through the years:

2000: 185
2005: 210
2008: 240 and he gained 2 inches!

21. Never Give an Inge (Dave) Posted: February 18, 2012 at 05:12 PM (#4064123)

Allen Iverson listed at 6' always seemed like a stretch to me.

22. Never Give an Inge (Dave) Posted: February 18, 2012 at 05:20 PM (#4064127)

When Miguel Cabrera was first called up to the majors, he looked like he was 12 years old. I loved it because he was the first MLB player who looked like he was younger than me (I always looked young for for my age, until I started losing my hair...sigh). Now, Cabrera looks like he ate two 12-year-old children.

23. Walt Davis Posted: February 18, 2012 at 05:58 PM (#4064135)

I believe Kevin Garnett wanted to be listed as 6'11" rather than 7'0" because he didn't want to play center.

Wilt Chamberlain used to list his height as something like 7 foot, 1 and 3/16 inches. I forget where I read this (it was ages ago) but I recall a writer claiming that Wilt did this because he was really 7'4" or bigger but didn't want to feel like more of a freak and figured that adding the 3/16 would convince folks that his height had been precisely measured.

24. zonk Posted: February 18, 2012 at 06:29 PM (#4064142)

So the Tigers literally have close to 600 pounds of slugger playing at the corners...

Seems like this is a rather clever way to deter bunts -- everything's gonna roll foul.

25. Ron J Posted: February 18, 2012 at 06:56 PM (#4064155)

#23 Bill Walton always used to say, the last time I was measured I was 6'11". Which was true, but misleading in that he was talking about his senior year of high school. He refused to be measured after that. Didn't like the idea of being a 7 footer.

26. Downtown Bookie

Posted: February 18, 2012 at 08:05 PM (#4064184)

Doing the math tells us Detroit Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera weighed 285-290 pounds last year

All I know is, if you gotta do math to figure out how much you weigh, you're not in shape.

DB

27. Never Give an Inge (Dave) Posted: February 18, 2012 at 09:14 PM (#4064199)

Seems like this is a rather clever way to deter bunts -- everything's gonna roll foul.

Are you taking into account the gravitational pull of all that mass?

28. Mike Emeigh

Posted: February 18, 2012 at 10:48 PM (#4064227)

A former Rays farmhand, Jon Barratt, is listed at 5'9" and 165 pounds but someone who saw him pitch said it was more like 5'6" 130 or so.

5'6" for Barratt is probably generous. He's about the smallest pitcher I've ever seen. If he'd been right-handed he'd never have gotten a chance.

-- MWE

29. ptodd Posted: February 18, 2012 at 11:02 PM (#4064232)

A players real weight is top secret apparently, maybe protected health information so the player can dictate what the club releases for their weight. Looking through the BP 2012 Annual, the weights are a joke.

Any studies on performance and weight are bound to be wrong.

30. The District Attorney Posted: February 18, 2012 at 11:22 PM (#4064236)

Any studies on performance and weight are bound to be wrong.

See, but I don't think this follows. Unless guys who are listed at 250 pounds usually actually weigh less than guys who are listed at 200 pounds -- which I don't think is the case -- you can still study how weight relative to other baseball players matters.

31. Never Give an Inge (Dave) Posted: February 19, 2012 at 12:29 AM (#4064251)

See, but I don't think this follows. Unless guys who are listed at 250 pounds usually actually weigh less than guys who are listed at 200 pounds -- which I don't think is the case -- you can still study how weight relative to other baseball players matters.

Perhaps. But there's also the chance that different franchises have different biases on reporting weight (and height), that the bias was different in different eras, etc. I'd be really skeptical of any conclusions that weren't very stronly supported by the data, just because of the potential for the noise to outweigh the actual data.

32. Zach Posted: February 19, 2012 at 02:51 PM (#4064318)

Wilt Chamberlain used to list his height as something like 7 foot, 1 and 3/16 inches. I forget where I read this (it was ages ago) but I recall a writer claiming that Wilt did this because he was really 7'4" or bigger but didn't want to feel like more of a freak and figured that adding the 3/16 would convince folks that his height had been precisely measured.

And the striking thing to me was a small thing. It happened when Chamberlain shook hands with the Kansas players. One of those players was senior center Eric Chenowith. Now, Chenowith was listed at 7-foot-1, the same height as Chamberlain in his playing days. Chenowith probably weighed about 270 pounds, about the same weight as Chamberlain in his playing days. Chenowith was wearing his uniform, his basketball shoes and he was young. Chamberlain wore that red and gold jacket, black pants, a baseball cap and he was 61.

And, as they shook hands it was clear: Chamberlain was a much, much, much larger man.

I don't mean that as some literary device. I mean physically. Chamberlain towered over Chenowith.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/joe_posnanski/03/02/wilt.chamberlain/index.html

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Doing the math tells us Detroit Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera weighed 285-290 pounds last year

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