Day 10: Detroit Tigers

The entire schedule of when team recaps will be.

Team: Detroit Tigers

2007 Regular Season Record: 88-74

Cost per Win: $95,180,369 / 88 = $1,081,595 per win

2007 Season Recap: The Tigers had a solid season that just wasn’t good enough. On July 26th they were leading the AL Central by a game and a half and had the second best record in baseball. The Indians then caught fire and the Tigers started to slump and ended up 8 games back of them for the division and 6 back of the Yankees for the wild card.

The Tigers were led by MVP candidate Magglio Ordonez who led the team in batting average, home runs, and RBIs. His numbers were .363, 28, and 139 in those categories respectively. Ordonez has shown year after year to be a solid cornerstone to the Tigers franchise and is very much worth the $13 million that he made last year if any player is worth that much that is.

Another bright spot for the Tigers was pitcher Justin Verlander who led the team with an 18 and 6 record and a 3.66 ERA. Other bright spots on offense were Placido Polanco, and Curtis Granderson who both hit over .300 on the season and Granderson also added 23 home runs. The only regular Tiger’s starter who had a bad offensive season was Brandon Inge who hit only .236. On the other hand Inge was a solid performer defensively at third base with a .959 fielding percentage so his contribution to the team was not a waste.

Key Free Agents: 1B Sean Casey and SS Neifi Perez; Perez is a serious reach as a key free agent because he only played in 33 games but I wanted to have at least 2 people. The Tigers have already resigned starting pitcher Kenny Rodgers so that leaves only the loss of Casey who was a regular starter. The Tigers can now however move Carlos Guillen to 1st. Guillen played short stop last year but the Tigers have since brought in Edgar Renteria to play short stop next season. So in the end Casey isn’t a loss at all.

Offseason Needs: I thought of just taking this part out for the Tigers but that might seem strange when every other team has it filled in. So instead I will say that the Tigers really don’t have any offseason needs. Their starting pitching is solid especially with the development of Andrew Miller who I think will end up being a quality starter next year and the lineup looks solid from top to bottom. So in my opinion they don’t really have any needs after adding Renteria in the offseason.

Prediction for the 2008 season: So the Tigers have no offseason needs which makes a person think that they should have good success next season. It’s a sound theory and that is exactly what I think will happen next season. I predict the Tigers will win the division next year but will get a good amount of pressure from the Indian. This time they won’t stutter at the end though and they will keep a hold on the division lead all the way to the end. Once they reach the postseason they should get through the first round without a whole lot of problems but the second round will be a much greater problem because it will most likely be the Red Sox and I’ve stated before that I don’t see a lot standing in their way next year.