It's great to have Victor Martinez aboard.
But where do we put the guy?
Martinez is known for two things: 1. being a big hitter and 2. being a lousy catcher. The Tigers' biggest problem offensively is at catcher where their choice was bad (Alex Avila, at .228) or worse (Gerald Laird, at .207). Martinez could fill that hole and give the Tigers a formidable lineup. But it would cause problems in the field, where Martinez's lousy defense would lead to a lot of stolen bases for the other teams.
The Tigers could DH Martinez, but that would take the spot from Carlos Guillen, forcing him to split time with Will Rhymes at 2nd base. And, though he played lousy in the second half, I'm sure the Tigers would like to find at least a shared spot for Brennan Boesch, which would be very hard to do should they DH Martinez.
In the end it comes down what the Tigers value more: offense or defense.
But I think a compromise is most likely here. A rested catcher is like a pitcher who hits 100 mph: every MLB team wants one. The Tigers will play a variety of lineups. When Martinez is catching, they can rotate Guillen and Boesch in the DH slot, maybe sometimes play both and sit Rhymes. When Martinez (and the Tigers' pitchers) takes a breather playing DH, Boesch will sit and Guillen and Rhymes will rotate. And when Martinez sits, well, I'd imagine it would be pretty similar to when he plays catcher as far as Guillen, Rhymes, and Boesch are concerned.
A likely scenario could be 70 to 90 games at catcher and about 40 to 50 in the DH slot. No matter what they do, the Tigers will likely have a lot of rotating going on.
But isn't that the definition of the Jim Leyland era?
1 comment:
It ought to be an intersting year. I think they will be in the playoff chase this year. I just wish they would have gotten a starting pitcher. Zook
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