Lamont's Call to Send Fielder in Detroit Tigers Loss to Giants Was the Right One

By Sean Gagnier

Yes, the Tigers are down two games in the World Series. Yes, they are struggling to score runs. And yes, I am not the biggest fan of Gene Lamont. But his call to send Prince Fielder home in the second inning of Thursday's Game 2 was the right call.

Everyone knows that Fielder isn't the best guy on the base paths, but he isn't completely incompetent either.

On the play, Delmon Young scorches a ball down the left field line that pulls the left fielder, Gregor Blanco toward the corner of the field. Before the ball reaches the left field corner however, it ricochets off a cutout and takes a weird hop into left field. At this point, Fielder is around second base and is looking to Lamont at third for direction.

Just as Fielder hits third and begins his sprint toward home, Blanco comes up with the ball and fires it over the cut-off man, where Marco Scutaro takes the throw and has to make a perfect throw to the outside of the line in order to both avoid hitting Fielder and give catcher Buster Posey a shot at tagging him out.

Here's where the defense of the call comes in. Lamont knows that this team is struggling to score runs and he knows that getting one there could give Detroit momentum, so he takes a gamble.

Keep these things in mind when thinking about this play. 1. Scutaro needed to make an absolute perfect throw to the outside part of the plate to even give Posey a chance. 2. Posey does not block the plate anymore after suffering a broken ankle blocking the plate a few years ago.

Now imagine that you're Lamont with Fielder charging to third base. You know both of those things and you know that your runner is a biggun who has an awful lot of kinetic energy heading toward the plate. Keeping those things in mind, sending the runner is the right move.

The blame, if there must be some assigned, lies with Fielder and Jhonny Peralta. Peralta was in the on-deck circle during this play. As the player on-deck, you are responsible for moving behind the plate and helping to tell the runner when and how to slide to avoid any tag at the plate.

Peralta moved to the plate too late and didn't give Fielder any signals on where the throw was coming from. Because of the lack of help from Peralta, Fielder opted for a hook-slide in the middle of the plate rather than a straight-slide on the outside part of the plate.

Sure, if Lamont holds Fielder at third then the Tigers have runners at second and third with no outs and Peralta at the plate. You would assume that at least one of the next two batters could at least lift a ball to the outfield to score Fielder, but that wasn't the case.

If Lamont holds Fielder and the Tigers fail to come up with a hit, likely as they only had two, then it becomes a mistake to have held Fielder. Either call is a good one for different reasons, but this is the World Series, you have to go big or go home.

The Detroit Tigers need to clean house

By Sean Gagnier

In light of Francona's hiring by the Cleveland Indians, it would be the right move for Detroit to hire Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim pitching coach Mike Butcher as the next manager.

Mike Illich is a fiercely loyal man, it is evident in the way that he treats members of the two sports teams that he owns. He knows family comes first and he will go out of his way to make sure everyone is in the best place, but it might be time for him to change his tune.

Indictment of Dave Dombrowski

Last season general manager Dave Dombrowski signed a four-year contract extension with the Tigers through the 2015 season. That however, may have been a bit premature.

It is known that the Prince Fielder trade reeks of Illich, meaning that he was tired of Dombrowski not pulling the trigger and did so himself. That was the first indication that things may be amiss in Tigertown. Dombrowksi told Tigers fans during Tiger Fest that he and the team were not pursuing Fielder and that he would not be a good fit for the club. Needless to say, Dombrowski was probably just as surprised as the rest of the baseball world when Fielder signed.

With the addition of Fielder to a club that was largely intact after a American League Championship Series run the year prior, expectations were high for Dombrowski and the Tigers, but they never got the ball rolling. Instead of running away with the division, they struggled to sustain win streaks and trailed the Chicago White Sox most of the season. With a little less than two weeks remaining in the 2012 season the Tigers trailed the White Sox in the Central Division by two games and the Wild Card by four games.

2012 was supposed to be a cakewalk for Detroit, it was anything but. The team that Dombrowski fielded struggled and was never able to get things together on both sides of the ball at the same time. Despite Illich's vote of confidence for Dombrowski in 2011 with his contact extension, the Tigers struggles could be grounds for early termination.

It took Dombrowski until August of the 2012 season to realize that he didn't have a second baseman on the roster, and when he did make a trade at the deadline he acquired yet another right-handed pitcher and regained Omar Infante while giving up two of the three remaining bright lights in the Detroit farm system.

With the Tigers farm system consisting almost entirely of Nick Castellanos, Dombrowski is mismanaging that as well. Castellanos has long been a third baseman, where his arm and bat are both a plus, but Dombrowski has shifted him to the outfield where his bat, arm and defensive ability are no longer a plus. Instead of shifting Castellanos to one of the middle infield positions where his major league club struggles, Dombrowski insists on creating yet another young outfielder for Detroit.

Mismanagement of the farm system and overall incompetence should cost Dombrowski his job, it is simply a matter of if Mr. Illich can see just how far Dombrowski has driven this club into the ground.

The Old Man

It is not a lack of respect that requires manager Jim Leyland leave this team, it is his overall failings this season. Leyland insisted on playing a rotation of Brandon Inge, Ryan Raburn, Ramon Santiago and Danny Worth at second base, even admitting to mishandling Inge before doing the same thing with Raburn.

Countless failed roster lineups and explanations of those lineups that are beyond convoluted. When a player, Raburn, is hitting .160, it doesn't matter where he is playing or what he has done there in the past, he won't hit.

Aside from lineups, is Leyland's complete misuse of the Tigers bullpen throughout the season. Relievers are brought into games when they are not needed and Leyland has bought wholeheartedly into his friend, Tony La Russa's system of using pitchers for single outs and matchups. This piecemeal approach to relievers is outdated and damaging to the team. When your starter is still going strong or the reliever on the mound has struck out his last two batters, why take them out for the lefty reliever other than because of "the system?"

Perhaps it is his advanced age, but Leyland has a nasty habit of leaving some relievers in games much longer than any sane person should. It is one thing to leave a reliever on the mound who is hot, it is another entirely to leave a pitcher on the mound who is in the process of imploding. Take the Tigers early season collapse against the Seattle Mariners, Octavio Dotel couldn't find the plate and everyone except for Leyland apparently could see that. But Leyland allowed the game to get out of hand before he even placed a call to the bullpen.

The man knows baseball, but he seems to have lost a step and his mojo this season and for that he needs to get the boot after his contract expires after this season in order for this Tigers team to perform to it's potential.

The Replacements

With both Dombrowski and Leyland needing to be shown the door, there will need to be two new faces in Detroit. Personally, there is an affinity for the philosophy of Billy Beane, it's working in Oakland right now, and with the lack of talent in the farm system it is that philosophy that could save this club.

Billy Beane isn't leaving Oakland and Theo Epstein is comfortable in Chicago, but there is another. He currently works as the special assistant to New York Mets general manager Sandy Alderson and has eight years of general manager experience, his name is J.P. Ricciardi.

Ricciardi has bought into the "moneyball" philosophy and had his Toronto Blue Jays competing in the American League East each season, not finishing as high as he would have liked, but each Blue Jays team would have fared well in the much weaker American League Central.

If Ricciardi could come into the Tigers organization and add some young, cheap talent then he would be worlds better than Dombrowski ever was and could have the Tigers on the road to actually winning something.

Of course a general manager with no manager isn't likely to win many games, so Detroit must look to add someone who is different than Leyland, someone who understands how to use pitchers and how to set lineups. It appears that there could be quite a few openings for major league managing positions, but there is one name that has been thrown around Tigertown that could really shake things up, Terry Francona.

Francona has two World Series rings from the Boston Red Sox and understands how to run a club filled with big names and big contracts. Experience aside, Francona has had some history with the Tigers, serving as a coach in the past and even throwing batting practice to a young Prince Fielder at Tiger Stadium.

He has said that he would consider coaching again if the right job presented itself, and what better option could there be than a former club with three superstars and a legitimate shot at a World Series title in a town that loves the game? Let Tito watch begin.