I love playoff baseball, but writing real analysis about playoff baseball that hasn’t happened yet is impossible. I could write retrospective analysis about what both of these teams have done so far this season or I could highlight a particular player who I find interesting, but we’re at the point where the market is saturated with content and we’re about to care a whole lot about a small sample size which is nearly unpredictable.

The Diamondbacks could beat the Tigers in a 5 games series and it wouldn’t be that weird. It doesn’t actually matter who the better teams is during a sprint like this. You just need to play better for a week and we all know that both teams are capable of this. So it’s not super productive to look at the rosters and compare the positions or worry a whole lot about their season records or whatever. If both clubs play to their potential, it’s a tossup. A lot of postseason success is about getting lucky, but the other big factor is avoiding costly mistakes.

You can’t control when you’re going to hit that big home run, but you can avoid using Phil Coke against a RHH with the bases loaded. So let’s look at the what the Tigers need to do to maximize their odds of winning. So much will come down to dumb luck, but you can influence those fortunes a bit.

Be conservative on the bases

The Tigers weren’t the worst base running team in the league during 2014, but they made 60 outs on the bases, including 20 at the plate. Overall, they were pretty much a break even club, but their particular mistakes were avoidable. They have a couple of very good base runners in Davis and Kinsler, but they also took too many chances with their slower runners. The value of an out on the bases is twice as high as the value of advancing one extra base. In a short series, you can’t give away those outs.

The concern is that Ausmus will try to make more happen in the postseason because the value of a single run is higher, but the Tigers simply aren’t built to take the extra base the way the Royals are, for instances. The Tigers will score runs by getting on base and getting knocked in. They do not and should not force the issue because they have demonstrated their inability to do the job successfully. They have sluggers, they don’t need to play small ball.

Plan ahead

One of the things Ausmus struggled with during the regular season was knowing when to use his bench. He was willing to use them, he just didn’t always find the best spot for each of his weapons. The roster isn’t out just yet, but chances are we’re going to be using a light hitting SS and CF and a catcher who struggles against lefties. That offers up at least three potential PH spots.

You need to be ready to attack them. Know which relievers you want to avoid and in what situations you want to use your hitters. Specifically, under what conditions will you pull Romine in the 7th? The 4th? There needs to be a predetermined answer. You make mistakes when you try to think on the fly. Decide which matchups you want and then find them. If you have a chance to break it open in the 3rd, don’t hold back because you might need someone in the 9th.

The same is true for defensive replacements. Don’t get caught in one of those situations where you’re taking JD Martinez out of the game because you didn’t think ahead.

Set the flowchart on fire

We’re all aware of Ausmus’ bullpen game plan and how it drives us crazy. To get the most out of your team in October, you have to be willing to break the rules. Soria and Sanchez need to pitch in relief during every game in which they’re available. After that you can pick and choose who is reliever #3 or #4, but those are the two best guys and they need to come out of the pen as soon as the situation warrants.

If the game is on the line in the 6th, it’s time for one of the aces. If it’s the 8th and they haven’t pitched, go to them instead of Joba. Sanchez is not a long reliever, he’s the guy you use to win the game. Same with Soria, he’s not a 7th inning guy. He’s a guy you use.

Also, pull the starters earlier than normal. On average, the Tigers should use their starters longer than the Orioles or Royals or Angels, but they still shouldn’t run them into the ground because starters lose effectiveness each time they see the lineup. I’d let Scherzer go longer than Tillman, but I wouldn’t use Scherzer like I would in July. When he starts to tire at all, it’s time for Sanchez and Soria. I know we lionize guys who “want the ball,” but that’s not actually productive when you don’t have to worry about resting the bullpen.

The game will dictate when you need a reliever and who that reliever should be. Roles are out the window. Roles are for when you need to get through a season and make sure guys are fresh and comfortable for six months. In October, you’re pedal to the metal.

Don’t over-manage

Above all, you’re trying to avoid mistakes. Don’t try to make things happen. Put the best players in the game and adjust them based on the situation. You don’t need to steal or bunt or get crazy just because you’re dying to score. Let the players do their thing. Know what they’re good at and where they struggle and have a plan for how you’re going to deploy them.

Most of what’s going to happen this week is going to depend on things you can’t control. If Tillman’s stuff is on, it’s going to be tough. That’s going to occur a certain percentage of the time. But to tip the balance in your favor, you need to avoid mistakes. Don’t give away outs. Plan ahead. Ditch the flowchart.

This is a good team, don’t tie their hands.

There will be time for more specific analysis and commentary in the weeks ahead but with a win on Sunday, the Tigers secured their fourth straight American League Central crown. It wasn’t as easy as 2011 or 2013 and it wasn’t as spirited as 2012, but they saw it through to the end. The Tigers are going back to the postseason, starting Thursday in Baltimore.

It was certainly a year of transition for the proud franchise with a new manager and a few new cogs in the machine. Some of the changes worked, others didn’t, but the team on balance was always destined for this. A Central Division crown and a shot at a pennant. And a World Series, the goal that’s escaped them for three decades.

Three long decades.

It’s easy to be swept up in the Royals return to prominence but they actually have a more recent championship than the Tigers by a season. The playoffs are a regular event in the Motor City these days, but winning it all is not. They still haven’t won those extra eleven games.

In other words, today’s clincher is a rebirth of sorts. The bottles of champagne will wash away the doubts of the regular season, the consternation over the choices of the front office and the manager, and the general sense of panic to which we’re all accustomed. Man, your college lit professor would eat this up. They’d probably die if it started raining because the symbolism would be too much.

They avoided the coin-flip game and found their way to the ALDS. Sure they could have home-field advantage, but other than that the slate is wiped clean. It’s a chance for this team, this group of players, to make their mark on Tigers history. Only three of them have a ring, so they’re plenty hungry, even if the fans are starving.

I think it’s natural that the fan base in general was a little less happy with these Tigers than the 2011, 2012, or 2013 versions. Change is difficult and accepting a new cast of characters during a less than stellar summer isn’t the easiest thing to do. It certainly didn’t help that the guy we hoped might bring new thinking to the bench turned out to be more reactionary than his one-million year old, cigarette smoking predecessor. It also didn’t help that Nathan acted like a jerk while also pitching like a Double A nobody.

It didn’t help that Cabrera was hurt and Verlander never really got going. There were bright spots, for sure. But on their own, the 2014 Tigers don’t seem destined for a place in the team’s oral tradition. There were some big moments, but not ones I expect to carry with me forever. Yet.

The playoffs are a fresh start and a chance for that all to change. That’s the magic of the high leverage nature of postseason baseball. Everything can become that moment or “The Moment” as we call it at New English D.

The Tigers are eleven wins away, even if it felt at times like a million. It hasn’t been pretty, but it doesn’t have to be. It just has to work.

It was August 11th and Verlander had just allowed five runs in the first inning. He didn’t look right and he was mulling around in the dugout holding a bat. They were going to send him up there to bunt, presumably, and he was going to try and stay in the game. Dickerson and Price opined that they thought he had the flu. It had been a trying summer for the erstwhile ace and he didn’t look right at all.

He bunted and then he came out of the game. The shortest start of his career. His contract had five more years and he was, by one definition, looking like one of the worst regular starting pitchers in baseball. The Justin Verlander who made opposing hitters reconsider their choice of career was gone.

And then it got worse. It wasn’t a stomach bug, but rather right shoulder soreness. If you follow baseball injuries close enough, that’s just about the worst initial diagnosis you can hear about a pitcher. This wasn’t just a downturn, we were looking at a career altering injury. Everything was about to change in Detroit.

But it didn’t. Verlander got a full exam that showed no structural damage. He missed a start, his first, but didn’t go on the disabled list. He came back and mixed in three very good starts among his final seven with decent signs of life in parts of the other four, including two excellent outings to end the 2014 regular season.

For a time, the playoff bullpen was a real possibility. With the injury to Sanchez and some signs of recovery, that talk has dampened. Verlander will get a chance to make his mark in October like he did in each of the past two seasons. Maybe he’ll shine. Maybe he’ll struggle. It’s hard to say at this point. His superhuman days are gone, but that doesn’t mean his valuable days are as well.

If you look at the body of work this year, it’s 206 innings, a 4.54 ERA, and a 3.74 FIP. That’s a lousy ERA and an average FIP but 200 average innings aren’t anything at which to sneeze. He didn’t have a good year, but he didn’t ruin everything either. His home run rate and walk rate were fine, but his strikeouts were way down (about 6%). His BABIP was up. His pitches were more hittable than ever.

There are a lot of reasons, but mostly we can circle back to the offseason surgery and his inability to devote enough time to strength training. Some of it’s probably age and normal decline, but he never really had the endurance to match his previous performances. It was a weaker Verlander. More contact. Better results against him. Less heat.

We’ve chronicled the problems. He didn’t have command. His secondary stuff was hit and miss. He couldn’t dial it up and blow it past anyone. He couldn’t put guys away and as a result they put more balls in play and his defense wasn’t exactly going to save the day.

It was a bad season by his standards, but what does it tell us about the future?

It’s rare for a pitcher to sustain greatness well into their thirties, but you also don’t expect steep decline. At the end of the line, he posted a 3.74 FIP which was his worst since 2008. You’re willing to accept some of that as injury driven, even if you don’t want to give him too much of a break. That’s a high ERA, but ERA is silly because earned runs and unearned runs are an arbitrary distinction. In total, he posted a 4.98 RA9. That’s not very good at all, but he was certainly the victim of bad defense. Also, he was the victim of a bullpen that allowed a ton of his inherited runners to score. Instead of charging him for every runner they allowed to score, let’s charge him for the run expectancy. In other words, if he leaves the bases loaded, charge him with 2.2 runs (roughly) instead of 3 if they score and 0 if they don’t.

Using that method, his RE24/9 was 4.41. Think about that. His runs allowed per 9 (using run expectancy, which charges for all of his full runs and the right share of his left runners) was lower than his ERA (not just his RA9) even after you park adjust. Not only was Verlander’s FIP telling you he pitched a little better than his ERA, but you can make that point even if you don’t assume average results on balls in play. You just have to look at how poorly his pen performed.

None of this absolves Verlander, it just softens the blow. He was really more of a slightly below average pitcher in 2014 than a terrible one. Given the injury, you can live with that. His days of running ERA- and FIP- around 70 are done, but he could easily be an 85 or so guy going forward. He has a diverse arsenal and the stuff is still good enough to get hitters out.

He needs a healthy core and lower half and he needs to get a little smarter. His days of winning Cy Young awards are probably over but his days of being effective aren’t. Maybe he’ll shine in October, but the overall body of work suggests he should at least be a good pitcher again next year. Probably not the $180 million ace, but a guy who could play the role of #2 on most teams is totally plausible.

It was a rough year for Verlander, but it wasn’t the fatal blow it appeared to be that August night in the Steel City.