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1. I Am Not a Number Posted: January 27, 2012 at 07:51 AM (#4046996)As per a clause in Fielder's contract. Prince wouldn't want a man of Miggy's stature getting an early start on the post-game buffet.
He whined when the Tigers brought in Pudge to take over at catcher.
He whined when Cabrera came over to be the new third baseman.
Now he's whining because Fielder is coming in to take his spot in the lineup.
If he spent half of the time and energy in the batting cages as he does whining, he may actually hit .200.
Cabrera was fairly nimble at first. If he can lose a few pounds (which he says he's doing), I think he can be competent over there. Not great. Not even good. But competent.
I could be wrong about Cabrera, but he looked really slow around the bag when I watched him play the last couple years. Maybe he can get into better shape and get the job done, I dunno. I wouldn't bet on it, but I've definitely seen him play a lot less then you have.
The ADR (avg. of DRS, TZL and UZR) at Fangraphs has him at -13 in 2007, when he played 3B for FLA. BRef has him at -11.
He was 24 then, and had been playing 3B regularly.
Maybe he wasn't "horrible", but he was bad.
Now five years older, and having been a below avg. 1B, he's very likely to be horrible.
Being a Tiger fan, maybe I'm just being overly optimistic about this little experiment. But my feeling is that he'll get to the balls that are hit to him. He won't have much range (and with Peralta at SS, Young or whoever is in LF will be getting a workout), and it could be comical watching him charge bunts, but I have to be optimistic.
That said, you won't see me sitting behind first base at Comerica Park this year :)
The one argument for it is the "DH penalty" that seems to exist. If Cabrera is going to go Pat Burrell on you (probably not to that extreme but with a meaningful loss of offense) by DHing then having him watch balls roll into the outfield at third base probably is worthwhile.
Agreed 100%.
Does anyone actually think that Cabrera would be better defensively than, say, someone like Mark Reynolds? It wouldn't surprise me in the least if Cabrera was worse than Reynolds at 3B.
Tigers trying to keep everyone happy, but Miguel Cabrera likely won't stay at 3B
Tigers trying to keep everyone happy, but Miguel Cabrera likely won't stay at 3B
Pretty good article. Just shows how daft this signing was.
You've got two premier bats that you are paying ~$50M, and are taking huge risks of one or more of 1) hideous defence, 2) defensive struggles affecting hitting, and 3) one or both being unable to adjust to DH and it affecting their hitting.
If I'm trying to win a WS, the last thing I want is my best hitter by far (Cabrera 7 WAR the last 2 seasons) uncomfortable b/c he has to adjust/worry about a new role.
Why not simply reinforce your pitching with Jackson or Oswalt, and look for a avg. bat for 3B or DH?
They tried. The Tigers reached out to Oswalt, but he said he wasn't interested. They tried to trade for Gio Gonzalez, but the price was too high. They were/are in talks about Matt Garza. Fielder wasn't really plan A, B, or C.
The Tigers HAVE to try Cabrera at third, if for no other reason than to keep him sharp for NL parks. If it works out, then they can bring Victor Martinez back to DH. If not, they'll have to stick with a 1B/DH split between the two. But is that really so bad? The Red Sox built a double World Series winning offense around Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz; I find it hard to believe that Cabrerea/Fielder is a worse defensive combination.
And lastly, as a Detroit fan, I do think Cabrera will be better at third this year than he was before, even accounting for age/rust. He's noticeably slimmer than before, and his 1B defense is much better now than it was when he first came to Detroit. Whatever he's lost through age I think he's gained through cleaner living and less, uh, non-functional mass. Cabrera gets teased a lot about his weight, but these days the guy really isn't that portly. He's HUGE, but he's not all that FAT.
EDIT: I don't eman to imply he will be a good third basemen. Or even average. Just...better. I do not think he will play there full time unless he really wows everyone. This will be the new 1B/DH pair, and Victor is probably done.
Yea, E-Jax + Pena makes a lot more sense, but Ilitch seems to be a "go big or go home" kinda guy.
Do you have any evidence for that?
Because all the stats (TZ, UZR, DRS) have him the same or worse, in the -4 to -8 range. With the -8's tending to be in '10 and '11. Note: not all the metrics are available for '11.
Has anyone done the math on this? Is Cabrera's awful D (say he's as bad as Reynolds) at 3B plus his bat plus someone like Delmon Young at DH better than Cabrera at DH plus Inge's ok glove and awful bat?
That may be true, but there's no statistical evidence it has helped his D at 1B.
Also, you're underrating the age component. Defense starts deteriorating in the early 20's, and he's 5 years older than when he was last a bad 3B.
Obviously this isn't the popular answer around here, but I just take most of the defensive stats with a grain of salt. I'll gush over batting stats all day, but I still have trouble swallowing a lot of the things defensive stats have been telling me in recent years, and the methodologies don't impress me.
However, having watched basically every game he's played during the time he's been in Detroit, he picks the ball wall as a receiver, he has much improved his foot speed ranging to both sides, and I think he's the best throwing first basemen in the AL, which has added up to a lot of surprising double plays.
If I were to criticize him at first, and I think this is something that may impact his defensive metrics, he plays too far off the line, so his range to his right is overkill with the second baseman oftentimes.
The metrics seem to agree that Cabrera and Fielder are roughly comparable defensively, with the slight edge to Cabrera. Living in Milwaukee and watching the Brewers regularly, this strikes me as nonsense. Either Cabrera is underrated or Prince is overrated, because Cabrera is a much better first baseman.
I don't know, Miguel Cabrera is a fatass, but he was fat before and he's fat now and I think it's hard to make the argument he will be worse at 3B due to conditioning. I could definitely see him being worse due to a lack of reps though. And I apologize if no one made this argument and I wasted my time countering it.
This is a fair point. And, it may get me stoned, but I recognize that the odds are age related decline come quickly on defense, but it's not a guarantee and that's how I read some of these comments. A-Rod just had his best defensive year at 3B, for example.
I don't think he'll be worse due to lack of condition, but he was bad then.
I think he'll be worse for lack of reps (agreed) but also aging. You lose quickness between 24 and 29.
Compare:
This, this, and this.
Since getting on the wagon, he's remained big, but he's filled out better.
EDIT: He looks heavier standing around, because he wears such a baggy uniform. But once he's in motion you can see he doesn't carry the jello belly anymore.
Which likely has something to do with ARod being a former SS and Cabrera being a corner player his whole career.
This misses my point. A-Rod has been an average to bad defensive 3B for most of his career and the smart bet is that he would get worse as he ages. However, last year, he had his best defensive year at 3B. It could be a fluke and he could go back to sucking this year, but the point was merely that it's not a guarantee. For another Yankee example, Jeter's best defensive years have been as an older player.
Dammit, if I'd known getting old and playing bad D worked like that, I'd do them all the time.
I think any scenario that counts on a defensive UPGRADE by adding Prince Fielder at 1B is a pretty hilarious one.
I think it is reasonable to assume, if not likely, that experience has helped both players offset the natural physical declines. Cabrera will be playing a position he has not played with any regularity in many years and won't have that benefit.
I agree with this, but he also had a better athletic baseline to work with. I'm not saying Cabrera can't do it, just that if you told me that one of ARod or Cabrera would have their best defensive year as they got older, I would go with ARod because he has more to draw from.
True
You clearly never saw Carlos Guillen play first base. What a horror show. I was afraid he was going to break his leg on every play where he received a throw at first. He simply could not figure out what to do with his feet when fielding or covering; he would routinely take throws at first with the wrong foot forward and his bag leg planted on the OUTSIDE edge of the base. And by "take throws" I mean "have the throw sail into the stands while he was busy looking at his feet."
If you saw Guillen try to play first base in 2008, it was pretty hilarious.
I remember one play in particular where he stood behind the bag, much like you would at shortstop to turn the double play, and almost got killed by the runner who was naturally going to the outside part of the bag.
Exactly. Cabrera wasn't a good third baseman back then, not by any metric. But he definitely wasn't helped by Guillen being at first.
True, he's more than likely going to be worse now. But I'm hopeful (my Tiger fan optimism) that he'll grow into a league average third baseman.
That's silly. Would half of the teams in the league field a worse defensive third baseman than Miguel Cabrera? You can hope for him to be not too much worse than the second worse third baseman in the league, but hoping for much more than that doesn't make much sense to me. It reminds me of the Mets guy a year or two ago here who fully expected Fernando Tatis to become an above average defensive second baseman.
That's just as silly. I mean really, how do we KNOW what type of third baseman he's going to be? We're all making assumptions. True, they're assumptions based on past experiences, but we don't really KNOW. As Cabrera got older and more experience at first, he grew into a league average first baseman. I don't care what the defensive stats say... he didn't hurt the Tigers with his defense.
Yes, it's silly to expect him to come in right away and be that. He's not in third baseman shape. It's been years since he played over there and had to make that throw on a consistent basis. It will be entertaining to watch him in ST and into the season, because it could be so bad that it's downright comical. But what's wrong with hoping that he becomes league average? Cabrera is a very hard worker, and he takes pride in his defense. You better believe that he will be out there every day taking extra grounders with Belliard. He already has naturally great hands, now he just has to work on footwork. He'll never be confused for a great third baseman, or even a good one. He will never have the range that the top third baseman have. I think the ceiling for him is "league average," and what's wrong with hoping he becomes that? There are several reasons to say he can, and there are several reasons to say that he can't. I'm a Tiger optimist. I choose to focus on the reasons saying he can.
And Dan has said his analysis shows that even a short time away from a position erodes skills quickly.
And while we're throwing around defensive numbers, b-r LOVES Inge and rates him +82 since the move to (mostly) 3B. The bat tanked last year and if that's where he's at now, he's done as a player. But he's been solidly above replacement before then. The defensive gap between Inge and Cabrera is likely to be huge.
I think the Cabrera at 3B experiment will come to an end quickly. Not mind-blowing, but Inge got 14 starts in 37 games after returning from the minors and 7 starts in 11 postseason games.
On the other hand, Leyland was the genius who put Bonilla at 3B for two seasons so I guess he can stomach anything.
Can you honestly name 10 other first basemen in MLB that you think are worse defenders than Miguel Cabrera?
So at best I'm coming up with seven guys who might be worse defenders and I think that's really generous to Cabrera.
To me, first basemen basically lump out like this:
1. Great fielders
2. Average fielders
3. Butchers
There isn't the sort of fine tuned continuum there is with other areas of the game. Does it matter if there aren't ten first basemen worse defensively than Cabrera if he's only two runs worse than the average guy? He may be worse than average in an absolute sense, but the difference is not an order of magnitude.
I said it upthread, but having watched Cabrera everyday, he's not a butcher at first. Not even close. And having watched Prince Fielder about every other day, I would say that Cabrera is an order of magnitude better defensively than Prince is.
Now, whether or not Cabrera will be a butcher at third, that remains to be seen. He very well might be.
In any case, it makes sense to play Cabrera at third often enough to season him for NL parks and to see if he can handle the position full time if/when Victor Martinez returns, but it makes no sense to play him there everyday, since they have no DH without Martinez around.
The available data suggests he's more like 4-8 runs worse than avg., unless he's very good at digging throws.
He's quite good at it, and for a man as large as he is, he has an almost disturbingly good stretch.
Here would be my Cabrera defensive scouting report:
Range: Adequate. Not a guy you want charging bunts.
Hands: Very good. Rarely, if ever, boots something he can reach.
Receiving: Good. Doesn't drop throws, digs throws out of the dirt well, and has the size to snare high throws. Soemtimes struggles to handle Verlander's pick off throws.
Arm: Excellent, turns two from first as well as anyone in baseball.
I find it really interesting that nobody who watches Detroit day in and day out thinks that Cabrera is anything less than solid at first. And it's not like Detroit fans have some love affair with the team that stops them from criticizing the defesive travails of their players. I never find myself groaning abotu a play Cabrera makes or fails to make at first. He makes some nice plays and rarely, if ever, boots a ball. I've seen players mangle the position before, and Cabrera just doesn't fit that bill. He started off shakey, but the last two years or so I haven't even considered him to be a defensive liability.
It's very difficult to judge the difference between a -5 and an avg. 1B by observation.
Especially handling pop-ups and throws from infielders, where often you can view the play as uncatchable, or the fault of the throw, even if a better 1B would have gotten it.
e.g., a bad 1B can easily give 5 extra errors to his IFs w/o you really noticing it was him that did it, or miss 5 pop-up b/c he is slow of foot.
I think it is especially hard when the player has a huge halo-effect from his premier bat. Lots of Golden Gloves have been won with the bat.
This I will concede. But I think it's equally difficult to make the same distinctions with PBP metric calculations.
This isn't a case where I concede that the stats must be more accurate than my eyes, like with batting statistics. But, of course, this debate has been hashed out here many times, and if that's the point we've reached than obviosuly we have to agree to disagree.
I personally would consider anything within five runs of average to be about average, given the nature of fielding statistics. I can live with Cabrera being five runs below average, but the notion that he's close to a full win worse than the average first basemen just doesn't pass the smell test to me.
This I will concede. But I think it's equally difficult to make the same distinctions with PBP metric calculations.
This isn't a case where I concede that the stats must be more accurate than my eyes, like with batting statistics. But, of course, this debate has been hashed out here many times, and if that's the point we've reached than obviosuly we have to agree to disagree.
I personally would consider anything within five runs of average to be about average, given the nature of fielding statistics. I can live with Cabrera being five runs below average, but the notion that he's close to a full win worse than the average first basemen just doesn't pass the smell test to me.
I share you skepticism about defensive stats, especially in small sample sizes, but all the metrics on Cabrera are consistent.
Over all systems, across time, the picture is consistent. He was a bad LF, switched to 3B, started out avg. to below, became bad, was moved to first, started a little below avg., and has gotten worse.
It's pretty much the expected pattern for a guy who was never a good fielder, and has gotten worse as he moves through his 20's, as we'd expect.
As a -5 to -10 1B, Cabrera is still a perennial MVP candidate. It's not a huge knock on him.
Just to expect him to go the 3B and be anything except really bad, seems wishcasting.
It's really only the last part I disagree with. During his time at first he has both visibly improved his body composition and visibly improved his defensive play. Perhaps not consistent with age patterns, but consistent with a guy who has apprently shed some of his problems with the bottle.
I know it's just the eyeball test, but the notion that Cabrera has gotten WORSE at first the last few years just seems preposterous to me. As in literally unbelievable. The only thing I can think of to explain the decline is that in his first few years at first he was playing next to Polanco, who was a great second basemen. Maybe then he could play closer to the line than when playing next to the likes of Scott Sizemore and Carlos Guillen. That could possibly have caused him to have to cover less space and hid how otherwise horrible his defensive rating would have been. I know that many people have posited that this is why Jeter's numbers improved when playing next to A-Rod.
I'm with you. With all the rending of garments and gnashing of teeth over whether Cabrera will be an average, bad, or preposterous fielder, all I can think about is that he'll be 3B eligible next year. I applaud this move completely.
2. I'm a fangirl so I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens this year in Detroit.
3. Is the postgame buffet really a limited amount of food? How hard can it be to have enough beans & rice for everyone?
4. Darn my sister for telling me about that Ichiro thread! I have to renew a subscription!
I was a little stunned that any thought whatsoever would be given to the playing time of a guy who hit .197/.265/.283 last year at age 34. I mean, he's talking about earning a full time job, and not wanting to platoon... he'll be lucky to earn a bench job where he might work into a platoon if someone gets injured.
1. He was durable;
2. The organization had no third basemen;
3. He was a spectacular, multi-win level defender;
4. He had a replacement-ish bat; and
5. He was a fan favorite.
Basically all of those things are now in question
Right, nobody else is going to say something? I need to be that guy?
OK.
Wow, a girl other than bbc! And look, evidently her sister reads here too! A third girl! (Unless bbc is your sister.)
Or am I falling for another BBTF meme?
So is it Fielder at second, and Cabrera at short, or the other way around?
Those could be the two funniest questions I have ever read on this site. Edit: and I mean that in a good way.
(Then again, if BBTF hasn't scared them off by now...)
Just gotta keep them away from the pre-political pages of the Castro thread...
2011 Detroit Tigers Pitching Ratios
Age IP SO% BB% GB/FB Rick Porcello 22 182.0 13.3% 5.9% 1.14 Doug Fister 27 70.1 20.9% 1.8% 1.01 Brad Penny 33 181.2 9.2% 7.7% 0.98 League Average 18.1% 8.0% 0.80 Phil Coke 28 108.2 14.6% 8.4% 0.77 Jose Valverde 33 72.1 22.9% 11.3% 0.75 Justin Verlander 28 251.0 25.8% 5.9% 0.70 Max Scherzer 26 195.0 20.9% 6.7% 0.69 Daniel Schlereth 25 49.0 20.8% 14.6% 0.68 Joaquin Benoit 33 61.0 26.1% 7.1% 0.65 Team Total. 27.8 18.3% 8.1% 0.82 Age IP SO% BB% GB/FBSource: B-R
I think the fielding concerns voiced here are quite fair.
And then the Tigers bat with Cabrera and Fielder due up.
Cabrera 148 career OPS+, age 28, with 178 and 181 the last two years.
Fielder 143 career OPS+, age 27, with 166, 135, and 164 the last three years.
DAMN.
Let's concede the defensive issues, but the Tigers also might score a couple of runs this year...
When you are hashing this much out of your can't-leave-him-out-of-the-lineup hitter, you are absolutely, no-doubt, scared about what he is going to do in the field. Not in a Castillo/Buckner sense, but in the aggregate -- Cabrera really could be a horror-show at third; there's no denying that possibility.
It's going to be fun to watch on both sides of the ball.
Yes, that is a very nice back to back threat. Unfortunately for the Tigers though if Leyland continues to fill out the lineup card like he did in 2011 then batting directly in front of those two will be Delmon Young (100 OPS+, .321 OBP). Leading off two spots ahead of Young will be Austin Jackson (95 OPS+, .331 OBP). Of the five players that started in the #2 spot 15 times or more last year only one (Boesch) was worth a damn. Leyland actually seemed to prefer concentrating his best hitters in the 4-7 spots, kinda odd. There also has to be skepticism about what they'll get from Avila, Peralta, and Boesch this year, going on past history with those three it seems unlikely they'll combine for the same level of production as in 2011, any gains from the dregs that dragged the offense down at times might do nothing more than offset the loss from that trio. Back to Fielder and Cabrera, it doesn't seem reasonable to expect that they will combine for more production in 2012 than Cabrera and Martinez did in 2011 so any gain there is unlikely.
I just don't like the team the Tigers have all that much. They were 4th in the league in offense last season and the lineup they're putting out next season doesn't seem likely to actually be better overall despite the addition of Fielder. They were only middle of the pack in pitching with an averagish to slightly below defense and if they keep the Cabrera/Young 3B/LF experiment going long then that sure as hell won't improve even with Ordonez gone. They're a winning team for sure, and chances are that nobody will be a serious enough threat to the division crown, but signing Fielder probably doesn't do anything but make them unlikely to sink below last years pythagorean record (89 wins).
Rk Player SO OPS+ WAR/pos PA From To G1 Brandon Inge 1183 83 18.0 5176 2001 2011 1399
2 Lou Whitaker 1099 116 69.7 9967 1977 1995 2390
3 Norm Cash 1081 139 52.5 7772 1960 1974 2018
4 Al Kaline 1020 134 91.0 11597 1953 1974 2834
5 Willie Horton 945 127 25.0 5978 1963 1977 1515
Lowest BA 1977-2011, 5000+ PA
Rk Player BA OPS+ Rfield PA From To1 Brandon Inge .235 83 89 5176 2001 2011
2 Mickey Tettleton .241 121 -52 5745 1984 1997
3 Greg Vaughn .242 112 22 7070 1989 2003
4 Adam Dunn .243 127 -59 6561 2001 2011
5 Jose Valentin .243 96 73 6317 1992 2007
6 Alex Gonzalez .243 79 10 5528 1994 2006
7 Glenn Hubbard .244 85 34 5122 1978 1989
8 Tom Brunansky .245 106 44 7169 1981 1994
Inge is following in the tradition of Detroit 3B.
Lowest OPS+ 1963-2011, 950+ G at 3B
Rk Player OPS+ Rfield PA From To1 Aurelio Rodriguez 76 90 7078 1967 1983
2 Ken Reitz 79 -18 5079 1972 1982
3 Pedro Feliz 80 71 4544 2000 2010
4 Tom Brookens 82 35 4258 1979 1990
5 Brandon Inge 83 89 5176 2001 2011
6 David Bell 85 38 5380 1995 2006
7 Don Wert 87 16 4346 1963 1971
8 Charlie Hayes 88 16 5765 1988 2001
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