So Ian Kinsler of the Detroit Tigers is the latest to leave town. A good glove, decent bat, average speed, but overall a steady player.
Remember the Tigers could't keep Max Scherzer. He's since won a couple Cy Young awards for the Washington Nats. Same with young Rick Porcello. He departed the Tigers and promptly won the same award for the Bosox the following year.
J.D. Martinez, a terrific slugger, if a bit of a liability in the outfield, got traded off for "prospects".
No other team is interested in dinosaur Victor Martinez. Fat contract, but can't play a position, and you can time his base path speed with a sundial.
Miguel Cabrera, former slugger supreme, is getting older and constantly battling health issues. But the Tigers are on the hook for his bazillion dollar contract -- and who else would want an aging slugger in obvious decline at such a ridiculous price?
Just last year, young starting pitcher Michael Fullmer, won the Rookie of the Year. Really? Sure, he started out strong, but towards the end of the season was getting shelled like Pearl Harbor on 12/07/41, finishing up a not-so-good 10-12. That doesn't say much for the other rookies around the American League. He's being dangled as trade bait too. Will anybody want him -- and at what price?
Justin Verlander trotted off to Houston mid-year, where he promptly won a World Series. Beyond him, the Tiger starting rotation was shaky, to say the least.
Their bullpen remains flat-out pitiful, unless you're an opposing hitter. Then you love it when those guys come in and start pitching batting practice.
There's "rebuilding", and then there's "totally blowing it up". The Tigers would seem to fit into the latter category.
If you thought they were bad towards the end of the 2017 season, this once proud, but with precious few results over the years, franchise is most likely going to get downright embarrassing in the near future. 100+ loss seasons could easily become a reality.
While other teams around the league were already much better, and continue to find ways to improve their personnel, the Tigers have become a no-talent zero.
Worse, they recently hired Ron Gardenhire, an "old school" by the seat of his pants manager by any measure, while the rest of the teams, at least the smart ones, turned to modern statistical analysis (sabermetrics) years ago. Typically, Detroit remains far behind the times.
This is not only going to get ugly, but referring to the Pearl Harbor bit above, may indeed turn out to be an era "that will live in infamy".
No comments:
Post a Comment