Oct 16, 2012; Detroit, MI, USA; Detroit Tigers third baseman Miguel Cabrera (24) at bat during game three of the 2012 ALCS against the New York Yankees at Comerica Park. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

The World Series may have ended in bitter fashion for the Detroit Tigers – getting swept in painful fashion by the San Francisco Giants – but their roller coaster season left them with an American League Central crown, an American League pennant, and kept them playing through the very end of October. There are 28 that would trade their seasons in exchange for those banners to hang; Tigers fans would do well to remember that as the sting of the World Series drubbing begins to wear off.

So the Tigers now turn their attention to the off-season, and with that brings a myriad of questions. The first of which is whether or not to extend manager Jim Leyland, who has been working on a series of short-term contracts (he says that’s the way he likes it) and who is without a deal for next season. Leyland has hinted that he’s “still hungry” and wishes to return to the club, and general manager Dave Dombrowski recently said that Leyland is welcome back to the team if he chooses to return, but things might not actually be that simple. In the end, though, it will probably be hard for the organization to pass on another short-term deal with the manager that helped lead the once-downtrodden franchise to two World Series appearances in seven years. Whatever the decision, it will likely come soon.

Detroit is positioned well to maintain their contending team heading into the winter months. With Victor Martinez set to return to action after a season lost to injury, the Tigers have an ideal in-house candidate to fill the designated hitter position that will be vacated by Delmon Young’s impending free agency. Martinez’s return would be a huge boos to the should-have-been-more-potent offense. Young, along with former closer Jose Valverde, will be allowed to walk with a virtual zero percent chance of receiving a contract offer from the Tigers. If either returns to the club it would be at a massive pay cut and in a significantly reduced capacity. Young was the offensive playoff hero, to be sure, but he can’t be trusted to handle an outfield position, and a few weeks of hitting shouldn’t compensate for a season of replacement level production. Even if the Tigers essentially stand pat this off-season, they’ll more or less return their American League Championship team with the addition of Martinez’s potentially All-Star caliber bat.

The Tigers will also have to make free agency decisions on backup catcher Gerald Laird and starting pitcher Anibal Sanchez. Laird would probably be a cheap and easy re-sign, but it will be more difficult to try to shoehorn a market value deal for Sanchez into Detroit’s already bloated payroll. Even allowing for owner Mike Ilitch’s seemingly infinite pocketbook and an upcoming boost from baseball’s new national television contracts, the money Sanchez will likely demand would likely stretch the Tigers to the max and prevent them from filling holes in the outfield and bullpen. It would almost certainly take a trade of Rick Porcello (second year arbitration eligible) and perhaps also Jhonny Peralta ($6 million team option) to make the funds work out. Starting pitching isn’t necessarily a need for the Tigers, they could feel fairly comfortable with a Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Doug Fister, Rick Porcello, Drew Smyly starting rotation heading into the season, but they saw in September and October what can be gained from having a dominating rotation instead of merely a good one.

The Tigers don’t have many holes to fill on the roster, but they will need a back-of-the-bullpen arm to replace Valverde, and they’ll be heavy players in the corner outfield market. They could get by in the late innings by mixing and matching with Phil Coke, Joaquin Benoit, Al Alburquerque, Brayan Villarreal, and Octavio Dotel (assuming they pick up his $3.5 million team option), so they don’t need a “proven closer” (a lot of good Valverde did in that regard anyway), but someone like Joel Peralta could shore up their late innings nicely (or be the “closer”) without costing an arm and a leg to sign.

An ideal fit for the Tigers right field vacancy could be Melky Cabrera. He’ll be looking to prove himself coming off of his PED suspension, and he’s unlikely to get the long-term he probably wants, so he’ll likely be willing to settle for a low-cost one year deal. The Tigers probably only want a short-term solution anyway as they wait on the development of prospects Nick Castellanos and Avisail Garcia, either one of which could be ready for a big league role the following year. The Melky-Tigers match seems perfect. Of course, there’s risk involved in signing a former PED user including further suspensions if he uses again and the potential for a decline in performance while off “the stuff”, but the Tigers would have Brennan Boesch (and Avisail Garcia) as insurance should things go south. Neither would likely excel if handed the role, but the two could combine for a somewhat effective platoon if it came to that (and really be no worse off than they are right now).

If not Melky Cabrera, then they’ll likely explore corner outfield options that include some semblance of speed and average-to-above defense (a major downfall of the 2012 team). They don’t need sluggers in the corners with Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder on the team, but they could use help near the top of the order with a guy that could get on base (and effectively run the bases while on) in front of the big men.

I doubt the Chicago White Sox will be mistakenly cast aside and ignored by pundits this time, but the Tigers will again enter the season as the prohibitive favorites in the AL Central. Detroit was billed as a sort of “super team” heading into 2012, but, in retrospect, weren’t close to being as good as the 95-100 win team that some made them out to be. But they could be much closer to that mark in 2013. Swapping out Young for Martinez, adding in Sanchez to the rotation for a full year, and upgrading a corner outfield spot could easily add six or seven wins to the team’s total (Delmon Young and the amalgam of poor right fielders lead by Brennan Boesch combined for roughly replacement level production according to FanGraphs).

It’s impossible to predict a big step forward for a team who made it to the World Series, but, barring a bevy of ill-fated moves, the Tigers aren’t likely to take a step back either. World Seires berths and titles may or may not come, but the Tigers appear to be poised to make another run in 2013.

 For more on the Detroit Tigers, visit Motor City Bengals. Follow on Twitter @MCB_Tigers.

September 13, 2012; Chicago, IL, USA; The game between the Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers has been cancelled due to weather at U.S. Cellular Field. Mandatory Credit: Rob Grabowski-US PRESSWIRE

Thursday night was all set up to be THE showdown for the American League Central Division. It was going to be the final meeting of the season for the two teams, a single game was the difference in the standings, and both sides had their aces on hill. The Tigers were once again looking to erase a one-game Chicago lead to pull even in the Division race with Justin Verlander, reigning AL Cy Young and MVP award winner, looming large as the game’s starting pitcher. The White Sox were countering with some firepower of their own: Chris Sale, owner of his own sub-3.00 ERA, would take the mound.

But mother nature had other plans. Rain washed the game out before it could begin.

So, instead of the dream finale we thought we were going to witness, Verlander and the Tigers will head to Cleveland to face the Indians for a three game weekend series and Sale and the White Sox will travel to Minnesota to square off with the Twins before everyone returns to the Windy City on Monday for the make-up game.

Doug Fister has been announced as Detroit’s starter for Monday’s 2:10 PM game, and the White Sox have said they’ll go with Gavin Floyd. Not exactly Verlander-Sale, but it will have to do.

Fister was awarded the win in Tuesday’s Tigers-White Sox game after going seven strong innings with six strikeouts while only allowing a pair of runs. Floyd took the loss for Chicago in Wednesday’s game. Floyd, fresh off the disabled list, was impressive early on in the game with seven stirkeouts (and zero runs allowed) in his first four innings of work, but the wheels began to come off as the Tigers touched him for three runs in the fifth inning.

The White Sox have been struggling mightily lateley, with only five wins in their past sixteen games. The Tigers haven’t been much better with only six wins in their previous fifteen games, but five of those wins have come head-to-head with the White Sox. All together, the Tigers own a 12-5 season series advantage versus the White Sox.

Matt  Snyder can be reached on Twitter @snyder_matthew.

For more on the Tigers and White Sox, visit Motor City Bengals and Southside Showdown.

Aug 1, 2012; Boston, MA, USA; Detroit Tigers starting pitcher Rick Porcello (48) comes out of a game against the Boston Red Sox during the sixth inning at Fenway Park. Mandatory Credit: Mark L. Baer-US PRESSWIRE

Rick Porcello exited Tuesday’s Tigers-Indians contest with two outs in the sixth inning with his team trailing 3-0. There was nothing terribly remarkable about his outing to either the positive or the negative. In fact it was a perfect example what has become the classic Rick Porcello start: relatively few strikeouts (two), a negligible number of walks and home runs (two and zero respectively), a good number of ground balls (over 50% of batted balls), more balls falling for hits than you would expect (a .350 BABIP), and the recent phenomenon of zero runs of support from his offense.

This most recent outing represented the fourth consecutive start in which the Tigers’ offense failed to provide even a single run of support while Porcello remained in the game. Here’s his total line from the “streak”:

As you can probably tell from the numbers, his actual pitching over these four games has been strong (to quite strong) – certainly better than this year’s MLB average ERA of 4.04 – but the result in his win-loss column has been a less-than-desirable 0-4.

This is, of course, another example (in the long line of examples) of why pitcher wins are such a silly statistic to record and report, but it’s also an example of why the Tigers could be a dangerous team down the stretch. The duo of Rick Porcello and Anibal Sanchez haven’t earned positive results with consistency with the Tigers this season, but both players are almost certainly better than their sub-.500 records suggest. If the Tigers, who have been one of the American League’s better offenses in the second half, can find more game-to-game consistency with their run scoring, there’s no reason why they couldn’t make up the one-game deficit in the AL Central.

Then again, if the club had simply given him a run or two of offensive support in even two of these last four games, they would already have the division lead.

Matt  Snyder can be reached on Twitter @snyder_matthew.

For more Tigers coverage, visit Motor City Bengals

August 28, 2012; Pittsburgh, PA, USA; Pittsburgh Pirates third baseman Pedro Alvarez (24) reacts as he crosses home plate after hitting his second home run of the night against the St. Louis Cardinals during the sixth inning at PNC Park. The Pittsburgh Pirates won 9-0. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-US PRESSWIRE

I had the Pittsburgh Pirates counted out of the playoff hunt a few days ago. After maintain their place in Wild Card position for much of the year, the St. Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles Dodgers both found their way past them in the standings, and after play finished on August 27 the Pirates were a full three games out in “third place” for the final playoff spot.

I’m sure the last two decades of futility have served to properly condition me against any sort of positive expectations concerning the Pirates, but it just didn’t seem like this year’s team, although so much better than anything they’ve put on the field in recent memory, would be able to stack up with the likes of the Cardinals and Dodgers over the final month-and-change of the season.

On one hand we had the Cardinals with the best offense in the National League (by runs scored) shredding through opposing pitching, and on the other hand we had the Dodgers with the best pitching in the National League (by runs allowed) who had also just traded for an elite bat to bolster their lineup.

But now, just two days later, things don’t look nearly so bleak for Pittsburgh. They somehow managed back-to-back shutout wins over the Cardinals on the back of strong pitching performances by James McDonald and Wandy Rodriguez and plenty of offense courtesy of three Pedro Alvarez home runs (seven runs batted in over the two games). Just like that the Pirates had leapfrogged the Dodgers and pulled to within a single game of St. Louis.

The Pittsburgh faithful are certainly going to see their first winning season since 1992, but they may be in for more as well. I’m certainly not going to count them out of the October hunt again so soon, anyway. I should have learned after the late season heroics of the Cardinals and Tampa Bay Rays that it’s never over until it’s over. It’s a cliché, certainly, but it’s been proved to be true time and again in baseball races. The Pittsburgh Pirates are alive and well in the NL Wild Card Race, and they look like they’re going to continue to put up a fight.

Matt  Snyder can be reached on Twitter @snyder_matthew.

For more on the Pittsburgh Pirates, visit Rum Bunter.

Aug. 28, 2012; Miami, FL, USA; Washington Nationals starting pitcher Stephen Strasburg (37) reacts during the first inning against the Miami Marlins at Marlins Park. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-US PRESSWIRE

It’s sort of unfortunate where all of this Stephen Strasburg innings limit talk leaves us. Sure, it makes for interesting discussion and great drama (not to mention the page views), but it’s distracting us from the real discussion and the real drama: just exactly how good is this kid going to be?

We’re witnessing the breakout season* of a player who could very well define pitching greatness for a generation, but we’ve been narrowed our focus to counting his innings and decrying the stupidity of Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo for even considering that he might deny us Strastober.

*Maybe breakout season isn’t quite the correct term; he was every bit as good in 2010 and 2011, but he threw fewer than 70 innings in each of those seasons.

His latest outing, which saw him allow seven runs (five earned) in five innings of work against the Miami Marlins on Tuesday evening, will undoubtedly serve to re-stoke the flame of this narrowly-focused debate. We will see the articles, blog posts, and tweets quoting his innings total (it’s 150.1 by the way, I had to sneak that in somewhere), but this time we will also see speculation about whether or not this is a sign that he’s hitting a wall or that his surgically repaired arm is beginning to fatigue.

In reality, though, Tuesday night was probably just a toe stub. A blip on the radar. A simple off-night. Just like the also-elites Justin Verlander (eight earned runs allowed in 6.2 innings against Kansas City) and Chris Sale (four earned runs in four innings versus Baltimore) also experienced on the very same night.

We could make a general manager the top story, or we could make the story the 23 year old pitcher who just now saw his season ERA climb to 3.05 and who leads the National League in strikeouts. The player who was trumpeted as the best pitching prospect you’ve ever seen and who has since proceeded to meet every expectation given of him. Strasburg was tabbed as the cornerstone of Washington’s rebuilding effort, and he’s been equal to the task as the most valuable player on one of the best teams in all of baseball (he leads the team in FanGraphs’ version of WAR).

Sure, it will be a shame if he doesn’t throw at all in the postseason, but let’s not let what might happen distract us from what’s unfolding right in front of us. And that’s the first great season of what could be a Hall of Fame career.

Matt  Snyder can be reached on Twitter @snyder_matthew.

For more on the Washington Nationals visit District On Deck.

June 13, 2012; Chicago, IL, USA; Detroit Tigers center fielder Quintin Berry (52) reacts after being called out against the Chicago Cubs in the eighth inning at Wrigley Field. Mandatory Credit: David Banks-US PRESSWIRE

Major League Baseball officially announced the expanded postseason format in March, and the initial (and continuous) reaction to the scheduling was “wow, that’s really tight”. And it certainly is. Here’s the schedule as laid out in the original MLB.com article:

The regular season is scheduled to end on Wednesday, Oct. 3, leaving two days for travel, weather problems, possible season-ending tiebreakers to decide division titles and Wild Card berths and the Wild Card elimination games prior to the start of the Division Series.

[snip]

Wild Card playoff winners… host the first two games of their Division Series, which will begin on Sunday, Oct. 7. The other two Division Series that pits division winners will begin on Saturday, Oct. 6.

Along with the new Wild Card play-in format came the agreement to settle virtually* every tie on the field with a tiebreaker game, but only one day has been set aside to deal with any and all tiebreak scenarios.

*I do not know precisely which types of ties wouldn’t be settled on the field, but that’s presumably seeding among division winners and/or seeding among the two Wild Card teams.

Here’s the issue: the new CBA that was agreed upon between the league and the player’s union this offseason allowed for the expansion of the postseason format. The league (and its owners) smelled the extra dollars and jumped to immediately implement the change. The fact that the “normal” postseason schedule (notably the timing of the World Series) had already been agreed upon (and set in stone, apparently) by the television networks was apparently of little concern to the league. They went on and crammed in an extra day of Wild Card action (along with the increased probability of a one-game tiebreaker) into the pre-existing schedule like they were trying to see how many cookies they could stuff into the VCR. (You know Bud Selig still uses a VCR, that’s not even a question).

But, to take that silly/stupid metaphor once step further, the AL Wild Card race may prove to be one cookie too many (that was awful, I know). Currently three teams are tied for the second Wild Card spot: the Baltimore Orioles, Oakland Athletics, and Detroit Tigers, and no one knows what will happen if a similar situation should occur after the final game of the season on October 3. (Here’s an additional interesting wrinkle: all three teams are currently .500 versus each other in their respective season series. Baltimore and Detroit don’t meet again, but both teams have a three-game set remaining with Oakland).

The schedule is tight enough on its own even if only a single tiebreak game is needed. Let’s suppose the Rays claim the first Wild Card spot and the Tigers and Athletics end up tied for the second spot. Detroit, who finishes the season at Kansas City on October 3, could be forced to fly to Oakland to play the tiebreak game on October 4, fly to Tampa for the Wild Card game on October 5, and then fly back to Detroit for the Division Series beginning October 7 (if they continued to win, of course). That would be four games in four cities in five days, which would be an incredible feat, but this isn’t even one of the “crazy scenarios” that are still entirely possible.

Let’s go back to the three-way tie that we currently see in the standings. The only way to break this type of tie completely “on the field” would be in a mini round-robin format. This would bring two obvious problems. (1) There’s no guarantee that this would settle a winner; it’s possible for all three teams to go 1-1. And (2) this would be incredibly difficult to do in the one-day allotted. It’s possible the Wild Card round could be pushed back to October 6 (seeing as the Division Series involving Wild Card teams begin on October 7), but that still wouldn’t easily solve this unique problem, and I don’t know that the TV networks would like that.

The league has not yet addressed a three-way tiebreaker scenario under the new postseason format, but here are some possible solutions that I just thought up (with some input from a few baseball-loving friends):

(1) The team with the best head-to-head record gets a bye in a three-team play-in tournament (or they flip for it if they’re tied). This would involve moving the regularly scheduled Wild Card round back a day. As I understand it, this was the rule in place to resolve three-way ties under the old playoff agreement (though it never happened). I would consider this the most likely scenario (because MLB hates thinking of new things) even though the TV executives would be miffed due to the fact that a Wild Card round and two Division Series would need to be aired on the same day.

This wouldn’t be necessarily fair – the three teams are supposedly tied, and we’re supposedly “deciding it on the field”, but two teams would need to win two games and one team would only need to win once to advance – but it is probably the cleanest option in that it would definitely decide Wild Card positioning at the end of the second day. The television hurdle might be significant, but I’m sure they’d work something out if it came to it.

(2) A three team round-robin is played out in successive days (probably all at one site) in the hope that one team can go 2-0. This would involve a two-day postponement of the Wild Card round and a one-day postponement of the Division Series, and it might not result in the breaking of the tie. This option would be fairer than the others, but let’s be honest: Major League Baseball is more concerned about their money and TV ratings than what’s necessarily fair for a bunch of tied Wild Card teams, and there would need to be a big shuffle for everything to work out here. There is a zero percent chance that they choose this option.

(3) My favorite option would be a three-team (double) double-header on the day after the season ends. This could make for an incredibly exciting day. Imagine this: the Tigers host the Athletics at Comerica Park (or pick a site) in a 1:00 PM game, then the loser gets to play the Orioles at 4:30 (to guarantee the third game, of course), then the game-one winner plays the Orioles at 8:00. And what if each team goes 1-1 on the day? Get a good night’s sleep and do it again the next day. Oh, the chaos.

This would obviously be a logistical nightmare, and it would be incredibly taxing on the players on the eve of the playoffs. And no one really wants to see a couple of minor-league starting pitchers in a game that could decide the playoffs (this would be the sixth game in five days for each team), but you couldn’t deny the excitement. We’d be talking about that day for years.

Matt Snyder can be reached on Twitter @snyder_matthew.

June 1, 2012; St. Petersburg, FL, USA; Baltimore Orioles manager Buck Showalter (26) smells a baseball prior to the game against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-US PRESSWIRE

If the season ended today, the Baltimore Orioles would find themselves to be winners of the second American League Wild Card berth. Baltimore has been at or near the top of the Wild Card standings for much of the year, so the fact that they could be a playoff team isn’t a complete surprise, but it’s still a bit difficult to believe that a team that has been so bad for so long will finish the job – especially when their run differential (currently minus 47 runs) indicates they might not even be all that good of a team this year.

Pythagorean expectation isn’t a perfect science – teams outperform and underperform these numbers every year – but Baltimore’s current situation looks bleak from a runs scored, runs allowed point of view. For a little bit of context, here’s a list of all the American League teams that are either even or negative in run differential:

Baltimore’s Baseball-Reference page lists their Pythagorean record at 56-66; that resulting .459 winning percentage looks very much in line with the above chart. The most common argument in support of Baltimore’s ability to maintain the winning percentage in spite of the negative run differential has to do with their bullpen and their ability to maintain the lead late in close games. The thought here is their lackluster offense and questionable starting rotation leads to many losses being of the blowout variety, but their rock-solid back end of the bullpen can be counted on to convert nearly every late-inning lead, no matter how slim the margin.

The numbers seem to support this claim too. The Orioles boast a 23-6 record in one-run games (easily the best in baseball) and a 3.01 bullpen ERA (third in the league). Darren O’Day, Troy Patton, Luis Ayala, and Pedro Strop have each thrown more than 50 innings in relief with an ERA under 3.00, and Jim Johnson has been no slouch in the closer role with an excellent 3.14 ERA and a 93% save conversion rate. But these types of numbers don’t hold up around the league.

The Tampa Bay Rays (2.90) and Oakland Athletics (2.93) both have bullpen ERAs that are better than Baltimore’s, but neither has found the same success rate in one-run games (they’re 18-19 and 19-15 respectively). The skill involved in winning a one-run game shouldn’t be dismissed outright, but Baltimore’s sterling record in one-run games is probably better explained by random variation than simple bullpen construction (even if no actual voodoo magic is at work).

Of course, the Orioles certainly could continue to win at their current .541 clip, but their record still appears to be more of a result of a hot start than steady prolonged success. By May 19 the Orioles had jumped out to the AL East lead with a 27-14 record (+20 runs!); they owned the best record in the American League, and trailed only the Dodgers in all of Major League Baseball (by only a half a game). In the three months since then they’ve played sub-.500 baseball with a 39-42 mark (and a -67 run differential).

The Orioles breaking a 15-year playoff drought would be one of the “worst to first” feel good stories that we all love (and cling to) as baseball fans, but in order to do that they’re going to have to buck the current trend and get back to the most fundamental aspect of the game: score more runs than the other team.

Matt Snyder can be reached on Twitter @snyder_matthew.

For more on the Baltimore Orioles, head over to Birds Watcher.