Definitely Interesting, Possibly Helpful Team Preview: Detroit Tigers
Baseball is almost here! With an eventful offseason in the books and spring training underway, it’s time to preview all 30 teams in Major League Baseball. With the help of RotoGrinders PlateIQ Premium, DFS ownership trends from Chris Gimino, and our resident Premium MLB guru Dave Potts (aka CheeseIsGood), we take a look at some information that is definitely interesting and possibly helpful for the upcoming 2019 MLB season.
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Detroit Tigers Preseason Overview
— Vegas Win Total O/U: 69.5
— World Series Odds: 1000/1
— Key Additions: Gordon Beckham, Jordy Mercer, Tyson Ross, Matt Moore
Other Noteworthy Players for DFS: John Hicks, Dustin Peterson, Ronny Rodriguez, Josh Harrison (signed 2/24)
— Outlook: A 70-win team is typically full of holes, and that’s what we’ve got here with the Tigers. Seven high-strikeout hitters. Six hitters who averaged .250 or worse. Five hitters under a 100 WRC+. Those are all things you might call holes within your lineup.
Looking at the core, Miguel Cabrera is a question mark coming off a biceps injury that sidelined him for the back half of the season after a back injury slowed him down in the front half. Nick Castellanos and Niko Goodrum both have some contact quality skills, but are among the aforementioned high-strikeout hitters.
Youngsters Jeimer Candelario (rank 241/313 xWOBA) and Christin Stewart (.339 xWOBA in 72 PA) will likely be hitting near the top of the order, and didn’t jump off the stat sheet at their respective levels of 2018 experience with the Tigers. Even the newly added Josh Harrison carries a bottom 6% ranking in average exit velocity (per Baseball Savant ). This is a lineup worthy of their 1000/1 World Series odds.
If you thought the starting lineup was bad…hold my beer. The pitching staff is possibly worse, particularly if we are talking about their DFS viability. All five starters had a PlateIQ strikeout rating below 45 in 2018 (57 is the median). The red conditional formatting in the table above speaks for itself when it comes to how PlateIQ rated these pitchers in the other categories.
Matt Boyd is a solid pitcher, but the trio of Jordan Zimmermann, Tyson Ross, and Matt Moore fall into the attackable category. We’re going to need exceptionally low pricing on these guys before we even consider rostering them, and the more likely scenario is that we stack against them.
— DFS Ownership Trends: Matt Moore was the seventh-most popular pitcher to roster against in 2018, and remains in the American League where the DH can rain blows upon him. Attack! The Tigers hitters were the 27th-most popular to roster, and the return of Miggy isn’t likely to increase this by much. It’s hard to imagine much of a jump in popularity.
Definitely Interesting, Possibly Helpful Notes
— Matthew Boyd was the only Tigers starter last season to post a strikeout rate above league average, and only by the slightest of margins (league average was 22.3%; Boyd was at 22.4%). Boyd’s strikeout rate jumped in 2018 thanks in large part to a dominant slider that hitters managed to slash just .172/.232/.284 against. He relied on the pitch 31.1% of the time, sixth-most in MLB. Here’s hoping he keeps that usage up so we don’t have to ignore the entire Tigers staff in 2019.
— Nicholas Castellanos has slugged .490 or better in each of the past seasons, and that’s a feat that is rarer than one might imagine. The only others to do it have been Justin Turner, Mike Trout, J.D. Martinez, Freddie Freeman, Khris Davis, Nelson Cruz, Charlie Blackmon, and Nolan Arenado. He’ll likely get there again in 2019, or at least come close. There ya go: an unexciting stat for a guy who is a rather unexciting on one of the most unexciting teams in baseball. Perhaps Castellanos he’ll be more exciting wearing a different uniform after the trade deadline.