I'm back!

My Blogger dashboard tells me that I have not posted since August 10th. I have to believe that 2 1/2 months is plenty of time for a break. So let's jump back into this - shall we?

Let's sum up- in 2008 the Tigers spent more money on payroll than anybody but the Yankees. They started out 0-7 and never really recovered. They flirted with .500 but only enough to tease all of their fans before sliding backward, ever backward. They ended up finishing 74-88 for the year, good enough for last place in the AL Central. Even the Royals were a better club! For those of you who are looking forward to a weekly recap of those last 6 weeks or so that I didn't cover here- well... the Tigers sucked. That should about cover it.

So, now what do they do? Well, conventional wisdom says that they need pitching. They don't have a solid closer (now that Todd Jones has hung up his spikes). They are weak in the set up roles (with Zumaya a huge question mark and Rodney a series of different symbols followed by an exclamation point! For example: "What the @#$% just happened?!") The starters are just as uncertain. Verlander is still amazing, but his numbers aren't. Bonderman is hopefully recovering from shoulder surgery. Rogers will (or won't) retire- he won't say just yet. Willis and Robertson are mainly there to drive fans (who remember how solid they can be) just crazy. They fired the pitching coach. Maybe that will matter, maybe it won't. I don't know.

Their defense wasn't exactly helping the pitchers this year. They are statistically worse almost everywhere. The only player who really shined this year defensively was a pitcher. Not exactly what you're looking for at a payroll just north of $138,000,000. So Jim Leyland announced that Brandon Inge would be the starting 3rd baseman in 2009. I'm sure that will plug some of the holes on the left side of the infield. But that doesn't solve everything. Polanco is still a great 2nd baseman. Cabrera seems to be getting pretty good at 1st base. Everyone is talking about Shortstop and Edgar Rentaria. I'm not sure that he is that much of a problem. He didn't hit for squat in the first half of the season, but after that he was improving. In fact he shows some real good stats as you can see at Tiger Tales. I think that, with the limited payroll options the Tigers have right now that there are other places to spend their money. The outfield will be another area to focus on. Center is solid with Granderson. Right seems solid with Ordonez (assuming that he stays in Detroit). Left has been a question mark for a long time, but Leyland said that Carlos Guillen will be the starting Left Fielder. I'm not sure about that, but Leyland is better at this than I am so we'll see.

So the Tigers have a lot of questions to answer and apparently not a lot of money to solve them with. I think that it is fair to say that nobody is going to pre-maturely buy their World Series tickets this year. Hopefully they will do better than last place.

Half way there...

Rockies 6, Tigers 7

Well, they are half way there. With the win yesterday over the Rockies the Tigers reached .500 for the first time this season. After today's game they will have played 1/2 of the season. They are currently 5 games behind the first place White Sox in the AL Central.

For the first half of the year the Tigers are batting .274 and slugging .435. They have scored 389 runs for an average of 4.86 (with the trend moving up). They have hit 146 doubles, 17 triples and 86 home runs while taking 278 walks and striking out 489 times.

They are pitching with a ERA of 4.64* for the Starters with 238 earned runs over 461.9 innings pitched. The bullpen has an ERA of 4.81 over 132.8 innings pitched. The Starters' ERA is trending down.

Interleague play ends today. Detroits eats National League teams for dinner (12 and 5 so far). I believe I heard a stat saying that Detroit was 31 and 9 over the past few years of Interleague play. Certainly this year playing National League teams has been a factor in their resurgence. Monday they start the 2nd half of the year against the Twins who are the also playing very well against NL teams (.600 ball over the month of June). Then the Tigers play against Seattle and Cleaveland before the Twins again.

Looking at June for all teams in the AL Central I see that the White Sox scored more runs than any other AL Central team (147 or 6.1 per game) and that includes being swept twice! The White Sox also allowed the fewest runs (101 or 4.2 per game). A really good combo. Detroit won more games but scored "only" 121 runs (5.0 per game) while allowing 102 (4.3 per game). The Twins scored 128 (5.1/ game) and allowed 116 (4.6/ game). The Indians scored 130 (5.2/ game) and allowed 125 (5.0/ game) and the Royals scored 122 (5.1/ game) and allowed 113 (4.7/ game). I hope the White Sox cool down before the Tigers play them again.

They are half way done and have a clean slate. They have to make up 5 games and play .610 ball for the rest of the year to make 90 wins for the season. They did better than that for June.

Let's enjoy this last game against the NL today.