Former Tiger Brian Powell Dead At 35

I say this with no mal-intent, but many Tigers fans may have just said "who?". Not me. I don't remember Powell from his playing days, per se, but one thing immediately stuck out in my mind.

1995 Topps #244 Brian Powell RC

The Free Press has some details on Powell's journeyman career, and his constant battle to make the major leagues and stick there. He enjoyed two stints with the Tigers, in 1998 and 2002, part of his 59 total major league games. Yet while he may be forgotten by many Tigers fans, at least one Tigers collector remembers him. This was one of the cards that I needed to track down and trade for to complete my 1995 set, and I did so last year. Trivial perhaps, but baseball cards may be bigger than most people realize. If nothing else, they create a lasting record, history and memory of a player, no matter how big or how small. Through baseball cards, you get 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" inches of fame, the same as the Hall of Famers and All Stars before you.

I offer a brief and insufficient eulogy from the back of Powell's rookie card:

The Tigers' earnest effort to rebuild their farm system through pitching yielded the polished Powell in the draft's second round. Brian once struck out 20 hitters in a high school game and was third-round pick of the Angels in 1992. He chose, however, to attend Georgia, where he led the SEC in whiffs in '95.

The Grand Scheme of Things

Your word of the day is “Microcosm”

No not just because I said it Spot Starters is on it too. Even Micheal Rosenberg gets in on the fun on virtual newsprint:

This game was a microcosm of the 2009 season. The Tigers led early and looked like they would to win the division. Then the Twins came all the way back and they looked like they would win the division. Then the Tigers tied it, and it seemed like everybody or nobody would win the division. It was that wild.

Yes. It was that wild, although if this is possible, Rosenberg takes the “Macro” view of microcosm. He goes with the Tigers "have it, lose it, tie it" theme, and doesn’t look at the fact that everything good and bad that the Tigers have done throughout the season happened in this one game. Now excuse me while I punish myself for thinking along the same lines as Rosenberg.

Curse?
Curse.


Quick, Give Me Back My Ballot!
Look me in the eye and tell me that Rick Porcello isn’t the AL Rookie of the Year. Yeah, yeah yeah Elvis Andrus is everybody’s favorite. And if there is going to pick a pitcher, Andrew Bailey or Brett Anderson are popular choices, but Jesus Christ:

Here are the lines for two of the top rookie of the year candidates:
Pitcher A: 30 GS, 180.2 IP, 6.2 K/9, 2.94 BB/9, 4.07 FIP, 4.6 tRA, 3.94 ERA, 13 wins
Pitcher B: 30 GS, 165 IP, 4.42 K/9, 2.73 BB/9, 4.81 FIP, 5.39 tRA, 4.04, 14 wins
Even if you use ERA and wins, it appears Pitcher A had the better season. Factor in the advanced metrics and it’s a pretty open and shut case, right? Wrong. As it turns out Pitcher B is getting all sorts of backing because of his age. He is 20-year-old Rick Porcello of the Detroit Tigers meanwhile Pitcher A is 26-year-old Jeff Niemann of the Tampa Bay Rays. Both are textbook rookies, yet one gets the hype while the other is getting the shaft. (Note: You can make the case neither is the rightful American League Rookie of the Year too, but this exercise imagines that Elvis Andrus doesn’t exist.)

Porcello was 5-2 with a 3.19 ERA since August 1st. That was before last night’s game. I understand that Rookie of the Year is not the “Most Valuable Rookie” award and I respect that Porcello’s age shouldn’t be a factor (but come on, he’s still a month away from 21!), but above all else, there is no other player in the American League who looked a serious pennant race in the face and then played his best baseball of the year. He should, but probably won’t, win the award.

Let’s Go…Yankees?
Ooh, boy people are going to disagree with me on this. I’m done with the Twins. In years past, I’ve rooted for them to do well. I like the style of ball they play. I like their scrappiness, and they way they manufacture runs and Ron Gardenhire and all of those things that everybody likes about the Twins. I have had nothing but respect for them, and still feel that way. But this was the final nail. The Twins, once the fellow AL Central universally disrespected compatriot, have caused me frequent and unrelenting pain over the last few years. I no longer wish them well. I want them to be systematically demolished by a Yankee Death Star.

Oh, baseball card blog
Baseball and baseball cards are inextricably intertwined, and with the season now over for my Tigers, there will probably be some housekeeping initiatives etc. One of these things will be to keep up with the Checklists. I’ve got a relatively comprehensive 2009 Detroit Tigers Checklist in the sidebar. Or here. I will be updating it as long as cards are still being released. Then, I will attempt to simultaneously work backwards while still keeping up on new releases.

Also, the Curtis Granderson Ultimate Checklists will continue, just as they did last year, looking at Granderson in each of the 2009 releases. A “best of “will probably follow. Ooh, and I got second place in fantasy baseball, which means that I have a hobby box coming my way. I need you to help me to decide what to get. All that, new cards in the mail and more as Grand Cards begins to wrap up its full year of operation. Thanks for sticking with me.

Microcosm In The Metrodome

If you didn't watch a Tigers game all year, you just saw the entire season rolled up into one. This game prominently featured everything good and bad that the Tigers have done all year.

They got the clutch hit, but left millions of runs on the basepaths.
They made the huge defensive play, but made crucial defensive mistakes.
They got the big out, and then gave in to the lesser hitter.

For everything that the Tigers did well, there was something that made Tigers fans collectively facepalm, or die, just a little, or ask the bartender for another or, etc.

Such was the case all season. They didn't all happen at once, but any decent sample size would show you: this was a team with all of the pieces, but they just couldn't get them to move together. The 2009 Tigers were not great, but they were good. They were good enough to win the Central. They were good enough to make a run in the playoffs. They wouldn't, of course, because they weren't that good of a team. The Tigers are better than the Twins. I feel more confident saying that after tonight than I have all month, but the Twins are the better team. Their whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The Tigers were about equal, and often played like less.

I'm not going to excuse the Tigers for what happened tonight, or this season, nor am I going to lay particular blame on them. It just wasn't in the cards. You can't create, and then blow, that many opportunities and argue anything but the fact that Angry Michigan Sports Hating God emphatically said "NO" to this year's team, and then made a shallow fly disappear and roll to the wall for a triple, before giving a routine groundball an invisible jetpack to get through the middle.

That said, the Metrodome claimed another victim tonight, in what was perhaps its shining moment. The secret is that the building's steel was forged by Lucifer himself and the dome is inflated by the last breaths of dying puppies and kittens. So, yes. The Metrodome wins again, and the Twins live to play another day.

This team was frustrating, exhilarating, exhausting, exciting, maddening and entertaining all season long. Why wouldn't it extend into game 163? So for me, despite all of the disappointment I feel, I will be able to make peace with this season. They did the one thing that we all really wanted, deep down. They gave us a full season of baseball, and made it exciting until the final day of the season, and then some. We would be so lucky to have that same luxury every year.

I spoke to my dad right after the game and he said that this felt just like 1967 to him, when the Tigers had two double headers on the last two days of the season and split both with the Angels, ceding the pennant to the Red Sox/Twins winner. As he told me the story, I had just one thought.

After 1967 came 1968.



Could 1968


Be Replicated in 2010?


We'll just have to wait and see.

The Team

This is all I'm going to say about recent...unpleasantness in Tiger Town.

"We want the championship and we're gonna win it as a Team. They can throw out all those great pitchers, and great bats, and great defensive players, throughout the country and in this league, but there's gonna be one Team that's gonna play solely as a Team. No man is more important than The Team. No coach is more important than The Team.

The Team,



The Team,



The Team,



and if we think that way, all of us, everything that you do, you take into consideration what effect does it have on my Team? Because you can go anywhere you want to play after you leave here. You will never play for a Team again. You'll play for a contract. You'll play for this. You'll play for that. You'll play for everything except the team, and think what a great thing it is to be a part of something that is, The Team. We're gonna win it. We're gonna win the championship again because we're gonna play as team, better than anybody else in this league, we're gonna play together as a team. We're gonna believe in each other, we're not gonna criticize each other, we're not gonna talk about each other, we're gonna encourage each other. And when we play as a team, when the old season is over, you and I know, it's gonna be Detroit Baseball again, Detroit Tigers Baseball."

Adapted from Bo Schembechler, 1969

Granderson Saves The Season, And Other Pre-postseason Thoughts

Granderson Saves The Season (Photo by John Greilick. Detroit News)

Last week I emphatically stated that “it all comes down to this.” Turns out, it actually all comes down to this: a one game playoff tomorrow afternoon to determine who will win the AL Central. Tigers fans are experiencing a range of emotions, from blaming a “Leyland led collapse” to just being thankful that meaningful baseball is still in Detroit. The rest of us are in the middle, although I’m more slanted towards the latter than the former. If nothing else, this last week has certainly been thought provoking.

Thoughts

The national spotlight has shone on the Twins and Tigers for the last week. I hate it when this happens. When outside media types (and fan-types) start to analyze the teams and give their predictions I am often shocked by how out of touch they are. The prevailing story is that the Tigers collapsed down the stretch and choked away a stranglehold on the division. I”ll leave it to Mack Avenue Tigers to shoot that one down. Here is what he said a month ago:

“But, I have to say, I don't really think the Tigers have a late-season choke in them. So, unless something bad happens, I think it's easy to imagine them being able to go 16-16 the rest of the way… Most likely? I'm going to put the Tigers at 17-15 from here on. That gives them an 86-76 record.”

Guess where the Tigers finished? 86-76. In other words, they have played exactly how one might expect them to play down the stretch. This whole “blew a 7 game lead” thing is overblown. Their seven game lead was an anomaly that matched up with some Tigers wins and Twins losses that happened to coordinate. It was certainly not representative of a division stranglehold. Everybody knew that this was going to come down to the wire. The Tigers have been nothing if not consistent. They are not a great team. They are a good team that can get hot and cold and have not deviated far from their mean all season. What you see is what you get—the Tigers stayed consistent down the stretch, posting a winning record for the last month and going 3-4 in their seven games against the Twins.

Meanwhile, the Twins outperformed their averages by such staggering amounts that it is not even funny. Mack Avenue Tigers again:

Since then, the team went 16-4. This is a team that was under-.500 before it started its run. Who could possibly have expected it to play .800 down the stretch and catch the Tigers on the penultimate day of the regular season?

16-4 in their last 20 games! Three of those losses were against the Tigers. The other was against Zach Greinke.

That’s not to say that the Tigers haven’t choked a little bit. Certainly something was caught in their throat this weekend, as they lost two of three to the White Sox—only scoring ONE run in the first two games. That sounds like a choke. But again, sample size. The Tigers performed exactly as one would expect for the last month. It just so happens that the Twins decided to play far beyond anybody’s wildest dreams.

Let’s take a trip back to my very own season preview:

Prediction: The Tigers will be in the hunt for a playoff spot up until the final week, at which point, the hot team will win out. This team has tremendous potential, it's just a matter of putting it all together.

The Twins got hot. Now both teams live to play one more game.

Thought Bullets

• F*** Ozzie Guillen. Last Wednesday, Ozzie scratched Jake Peavy so that he could start against the Tigers on Friday. Screw you man. Apologists will say that he was just doing what he could to win. Bull. He wanted to do his best to try and beat the Tigers. That is not your job. Your job is to help the White Sox win games. Sox lost the Wednesday (scratched) game and won Friday, a net zero for the White Sox, but killing the Tigers in the process.
  
• Granderson saved the season. Curtis has had a tough year. Inconsistent offensively, personal bests alongside personal worsts. Recent miscues in the outfield. On Sunday, with the season on the line, he made up for it. If you haven’t yet, go watch the video right now.
  
• Where has Miguel Cabrera gone? He went 0-11 in the White Sox Series and is 1-15 in the last four games. Maybe it was just an ill-timed slump. Or maybe it was because he was out too late drinking with the White Sox and then got beaten up by his wife. ARRRGGH
  
• I took solace in the fact that if the Tigers were going to get swept by the White Sox then they wouldn’t have deserved the playoffs. It was oddly comforting. At this point, it feels like the Twins deserve it more, for their unreal play of late, but that is the beauty of the game. Whoever wins tomorrow is the team most deserving of the AL Central crown. If the Tigers don’t win, it isn’t because they choked, but because they were just an above-average team to begin with.
  
• If Rick Porcello comes out and stones the Twins tomorrow (he allowed 1 ER in 6.1 innings against them last week, in a game that the Tigers ultimately lost), is he the Rookie of the Year? I say yes. Some rookies have better numbers, but nobody has performed as well as Rick down the stretch with as much on the line.
  

Upper Deck to Release 2009 Playoff Chase Exclusives

Just in time for the final push:

With the season down to its final weekend, Upper Deck has announced that it has released a limited edition "Playoff Chase" set of exclusive trading cards for collectors in Detroit, Minnesota, Los Angeles and Colorado. The cards, which have been shipped to local Hobby shops and are now available directly from Upper Deck, are part of a 150-card set the projected 25-man playoff rosters of each team in contention, and "fan exclusive" cards for each fanbase. Upper Deck has not identified what the fan exclusive cards will entail, but speculation is that the popular "DNA Hair Relics" concept will be expanded to include hairs pulled in frustration from the heads of die-hard fans. Cards that highlight "Real Ulcer Photographs," "Electrocardiograph History" and "Franchise Breath Holding Champions" that show the cumulative effects of a season that has been exciting, depressing, thrilling and exasperating for the fans, are expected to be highly sought after.

I am proudly represented in the set, with both a "Real Ulcer" card and "Game-Destroyed Dinnerware" relic from when the games were just too much to bear. And yet here I am, still thrilled to be watching September baseball and rooting as hard as I can for two more Tigers wins.

Go Get 'Em Tigers!

I Am Ryan Braun

This is going to seem extremely off topic, but I couldn't resist. Early this morning, Mario at Wax Heaven posted about making wise baseball card investments (and the relatively stupidity of doing so). In the post he claims that you would do well do purchase this card, Ryan Braun's rookie from Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects.



This is me.

Ok, me plus 50 pounds of muscle and a little bit more talent. Some of you knew me in high school and have seen me in my baseball uniform. This is it. The funny thing is that despite my semitic good looks, I don't really look like Ryan Braun at all, but in 2005 we might as well have been brothers. The similarities in the Topps card are even more stark.



In this all-too anonymous world of blogging, I just thought that you all might like to put a face to a blog. Now you can. I am Ryan Braun's Rookie Card.

A point of clarification: I am not Ryan Braun here, or the bevy of other baseball card examples where he looks half-asleep. Some blogger did a great job of highlighting these a while back, but for the life of me I can't find it.