Ray Herbert, Detroit sandlot ace and 1962 AL All-Star, dies

Ray Herbert, a 1962 All-Star Game winning pitcher who threw batting practice for his hometown Detroit Tigers for decades after retiring, died peacefully in Plymouth, Michigan, five days after his 93rd birthday.

Herbert started his big league career with Detroit in 1950 and pitched for four teams over 14 seasons. He was a 20-game winner for the White Sox in 1962, then led the American League with seven shutouts in 1963 with Chicago.

Herbert was a part of a generation of Detroiters who flocked to the diamonds of the city’s historic Northwestern Field, a sandlot that turned out players such as Willie Horton, Bill Freehan and Frank Tanana. It was famed Tigers scout “Wish” Egan who spotted Herbert and his older brother, Donald, on the field so loaded with talent that sponsors, reporters and scouts alike were in attendance.

Hall-of-Famer Jack Morris, Bally Sports Detroit to part ways in 2023

Hall-of-Fame pitcher and three-time World Series champion Jack Morris will not return to the Bally Sports Detroit broadcast booth for the 2023 season, multiple sources told The Detroit News.

Morris, 67, had been part of the Tigers’ TV booth since 2019, rotating in the analyst chair with former Tigers Kirk Gibson, Dan Petry and Craig Monroe. According to sources, Monroe, who had been used mostly in pre- and postgame segments, will take over Morris’ workload in the analyst chair alongside play-by-play announcer Matt Shepard.

Petry will take on a larger role before and after the games. Gibson, who also serves as special assistant to president of baseball Scott Harris, has had his workload reduced in recent years, though he is still expected to be part of the broadcast team in 2023.

Neither the Tigers nor Bally Sports immediately confirmed the news. Reached via email, Bally’s senior vice president and general manager Greg Hammaren politely declined comment.

Tigers announce major changes to Comerica Park’s dimensions

The first big change is moving the center field wall in to 412 feet in straightaway center field. Instead of a straight wall perpendicular to the hitter, that wall will also now curl in a little at the edges to keep the distance to carry the wall pretty much the same across its full length.

The second change may stand out even more in actual game play, as they’re lowering the right-center field wall and the right field wall, producing a uniform height of seven feet from the right field corner all the way to where the left side of the center field wall meets the visitor’s bullpen. That’s a change that most will like, as it brings the fans closer to field level and produces a lot more opportunities for an outfielder to rob would-be home run balls….

Overall these changes seem likely to make the park more neutral, which actually goes against the philosophy espoused by new President of Baseball Operations Scott Harris earlier this offseason.

“My general opinion on dimensions is that I would prefer to be on one side of the aisle or the other,” he said. “I would prefer to have the opportunity to have some asymmetry in the environments that we’re playing. Whether we are on one side of the aisle as a pitcher’s park, or on the other side of the aisle as a hitter’s park, we have the opportunity to build a team a certain way to take advantage of the dimensions 81 times a year, because we are the only team that plays in our environment 81 times a year. So I would prefer not to be right down the middle.”

Phillies acquire Gregory Soto, Kody Clemens from Tigers

The Philadelphia Phillies have acquired hard-throwing lefty reliever Gregory Soto and infielder Kody Clemens from the Detroit Tigers, the team announced Saturday.

In return, Detroit received infielder Nick Maton, outfielder Matt Vierling and catcher Donny Sands.

Soto, 27, was an All-Star the past two seasons, including 2022, when he went 2-11 for the fourth-place Tigers. Despite that record, he had a respectable 3.28 ERA, although his command has been an issue the past couple of seasons. He walked 34 batters in 60⅓ innings last season while producing a career-high 14.5% walk percentage in 2021.

Detroit Tigers sign pitcher Michael Lorenzen to one-year, $8.5 million deal

Lorenzen spent 2022 with the Los Angeles Angels after starting his career with seven seasons for the Cincinnati Reds. He went 8-6 with a 4.24 ERA in 18 starts in 2022, striking out 85 batters but walking 44 over 97 2/3 innings.

In eight MLB seasons, Lorenzen is 31-29 with a 4.10 ERA in 313 games (44 starts). He started 21 games as a rookie in 2015 before Cincinnati moved him to a bullpen role for the next several years. He collected 14 saves in that time.

The Tigers have promised Lorenzen a spot in their starting rotation.

Tigers trade Jiménez to Braves for pair of prospects

On the last day of Winter Meetings, the Tigers and Braves made a deal that will send reliever Joe Jiménez and cash considerations to Atlanta for OF Justyn-Henry Malloy and LHP Jake Higginbotham, the clubs announced on Wednesday.

The 27-year-old Jiménez appeared in 62 games for the Tigers and was 3-2 with a 3.49 ERA and two saves. His 12.23 strikeouts per 9.0 innings ranked fifth in the American League among pitchers with at least 50.0 innings, and his 1.4 WAR for the season matched his career high. He gives the Braves a veteran arm at the back end of their bullpen after closer Kenley Jansen agreed to a deal with the Red Sox earlier in the day.

Sources: Tigers agree to deal with left-hander Matt Boyd

Left-hander Matt Boyd and the Detroit Tigers are in agreement on a contract, pending physical, sources familiar with the deal told ESPN’s Jeff Passan.

The deal is for over $10 million, according to the New York Post.

Boyd, 31, spent seven seasons with the Tigers and returns to a team looking to overhaul its pitching staff under new president Scott Harris.

Boyd signed with the Giants in March but never appeared in a game for them while recovering from elbow surgery. He was traded to the Mariners at the deadline and posted a 1.35 ERA in 10 appearances in relief.

Miguel Cabrera confirms plans to retire after 2023 season, but wants to stay in baseball

Miguel Cabrera, who joined the 3,000 hit club during the 2022 season, confirmed on Monday that his playing career will likely conclude sometime next year. “It feels a little weird to say that,” he told MLB.com’s Christina De Nicola. “I thought I’m not going to say never, but I think it’s time to say goodbye to baseball.”

Cabrera, 39, added that he would like to remain a member of the Detroit Tigers organization, with whom he’d like to assist younger players.

Cabrera’s announcement should come as no surprise. If anything, it was a predictable outcome given that the guaranteed portion of his contract runs through next season. (He’ll make $32 million in 2023 before being owed an $8 million buyout on a pair of club options.) Cabrera’s contract has kept him on the roster despite a cratered level of production. Indeed, he hasn’t posted an OPS+ of 100 or better since 2020, and he hasn’t topped the 110-mark since 2018.

Tiger Tales: Replacing V-Mart

Lee Panas projects Victor Martinez’ 2012 production, and that of some possible replacements.

Would Martinez have had a WAR of 5.0 again in 2012?  Probably not. He’d likely hit about as well overall (lower batting average, more homers).  However, he might lose a fraction of a win by not catching.  More importantly, we would not expect him to come anywhere close to his 2011 performance in situational hitting.  Even if he we think he would have hit a little better in clutch situations than other at bats in 2012, we would estimate that he would have had a WAR of about 3.0.

So, we have two questions: (1) How much will the Tigers lose going from Martinez in 2011 (5.0 WAR) to Player X in 2012?  (2) How much would they have lost going from Martinez’s expected performance in 2012 (3.0 WAR) to Player X in 2012?

Tigers’ Victor Martinez likely out for season with torn ACL

Shouldn’t have gone motorbike racing with Jeff Kent.

The Detroit Tigers today made the following announcement regarding catcher/designated hitter Victor Martinez:

Martinez injured his left knee last week during his off-season conditioning. An MRI at the Watson Clinic in Lakeland yesterday revealed Martinez suffered a torn ACL in his left knee.

Martinez will be re-evaluated by Dr. Richard Stedman next week and surgery to repair the torn ACL in his left knee is anticipated. If surgery is required as anticipated, Martinez will most likely be lost for the 2012 season.

Martinez hit .330 (178x540) with 40 doubles, 12 home runs and 103 RBI in 145 games with the Tigers during the 2011 season.

CAPUTO: Why I won’t vote for Bonds, Clemens or Sosa for the Hall of Fame

Former Tigers pitcher Jack Morris was named on the second-most ballots - nearly 67 percent.

In the aftermath, Peter Gammons, one of the preeminent baseball writers of all time, talked on MLB Network about how he put Morris on the ballot the first three years he was eligible, but stopped because another baseball writer had displayed extensive statistical proof to him that Morris’ 3.90 ERA was “not because he pitched to the score” but rather because he lost a lot of leads.

Right then I decided this coming year, the first time they are eligible for election to the Hall of Fame, I am not voting for Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens or Sammy Sosa.

...Gammons said Bagwell is like a hockey player (whatever that means) and was one of those 10-to-12 hour per day in the weight room guys, who lost weight later in his career (ala Pudge Rodriguez) because he had a shoulder injury that prevented him from lifting. It’s the type of thinking that was prevalent from many baseball writers during the steroids era. Always buying the story. Unfortunately, I was one of them. I’d like to think I’ve learned my lesson.

...But if Hall voters are going to be so picky about the career ERA of Jack Morris, why not about possible PED use?

I strongly feel this: If Morris gets in, it will still be the Hall of Fame.

If Bonds, Clemens and Sosa are inducted, it would become

(Yanks out Rogers’ Dictionary of Cliches ~ Looks for entry form)

the Hall of Shame.

Zumaya agrees to deal with Twins

Game on!

The Tigers could end up seeing a lot of Joel Zumaya this year after all. It’ll just be in a different uniform, albeit an awfully familiar one.

After throwing for teams in December and holding out for a roster spot and the right situation, Zumaya has agreed to terms with the Minnesota Twins, the reliever told MLB.com. The two sides spent Saturday putting together a deal that could pay him anywhere from $800,000 to $1.7 million if he reaches incentives.

A Twins official would neither confirm nor deny the deal to MLB.com, but said they’ve been in negotiations since December.

Zumaya weighed what he called “good offers” from three other clubs,  but the Twins included guaranteed money rather than a minor-league deal with a Spring Training invite. If he’s healthy, they’ll bring him to the same mound at Target Field where he last threw a Major League pitch. He fractured his elbow throwing for the Tigers against the Twins on June 28, 2010.

MLB Trade Rumors: Bartolo Colon Agrees to Sign With Unknown Team

Bartolo Colon has agreed to a deal with an unknown club reports Bob Nightengale of USA Today (on Twitter). The right-hander wouldn’t divulge the team because he has not yet passed his physical.

Pretty sure it’s either the All-Stars or the Champs.

BBPro:  Heartburn Hardball - Jack Morris in Motion

Morris, who was the face of the Detroit Tigers’ pitching staff for the entirety of the eighties before spending the early nineties hopping between the Twins, Blue Jays, and Indians, has every right to be thrilled at the news. And the rest of us, especially those who were too young to see him pitch, have every right to ask…why Jack Morris? Why now?

To answer that question, I decide to watch the most famous performance of his career, the game that proved once and for all that he was a true ace and a true winner.

....

The Twins will win 1-0 in the bottom of the 10th, winning the second World Series title in franchise history and solidifying Jack Morris’s place in baseball history.

And when it’s over, I will be more convinced than ever that Jack Morris is not a Hall of Fame pitcher.

Brisbee: Alan Trammell: Victim of Context

[Barry] Larkin getting in after a couple of decades or a Veteran’s Committee ballot wouldn’t add to Trammell’s cause. But Larkin got in on his third year of eligibility with 86 percent of the vote. Larkin wasn’t a borderline case—he didn’t satisfy the extra-super-special-first-ballot-bonus-points ninnies, but he was clearly a Hall of Famer in the voters’ eyes right from the beginning.

It’s that last statistic up there that’s the reason for the gap between the HOF perception gap between Larkin and Trammell. CRiL is a proprietary statistic I developed specifically to measure shortstops against each other. It’s a park- and era-adjusted stat that can sum up a shortstop’s Hall-of-Fame chances in a single number. It stands for “Cal Ripkens in League.” Larkin outpaces Trammell easily on this one.

Again, it’s not that Larkin wasn’t better than Trammell. By most metrics (and obviously in the court of public opinion), he certainly was. But if Larkin is a Hall of Famer, Trammell certainly deserves a closer look. The gap between them wasn’t that big…

Another difference between Larkin and Trammell is that the latter had a sidekick who was also worthy of the Hall of Fame. For just under two decades, Lou Whitaker played along Trammell, making All-Star teams and hitting at a position where most teams shouldn’t have a hitter. The two rode around on tandem bikes and finished each other’s sentences, and there might have been a tendency to pretend that the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. If Trammell played a couple decades with Doug Flynn, maybe he would have stood out more.

I’m sure many of us remember the Trammell/Whitaker Starting Lineup figures.

Murray Chass: NO TWO SIDES TO AN MLB.COM SELIG STORY and MORRIS UNLIKELY TO MAKE IT

Murray Sez… have a Bud and a Jack chaser

When I left The New York Times in 2008 after having written for the newspaper for 39 years, the first offer I received to continue writing came from a high-ranking Major League Baseball official who was in position to offer me a job as a columnist with MLB.com. My initial reaction was to say no, but some people urged me to reconsider and at least talk about and consider that possibility.

Accepting that offer would have turned out to be more economically lucrative than what I have done with this Web site the past three and a half years. But money isn’t everything. Writing for MLB.com just didn’t seem like the right thing to do.

How could I have gone to work for the organization I had spent my professional life covering? Wouldn’t I be compromising my professional ethics by accepting a salary from people I would be in position to criticize and question if necessary? ...

To be sure, MLB.com serves a purpose, even for baseball writers, for whom it can serve as a 30-team research site in one location and a source of comprehensive statistics that are not mingled with WAR and VORP and all of those other metrics, as their advocates like to call them.

But then there are the self-congratulatory articles that can induce nausea. I guess we don’t have to read them, but they are there as propaganda for fans to see and be taken in by. Yes, baseball propaganda. I had never thought about it before this moment, but that’s what it is. ...

And maybe someday, perhaps when he retires, whenever that is, Selig will be big enough to allow an MLB.com columnist to write the truth about collusion and his role in the labor wars.

By the way, this column was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Based on e-mail I have received from critics of Morris and me, the Hall of Fame should take the vote away from baseball writers and simply establish statistical guidelines for players’ election. The players over the line make it, those under don’t.

Such a system would eliminate what is perhaps the greatest debate in sports, but that wouldn’t bother the stats zealots. Their numbers tell them who should be in the Hall of Fame, and the writers would be wrong if they disagreed.

That system would also eliminate the aspect of the voting that they hate most. Their opinion doesn’t mean beans. The writers’ opinion means everything.

ESPN’s OTL: Strength from Weakness (Ben Petrick profile)

Who could have known? Who could have known that a player some considered a potential Hall of Fame catcher [...] would have his future stolen from him by an incurable disease that rarely afflicts people as young as 22?

How good was Petrick? Go back and look at his stats. In those 240 games for the Rockies and Tigers, he hit .257 with 27 home runs and 94 RBIs while trying to control the symptoms of Parkinson’s, which include tremors, rigidity and slow movements. He was not only tough enough to be a catcher, the most demanding position on the field, but also athletic enough to play centerfield when he wasn’t behind the plate.

“Looking back, I am amazed at what he accomplished,” says Rockies first baseman Todd Helton, who was Colorado’s first pick in the 1995 draft, the year Petrick was taken in the second round. “It’s hard enough performing at the highest level of this game, which he did. On top of that, he had to fight off a disease that robbed him of his physical ability. And on top of that, he had to play under the tremendous pressure of hiding the effects of that disease.”

Helton pauses. “You know what, though?” he says. “I’m more impressed by what he’s done with his life since.”

Former Major Leaguer Howie Koplitz passes away at 73

What is there to say…

Jayson Stark (ESPN): Strange stuff … in the 2011 postseason

The postseason edition of trivia and oddbits that Jayson Stark excels at collecting and presenting…

Here’s one I didn’t know:

All four teams that advanced to the LCS—the Cardinals, Brewers, Rangers and Tigers—got outscored by the teams they played in the Division Series … and won.

Australian Baseball League: World All-Stars prevail in inaugural showcase

The ConocoPhillips 2011 ABL All-Star Game, held at Perth’s Barbagallo Ballpark, was a thrilling affair in which the World All-Stars, led by game MVP Tyler Collins, prevailed over the home-standing Australian National Team by an 8-5 score. Collins drove in three on an opposite field home run, scored two, and added another hit in the game. Mike McGuire started on the mound for the World team and was credited with the win and veteran reliever Dae Sung Koo picked up the save.

Collins is in the Tigers system.

Tweet partings: Tigers bid Will Rhymes farewell

Using Beatnik Ramble Rhymes, it spit out…“in she bid Tigers Zelter mighty to see the likes of thee, and oh!  The smell, the smell, the awful smell!”

But an October editorial comment on Twitter Rhymes authored during the Tigers-Rangers playoff series probably eliminated any chance he would join Ryan Raburn, Ramon Santiago, and Danny Worth in a bid for second-base work in 2012.

During that Oct. 8 game against the Rangers, Rhymes, who was not on the playoff roster, disagreed with manager Jim Leyland’s decision to pinch-run Worth for Santiago.

“I turned the game off when Danny ran for Santi,” Rhymes wrote on his Twitter account.

“They are the same speed, at best. Very confused. I’ll check the box tomorrow.”

Dave Dombrowski, president and general manager for the Tigers, made little of Rhymes’ punditry when asked about Monday’s decision, although he acknowledged: “I don’t think it was something that you’d recommend a player to do. But it didn’t have anything to do with our decision.”

Tigers finalize one-year, $3.5 million deal with Octavio Dotel

According to BobbyMac, these are the most lopsided projected left/right splits (in terms of True Average, formerly EqA) for active players, minimum 500 IP:

Name               Split        Size
Octavio Dotel      R, vs. R   +.112 TAv
Ramon Ortiz        R, vs. R    .110
Dontrelle Willis   L, vs. L    .105
Horacio Ramirez    L, vs. L    .105
Chien-Ming Wang    R, vs. R    .092

Detroit and Octavio Dotel made their deal official, with the Tigers paying the veteran right-hander $3 million in 2012 and $3.5 million or a $500,000 buyout for 2013.

This will be his 13th team in 14 seasons… Dotel has the highest strikeout rate of all time among right-handers with 800-plus innings and even at age 37 got more than 10 strikeouts per nine innings for the fifth straight season…
Jason Beck of MLB.com reports that Dotel chose the Tigers over the Brewers, with the Padres also in the mix.

Tigers, Nationals swap hard-throwing relievers [Perry for Balester]

A trade between three unelected and frankly unaccountable teams.

the Tigers and Nationals pulled off an exchange of right-handed relievers Ryan Perry and Collin Balester on Friday….

Perry… ended the year with a 5.35 ERA and a 24/21 K/BB ratio in 37 innings. Overall, he has a 4.07 ERA and a 129/82 K/BB ratio in 161 1/3 innings as a major leaguer.

Balester is viewed more of a flop than Perry, but he also has the better raw stuff; while both tend to throw in the 93-95 mph range, Balester’s curveball is a superior offering to Perry’s slider. It shows in the strikeout numbers, as Balester has fanned 62 in 56 2/3 innings of relief over the last two years.

Balester, though, has more of a wild streak than Perry. He’s also out of options, whereas Perry still has an option year left.

Murray Chass on Baseball: SANTO IN; MILLER, MORRIS STILL OUT

Weeeee! More fun than watching Chass vein-throbbingly berate Hal Bodley into voting for Jack Morris!

This brings me to Jack Morris, a pitcher I have believed for years should be in the Hall but who has failed to receive more than 53.5 percent of the writers’ vote in his 12 years on the ballot.

Bert Blyleven, a pitching contemporary of Morris, was elected last year in his next-to-last year on the writers’ ballot. He benefited from the new use of sabremetrics in gaining election, publicly proclaiming one particular practitioner of sabremetrics for showing why he belonged.

As readers of this site know, I am not a fan of statistics such as WAR and VORP. I use statistics, but the old-fashioned ones have worked for me and most other writers who have covered baseball for years and are not relative newcomers to the baseball beat.

I saw Blyleven pitch, and I saw Morris pitch. If I had to pick one or the other to pitch one game or regularly in a rotation, Morris would be my man. He might not have sabremetrics in his favor, or even a sterling old-fashioned earned run average (3.90), but the only statistics he pitched for was to allow fewer runs than his team scored.

It was no accident that Morris was the most dominant starting pitcher in the 1980s, gaining more victories than any other pitcher in the decade. But forgive me; I am using a statistic that some viewers of the game now proclaim is the least relevant barometer of a pitcher’s success.

Wins no longer count. According to proponents of this cockamamie idea, there are too many variables that render wins meaningless. The name of the game used to be winning. Now it’s a quality start or a good WAR rating.

Give me a pitcher who can emerge from a game as the winning pitcher.

Rule V Results

1.Astros take Rhiner Cruz from Mets.
2.Twins take Terry Doyle from White Sox.
3.Mariners take Lucas Luetge from Brewers.
4.Orioles take Ryan Flaherty from Cubs.
5.Royals take Cesar Cabral from Red Sox; traded to Yankees for cash.
6.Cubs take Lendy Castillo from Phillies.
8.Pirates take Gustavo Nunez from Tigers.
  21.Braves take Robert Fish from Angels.
22.Cardinals take Erik Komatsu from Nationals.
23.Red Sox take Marwin Gonzalez from Cubs.
  25.Diamondbacks take Brett Lorin from Pirates.
  29.Yankees take Brad Meyers from Nationals.