Sizing Up The Tigers Left Field Options
One of the strengths of the 2014 Tigers is that most of the 2013 version is locked up through at least the upcoming season. Seven of the nine starting position players and all five starting pitchers are under contract going into next season so the main focus will be on the bullpen and the bench. The two starting spots to consider are second base and left field. Second base looks like it will be Infante if the price is right and a future post if the price is too high. Left field remains a more interesting question.
THE IN-HOUSE CANDIDATES
The Tigers ran through the 2013 season predominantly using an Andy Dirks and Matt Tuiasosopo platoon who combined for 2.5 WAR across close to 700 total PA (some at DH and RF). All told, the Tigers LF hit .259/.325/.383 in 2013 and the league average LF hit .259/.323/.412. Not quite as much power as the average left fielder but essentially identical when it comes to AVG and OBP. The Tigers had more or less average offensive production from their left fielders when their left fielders were Dirks and Tuiasosopo.
Ultimate Zone Rating loves Dirks in LF, ranking him 3rd in baseball last season at 9.4 (DRS had him 6th). Tuiasosopo isn’t around anymore, so his average-ish ratings aren’t too relevant. In general, the Tigers worked a couple of wins out of left field with average offense and solid defense for next to nothing. They have that option again.
Dirks will be back with the team in some capacity and they have the option of handing him the job again in 2014. Dirks has about 1000 career PA and ranks just above average offensively (103 wRC+) with a .276/.332/.413 line. In 2011 and 2013 he was in the 85 wRC+ neighborhood with his 2012 season much higher at 132. It’s unclear exactly how good he would be over a full season, but it’s safe to say he’s somewhere in that range. An average OBP for a LF with a little less pop and a lot more glove is a pretty reasonable bet. If healthy, that’s about a 2 win player.
The Tigers could also hand the job to top prospect Nick Castellanos. Castellanos has 18 big league PA so we’re going to have to judge him based on his minor league numbers and scouting reports. He tore up AAA as one of the youngest players at the level in 2013 (.276/.343/.450) after crushing at three of five stops along the way from 2010 to 2012. Scouts love his bat and think the power will come with age. No one loves his feet or his defense, but plenty think he can be good enough not to warrant a DH spot. I’ve heard some scout/writers like Keith Law hang “future all-star” on him. Maybe the Tigers give the job to Nick and see if he’s ready.
It’s also possible, maybe even likely, that they use some sort of job share between the two. They won’t make Castellanos the weak half of a platoon, but they may find a way to use him for 110-120 games as they ease him in against big league pitching and full contact defense. If the Tigers want to stick with their in house options, it’s very likely they can match the production they received this season, which was plenty considering the talent they have elsewhere – even after a down year at times from Fielder, Jackson, Martinez, and Avila.
THE FREE AGENTS
FanGraphs has a leaderboard that includes 32 free agent outfielders that’s worth examining. Let’s limit our search to players who have some chance of being worth two wins in 2013 and don’t have a giant red flag (Franklin Gutierrez) or a huge price tag (Jacoby Ellsbury).
I have six names.
Granderson, Beltran, Choo, Chris Young, Marlon Byrd, and David Murphy.
You can click the link and view their statistics and you’ll notice that none of these players are ideal fits. Granderson makes a good deal of sense but the Tigers will need to commit to more than the $14 million qualifying offer waiting in his inbox and then subsequently more than the Yankees are willing to offer in addition to the loss of a draft pick. Granderson has had five seasons of 3.5 WAR or better in his career, but on the wrong side of 30 and coming off two down years (injuries included), I’m not sure he’s worth the money and the draft pick compared to what the Tigers have in house.
Beltran remains a great hitter but is approaching DH status, comes with the QO, and is even older than Granderson. This would be like signing another Torii Hunter if Hunter was better. Beltran is still a great hitter but his diminished defense isn’t really something the Tigers can absorb given the price he’s likely to command.
Choo would be a strong fit entering his age 32 season considering the fact that he’s among the best dozen or so offensive players in the sport and that his defense would look much better in a corner than it does in CF. The key variable with Choo is cost. He doesn’t come with the risks that Grandy and Beltran do, but that will also make his price tag harder to handle. The floor of a Choo deal is 4/60 and the final number will probably be higher. The Tigers aren’t likely to add that kind of money to their payroll given the coming raises, but if they do have the cash, he makes the most sense.
Young and Murphy are the wild cards because they are coming off down years and might be available for cheap. Young is a great defender with power and Murphy until recently was an excellent hitter against righties with some nice balance mixed in. Neither are great, but both are interesting if their market disintegrates. Byrd would never have been on my radar if he hadn’t just had a four win season. I don’t think it happens again, but for the right price, you talk.
TRADES
Only two names jump out as legitimate upgrades that wouldn’t cost an arm and a leg that could be on the market this offseason. The Padres’ Chris Denorfia and the Rockies’ Michael Cuddyer. Denorfia is on a cheap deal and will be a free agent after 2014, so if the Padres admit they aren’t going to catch the Dodgers, they may be willing to part with their underrated outfielder. He’s routinely been an average to above average hitter across varying playing time and showed promise defensively last year. He’s not an automatic upgrade over Dirks/Castellanos, but he might provide some depth and stability at the position without mortgaging the future.
Cuddyer has the potential to be an impact bat at a cool $10.5 million if the Rockies are will to part with him. The prospect cost might be a touch higher, but Cuddyer is coming off his best season at the plate with a career 113 wRC+. The high BABIP and resulting stats are partly Coors aided but Cuddyer was no slouch on the road last year either. He’s not the kind of upgrade that you’re really going to notice, but he’s probably a safer bet to produce than Dirks and Castellanos.
THE RECOMMENDATION
Given a sparse market and a weak trade crop, it’s hard to suggest the Tigers do anything but play the hand they were dealt. Test out Castellanos and have Dirks there to back him up. It would be a great idea to sign a right-handed bench bat like Reed Johnson or something to fill in if Castellanos needs some time in AAA, but there really isn’t a better option that wouldn’t be pretty expensive. Granderson, Beltran, and Choo are reasonable upgrades but they come at a cost. Dirks and Castellanos are going to cost the Tigers next to nothing and those players would also add $10 to $18 million to the yearly payroll. That might be worth it in a vacuum, but considering the other needs that money is better spent keeping Infante and stocking the bullpen.
The Tigers have to figure out how to make the money work going forward with Verlander, Fielder, Sanchez and whomever they wish to extend into the future. It’s hard to see how paying more than ten million dollars right now on a LF who might improve the team by 2 wins is truly worth it. If there was a great option out there, they should go for it, but there doesn’t appear to be anything worth doing. Dirks is underrated and Castellanos could be a star. This is the year to find out what those two can do.
Tigers Keep Jeff Jones, Everyone Looks Good
News broke today that Brad Ausmus and the Tigers will be keeping pitching coach Jeff Jones on board for the 2014 season. This wasn’t surprising and it was an easy decision, but it’s still reflects well on everyone involved.
I spent a lot of the 2013 season chronicling different improvements among the Tigers starting rotation – a rotation that rivaled the best couple of rotations in baseball history using Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP). You can read all of those different posts by clicking the “Tigers Breakdown” tab above but I want to call your attention to a post I wrote early last summer about the Tigers’ use of the changeup. In this post, I pointed out that all of the Tigers starters were throwing more changeups than they had ever thrown before. I didn’t know the cause, but I knew that one of the possible explanations was Jeff Jones.
During the 2013 season we saw three of the Tigers pitchers have career years, while Fister and Verlander only finished 7th and 12th in baseball in WAR. The rotation collectively posted a FIP- that was second best all time and they struck out something like 97% of batters they faced in the postseason (exaggeration added). There are a variety of possible explanations. This could be organizational and coming from the front office. It could be the pitchers figuring it out on their own. It could be Alex Avila. It could be Jeff Jones.
In reality, it’s probably a mix of all four. I assume that the Front Office provides Jones with information that he uses in conjunction with Avila and the starter to formulate a gameplan. Whatever the process is, it’s working. The Tigers starting pitchers ran away and hid.
I’m not going to take the time right now to recap the specific changes each pitcher made this year (I’ll do that throughout the offseason), but I will point out that Porcello took another big step forward with his strikeout rate. Fister added more ground balls. Scherzer did everything. Sanchez added strikeouts and cut homeruns. Verlander had issues, but Verlander also fixed those issues and was amazing over his last nine starts.
Without being in the pitchers’ meetings, I can’t guarantee that Jones is responsible, but when five pitchers on the same team all appear to have gotten better at the same time despite completely different styles and a bad defense, you tend to look for a connection. Some is Avila and some is Jones, why risk losing that?
So take a step back and think about what this says. First, it suggests that the organization values Jones as they should. Check. It shows that Gene Lamont values Jones. Check. It says that Brad Ausmus, who doesn’t know Jones as well as everyone else both listened to the right people and saw the value Jones brings when he talked with him. It means he read his players correctly, who love Jones. Check.
The Tigers don’t always make great decisions, but they do a decent job most of the time. Bringing Jones on as the pitching coach from the bullpen in 2011 was a smashing success and recognizing his value enough to keep him around in a new regime reflects well on everyone.
They need a new hitting coach and have to decide how they want to handle first base and infield coaching duties, but by having Ausmus in place and Jones in his old seat, they’re ready to figure out how to piece together the players that will finally help them win the last game of the season.
Brad Ausmus Meets The Press
Last night, news broke that Brad Ausmus would be the Tigers’ next manager and Dombrowski and Ausmus met the media to announce the 3 year deal this afternoon. My general thoughts can be found here and the basic takeaway is that it looks like a good move, but there is so much we don’t know about how he will fill the role.
In answering questions, Ausmus made a few comments that really encouraged me. When asked about sabermetrics, he discussed the need to take that information and boil it down into something he can give to players who are resistant to a lot of information. This is a really good mindset in that Ausmus knows it’s his job to pay attention to the advanced numbers and use that to craft his instruction and decision making. It doesn’t matter if Miguel Cabrera knows what his wOBA is, but it does matter that Ausmus knows why wOBA is something to focus on instead of batting average. I think that he does.
Ausmus also talked about leaning on Alex Avila and Gene Lamont during the transition which is a sign of wisdom. Ausmus doesn’t have all the answers, but he knows what he doesn’t know and knows who in the organization can help him. Lamont has been at the wheel before and Avila has marshaled this pitching staff for several years. I study political leadership and decision making in my other life and one characteristic that stands out is knowing who to rely on for assistance.
That said, he hasn’t made up his mind about the rest of the staff. The only thing that matters is Jeff Jones and he said Jeff Jones is a candidate for the job. Hopefully when he takes the time to sit down with Jones and talk with Avila and Lamont about a pitching coach, he’ll see the value Jones brings.
Finally, Ausmus spoke about thinking ahead and communicating, especially as it relates to taking pitchers out and having the bullpen ready. I’m not sure how far down the road he wants to take this, but it sure sounds like he’s going to use his communication skills to deploy a more flexible bullpen strategy. I don’t know if he’ll totally reinvent the wheel, but I would bet he won’t be afraid to use his set up men in much less rigid roles than his predecessor. It’s hard to say how the whole closer thing will go until we actually know who he’ll have in his bullpen, but it sounds like the Tigers are moving in the right direction.
As I said yesterday, we won’t know how Ausmus will do until we see him take the reins but the signs are pointing in the right direction. He gave good answers, even if the press asked predominantly routine questions. Ausmus seems to be a mix of good old boy credibility with some modern sensibilities. That’s the kind of change the Tigers needed. Now the only question is if the perception we have of Ausmus today will match the reality we find in April.
Tigers Hire Brad Ausmus
We’ll know more in the days and weeks to follow, but news broke late Saturday that the Tigers will finalize a deal with former catcher Brad Ausmus that will make him their next manager. I normally don’t give a lot of credit to people who “break news” like this in sports, but I will tonight because ESPN annoyingly referred to him as a “media report.”
On the face of it, I really like the move. I loved Brad Ausmus as a player and always thought highly of his baseball IQ. That said, he’s never managed at this level before and we just don’t know anything about his philosophical leanings or his ability to lead from the manager’s office. I’m not saying you have to hire a tried and true skipper, but I’m saying the untested are difficult to judge. Newsflash, I know.
Mike Matheny comes from the Ausmus tradition in that they’re about the same age and both filled similar roles in the big leagues before becoming first time managers. I don’t think that highly of Matheny as an on field manager, but that also tells me nothing about what Ausmus will do.
This is going to get repetitive quickly, but I just don’t know. Anyone who thinks they know is lying unless they’re Brad Ausmus or Dave Dombrowski. I’ll analyze his every move for you, but I won’t speculate. That’s not what we do here. I liked Ausmus as a player and think highly of him. For now, that’s all I’ll say. When he starts saying and doing things, I’ll write more about him.
I’ll leave you with a final thought. The best thing Ausmus can do at the beginning of this is to keep Jeff Jones. Jeff Jones makes a difference and knowing your personnel and how to get them to perform their best is critical. I normally harp on tactical stuff because that’s the stuff we can see, but when it comes down to it, making sure Anibal Sanchez and Rick Porcello maintain their improvements is way more important than calling on the right middle reliever at the right time.
And just in case you forgot, Brad Ausmus made the All-Star Game as a Tiger in 1999 courtesy of a .365 OBP and the team being awful. Even if Ausmus doesn’t work out as a manager, you’ve got to appreciate how much nicer it is to be a Tigers fan this time around.
Quick Notes on the #Tigers Moves
The Tigers made three minor moves today, but since it’s November and there’s nothing worth doing in November, they feel like big moves. The Tigers let Darin Downs and Matt Tuiasosopo go on waivers to Houston and Arizona and they declined Jose Veras’ team option valued at $3.25 million.
Tuiasosopo played very well during the first half of the season but struggled mightily down the stretch. He may have had a chance to win a bench spot again in 2014, but he won’t have the same chance to platoon and likely won’t ever perform like he did this year again. If the Dbacks want him, you’re happy to take the roster spot.
Downs is actually a bit of a disappointment for me because I think Downs is tremendously underrated. He stuck out more than a batter an inning and walked fewer than 3 per 9 across 35.1 innings. The ERA looks bad because of a couple of rough outings (one right before he went on the DL), but the FIP and xFIP are solid and he’s left-handed. I realize the Tigers don’t see him as part of the long term plan, but this is the kind of guy you’d like to have around for depth.
The Veras option is extremely surprising given that the Tigers gave up a reasonably good prospect to get him and that they gave him the ball with the entire season on the line just a week and a half ago. He was going to cost them less than $4 million next year and could easily fill a variety of roles. It’s not so much that you’ll miss Veras, it’s that he was a cheap option for a bullpen with very little set in stone. Smyly will be back unless he’s in the rotation due to an injury and you’ll have Rondon and Alburquerque, health willing. Benoit is a free agent and everyone else is kind of on the brink. Having Veras around, even if you don’t think he’s a high leverage guy, makes sense.
The meat of the offseason is still coming and there will be much more to discuss, but on the first day of action, the Tigers have made one obvious move, one iffy move, and one seemingly crazy one. Not exactly a great start, but also not exactly critical either.
The Best Tigers Moments of 2013 – #20
For the next several weeks we’ll be rolling out our list of the best The Moment’s of 2013. The list is the product of winnowing down 173 moments from April to October into the best twenty. They vary in their importance but all captivated us in an important way. A few are silly, a few are excellent plays, and a few will travel down in Tigers lore. I hope you enjoy it.
#20: Alex Avila hits a grand slam off Stephen Strasburg
[click to play]
Beating an under-performing Nationals team doesn’t jump out as one of the more important wins of the 2013 season, but the way in which the Tigers scored the decisive runs earns it a place on our list. Entering the day, Alex Avila was hitting .193/.289/.309 and had struck out 29.6% of the time. The year was looking like a nightmare. He had performed better in July after coming off the DL, but he was still nowhere near where he wanted to be.
That night, he drew a tough assignment – Stephen Strasburg. Now Strasburg wasn’t getting the kind of national attention some other young stars were but his season was extremely impressive once you got beyond the ridiculous standard he set for himself. To date, Avila had 6 HR and all were against fastballs between 89-94 mph.
Then came his 6th inning at bat against one of the best arms in baseball. Strasburg got ahead 0-1 before putting two inside and leaving the count at 2-1. The bases were loaded. The score was tied. Strasburg came down and in at 96 mph. To date, Avila had exactly one hit against a pitch 96 mph or higher which got through a hole on the ground against Fernando Rodney.
On this night, he turned on it and sent it flying deep into the Michigan summer. 5-1, Tigers lead. Here comes Avila. You know the rest. From that day forward he hit .299/.377/.514 and looked a whole lot like the Alex Avila who took the league by storm in 2011. He led the Tigers staff through one of the best pitching seasons of all time and punctuated it with a couple more appearances further down this list.
The season didn’t start very well for Avila, but as the summer wore on his luck started to turn. It’s not often than a .190 hitter makes the great Strasburg hang his head in shame, but on July 30, 2013 that’s exactly what we saw.
In a season of great moments, this one trailed only 19 others. Watch the video and enjoy. Only 156 days until Opening Day.
How Was The Game (July 30, 2013)
The Tigers Offseason Checklist
All of these subjects are going to get individual attention after the World Series wraps up and the Hot Stove starts heating up, but I wanted to offer a few opening thoughts about what the Tigers should/need to do this offseason to put them in position to win in 2014 and beyond. These are idle thoughts at the beginning of a longer offseason agenda. Feel free to share your own.
1. Find a manager
This one is obvious because their last manager just retired, so the first step is to find his replacement. I’d love to see them modernize with someone like Dave Martinez from Tampa Bay, but the Tigers have a long history of grabbing people from the Dombrowski pipeline. They should either go with someone fresh and new or with someone already on the inside. Brookens or Lamont could keep things pretty stable, which could be useful, but if you’re going to shake things up, don’t sign someone who has been passed by like Dusty Baker.
2. Extend Rick Porcello
I’ve been banging this drum for a while now, but it’s time to pony up. You have a very good starting pitcher (2.9-3.2 WAR in each of the last three seasons) who hasn’t yet turned 25 years old. He’s never missed a start due to injury and showed tremendous signs of development this year. He’s a free agent after 2014 and should get a nice contract if he hits the open market, likely from a team who really understands what Porcello could do in front of a great defense. Porcello’s free agent deal would start at age 26 – which is generally considered the first year of a pitcher’s prime. That’s the guy you lock up. I think a 5 year extension buying out 2014 and then his first four free agent years would be smart. Given the rising salaries in baseball, I think something like 5 years and $60 million might work well for both sides. I might even consider something in the $70-80 million range if the free agent prices look big this year. I’m way more interested in a long term deal for Porcello than for Scherzer.
3. Figure out left field
Dirks and Tuiasosopo did a fine job platooning out there for most of the year and Peralta handled the position in the playoffs, but Nick Castellanos is coming and should be ready to go out there on opening day. This might be a spot where the Tigers could look for make a big free agent splash, but this is their primary hole going into the year and the sooner they make a decision the better. Give the job to Nick or don’t, but don’t leave everyone hanging.
4. Re-up with Omar
Infante has turned himself into a very nice regular over the last few seasons thanks to better defense, baserunning, and offense and remains in his early thirties. If he’ll go for it, a nice 2 year deal worth something like $20-$25 million seems reasonable. I don’t have a good sense about what the rest of the league thinks about Infante, but the crowdsourced project at FanGraphs offers a 3 year, $30 million deal as an expectation. He’ll get somewhere between $9-$12 million a year, it’s just about the years for most. Unless you’re thinking about using Peralta there, just sign Infante and don’t worry about it. I’m not against bringing Peralta back either at 2B or LF, but I think he’s worth more to other teams than he is to the Tigers.
5. Get Cabrera healthy.
Duh.
6. Sign lots of relievers
Everyone’s reaction the Tigers bullpen is always to spend big money on magic relievers who are invincible. Well, relievers are really fragile and often fall apart very quickly. You shouldn’t buy brand names, you should buy a bunch of journeyman and count on one or two to offer you great seasons. You have Smyly, Rondon, and Veras set in the pen and have guys like Alburquerque, Coke, and Putkonen to handle the lower leverage spots. You need to find something like 100 good innings on the market. I’d advocated for 3 or 4 buy-low gambles rather than one or two huge deals. I think if you look at the good bullpens in baseball, most of them include relievers who are having unexpectedly good years. That’s the model.
7. Dance with the ones that brung ya
The Tigers came within two wins of the World Series with an injured Cabrera. Now isn’t the time to overreact. This is a team with a window. Scherzer, Porcello, Fister, Cabrera, Martinez, Hunter, and Infante all have deals up after 2015 or sooner. Now isn’t the time to think about retooling for the future. Now is the time to go all in to try to win with this team. Trying to get cute by trading Scherzer is idiotic given what teams are likely to offer. That said, if the Royals offer you WIl Myers, you jump at it and don’t get sentimental. The Tigers should focus on making small moves, not big ones. This is a great team that can’t stay together forever. It’s going to start getting very expensive in a year or two, so now is the time to strike.
Jim Leyland’s Legacy
Jim Leyland changed Detroit. Not all at once and not all by himself, but he’s responsible for where we stand today. It’s easy to be unsatisfied two days after getting bounced from the postseason, but in the last eight years the Tigers have made it to the playoffs four times and won their first round matchup all four times. They never won the last game of the season, but they made it deep into the postseason in half of Leyland’s eight years. That’s pretty impressive considering they hadn’t made the playoffs in the 18 previous seasons.
Leyland never won the big win in Detroit, but most managers don’t. The Tigers won 700 games during Leyland’s eight seasons. Only four organizations won more – the Yankees, Red Sox, Angels, and Phillies. In the eight years before that only the Rays won fewer games. Some of that credit, maybe even most of it, belongs to Dave Dombrowski and the owner that told him to build a winner, but Leyland gets some of it. Maybe even a lot of it.
I firmly believe that good players will win regardless of who sits in the manager’s office but there is variation among the results of equally talented teams. It’s Dombrowski’s job to build the team and it’s the players job to succeed on the field, but managers play a role in getting the most out of the people under their control. Managers execute strategy, but they also define the workplace and help motivate and teach their players.
I don’t think we can quantify the impact of a manager with the information available to us. I’m not sure if the difference between Ned Yost and Joe Maddon is five games or twenty games, but managers do matter. I’ve never been a huge fan of Leyland’s bullpen choices or use of the bunt or really any of his assaults on modern strategy, but his players adore him. That matters. I don’t know how much, but just because I don’t have a good answer doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
Leyland changed the culture in Detroit and there’s a lot to be said for his ability to recruit free agents and make young players feel at home. If you like your boss, you’re going to perform better. Players adore Jim Leyland. It’s clear from their comments but it’s also clear from the polling conducting by outlets like SI that ask who players would most like to play for. I don’t know if Leyland’s clubhouse skills add ten wins to the Tigers or if they add two, but all else equal I’d rather have a manager that players want to run through a wall for than a manager they don’t.
From a tactical standpoint, the Tigers can do much better than Leyland, but from an interpersonal perspective he’s one of the best there is. I don’t think good leaders and good tacticians are mutually exclusive. I’d like the next manager to push the right buttons and stroke the right egos. Both are valuable and we should always strive for the best possible mix of both qualities.
My lasting images of Leyland are from the early days. He used to march out to the mound and talk to pitchers, I miss that. And I remember him being carried off after the homerun in 2006 and the first time he cried like a baby on television. Like every Tigers fan, I wanted to strangle Leyland at times, but I also know that the Tigers are better off because he came here. He didn’t win the big one, but I don’t hold that against him. There’s only so much a manager can do.
I don’t know who the next manager will be. I have some suspicions and some suggestions, but that comes later. For now, let’s tip our caps to Jim Leyland. Somewhere along the line the Tigers went from laughingstock to powerhouse and I’m not entirely sure if that would have happened if not for Leyland. An ending isn’t something to be sad about, necessarily. It was time for Leyland to call it a career and he went out on his terms with the organization in much better shape than when he arrived. I don’t know how much of that is because of him, but I know some of it was and I will always be grateful for that.
The First Last Word on the 2013 Tigers
In the days and weeks ahead of us, I’ll spend a lot of column inches breaking down the 2013 Tigers. There’s so much to analyze and dissect. This was one of the best pitching staffs in baseball history and arguably one of the best Tigers teams of all time. Miguel Cabrera had what I suspect will stand as the feather in his Hall of Fame cap. Sanchez, Fister, Scherzer. Everybody. So many great moments and great seasons. That’s what will come next. I’ll also talk a lot about the way forward and how the 2014 Tigers will look different from the 2013 version. There’s lots of ground to cover there, too. History marches on.
First, it’s time for perspective. We’ll talk about the rest later. Everything else can wait. Right now, we have to figured out how we, as fans, move on with our lives. That sounds melodramatic, but I bet most of you are already nodding your heads.
I think it’s important to remember a few things. To start, the Tigers made it deeper into the postseason than all but two teams. The Red Sox and the Cardinals are the only ones still standing and those are two great teams and great organizations. I think the Tigers were the best team in baseball this year, but it was darn close. There’s no shame in a Bronze metal.
I know a lot of you don’t want to hear that. It was World Series or bust. But this is baseball and baseball is ridiculous. This isn’t the NBA. The best teams don’t always win and games are heavily influenced by randomness. You can do everything right, spend every dollar you have, and pray to all of the right Gods and you still might not win it all. That’s the game. You can’t be mad at the Tigers for what is inherent in the sport.
And you can’t ignore Miguel Cabrera’s injury. The Tigers lost three ALCS games by one run. A healthy Cabrera helps them win one of those games. There’s nothing you can do about that. That’s how life works. The Tigers lost their best player at the worst time. Hard to overcome. Bad break.
People are going to talk about the bullpen. It’s not great, but the Tigers lost 1-0 in Game 3 and 4-3 in Game 5. The bullpen didn’t do that. Bullpens are bullpens. Sometimes they blow games. If you’re upset about your bullpen being fickle, start working on cloning Mariano Rivera.
And Prince had a bad series and a down year. He makes a lot of money and that invites criticism, but give the guy a break. He’s not trying to play poorly. He’s not trying to suck. You’ve all had those days and those weeks when you just can’t get anything right. I know you want to be angry and run the guy out of town, I guess you’re entitled to that opinion. But he’s one of us and that’s not how I’m going to treat family. Prince had a bad year off the field. He doesn’t need you on his back, he needs you watching it.
There’s more to say about how Leyland managed the team, too. I’ve been critical and I think my critiques have been fair. But they didn’t lose because of him. They lost because the other team was better. Leyland could have been better this year, but they made it to the ALCS in spite of that and didn’t lose in the ALCS because of it. I think the TIgers would be better off going in another direction next year, but I’m not losing sleep if he comes back. He loves the city and his players love him.
I think it really comes down to your expectations. When a baseball season starts, I expect the team to give me six months of entertainment. I want them to give me something to laugh, cry, cheer, and argue about. I want to win, but winning isn’t the only way I’m happy. They did their best. They showed up. That’s all I really ask. Maybe you demand more, but they gave you a lot. They took the Red Sox to six games. There isn’t really much farther you can take it. Yeah, they came up short, but if you demand a championship every year, your expectations are the problem, not the team.
I had fun this year. I love this team and I really enjoyed writing about them and interacting with all of you. I’m sick to my stomach that it’s over, but that’s not because I’m disappointed. I’m just sad that it’s over. I hate coming home after a long day and not being able to turn on the Tigers. Win or lose, the season ends in 11 days.
It’s going to take a few days to really come to terms with it, but when you’re ready to talk, I’ll be here. This was a great year. A fantastic year. Even if you’re not quite ready to see it yet.
How Was The Game? (October 19, 2013)
The end of the line.
Red Sox 5, Tigers 2 (Sox win the series 4-2)
Most of the time, I love endings. I like getting to the end of books, movies, TV shows, parts of life, etc, but the end of a baseball season never come easy. The Tigers played their final game tonight, on the road at Fenway Park. They trailed 1-0 after 5, but grabbed a pair of runs in the 6th to back Max Scherzer, but faltered in their attempt to pile on thanks to a baserunning miscue by Fielder. They led 2-1 entering the 7th inning – nine defensive outs away from forcing Game 7. The gates opened in a variety of ways in that inning in part thanks to a call. In part thanks to a bobble by the best defender we’ve got. In part thanks to a terrible 0-2 pitch from the reliever we acquired to settle our pen. There wasn’t one thing that did the Tigers in on Saturday night. It was a lot of things. There’s no shame in the overall result – losing to the Sox in the ALCS – given that the Tigers best player was a shell of himself for the entire postseason, but this particular one stings. It’s always going to sting. That’s how this works. We pour our hearts into the season and baseball crushes us. It’s designed to crush us. It’s impossible to know how things would have been different if any one of the mistakes had gone differently and you shouldn’t bother trying. The Sox and the Tigers were the two best teams in the AL and the Tigers lost in 6 games with their best player held together with duct tape and superglue. The result doesn’t bother me, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck. They’ll go back to the drawing board this winter and fine tune the roster that’s come 6 or fewer wins from the World Series in each of the last three seasons and will likely send Justin Verlander to the mound against the Royals on the final day of March, five long months from now.
The Moment: Martinez drives in a pair to take the lead in the 6th.
New English D 