3/28/09

Tigers Preview, Part 1

With Opening Day slowly coming upon us, it is time to go through the Tigers lineup and try to predict where the Tigers end up this season. My thoughts on the pitching staff are followed by the baseballprojection.com predictions.

Rotation:
Justin Verlander: Should bounce back from a below-average season last year. He fights with his consistency, and it seems like innings affect him more than other pitchers. After he threw the no-hitter two years ago, at almost 130 pitches, he never recovered to have a strong season. He is dominant the first two times through the lineup, but fades after that. Leyland and new pitching coach Rick Knapp will hopefully see this and adjust. I can see him as a 16 game winner, with an ERA around 3.50. (12-8, 3.94)

Jeremy Bonderman: Bondo fought injuries all of last season, but don't expect a repeat of 2006 JB. He is a solid starter, and will win more than he loses, but he is not a 20 game winner. Bondo will return with a 12 win performance. (8-6, 3.99)

Armando Galarraga: Armando jumped on the scene last season as a rookie, surprising everyone when he was called up to fill in spots in the MASH unit that was the Tigers rotation. Any high hopes for this season are tempered by the sophomore jinx that always seem to come with these guys, although he pitched well in the World Baseball Classic. I see him around 10 wins, with an ERA hovering around 4.50. (8-7, 4.27)

Nate Robertson: We will be surprised if Nate lasts until the All-Star break in the rotation. He is built as a bull pen guy, dominant in spurts, and a BP pitcher in others. If he stays in the rotation, he will be around a 7 or 8 win guy and an ERA just under 5.00. (10-9, 4.53)

Edwin Jackson: The newest starter, picked up from the AL Champion Red Sox Yankees Devil Rays (they will always be the Devil Rays), is a young version of Zach Miner. An innings eater, with a little upside. He is not dominant, but he will go out every fifth day and give you solid innings and a chance to win. We can see him going 10-8 with an ERA around 4.25-4.50. (8-8, 4.78)

Dontrelle Willis: Who. F'ing. Knows. (7-8, 5.09)

Overall, this rotation is not going to scare anybody. Verlander will go out every fifth day when his arm doesn't hurt, and put the fear of zero in the opponents. But after that, nobody will have managers going out of their way in fear putting a lineup together. But, they won't have to. If the Tigers can get 6 or 7 strong innings, and hand it over to the bullpen, the offense is strong enough to get some wins.

Bullpen:
Zach Miner (5-3, 3.72)
Bobby Seay (3-2, 3.78)
Fernando Rodney (4-2, 3.67)
Joel Zumaya (3-2, 3.64)
Acquilino Lopez (4-3, 4.11)
Brandon Lyon (5-3, 3.84)

Zumaya is a question mark, but dominant when he's healthy. Fernando Rodney can be dominant when he's hitting the strike zone. Brandon Lyon was brought in to be a closer. Zach Miner is an innings eater. And then there's Bobby Seay. Bobby Seay has been the best, most reliable relief pitcher in the Tigers bullpen for two years, and is the most ill-used releiver in baseball. Leyland loves him some lefty-lefty matchups, at the expense of getting good pitchers in the game, and keeps Seay as his LOOGY (lefty one out guy). Leyland needs to drop the "closer" from the bullpen, and put in the pitcher who is hottest in at the most critical time, which might, believe it or not, be the 7th, not the 9th inning. This bullpen is fine, if used properly. But proper use will be about as often as Comerica Park seeing perfect games this season.

Overall, this is not a pitching staff that will win the Tigers a lot of 2-1 or 1-0 games. They will need a lot of help if the offense starts slowly like it did a year ago. Overall, the staff gets a C-, and would lead the Tigers to about 75 wins with an average offense. We'll come back with the offensive preview later.

Oy.

Who is DB?

One team outshot the opponent 42-30. The other outshot their opponent 43-13. Both teams were heavy favorites. Both teams lost 2-0. 85 shots, 0 goals. 43 shots against, four goals against. The Red Wings played the worst team in the NHL, at home, and got beat by a goaltender who was in their system last season. Michigan began, and ended their NCAA tournament run against a team that had never won an NCAA tournament game.

Fail. At least the Wings get to keep playing.

3/27/09

Masters of the Obvious, $400

DB found a new toy. . .


What is Michigan?

I'll take Masters of the Obvious for $600 Alex.


3/23/09

Twin Killing

First, the basketball team goes down to Oklahoma, ruining any NC hopes Michigan had in the first weekend. We know, we know -- they were a 10 seed, had no chance, but hey, they were there, and everybody has a chance.

But then, Michigan hockey goes down to Notre Dame in the CCHA Championship game at Joe Louis Arena, 5-2 after taking a 2-0 lead in the first. Hopefully they got their loss out of the way early, because starting next weekend, it's tourney time. First up is perennial powerhouse Air Force. We would go on and on about how Michigan's opponent is this or that, but we refuse on account of their being a service academy.

Go Blue. That is all.

3/19/09

Hey -- it was nice just to make the tournamen... wait, what?

Photo from Detroit News.
For the first time since 1998, the Michigan Wolverines are in the NCAA Tournament. And for the first time since beating Davidson that year, the Michigan Wolverines are winners of an NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament game. Michigan started and ended the game slow, but that 30 minutes in the middle was good enough to hang with the best teams in the country. Not beat them, but hang with them for sure. Manny Harris is a beast, DeShawn Sims played well inside on both ends, and "Who the hell is" Stu Douglass provided some spark from three-point land, not to mention his head butt of Oglesby's forearm.

Next up is Big 12 favorite Oklahoma. All pressure is off Big Blue at this point, which should be scary for the Sooners. When this team plays loose, they play well.

In the meantime, Michigan hockey is coming off their utter humiliation of the Western Michigan Broncos last weekend, and play Alaska in the CCHA semi-finals tomorrow night, then the Northern-Notre Dame winner the following night. Back-to-back CCHA Championships. WOOT!

3/14/09

Congratulations Martin Brodeur


Tonight, Martin Brodeur tied our favorite goaltender of all time Patrick Roy for career wins by beating, ironically, the Canadiens in Montreal for his 551st win. Congratulations.

We remember back when hockey was popular and on ESPN, and Chris Terreri was the next great goalie, but got hurt in 1992. New Jersey turned to a young man from Montreal named Martin Brodeur. All he did was go on to win the 1994 Calder trophy for top rookie, losing to the New York Rangers in the Wales Conference Finals in 7 games in what is still the best playoff series we have ever seen. The next season, Brodeur led the Devils into the Finals against a heavily favored Detroit Red Wings team that never really figured out what hit them (at least Kozlov still doesn't know what hit him). That was the first of three Stanley Cups for our second favorite goaltender of all time. All he's done since then is rack up win after win after win, and when NHL teams play New Jersey, they know goals will come at a premium.

Congrats Marty. One more for the record all your own.

3/11/09

Worst Case Scenario



Our alma mater, the CCHA giant that is Western Michigan, is traveling 60 miles east to take on TLoGL favorite Michigan this weekend in round two of the CCHA playoffs. When Western takes on Michigan in football next fall, and we will be there (thanks DP), we will only be rooting for the Broncos to hang around and not embarrass themselves. Even if the Broncos go 13-0, they have exactly zero shot at winning anything, so we basically root for them to score some points, poke some holes in Michigan's game plan so DickRod can plug them ASAP, and lose 47-21. In the other sports however, we root for the brown and gold not just to win, but to rub Red's face in the defeat. It's similar to playing hockey in high school, when lining up opposite our good friend and now brother-in-law, when we had a nice pushing and shoving match and damn near came to blows. Here, too, we wish no good luck to the maize and blue, nor do we wish any victories for Red's club.

Boo Blue.

Go Broncos!

UPDATE: It was worser (yes, worser. worse doesn't do it justice) than we thought. Michigan dominated. Saturday night's game saw Big Blue outshoot the Broncos 21-0 and outscore them 3-0 in the first period. WMU's season is over.

GO BLUE! That felt good.

No Win Situation


TLoGL is very fond of the NFL Draft. It is our favorite time of the NFL season. As not very huge fans of the NFL game itself, we find ourselves watching the combine with great enthusiasm and fervor, while preparing to see what our favorite team, the Detroit Lions, will do with their opportunities on what is known around here as "Super Bowl Saturday." This year, Martin Mayhew and Tom Lewand have orchestrated a couple tremendous moves in absolutely fleecing Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys. First is the trade of locker room cancer and over-rated wide-out Roy Williams. Then came the dump of over-the-hill-and-was-never-really-any-good-anyway QB Jon Kitna, who the Lions were going to release as a cap casualty anyway two days after the deal. Instead, they get a starting CB for a guy who by all accounts didn't want to be in Detroit anyway. Good show. Our confidence in the Lions front office is growing. That may not be saying much, but it's the little victories that keep us going right now.

But the Lions, by virtue of going 0-16 last season, have the first pick overall. Nothing good can come from this. The #1 pick demands big money, and the problem is not that the Lions don't have the cap room to accomodate, it's that there is nobody out there worthy of that money this year. There is no Tom Brady (what round did he go in again?) in this year's draft, so the Lions are in a no-win situation. No matter what they do, it will be wrong. The position most worth #1 money is the QB position. But the top two contenders are a guy with an arm but no decision making ability, and a guy with decision making ability and accuracy, but no arm. What about offensive line? Yeah, maybe, and this would be the smart thing to do, but Mayhew and Lewand will get torched in Detroit for not bringing in a guy to sell tickets right away.

What about trading down? Who wants it? Everybody else knows the value of this pick, and that it is nil, so nobody wants it. The only possibility we have heard is maybe giving it to Denver so they can take Stafford or Sanchez and get Cutler in return. This would be a tremendous move by the Lions, and a terrible move by Denver, which is why we don't see it happening. It is just too far-fetched.

What we will see on April 25 around 4:15pm, is who is running the show in Allen Park. If it is the Fords, we will see Matt Stafford. If it is Mayhew and Lewand, and they are smart about the pick and not afraid of being torched by the less than stellar fanbase, they will go another route.

The Twins are here!

Holy crap- I have kids. Two of them. Right now. Wilson Reagan was born at 7:56am and Andrew Patrick was born at 7:58am on Wednesday, March 4.


Drew


Wil


Proud Papa


Wil


Drew

Lightning strikes. Twice.

To borrow a phrase from well-known marxist Keith Olbermann, "from way downtown. Bang!"

And, uh, Bang! again.