Tigers or Indians: Stronger Roster Going Forward?

I would be lying if I said that I saw what transpired in New York this weekend coming.  It’s hard to predict something that awful and impotent.  Unless of course you’re talking about this man.

But I did think there was a good chance that we’d enter our game this evening in a virtual lock with the Detroit Tigers.  We were going up against the best offense in baseball while the Tigers got to beat up on the Seattle Mariners.  It seemed that we’d likely lose our slight lead over Detroit that we had going into the Yankees series, shifting a new sort of focus on the competition between the Indians and Tigers—competition that seemed silly to discuss just four weeks ago.

Which, in some ways, is really exciting.  This series is hopefully going to be the beginning of a season-long back-and-forth between two good (yet flawed) teams.

In that vein, let’s go around the diamond and evaluate the teams against each other, position-by-position.

Starting Pitching – So far this season, the Tigers have a better team ERA than the Indians by a not insignificant margin—3.92 to 4.35.  They’ve also pitched about 20 more innings, but that’s exaggerated since they’ve made two more starts.  Without a doubt, the Tigers have an ace in Verlander, and as good as Justin Masterson has been, he’s not remotely in that league quite yet.  On the other hand, I think the Indians have significantly more depth.  I wrote last week that we have four starters who are all #2 or #3 options.  Detroit’s second best starter is Phil Coke.  That’s not so good.

Regardless, I think I’d give Detroit a slight edge here, if only because Verlander is really that good.

First Base – Miguel Cabrera is one of the best players in baseball.  Matt LaPorta is not.  Advantage Detroit.  In every imaginable way.

Second Base – Believe it or not, Detroit’s second base woes are actually worse than ours.  Detroit recently shipped off their only promising second base option to Oakland (Scott Sizemore, who hit a walk-off this weekend), whereas Cleveland recently brought Cord Phelps, who, so long as he continues to draw breath, should be a significant upgrade over Orlando Cabrera.  Ryan Raburn is batting .200, and sits atop the Tigers depth chart.

I’m more comfortable with our second base options, both today and going forward.  Advantage Cleveland.

Short Stop – Asdrubal Cabrera is one of the best players in baseball.  Jhonny Peralta…is having a nice season.  Fool me once, shame on…you….You can’t get fooled again.  Or something like that.  Advantage Cleveland.

Third Base – Some people have asked why I give Orlando Cabrera such a hard time, while giving Jack Hannahan a pass, despite a measly .323 OBP.  Well, Jack Hannahan’s defense is astonishingly good, which prevents runs, which helps us win.  That’s why he gets a pass for his paltry offense—from me at least.

Hannahan’s Detroit counter-point is a combination of Brandon Inge (DL) and Don Kelly.  Inge is defensively average at third, but Kelly grades out very well.   Kelly’s offensive numbers are pretty anemic, with a .247/.300/.333 line so far.  This also makes him the best third base option the Tigers have by quite a bit.  Inge is sporting a .279(!) OBP and a .286 slugging percentage.  Inge is one of the worst offensive players in baseball.  And he’s fairly old, meaning that his poor performance might be at least partially suggestive of an overall decline in skills.  Also, if I know Jim Leyland the way I think I do, Inge will be handed the third base job as soon as he’s off the DL.

Which means Cleveland wins here too.

Catcher – If it were as simple as Victor against Santana, this would be no contest.  But it’s not.  Victor is only catching about one out of every four games played this season, meaning that Alex Avila is Detroit’s primary catcher.  Unfortunately for the Indians, Alex Avila is having a much better season than Carlos Santana.  If you ask me who I want for the next five years, it’s Santana.  But who’s going to have the better season this year?  It’s probably Avila. Yikes.

So it goes.  Advantage Detroit.

Left Field – I’m calling Brantley our left fielder, because I think that’s where he’ll spend most of the rest of the season.  We’ll team him up against Brennan Boesch, who’s caught fire of late for the Tigers.  According to WAR, this race is really close, with the slight advantage going to Brantley.  I believe that Brennan Boesch is flukey and that Michael Brantley has a chance to be a really good player, so I’m not really an impartial judge here.

But you don’t pay your hard-earned imaginary blog money for impartiality.  I’m giving this to Brantley as well.  Though by all means, feel free to call this one a tie if you must.

Center Field – Make no mistake: Grady Sizemore is a better player than Austin Jackson.  At least he was.  I have no idea if Grady v2011 is healthy, and even if he is, I have no idea if he’s remotely the same player he used to be.  Terry Pluto made the argument this weekend that Grady has developed strictly into a power hitter (the evidence being that he has more doubles than singles and has a terrible K/BB ratio).  I don’t know if that’s true, but if he’s not taking walks, he’s not nearly as valuable as a hitter.  Right now his OBP is .326.  His career line is .362.  If this is the new Grady, I’m giving this (reluctantly and by default) to Austin Jackson and the Kitties.

Right Field – Shin-Soo Choo has been flat-out awful this season.  He has been twice as good as Magglio Ordonez (who, shockingly, is still listed as the primary right fielder on the team’s website).  This is not an exaggeration.  For some reason, the Tigers have given Magglio Ordonez over 100 plate appearances this season.  He has repaid them with a .172/.226/.232 line.  This is a worse batting line than the Houston Astros pitching staff has.  I’m not kidding.

Hold your nose and give it to Choo.

DH – V-Mart > Hafner.  We already knew that though, right?  Advantage Detroit.

Bullpen – This is tricky, since the sample sizes are still so small.  But Cleveland’s bullpen has a 3.48 ERA compared to 4.85.  Cleveland has the better FIP, walk-rate, home run rate, strand-rate (LOB%) and WAR.  The Tigers relievers have a better strikeout rate and more saves.  Cleveland does not have a player who jeopardized his own career and historic fastball velocity playing Guitar Hero.  We win.

Bench – This is where small payroll teams really have some trouble.  Not only can we not afford to pay decent players to sit on our bench, but those players we do pay have to get playing time to justify their contracts (I disagree with this philosophy, by the way, but it’s been pretty apparent here over the last few years).  We’re also not so fond—for good reason—of using the bench spots on young, up-and-coming players.  Which means that right now the Indians bench consists of: Orlando Cabrera, Austin Kearns, Travis Buck, Lou Marson, and Adam Everett.  There is really not a bigger collection of awful anywhere in the whole world.  I’m not even going to check their roster.  Detroit wins.

Manager – Detroit’s skipper has the rings, the emphysema, and the get-off-my-lawn scowl.  Manny has his stogies, fedoras, and a lot more losses than wins.  I would never want my team to employ Jim Leyland, but even still, it’s hard to argue that Acta’s career is remotely comparable in any way.  We’ll give this one to Detroit, with the caveat that if the Indians hire Jim Leyland, I will emigrate to Botswana in protest, where I will raise goats and learn to appreciate cricket.

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Like I argued last week, I think these teams are not so different.  When the Indians got off to a great start, no one thought they were actually that good.  By the same token, the Tigers have now won for a solid month on the backs of Austin Jackson and Brennan Boesch, who are bound to come back to earth as well.

Maybe I’m wearing rose-colored glasses here, but I’m not intimidated by the Tigers.  Not remotely.

Let’s hope our players feel the same way.