Detroit Tigers Clips Friday, November 18, 2016
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Detroit Tigers Clips Friday, November 18, 2016 Detroit Free Press Detroit Tigers unveil 2017 spring training schedule (Fenech) The Detroit News McCosky: Cy Young vote exposes glitch in balloting system (McCosky) Tigers great Trammell to lead Wayne State camp (McCosky) Tigers announce 2017 spring training schedule (Staff) MLive.com Tigers' Miguel Cabrera finishes 9th in AL MVP voting (Woodbery) Tigers open 2017 spring training with exhibition on Feb. 23 (Woodbery) MLB.com Tigers to unveil new spring park Feb. 23 (Beck) The Lakeland Ledger The Tigers will open the spring with an exhibition against Florida Southern on Feb. 23 before hosting the Orioles on Feb. 24 at 1:05 p.m. (Fredericksen) WXYZ.com Detroit Tigers announce spring training schedule, renovations to TigerTown (White) Daily Transactions 1 Detroit Tigers unveil 2017 spring training schedule November 18, 2016 By Anthony Fenech/ Detroit Free Press It will be a new look for the Detroit Tigers in the spring. From the clubhouse to the front office to the name on the stadium and perhaps, the players on the field, changes are coming to Lakeland, Fla. The Tigers will open next season’s spring training slate on Feb. 23 at the newly renovated Publix Field at Joker Marchant Stadium with an exhibition game against Florida Southern College, according to the team. The team will open Grapefruit League play against the Orioles on Feb. 24. The team released its 36-game spring training schedule today. The final game of the spring is scheduled for April 1 against the Marlins in Jupiter, Fla. This season will be the organization’s 81st at TigerTown in Lakeland, which is the longest-standing relationship between a major league team and spring training host city. It will be the first with $40 million ballpark enhancements, which began late last winter. The enhancements – jointly funded by the Tigers, state of Florida, city of Lakeland and Polk County – include brand-new front offices, clubhouses and weight room. The team released updated renderings of the project. “We’re all very excited about the major renovations in Lakeland that look spectacular,” general manager Al Avila said in a release. “TigerTown is being transformed into a world-class complex second to none in Major League Baseball. It’s going to make a quite a difference for the Detroit Tigers players and staff, and for the fans, who will appreciate the enhancements.” For the fans, a new year-round restaurant will be built. New stadium amenities include increased shade seating, more restrooms and concessions and air-conditioned availability. The construction includes a new LED video scoreboard, standing 26 feet tall and 46 feet wide. Tigers pitchers and catchers are likely to report late in the second week of February. Because of the 2017 World Baseball Classic, spring training is extended one week longer. 2 McCosky: Cy Young vote exposes glitch in balloting system November 18, 2016 By Chris McCosky/ The Detroit News Detroit – Can we clear something up here, please? That Rick Porcello edged out Justin Verlander for the American League Cy Young Award Wednesday, despite having six fewer first-place votes, isn’t an indictment of the Baseball Writers Association of America. Yes, two Tampa-based writers left Verlander off their ballots completely, which is indefensible. But, they would have had to put Verlander third or better on their ballots to swing the election. The problem is the point system. We are tasked with selecting and ranking the top five pitchers and points are assigned from first to fifth – 7, 4, 3, 2, 1. As we saw Wednesday, it creates a situation where first-place votes get dispersed and effectively watered down in the final count. Verlander got first-place votes from 14 of the 30 voters. Porcello got eight. That number was matched by the combined first-place votes for Zach Britton (five) and Corey Kluber (three). Porcello’s 18 second-place votes earned him a pivotal 72 points. The point system will likely be a topic of conversation at our next BBWAA meeting, which will be during the Winter Meetings next month. Perhaps more weight should be given to first-place votes. Worthy finalists That discussion should not in any way detract from or disparage Porcello’s accomplishment. We can split analytical and statistical hairs all we want, but when you get down to it, all three finalists – Porcello, Verlander and Kluber – were worthy of the award. Porcello was 13-1 with a 2.97 ERA in 16 starts at Fenway Park, for crying out loud. That is remarkable. I was one of the 30 voters for this award and I can tell you, it was an arduous task. Solid cases could be made not only for the three finalists, but also for the White Sox’s Chris Sale, the Blue Jays’ J.A. Happ and Britton, the Orioles’ closer who was nearly perfect in 2016. I made my first statistical spreadsheet at the beginning of September. The categories I used were WAR, pitchers’ WAR, ERA, park-adjusted ERA, WHIP, strikeouts, walks-to-strikeouts, innings pitched, opponents’ average and OPS. After updating it throughout the month and, for the last time on the Monday after the end of the regular season, Verlander was at the top of most of the categories, and yet, on the first ballot I sent in I had Porcello first and Verlander second. Why? Because I was worried about being thought of as a homer. But the more I thought about it, the more I crunched the numbers, the more I thought about what I watched all season, I knew the honest pick, the correct pick for me was Verlander. And the only reason I listed Porcello first was because I didn’t want to be viewed as a homer. That’s wrong and I couldn’t live with it. Fortunately, BBWAA secretary-treasurer Jack O’Connell ripped up my original ballot and let me file a revised one on that same Monday. Here’s how I voted: 1. Verlander, 2. Porcello, 3. Kluber, 4. Sale, 5. Britton. Britton debate The other lingering Cy Young debate, of course, will be Britton not being among the top three. I won’t apologize for giving Britton a fifth-place vote. He was brilliant, no question. Near perfect. But comparing a closer to a starting pitcher is apples to oranges. There is a reason relief pitchers have their own award (though it is not BBWAA-administered). Britton pitched 67 innings last season. In most, he came into a clean ninth inning. He faced a total of 254 batters, and not once did he have to retire the same hitter more than once in an outing. Compare that to Verlander, who pitched 227.2 innings, faced 903 batters and in the vast majority of his starts faced the middle of the opponent’s order at least three times. The perception was that the voters ignored Britton’s great season. That’s not true at all. He got five first-place votes, was on 24 of the 30 ballots and finished fourth with 72 points. To me, that’s a fair acknowledgement of his season, relative to his role. 3 Tigers great Trammell to lead Wayne State camp November 18, 2016 By Chris McCosky/ The Detroit News Detroit — Something lights up inside Alan Trammell when he’s on a baseball field. It doesn’t matter where or when. Could be during an early spring training workout in Lakeland. Could be throwing early batting practice or hitting fungos hours before a regular season game in April. Or, it could be at an indoor workout facility on the campus of Wayne State University, showing a high school kid the proper footwork at shortstop. The boundless energy and enthusiasm he played with his entire 20-year career with the Tigers never abates. You would never know he was 58-years-old. “It is extraordinary to witness,” said Ryan Kelley, Wayne State’s baseball coach. “Someone of his caliber. You think about the things he’s done professionally as a player and a coach. To see him working on ground balls with kids of all ages, it’s impressive.” This weekend, Saturday and Sunday, Trammell and former Tigers teammate Lance Parrish will host their seventh annual baseball camp at Wayne State, inside the Matthaei and Multipurpose Indoor Facility. On Saturday, with the help of Kelley’s players, Trammell and Parrish will conduct a fundamentals camp in the morning from 9 a.m. until noon for kids Grades two through 12. Then from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m., they will conduct an advanced development camp (grades eight through 12). The Sunday session is new and only for the advanced group. Trammell will run a shortstop-specific camp in the morning and Parrish will run a catchers’ clinic in the afternoon. Imagine, three hours of specialized instruction from a pair of former perennial big league all-stars. “Most guys of Trammell’s stature, they might show up and take a picture, sign autographs and hang around for a bit,” Kelley said. “But he’s there for every second of the camp. He tries to work with every kid possible. There will be 100 kids at the first session on Saturday. “He really enjoys it. He’s passionate about teaching the game and he’s passionate about being back in Detroit and helping kids in our area. It’s pretty cool to witness.” It’s the same for Parrish. “Watching the two of them, it kind of identifies a little bit about why they won it in 1984 and all those good runs they had in Detroit,” Kelley said.