Fire Gardy

In 2003, the Tigers lost 119 games. They followed that campaign up with a couple more 90 loss seasons, before winning 95 games in 2006. If you’ll recall, everyone took that success to mean that the Tigers had “arrived,” and would be the powerhouse of the AL Central for years to come. They had a well-capitalized owner, a large market, a GM with a track record of success, a famous new manager who’d done good things in the past, a young and successful rotation, and a lineup full of All Stars all signed to contracts that would keep them around for years.

Meanwhile, the Twins won the division that year, like they’ve been doing a lot lately. And everyone called it a fluke that simply shouldn’t have happened.

Since then, things haven’t gone all that well in Detroit. Just recently they put their $21M pitcher, Dontrell Willis, onto the disabled list for “anxiety,” they released DH Gary Sheffield despite owing him $14M for 2009 (apparently realizing that all those All Stars they have signed to contracts all play the same position), and they’ve announced that 20 year old Rick Porcello will open the year in their starting rotation. He hasn’t played above A ball in his professional career, where he struck out 72 hitters in 125 innings. (Not good.)

Detroit’s payroll has Dave Cameron swooning, apparently, as he’s come out saying this move could work because you don’t need strikeouts to be a successful pitcher.

He showed excellent command of his sinker [2.38 BB/9], which allowed him to succeed without racking up a lot of strikeouts. The combination of no walks and lots of ground balls is a recipe for success in the majors. It might not be as flashy as racking up huge strikeout totals, but it’s still a good combination. If Porcello can continue to command his sinker, he has the tools to pitch in the major leagues right now.

2.38 BB/9 is decent command, not “excellent,” especially when it leads to a K/BB ratio of under 2. A walk rate like that is good if you’re K/9 is over 9 … not under 6. Of course, the rules are different if the analyst likes your team.

It’s certainly possible that Porcello will struggle, as a lot of 20-year-old pitchers do when thrust into the majors.

Off the cuff, it seems likely that a lot of 20 year old pitchers would struggle when they’re thrust into the majors. That’s, you know, why we have the minors. But instead of just taking the word of one of these crazy internet bloggers, we need to look into this a little more. By going to a crazy mainstream blogger! Here’s Rob Neyer’s take:

For whatever reasons, not a single 20-year-old started more than 20 games or pitched more than 99 innings in the 1990s. In the current decade, though, six pitchers have done both: Rick Ankiel (2000), CC Sabathia (2001), Jeremy Bonderman (2003), Zack Greinke (2004), Felix Hernandez (2006) and Clayton Kershaw (2008). And with the exception of Bonderman (6-19, 5.56 ERA) all of them pitched (at least) reasonably well in those seasons.

So 20 year old pitchers don’t actually pitch very often in the majors. When they do, it’s because they dominated the minors at a young age, are very talented, and they tend to do well in the majors, even at age 20. Promising, right?

Except that the one example of failure was, in fact, these very Detroit Tigers. What did all the guys who had success have in common? They struck people out like crazy in the minor leagues. Unlike Porcello.

Leyland’s going to have his work cut out for him, attempting to keep Porcello from ever facing the White Sox, Indians, and Twins, all of whom are simply going to tee off on this guy. Of course, so is the rest of the American League. This is another bad decision in a long series of bad decisions the Tigers have made since they were good back in the 1980s.

Remember when the Tigers had “arrived” and the Twins were a fluke? Does it still look like the Tigers weren’t a fluke in 2006?

And another thing. About Dombrowski’s “successful” track record. This marks the second time in his career that he’s come into a new situation, spent a bunch of the owner’s money to put together a good team that year, and then the team immediately began a long and crappy dry spell during which they were no good. So look for GMs like Dombrowski if you want to take one shot at winning 90 games and going to the playoffs once every 5-10 years. And apparently that’s considered a “successful” track record.

All in all, I think we’re in a better place.

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