April 28, 2013; Detroit, MI, USA; Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland (10) takes the ball to relieve relief pitcher Al Alburquerque (62) against the Atlanta Braves at Comerica Park. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

Yesterday the Detroit Tigers announced that they had optioned reliever Al Alburquerque to Toledo. Today it was announced that they’ve recalled Evan Reed to take his spot on the roster.

Alburquerque was sent down for command reasons. Here’s a quote from Jim Leyland from the above linked MLive article:

“He was too wild today,” Leyland said. “Just too wild. He was bouncing balls to the guy he struck out. If the guy takes that pitch, we might have been in trouble there.”

If you didn’t know that this quote was taken after a specific game you might mistake it for an Al Al scouting report. He’s never been a command strike-thrower, but he’s been incredibly effective in his 71 inning major league career nonetheless. He owns a 1.90 career ERA, and a closely matching 2.15 FIP. He’s walked a ton, sure (6.3 BB/9), but he’s fanned a bunch too (14.1 K/9). We’ve seen those rates jump to an extreme level this season – 8.2 and 16.3 respectively – but his overall line is still more than adequate. The fact that his ERA is above 3.00 is probably more due to his BABIP being nearly .450 than his walk rate being over eight per nine innings.

Alburquerque isn’t going to Toledo to learn command – that would be a foolish request – but he is going to go and try to put a few less-wild innings together before coming back up. He’s an unusual pitcher in that he can be incredibly effective – one of the better relievers in the game – while walking 6+ batters per nine innings. His strikeout stuff is so devestating that batters can’t lay off. I think the Tigers recognize that and will look to get him back to the big leagues, so I won’t call this a dumb move just yet, but I don’t really see the point in the minor league tour. Reed isn’t going to out-perform Alburquerque in the big leagues, and Alburquerque isn’t likely to discover his inner Adam Wilk.

What’s going to happen is that Al Al’s walk rate will come down a bit – owing to regression and the fact that it’s AAA – the organization will say he’s “fixed” and bring him back up. It all would have happened just the same had he remainined in Detroit, but oh well. Evan Reed is now a thing.

Oct 24, 2012; San Francisco, CA, USA; Detroit Tigers pitcher Al Alburquerque throws a pitch against the San Francisco Giants in the 5th inning during game one of the 2012 World Series at AT

Another way to phrase the question: will Smyly take up the last bullpen spot, or will it go to Darin Downs?

I guess Kyle Lobstein remains in the mix as long as he’s in the organization with Rule 5 status, but his chances look incredibly slim, if they even exist. But, any way you slice it, I just don’t see how more than one of these three lefties make the bullpen.

Lynn Henning of the Detroit News had a different take, thinking that Smyly and Downs both could make the team. But in order for that to happen, someone needs to get the boot, and he sees Al Alburquerque as potentially being that guy.

Al Alburquerque has not pitched well enough to unseat Downs, another left-hander the Tigers won’t mind carrying. Smyly would appear to be the team’s pick to pitch long relief, or help in late-inning situations.

Leaving aside the question of whether or not the Tigers would want Smyly to convert to relief for the season, I just don’t understand why it would be Alburquerque who would need to “unseat” Downs. Alberquerque is no sort of ultra-established big leaguer, but he’s much more of that than Downs is and he has shown quite a bit over the last two seasons (and last playoffs).

Al Al is a guy they’ve trusted in high leverage situations in the past, and he’s succeeded in his role more often than not. In 62 innings over the last two seasons (including playoffs), Alburquerque has recorded a 2.03 ERA while striking out 13 batters per nine innings. He’s done the job well against both left-handed and right-handed batters, and his slider has proven to be nearly unhittable.

Alburquerque hasn’t seen good results this spring — he has a 5.40 ERA in 10 innings — but should ten innings erase what he’s done in real games the last two seasons? Absolutely not. Should he have to “unseat” a low-leverage LOOGY with fewer than 21 innings under his belt? No way.

I like Darin Downs. I think he should make the team, but he’s not going to make the team at the expense of a guy like Alburquerque. A small sample of results in exhibition games shouldn’t override what we’ve learned over two years of real games.

Alburquerque is going to make the team because he’s one of the best two or three relievers they could put in the bullpen. His spring stats shouldn’t matter here.

Oct 24, 2012; San Francisco, CA, USA; Detroit Tigers pitcher Al Alburquerque (62) throws against the San Francisco Giants during the fifth inning of game one of the 2012 World Series at AT

Mario Impemba gets all the of the attention that’s being given to rookie Bruce Rondon as he pursues the Detroit Tigers’ closer gig, but he also gets the fact that Bruce Rondon isn’t necessarily more critical to the team’s success than the other members of the bullpen. He identifies Al Alburquerque as a key piece in the upcoming season but recognizes that elbow health may be a concern for him.

Keeping Alburquerque healthy may be one of the underlying keys to a prosperous 2013 for the Tigers.  So, while Rondon’s ability to make the leap as big league closer is vital to the Tigers chances, Alburquerque’s potential provides another option if Rondon falters.

Matt Wallace  digs into the meaning of Jim Leyland’s statement that there are “six locks” in the bullpen right now. He identifies Joaquin Benoit, Octavio Dotel, Phil Coke, Bruce Rondon, Al Alburquerque, and Brayan Villarreal, but wonders what that would mean for the loser of the Drew Smyly/Rick Porcello rotation battle.

Regardless of the meaning of Leyland’s statement, we can see the Tigers’ bullpen is largely sewn up. We can be fairly certain about who will be handed close leads. There is just the slightest question of how the Tigers will want to construct the pen to deal with matchups and mop-up situations.

Jason Beck discusses Rick Porcello’s slider — specifically that he’s seemingly abandoned it altogether to concentrate on his curveball. Beck notes that, while Porcello discussed tweaking the slider in the offseason, he’s used the curve as his primary breaking pitch this spring and has stated that he’s trying to stick with just one for now.

At this point, the curveball seems to be a bigger pitch for him. And if he’s going to concentrate on one breaking ball, it wouldn’t bode well for the slider.

“Right now, I’m just working on one breaking ball,” Porcello said after Wednesday’s outing, “just working on getting the command of one and establishing that, and we’ll go from there.”

John Lowe reports that Max Scherzer is feeling fine and is ready to take the mound for his first spring outing on Sunday. The “delay” of getting Scherzer into a game caused some concern that perhaps there was a reason why he’d been held out of action, but Max says he’s just find and mentioned that he’s not behind according to the normal calendar. The spring schedule was extended due to the World Baseball Classic, so Scherzer is really starting his game action at the same time he did last season.

As Scherzer pointed out again today, he’s making his first start at the point he would if spring training were the normal length; he just didn’t partake of the extra week of this year’s exhibition schedule.

“I wanted to throw the exact same amount in spring training as I did last year,” Scherzer said. “I didn’t want to increase my spring training workload.”

Here’s Miguel Cabrera and Adam Jones lip syncing to an auto-tuned remix of Rihana’s “Diamond”. Because why wouldn’t this exist?