2009 MLB Preview: Detroit Tigers
Arms hold the keys for the Detroit Tigers in 2009
Picked by most to be a force in the AL Central last season, the Detroit Tigers were instead a farce. A return to the postseason hinges on the shoulders of the pitching staff.
I knew my futures plays on the Detroit Tigers were in trouble just three games into the 2008 season. And I knew they were beyond simply being in trouble when the Tigers stretched their season-opening losing skid to seven games.
With me holding tickets at +100 to win the AL Central and +180 to win the AL, Motown’s hardballers went down in a blaze of ineptness last season. Their high point of the year came in July 30 when they had clawed their way to three games over .500 at 55-52. By then I was already hoping for the Tigers to just go away, convincing myself it was just punishment for ever moving out of venerable old Tiger Stadium, my favorite park of them all.
Go away they did, finishing last in the AL Central for the first time since 2003 when they dropped 119 games and were so close to bumping the 1962 Mets from the top of the list of worst records in my lifetime. I would argue the 2003 Tigers were indeed the worst in my half-century plus of watching baseball, and the 2008 team they put on the field was no doubt one of the biggest groups of underachievers to take an MLB field. Ever.
Which begs the question of whether or not they overachieved in 2006 when they won the AL, and if so, how much?
Very few teams achieve exactly what they should during a given season. Momentum swings one way or another, and teams either feed off it when things are going well, or starve to death when times are bad.
Just about everything went right for Detroit in 2006, and a lot of things went wrong in 2008. With a final record of 74-88, it’s not like the Tigers totally sucked pond water last year, but for a team with such high expectations, they might as well have fitted themselves for cement shoes and pushed off the pier on their own.
So what team will show up for Jim Leyland and Company in 2009?
OFFENSE / DEFENSE
We all knew that the Tigers were going to have a strong and deep offense last season, and for the most part the hitters did not disappoint. Detroit ranked fourth in the AL with 821 runs scored, fourth in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging, and ranked fourth in the majors with 200 homers, ending the season with nine players to reach double digits in the long ball column.
Guess that sort of spoils the upcoming review of what the pitching staff did, huh?
The lineup isn’t nearly as scary on paper this season, thought Detroit hopes some of that drop off on offense will be made up by a return to form by their pitching staff. Seven of the nine regulars do return to the batting mix, however, and there’s still a lot of reason to expect the group to rank in the top half of the AL in scoring.
The big bat in the order remains Miguel Cabrera who enjoyed his first season playing AL ball and made a smooth transition from playing third and the outfield to playing first base. Cabrera poked a career-best 37 homers and set a new personal high with 127 RBI, though his average did dip 30+ points from his 2005-07 stats.
Cabrera has spent a large portion of the spring playing for Venezuela in the WBC along with Tigers teammate Magglio Ordoñez, who will hit third in front of Miggy in the Tigers order. Stating the obvious, Detroit’s offense will greatly depend on that duo.
Completing the outfield with Ordoñez will be Curtis Granderson in center and Carlos Guillen in left. Guillen is once again being asked to move around on the field, having shifted from shortstop to first to third in recent years, and he could prove to be the most important cog in the lineup if Leyland is indeed going to bat him fifth behind Ordoñez and Cabrera. Should teams find they can pitch around and Mags and Miggy to get to Guillen and Gary Sheffield hitting sixth as the DH, it will be another bad season in Motown.
Marcus Thames should have one of the OF reserve slots nailed down, though he has been out of action recently with an ab strain. Brent Clevlen may be playing his way into a reserve job this spring with a decent showing.
One of the newcomers to the Tigers this year is catcher Gerald Laird who came over from Texas in a winter swap. His backup was expected to be Matt Treanor, but with Treanor experiencing some groin trouble lately it could open the backup job for Dusty Ryan.
Another newcomer is shortstop Adam Everett. A defensive whiz, Everett is will help the Tigers when they are in the field but be a big hole at the bottom of the batting order.
Brandon Inge is shifting back to third base full-time after spending 2008 behind the plate, in the outfield and at the hot corner. He’s ok defensively, but has never really hit for average and will be the smaller hole in the lineup just in front of Everett.
Placido Polanco, one of the game’s most underrated players, will play second and bat second. He’s been slighted for a contract extension from Detroit, and I look for a solid season from him this time around.
Outside of Thames in the outfield and one of the catchers to back up Laird, the rest of the reserves are a wait-&-see game at this time. Ramon Santiago is the most likely candidate with his versatility to claim one of the bench spots, with Brent Clevlen, Ryan Raburn, Mike Hessman and Jeff Larish competing for two spots right now.
PITCHING
If not for the season rookie Armando Galarraga had in ’08, this entire pitching staff would have been a disaster. And speaking of both Galarraga and pitching disasters, how do you think the Texas Rangers feel about trading Galarraga away about 13 months ago after initially getting the Venezuelan righthander in the trade that sent Alfonso Soriano to the Nationals? Of course, we’ll have to wait and see if the player Detroit gave up for Galarraga, Michael Hernandez, ever makes it to the majors. Still, how can Texas keep dealing away these arms?
But I digress, and the Detroit pitchers have regressed since their 2006 AL Pennant.
Last year’s group of arms in Motown was pitiful, and things haven’t been real peachy so far in Lakeland this spring. Injuries did play a role in last year’s trouble, with Jeremy Bonderman limited in the rotation and both Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney missing a bunch of action out of the pen. But injuries don’t explain the seasons that Justin Verlander, Nate Robertson and Dontrelle Willis had, and unless ‘old age’ is an official injury, it doesn’t let Todd Jones off the hook.
The good news so far is Verlander and Robertson look to be back in form; the bad news is Bonderman is already complaining of a sore shoulder and Galarraga may have been rushed up to a high pitch count with the Venezuelan WBC team.
Verlander will get the ball on Opening Day and Galarraga may only see his pitch count dropped in the early going. Robertson and Edwin Jackson, picked up over the winter from Tampa Bay for outfielder Matthew Joyce, should fill out two more slots in the starting mix. That leaves Bonderman and Willis presumably fighting for the fifth and final slot, and the way they’ve been pitching it could open the door for Rick Porcello to crack the rotation.
With Jones now out of baseball, the Tigers went out and plucked Brandon Lyon from free agency to assume the closer’s role in Detroit this summer. He has not looked very good this spring, giving up four consecutive homers to the Red Sox just this week (Mar 23). But Rodney has done nothing to wrestle the job away from Lyon, and Zumaya is only getting his feet wet now and probably won’t be ready to pitch in any role, much less as the closer, when the bell sounds on April 6.
Now if we assume those three do get it together eventually and fill the backend of the pen with some semblance of effectiveness, it leaves Juan Rincon and a pair of lefties, Bobby Seay and Clay Rapada, for some middle relief work. Another guy to watch is Eddie Bonine who could sneak into the long relief role depending what the club decides to do with Willis and Zach Miner.
SCHEDULE
The Tigers play a road-heavy slate to open the season, meaning they will catch up with some extra home dates after May. And if the AL Central comes down to the very end, as it has the two of the last three seasons, Detroit has a very favorable close to the campaign with their last seven at home versus the Twins and ChiSox.
I grew up something of a Tigers fan, and I always wonder if some of my childhood memories don’t somehow influence the data that is input to my simulation program. My first new glove was an Al Kaline signature model, and I still love those old Tigers teams from the 60s when Kaline, Willie Horton, Norm Cash, Bill Freehan, Earl Wilson and Mickey Lolich were playing.
If I did favor them somehow this time, then it didn’t really show in the mock runs as Detroit averaged 79.8 wins over the five simulations. They bounced from as few as 71 wins to as many as 88, the largest gap between high and low for any team this time.
The Greek has their break at 82½ wins with the Over priced at +105 and the Under -125. The fact they jerked around like a butterfly with hiccups in my sim runs, plus the losses I endured with them last year, has Detroit a ‘no play’ for me this time.
Betting odds for divisional and league futures show the Greek placing the Tigers at +245 to win the AL Central with 5Dimes listing +250 for the same wager. AL Pennant odds at The Greek are +1015 with 5Dimes offering +1300. Both books have Detroit in the +2200 to +2250 range for capturing their fifth World Series title.
Picked by most to be a force in the AL Central last season, the Detroit Tigers were instead a farce. A return to the postseason hinges on the shoulders of the pitching staff.
I knew my futures plays on the Detroit Tigers were in trouble just three games into the 2008 season. And I knew they were beyond simply being in trouble when the Tigers stretched their season-opening losing skid to seven games.
With me holding tickets at +100 to win the AL Central and +180 to win the AL, Motown’s hardballers went down in a blaze of ineptness last season. Their high point of the year came in July 30 when they had clawed their way to three games over .500 at 55-52. By then I was already hoping for the Tigers to just go away, convincing myself it was just punishment for ever moving out of venerable old Tiger Stadium, my favorite park of them all.
Go away they did, finishing last in the AL Central for the first time since 2003 when they dropped 119 games and were so close to bumping the 1962 Mets from the top of the list of worst records in my lifetime. I would argue the 2003 Tigers were indeed the worst in my half-century plus of watching baseball, and the 2008 team they put on the field was no doubt one of the biggest groups of underachievers to take an MLB field. Ever.
Which begs the question of whether or not they overachieved in 2006 when they won the AL, and if so, how much?
Very few teams achieve exactly what they should during a given season. Momentum swings one way or another, and teams either feed off it when things are going well, or starve to death when times are bad.
Just about everything went right for Detroit in 2006, and a lot of things went wrong in 2008. With a final record of 74-88, it’s not like the Tigers totally sucked pond water last year, but for a team with such high expectations, they might as well have fitted themselves for cement shoes and pushed off the pier on their own.
So what team will show up for Jim Leyland and Company in 2009?
OFFENSE / DEFENSE
We all knew that the Tigers were going to have a strong and deep offense last season, and for the most part the hitters did not disappoint. Detroit ranked fourth in the AL with 821 runs scored, fourth in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging, and ranked fourth in the majors with 200 homers, ending the season with nine players to reach double digits in the long ball column.
Guess that sort of spoils the upcoming review of what the pitching staff did, huh?
The lineup isn’t nearly as scary on paper this season, thought Detroit hopes some of that drop off on offense will be made up by a return to form by their pitching staff. Seven of the nine regulars do return to the batting mix, however, and there’s still a lot of reason to expect the group to rank in the top half of the AL in scoring.
The big bat in the order remains Miguel Cabrera who enjoyed his first season playing AL ball and made a smooth transition from playing third and the outfield to playing first base. Cabrera poked a career-best 37 homers and set a new personal high with 127 RBI, though his average did dip 30+ points from his 2005-07 stats.
Cabrera has spent a large portion of the spring playing for Venezuela in the WBC along with Tigers teammate Magglio Ordoñez, who will hit third in front of Miggy in the Tigers order. Stating the obvious, Detroit’s offense will greatly depend on that duo.
Completing the outfield with Ordoñez will be Curtis Granderson in center and Carlos Guillen in left. Guillen is once again being asked to move around on the field, having shifted from shortstop to first to third in recent years, and he could prove to be the most important cog in the lineup if Leyland is indeed going to bat him fifth behind Ordoñez and Cabrera. Should teams find they can pitch around and Mags and Miggy to get to Guillen and Gary Sheffield hitting sixth as the DH, it will be another bad season in Motown.
Marcus Thames should have one of the OF reserve slots nailed down, though he has been out of action recently with an ab strain. Brent Clevlen may be playing his way into a reserve job this spring with a decent showing.
One of the newcomers to the Tigers this year is catcher Gerald Laird who came over from Texas in a winter swap. His backup was expected to be Matt Treanor, but with Treanor experiencing some groin trouble lately it could open the backup job for Dusty Ryan.
Another newcomer is shortstop Adam Everett. A defensive whiz, Everett is will help the Tigers when they are in the field but be a big hole at the bottom of the batting order.
Brandon Inge is shifting back to third base full-time after spending 2008 behind the plate, in the outfield and at the hot corner. He’s ok defensively, but has never really hit for average and will be the smaller hole in the lineup just in front of Everett.
Placido Polanco, one of the game’s most underrated players, will play second and bat second. He’s been slighted for a contract extension from Detroit, and I look for a solid season from him this time around.
Outside of Thames in the outfield and one of the catchers to back up Laird, the rest of the reserves are a wait-&-see game at this time. Ramon Santiago is the most likely candidate with his versatility to claim one of the bench spots, with Brent Clevlen, Ryan Raburn, Mike Hessman and Jeff Larish competing for two spots right now.
PITCHING
If not for the season rookie Armando Galarraga had in ’08, this entire pitching staff would have been a disaster. And speaking of both Galarraga and pitching disasters, how do you think the Texas Rangers feel about trading Galarraga away about 13 months ago after initially getting the Venezuelan righthander in the trade that sent Alfonso Soriano to the Nationals? Of course, we’ll have to wait and see if the player Detroit gave up for Galarraga, Michael Hernandez, ever makes it to the majors. Still, how can Texas keep dealing away these arms?
But I digress, and the Detroit pitchers have regressed since their 2006 AL Pennant.
Last year’s group of arms in Motown was pitiful, and things haven’t been real peachy so far in Lakeland this spring. Injuries did play a role in last year’s trouble, with Jeremy Bonderman limited in the rotation and both Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney missing a bunch of action out of the pen. But injuries don’t explain the seasons that Justin Verlander, Nate Robertson and Dontrelle Willis had, and unless ‘old age’ is an official injury, it doesn’t let Todd Jones off the hook.
The good news so far is Verlander and Robertson look to be back in form; the bad news is Bonderman is already complaining of a sore shoulder and Galarraga may have been rushed up to a high pitch count with the Venezuelan WBC team.
Verlander will get the ball on Opening Day and Galarraga may only see his pitch count dropped in the early going. Robertson and Edwin Jackson, picked up over the winter from Tampa Bay for outfielder Matthew Joyce, should fill out two more slots in the starting mix. That leaves Bonderman and Willis presumably fighting for the fifth and final slot, and the way they’ve been pitching it could open the door for Rick Porcello to crack the rotation.
With Jones now out of baseball, the Tigers went out and plucked Brandon Lyon from free agency to assume the closer’s role in Detroit this summer. He has not looked very good this spring, giving up four consecutive homers to the Red Sox just this week (Mar 23). But Rodney has done nothing to wrestle the job away from Lyon, and Zumaya is only getting his feet wet now and probably won’t be ready to pitch in any role, much less as the closer, when the bell sounds on April 6.
Now if we assume those three do get it together eventually and fill the backend of the pen with some semblance of effectiveness, it leaves Juan Rincon and a pair of lefties, Bobby Seay and Clay Rapada, for some middle relief work. Another guy to watch is Eddie Bonine who could sneak into the long relief role depending what the club decides to do with Willis and Zach Miner.
SCHEDULE
The Tigers play a road-heavy slate to open the season, meaning they will catch up with some extra home dates after May. And if the AL Central comes down to the very end, as it has the two of the last three seasons, Detroit has a very favorable close to the campaign with their last seven at home versus the Twins and ChiSox.
- 13 of first 19 games on the road
- 23-28 (Home-Away) through May (6 at home vs Tex, 6 on road vs KC)
- 64-66 (Home-Away) through August
- 3-6 (Home-Away) vs. Angels and A’s; 6-3 vs. Mariners and Rangers
I grew up something of a Tigers fan, and I always wonder if some of my childhood memories don’t somehow influence the data that is input to my simulation program. My first new glove was an Al Kaline signature model, and I still love those old Tigers teams from the 60s when Kaline, Willie Horton, Norm Cash, Bill Freehan, Earl Wilson and Mickey Lolich were playing.
If I did favor them somehow this time, then it didn’t really show in the mock runs as Detroit averaged 79.8 wins over the five simulations. They bounced from as few as 71 wins to as many as 88, the largest gap between high and low for any team this time.
The Greek has their break at 82½ wins with the Over priced at +105 and the Under -125. The fact they jerked around like a butterfly with hiccups in my sim runs, plus the losses I endured with them last year, has Detroit a ‘no play’ for me this time.
Betting odds for divisional and league futures show the Greek placing the Tigers at +245 to win the AL Central with 5Dimes listing +250 for the same wager. AL Pennant odds at The Greek are +1015 with 5Dimes offering +1300. Both books have Detroit in the +2200 to +2250 range for capturing their fifth World Series title.