Quick Hits: D’Backs, Martinez, Killebrew
Links for Tuesday night, after a memorable two-homer day for Brian McCann…
- Former D'Backs manager Bob Melvin has returned to the organization as a special baseball advisor, according to MLB.com's Steve Gilbert.
- Patrick Newman of FanGraphs checks in on some former Major Leaguers who are now playing in Japan.
- Victor Martinez told MLB.com's Jason Beck that he has no hard feelings toward his former team, the Red Sox. "I have nothing but great things to say about the organization, the city, the fans," Martinez said. "It was one of my great experiences in my big league career." Tomorrow Martinez returns to Boston for the first time since signing with the Tigers.
- Paul Molitor told Jim Caple of ESPN.com that he grew up idolizing fellow Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew, who passed away today. For more reflections on the popular "lumberjack type" slugger, check out Caple's piece.
Heyman On Blue Jays, Royals, Bradley, Reyes
The trade that sent Vernon Wells from Toronto to Anaheim was the “Holy Grail” of deals for the Blue Jays and the best move of the winter, writes Jon Heyman of SI.com. Jose Bautista's five-year, $65MM contract places second on Heyman's list of teams' top offseason moves. As Heyman says, Bautista could have been in position to earn $100MM or more as a free agent after the season if the Blue Jays hadn't signed him long-term. Here are the rest of Heyman's rumors:
- Royals GM Dayton Moore is pleased with Jeff Francoeur's production so far and says the outfielder does a lot of things well, though he “doesn't have a knack for getting on base.” As I showed last week, the Royals are getting lots out of their free agent acquisitions so far in 2011.
- Can Milton Bradley find another job? Five MLB executives expressed at least strong doubt about Bradley's future job prospects in the Major Leagues. His fading offense and poor defense don't make up for the distractions he creates, which led one exec to predict that the outfielder's “career is over” now that Seattle designated him for assignment. Others expect Bradley to get one last chance.
- It's early, but Heyman suggests the White Sox, Tigers and A's look like possibilities for Carlos Beltran this summer. Beltran has a no-trade clause and is impressing scouts early on this season.
- The Red Sox and Blue Jays could be interested in catcher Jordan Weems, a high schooler who is moving up some draft boards.
- Heyman hears that it's “highly unlikely” that the Red Sox would be willing to meet the Mets' asking price for Jose Reyes this summer.
Brandon Inge On Tenure With Tigers
The longest-tenured Tiger doesn’t have any plans to suit up for anyone else. Brandon Inge says he admires Tigers greats Al Kaline and Alan Trammell and wants to follow their example and remain with one team for his entire career. That’s why he signed an extension with the Tigers last October, when he was weeks away from hitting the open market, where 29 other teams could bid for his services.
“I never really thought about going anywhere else,” Inge told MLBTR. “I know it was out there and I probably could have gone somewhere else, but there’s as good a chance as any of winning here with the amount of talent we have on this team. For me it was kind of a no-brainer. If they offered me a contract and it was fair, I was probably going to take it and they did.”
Inge, Detroit's second round pick in 1998, signed a two-year, $11.5MM contract in October. His offensive output – a .207/.262/.297 line with one homer and seven doubles – has been disappointing so far. Every month matters, but the Tigers knew what they were getting when they signed the 33-year-old after a decade in Detroit that included a 119-loss season (2003) and an American League Championship (2006).
“I guess loyalty is something big that I believe in and Detroit’s been very loyal to me for many years now, through thick and thin,” Inge said. “It’s one of those things where they’ve treated me with respect and I’ve treated them with respect as well.”
It’s an affiliation Inge would like to continue beyond 2013, the last year he’s under team control.
“Absolutely,” Inge said. “I’ll stay as long as they’ll let me.”
Avila’s Hot Start Gives Tigers Depth At Catcher
Whether you look at home runs (6) and RBI (23) or wins above replacement (1.0) and wOBA (.387) you’ll see Alex Avila’s name all over early season leaderboards. He has thrown out 12 of 33 would-be base stealers so far this year (36%) and the most recent of his six home runs came when he was navigating Justin Verlander through nine no-hit innings on Saturday.
“That was definitely nice. It’s the best of both worlds,” Avila told MLBTR this weekend. “I was joking with Justin that four of my six home runs are when he’s pitching. It seems that when he’s pitching, I’m going to hit one out.”
A 5th round pick in 2008, Avila is the son of Tigers assistant GM Al Avila. He hit .228/.316/.340 and threw out 32% of would-be base stealers as Detroit's primary catcher in 2010. This year, he’s feeling more comfortable as a hitter and as a defender.
“When you first come up, there’s always an adjustment period, a time when you’ve got to learn and figure out how to not only catch, but hit in the big leagues and the experience definitely helps,” Avila said. “You learn more about yourself and the league and make adjustments from there.”
The Tigers aren’t expecting Avila to continue at his current 28-homer pace, but the front office believes he can continue to be a valuable everyday catcher – and his father’s not the only one who thinks so.
“He has a nice left-handed swing,” GM Dave Dombrowski said. “We think he can hit.”
Avila’s new teammate, Victor Martinez, is one of baseball’s best hitting catchers, having reached the 20-homer plateau five times in the past seven seasons. Though the Tigers don’t plan on asking Martinez to catch more than a couple times per week, he has still helped Avila develop as a backstop.
“Absolutely,” Avila said. “Victor has helped me a ton with both aspects of my game. He’s such a positive person and generous with his time. He’s just fantastic.”
It's still too early to assume the 24-year-old Avila will continue hitting at this rate. But at this point, it appears that the Tigers have a pair of quality catchers thanks to his development.
Photo courtesy Icon SMI.
Verlander Talks Career Development, Goals
Justin Verlander has made 173 regular season starts, pitched in the World Series and appeared in a pair of All-Star Games. Yet he has never felt as sharp as he did yesterday, when he no-hit the Blue Jays.
“I will say this is probably the best I’ve felt on a mound in my professional career so far,” he said this morning.
That includes his 2007 no-hitter and the 15 other times he has fanned ten-plus batters in a single game. Verlander, the American League leader with 55 strikeouts, pitched to contact yesterday and finished the game with four strikeouts.
“That was my game plan from the start,” he said. “It was to get contact. I wanted to get balls in play. Especially once I realized my curveball wasn’t that great.”
The result: an efficient outing for the Tigers’ ace, who finished the day with a season-low 108 pitches. His fastball reached triple digits repeatedly and remained his go-to pitch. Early in the contest, Verlander concluded that his curve was mediocre and that his slider was better than usual, so he adjusted his game plan with catcher Alex Avila and decided to throw more sliders.
“I commented to Alex after the second or third inning, ‘it’s pretty good, right?’ He said ‘Yeah, it’s nasty. Keep throwing it 82-83 [mph]. It’s got a lot of bite to it.’ So I went with what he said and just kept throwing it,” Verlander explained.
Avila caught Armando Galarraga’s near-perfect game last summer, so he has danced with history before. He says guiding Verlander’s 100 mph fastball through nine no-hit frames may have looked harder than it was.
“Yesterday was just amazing,” Avila said. “It’s an easy day for a catcher and especially to do it on a turf field is pretty impressive also. For a ball not to get through is pretty amazing.”
Nolan Ryan (7), Sandy Koufax (4), Bob Feller (3) and Cy Young (3) are the only pitchers with three or more no-hitters since 1900. Now that Verlander has two no-hitters, he has his sights set on making more history. The right-hander jokes that he intends to match Ryan’s record of seven no-hitters, but he’s serious about his ambition and intends to continue building his resume. At 28, he believes he’s entering his prime.
“I really feel like I’m coming into myself as a pitcher,” he said. “And I definitely think there will be more opportunities. I think things have to go in your favor to throw a no-hitter. Things just have to work out right. I feel as long as I continue to mature as a pitcher and grow the way I think I am, there’ll definitely be some opportunities there. Whether it goes in my favor or not, I don’t know.”
Verlander started the no-hit bid slowly and methodically and says he impressed himself with his in-game approach. He stayed calm with help from his backstop, who says nerves weren’t an issue at all for the battery.
“No, no,” Avila said. “When your pitcher is that good, it makes it easy to call the pitches, because you know he’s going to make his pitches. It makes for one easy day for me.”
If anyone was nervous, it was Verlander’s family. They followed the perfect game bid and eventual no-hitter without being able to see what was happening.
“They were following on their phones, which had to be the most nerve-wracking thing. Can you imagine sitting there in the 8th inning, looking at a perfect game, 3-2 count, a bunch of foul balls,” Verlander said, alluding to his face-off with J.P. Arencibia, the Blue Jays’ lone baserunner.
If Verlander has it his way, Saturday won’t be the last time his flirtations with history make his fans, friends and family squirm.
Photo courtesy Icon SMI.
Tigers Notes: Leyland, Martinez, Boesch
Max Scherzer led the Tigers past the Yankees with eight innings of shutout ball yesterday, striking out nine along the way. It was the second consecutive win for the Tigers, who already trail the Indians by 7.0 games in the AL Central. Here's the latest out of Detroit…
- Manager Jim Leyland told Jon Paul Morosi of FOX Sports that he's relieved to have Victor Martinez back in the lineup, since the Tigers acquired him to hit behind Miguel Cabrera.
- In a piece for the Detroit Free Press, Jamie Samuelsen praises GM Dave Dombrowski for developing pitchers, but questions the Tigers' development of position players since 2002, when Dombrowski took over as GM.
- Brennan Boesch told Steve Kornacki of MLive.com that Hall of Famer Al Kaline passed along some valuable insight this week. Kaline, who made more than 7,000 outs in his big league career, told Boesch not to be afraid of failure at the plate.
Heyman On Pujols, Reyes, Feliz
SI's Jon Heyman leads his latest column with a discussion of Albert Pujols' impending free agency. Three GMs Heyman spoke to speculate that Pujols will re-sign with the Cardinals after the season. One significant factor could be the lack of involvement from the Yankees and Red Sox, big spenders who already have long-term solutions at first base. A Yankees person told Heyman there was "no chance" of a pursuit, while a Red Sox person agreed that his club is unlikely to get involved. Cardinals GM John Mozeliak didn't have much to say on the topic, other than, "Nothing's changed." On to Heyman's other notes…
- Mozeliak told Heyman the Cardinals "have a pretty good idea" of what they'll do when Adam Wainwright's two-year, $21MM club option comes up after the season. Heyman takes that to mean that the Cardinals will pick up the option, the expected course of action.
- Heyman feels that the Cubs and Orioles could be possibilities for free agent Kevin Millwood, though I heard yesterday that it's doubtful the Cubs get involved.
- One Giants person said, "There's nothing to it," regarding the recent Jose Reyes speculation. Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury News explained today that "If any conversations have happened at all, it’s nothing more than tire kicking." That makes sense, since trading season begins about two months from now. For a look at who the Giants might have to give up to get Reyes at that point, click here.
- Heyman finds the Rangers likely to move Neftali Feliz into the rotation next year, despite the righty's recent comments. Heyman feels that a strong free agent closer market is a factor.
- The Tigers have decided this will be Joel Zumaya's last year in Detroit, according to Heyman. That was written prior to today's report that Zumaya will have exploratory elbow surgery.
Tigers Outright Enrique Gonzalez
The Tigers outrighted righty Enrique Gonzalez to Triple-A Toledo, tweets MLB.com's Jason Beck. The move was done to create a 25-man roster spot for reliever Ryan Perry, who came off the DL today.
One side benefit: the Tigers' 40-man roster now stands at 39, so they can make a waiver claim without losing anyone.
AL Central Notes: Sizemore, Martinez, White Sox
Links from the AL Central, before the second-place Royals host the first-place Indians…
- Indians center fielder Grady Sizemore, who has returned from microfracture knee surgery, tells Yahoo’s Jeff Passan that he feels healthy again. Passan explains that there’s no guarantee Sizemore will have the same explosiveness he had early in his career, even though he has recovered from the procedure.
- The Tigers have called up Omir Santos from Triple-A, but have yet to announce a corresponding move, according to MLB.com's Jason Beck (on Twitter). The Tigers may have to cut someone if Victor Martinez doesn't need a DL stint.
- Scot Gregor of the Daily Herald looks at the struggling White Sox and points out that Mark Teahen has likely improved his trade value a little with his strong start. That doesn't make up for Chicago's five-game losing streak, however.
Rosenthal On Tigers, Reyes, Trout, White Sox
The Rockies, who are about to start a series with the defending World Champions, have baseball's best record so far this year. GM Dan O'Dowd told Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports that the team's resilience has contributed to its fast start. “We’re a confident, persistent club,” O’Dowd said. Troy Tulowitzki's hot streak hasn't hurt, either. Here are the rest of Rosenthal's rumors:
- One scout who has followed the Tigers this year predicts that they'll be looking for pitching help later this season. At some point minor leaguers Andy Oliver and Jacob Turner could help the Tigers, who are 12th in the AL with 77 runs allowed.
- A rival official says Mets GM Sandy Alderson will not offer Jose Reyes $100MM to stay in New York. It appears likely that Reyes will be on the trading block this summer, so MLBTR's Steve Adams recently outlined some possible destinations for him.
- Scouts are high on Angels prospect Mike Trout, praising his baserunning instincts, speed and power.
- Jason Marquis is a potential trade candidate, according to Rosenthal. The Nationals' right-hander has a 3.26 ERA in three starts so far this season.
- The White Sox don't plan to look outside of the organization for bullpen help at this point, despite their issues holding leads late in games.