Detroit Tigers vs. Oakland A's - June 3, 2015
Have a question about Nick Castellanos? You came to the right place. So did you and you and you and you.
(Mike Mulholland | MLive.com)
Pretend I gave you $100.
I said pretend. It's not going to happen.
But pretend I gave you $100 and said you had to bet it on either the Detroit Tigers or the Cleveland Indians to win the American League Central Division. Which team would you put your money on?
The Tigers are 2 1/2 games ahead of the Indians. The Tigers have beaten the Indians seven times in nine meetings this season and have 10 games remaining against them. The odds are in Detroit's favor, right?
Not according to Fangraphs.com.
Fangraphs updates its "cool standings" feature daily and runs computer simulations to project the playoff chances of all the major league teams.
Through Wednesday's games, the website gave the Tigers a 20.4 percent chance to win the Central Division and a 34.9 percent chance to make the playoffs. Those numbers were a bit short of those for the Indians. Fangraphs had them at 26.9 percent to win the division and 42.9 percent to make the playoffs.
Of course, both of those teams were well behind the Kansas City Royals, who were at 41.9 percent and 59.2 percent.
The Tigers and Indians start a three-game series Monday in Cleveland. That means Fangraphs numbers might be very different a week from today depending on how that series turns out.
On with Twitter Talk!
It is not the number of games out of first place that matter as much as it is the number of games they would have to be out of the final wild-card spot. With that in mind, I see only a minuscule chance the Tigers could be sellers at the trade deadline.
Let's pretend the Tigers are, I don't know, eight games out of first place on July 24. That would leave them in a pretty sizable hole in the division race. But it would likely leave them no more than three or four games out of a wild-card spot. Would they sell and retool at that point or try to make a move to improve and go for it? The point of the season is to win the World Series. Any team that makes the playoffs has a shot. Would the Tigers pass at a chance at that opportunity?
I don't see the Tigers selling unless they are absolutely buried in the race for a wild-card spot. Due to parity in the American League, I don't see any way the Tigers won't be in the wild-card race at the end of July. So I don't see them selling.
The Tigers have three legitimate options for third base who would represent an improvement defensively over Nick Castellanos: Andrew Romine, Josh Wilson and Dixon Machado. But I don't see any of those three hitting the ball much better on an everyday basis than Castellanos has this season, even though he has struggled terribly.
The Tigers believe Castellanos will be the answer at third base for a long time. He is under team control for several years and doesn't make that much money. He will be given every opportunity to succeed.
With that said, could they send him to Triple-A Toledo? Sure. But I don't think they are close to that point yet. And if they did send him out, it would likely be for a very short time.
Don't see it happening. Why trade a young, affordable player when his stock isn't high?
Third verse, same as the first. I don't see the Tigers making a serious bid to replace him this season. Castellanos is struggling. But I don't see him going anywhere soon.
Castellanos heads to the bullpen. The Tigers utilize a Joba Chamberlain-Tom Gorzelanny platoon at third base.
Solves two problems at once. Thanks for stopping by.
Will Victor Martinez be a major contributor? That's tough to say. But the Tigers absolutely need him to be.
I would have expected Martinez's numbers to fall off this season even if he hadn't been hurt in the offseason. It would be a lot to expect him to replicate last year's numbers even if he were healthy all season.
But the Tigers need way more out of Martinez than they got before he went on the disabled list. They definitely need him to be closer to the 2014 version than the 2015 version. They also need him to stay healthy all season. There are clearly no guarantees that that will happen.
Barring a total collapse or an unforeseen clubhouse revolt, I just don't see it happening during the season.
After the season? Anything can happen. It also might depend on whether Dave Dombrowski's contract is extended and, if not, who the new general manager is.
There are plenty of cool ones. It's hard to narrow it down to just one. But I really like PNC Park in Pittsburgh and AT&T Park in San Francisco.
If you are a baseball fan who travels to out-of-town games and you haven't been to Pittsburgh, do yourself a favor and go. It's a reasonable drive from much of Michigan.
Alex Avila got into a catcher's crouch and threw to all bases Thursday, along with some other work. He is scheduled to start catching bullpen sessions Friday and will catch multiple sessions before starting a rehabilitation assignment.
Avila believes he will be ready to return to the Tigers lineup well ahead of the All-Star break.
I wrote on this quite extensively recently. Given those two choices, I guess I would have to say "somewhere in between."
Yes. In fact, you should start a Go Fund Me campaign that says Dave Dombrowski will grow a goatee if you raise a million dollars. Then raise a million dollars. Then tell Dave Dombrowski about it. At that point, he'd probably play along for the good of the cause. Then we'd get to see him with a goatee. That would be awesome.
Not sure about the legalities of all of this though. You might want to look into it. I'm not a lawyer. Some say I'm not much of a sports writer.
After checking in on the Violent Femmes in Twitter Talk last week, I wanted to see how the Dead Milkmen were doing lately. Here you go:
See you next week.
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