Phil Watch: I Throw Up My Arms

If a sportswriter plans to write an evaluation of a shift in a team's roster towards pitching and defense, you'd think that the end product would be filled with correct facts and stuff of that nature, right?

Well...you know.  This is the Chicago Tribune.  Only yesterday, Vaughn McClure wrote an article asking, "Is coming of Jay Cutler to Chicago Bears heaven-sent?"  And Rick Morrissey (BRETOA3 participant) called the Jay Cutler signing a bad move.  So...

But it's refreshing to know that Phil still possesses the ability to write something even more stupid than those.  At least those guys were simply making judgments.  Wrong judgments but merely judgments all the same.

Phil, in evaluating the Tigers roster moves, makes wrong judgments AND gets basic facts wrong.

Let's get started.

This time last spring, when the buzz around baseball was the muscle in the Detroit Tigers' lineup, some of us rejected the hype.

Courtesy of South Side Sox

Phil rejected the hype with extreme prejudice!  Oh...wait.

You don't overcome a flawed, fragile pitching staff and second-division fielding with a collection of hitters. Teams almost never slug their way to titles. The Tigers have realized that, and that's why Gary Sheffield isn't with them anymore.

Thank you, Captain Obvious.  

And read that again.  Using that logic, teams should dump all of their aging sluggers.  Just write that Leyland and Sheffield didn't like each other, Sheffield wouldn't have shut up about playing the field so they dumped his mouthy, bad fielding ass.

The Tigers aren't competing for anything this year.  They're going young, trying different things, will be extraordinarily active at the deadline and that's why they dumped him.  Write that.

General manager Dave Dombrowski has given manager Jim Leyland a team that will do a much better job catching the ball...

Dombrowski started retooling the Tigers' defense with the signing of fielding-first shortstop Adam Everett and the trade for catcher Gerald Laird. Those moves set Brandon Inge at third base, where he played when Detroit went to the 2006 World Series, and moved the error-prone Carlos Guillen to left field.

Adam Everett?  Great fielder.  And one of the worst offensive players in baseball.  I mean, he's absolutely terrible. 

Laird?  He's the definition of average behind the plate while forcing two guys into the lineup when you include Inge on a regular basis who are well below-average hitters.

And Guillen in left?  Phil predicts that to go well? 

By writing off Sheffield as $38 million poorly spent, the Tigers create a revolving door at DH. Guillen may get most of the time there, but Magglio Ordonez also will fill that hole sometimes, with the consistently underrated Marcus Thames getting the outfield starts.

BAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!  Marcus Thames throws crap leather at a wildly prodigious rate.  Really.  How does a major league baseball player have a -29.3 UZR150?

If he qualifed, Thames would have been the second-worst fielder in all of baseball last year, behind only Brad Hawpe's superlatively crappy -47.9.  That's all fielders, folks.  Not just outfielders.  

Guillen and Thames at the corner outfield spots is Phil's answer to a better Tiger defense.

Jeff Larish, a left-handed hitter who has hit 67 homers in his three full minor-league seasons, takes Sheffield's spot on the roster. The corner infielder can start at first to give Cabrera a chance to get off his feet as the DH.

And struck out 318 times while hitting .255 in 'three full minor-league seasons.'

...Newcomers Edwin Jackson, who was Tampa Bay's No. 5 starter last season, and Rick Porcello, a 20-year-old who hasn't pitched above Class A, join new closer Brandon Lyon as the key guys.

My.  God.  Fernando Rodney was named the Opening Day closer five days ago.  Five!  Read the wire reports, Phil.  

Porcello might be the best pitching prospect to enter the majors since Mark Prior. He has a great collection of pitches, including a 12-to-6 curveball and a hard sinker, and he commands the strike zone.

Is that a joke?  I don't have the time to do all the lists but Porcello was the 7th-best pitching prospect in Baseball America's top 100 list THIS year.  7th-best.  And that leaves out every other year since 2002.  

Tone down the hyperbole.  He had a really good first year in the minors last year, had an admirable GO/FO rate but sure didn't miss a lot of bats.  

"I think he's ready," Dombrowski told the Detroit Free Press. "I think he'll do well. If he has some tough times — every pitcher does — I think he's mature enough to handle it. … He has a pitch that can help get him out of jams — a very, very nasty sinker."

What do you think he's going to say?  Dombrowski has no other options.

Porcello won't be alone in learning the ropes. He's joined by power reliever Ryan Perry, who was pitching for the University of Arizona at this time last season. Dombrowski cites "an electric arm" and mental toughness as reasons for throwing him into the fire alongside Porcello.

See above.  Perry has pitched 13.2 innings of professional baseball.

"Are we right?" Leyland asked. "The easiest thing is to say they're not ready. The way I look at it, they deserve to be on [the team]."

Unlike the addition of Sheffield after the World Series season, these are changes with shelf life.

See.  Not one mention of the tough road ahead this year.  It's a patchwork team getting oodles younger.  Also, not one mention of the Josh Anderson acquisition, a guy who plays great defense, has stolen 40 or more bases in each of the last five seasons and the reason they released Sheffield.

Let's end on the traditional note.

National.  Baseball.  Writer.