Garret Craig

While thinking about the Tigers this morning, I punched some numbers in to my calculator… I would have liked to have made it a bit more in-depth (Division Analysis, Comparison to rest of MLB, etc.), but here’s what I ended up with:

2008 PLAYOFF PAYROLLS

AL
Boston Red Sox - $133,440,037
Chicago White Sox - $121,152,667
Los Angelas Angels - $119,216,333
Tampa Bay Rays - $43,820,598

NL
Chicago Cubs - $118,595,833
Los Angelas Dodgers - $118,536,038
Philadelphia Phillies - $98,269,881
Milwaukee Brewers - $81,004,167

AL Total: $417,629,635
AL Average: $104,407,409
NL Total: $416,405,919
NL Average: $104,101,480
MLB Total: $834,035,554
MLB Average: $104,254,444

2007 PLAYOFF PAYROLLS

AL
New York Yankees - $195,229,045
Boston Red Sox - $143,526,214
Los Angelas Angels - $109,251,333
Cleveland Indians - $61,673,267

NL
Chicago Cubs - $99,937,000
Philadelphia Philles - $89,368,214
Colorado Rockies - $54,424,000
Arizona Diamondbacks - $52,067,546

AL Total: $509,679,859
AL Average: $127,419,965
NL Total: $295,796,760
NL Average: $73,949,190
MLB Total: $805,476,619
MLB Average: $100,684,577

COMBINED 2007 & 2008 PLAYOFF PAYROLLS

AL Total: $927,309,494
AL Average: $463,654,747
NL Total: $712,202,679
NL Average: $356,101,340
MLB Total: $1,639,512,173
MLB Average: $819,756,087

Average AL Playoff Team*: $115,913,687
Average NL Playoff Team*: $89,025,335

*Between 07′ and 08′ seasons.

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The Yankees spent $209,081,579 this year, and didn’t make the playoffs… You can draw your own conclusions from this.

I could have titled this article a lot of other things; “Angel Hernandez” seems like a very plain title. Other titles I had selected may have been very clever and comical, but they would also have been very rude, so I decided against them this time (I’m feeling nice right now).

You may ask, at this point, what can you do but laugh when watching a Tigers game?  Why even write about the Tigers anymore? But I, like Jim Leyland, can’t prevent myself from finding something to complain about night after amusing night, and I feel obligated to make my point known.

I could talk about many things on the night of another horrifyingly disappointing loss for the Detroit Tigers, and I am by no means excusing Fernando Rodney for his terrible pitching in the 9th inning of tonight’s game or blaming the home plate umpire for the outcome of the game, but really, Mr. Hernandez, could you be any more arrogant?

Seriously. Do you really have to be so right that you can’t even ask the first base umpire for help when 3 different people think you might be wrong? Not to mention the rulebook says you don’t have a choice.

Rule 9.02(c) in the MLB Official Rulebook states; “Appeals on a half swing may be made only on the call of ball and when asked to appeal, the home plate umpire must refer to a base umpire for his judgment on the half swing.” Also, “Field umpires must be alerted to the request from the plate umpire and quickly respond.”

But you probably already knew that.

The Detroit Tigers lost a rare pitchers duel last night to the Kansas City Royals, 3-2. With the loss, they fall to 16-23, 7 games below the .500 mark. They finally got a good start from their pitching (Nate Robertson went a strong 7), but the offense failed to convert their nine hits into more than two runs.

The offense (projected before the season to possibly score over 1,000 runs), has shown signs of coming out of their slump since Curtis Granderson came back from the DL on April 23rd, but has still been kept under 4 runs 10 times in those 18 games. You may also find it interesting that they have lost all 10 of those games. For the entire season, they have only lost three times when scoring more than 3 runs.

The bottom line is inconsistency. They score 10 runs, then only 1 run, then all the way up to 6 runs, and then they fall to 2 runs for the next two games. Their starting pitching isn’t helping either, with the worst ERA in baseball. A Tigers starting pitcher has not yet recorded a complete game, which makes them the only team not to have a starter go a complete 9 innings in the AL.

Does this sound like a team that cost $150,000,000? I didn’t think so.

They just don’t seem to care any more. The moves by Jim Leyland Monday were supposed to give the Tigers some sort of new energy, but the Tigers batters will have none of it. The Tigers, who scored three runs last night, and were shut out 5-0 tonight, are now averaging 2.2 runs in the past 5 games, and 4.7 runs per game over the first 34 games.

Let me take you to the bottom of the 8th inning, two outs, “All-Star” Ivan ‘Pudge’ Rodriguez at the plate. Pudge lines it down the right field line into the corner. Now most players, not making the money Rodriguez is, would be running hard out of the box, putting some pressure on the opposing team and maybe trying to spark a rally. But Ivan Rodriguez, since he knows he’s just an amazing player, trots around the base paths like he just hit a grand slam. This is just one of the many things I’ve seen over the last month+ that tell me this team doesn’t want to win a World Series.

Why? They have no reason to. Most of these players have guaranteed money for many years to come. And good money too. Just as one example, Miguel Cabrera is locked up for 8 years, and if he never hits the ball again in his career, he will be set for life with $153.3 million. That comes out to $120,000 every game in the next 8 years. What incentive does Miguel have to win?

Gary Sheffield, who will make around 13 million this year, and around $80,000 per game, is currently hitting .176 with 2 home runs. The Tigers have him locked up through next year. That sounds promising doesn’t it?

Until now, I’ve been preaching “We’re only a few games back, we’ll be OK.” All I can say now is that Tigers fans have reason to be scared.

Tigers bullpen scapegoat in 2007 and 2008 will not see the Tigers again till June 08′. He was traded today for 22-year-old Class A reliever Zach Simons of the Colorado Rockies.

It’s doubtful that Simons will ever be a Major League pitcher, which begs the question, why trade Major-League Junk for Single-A Junk? I know they needed to make room for Cruceta, but is this really all the Tigers could get for Jason? Do other teams really think he’s as bad as Tigers fans think he is? Grilli was actually pitching moderately well in recent games.

I guess I don’t really know what to think about this one.

More than one site (FoxSports.com, kffl.com) has claimed Brandon Inge is very upset with Jim Leyland’s move of Carlos Guillen from first base to third recently (Though I have failed to find a quote from Brandon).

But despite upsetting a 19 million-dollar .200 hitter with no reasons to complain, the move appears to be paying off. The infield has noticeably improved with Cabrera at first base. The pathetic errors have abruptly ended, and the Tigers are now beginning to look like a Major League Baseball Team.

The Tigers are currently @ the Yankees for a three game set, Detroit took the first game behind a quality start from Kenny Rogers.

Justin Verlander went 5 2/3 innings Sunday night on ESPN in the Detroit Tigers 6-2 loss to the Angels, giving up 6 “earned” runs on 7 hits, 4 walks, and 3 k’s. Impressive? Not statistically, but at least two of those “earned” runs can not realistically be faulted to Verlander, the first of which came on an RBI triple on a playable fly ball that was misplayed by Magglio Ordonez in right field.

No, if you watched the first five innings of the game, you would have seen glimpses of the Justin Verlander that we saw in the 06 and 07 seasons, who had his velocity back and was pitching consistent high-90’s with his fastball.

Verlander had good control of most of his pitches, especially his curve-ball (which was ’stellar’). He threw 57 strikes and 45 balls (Most of which were pitched in the 6th inning collapse) while giving up 4 walks in the game.

Then again, it is the stats that count for tonight, so we’ll see if the Tigers can recover and get back on track Tuesday night when Kenny Rogers faces the dangerous New York Yankees.

Saturday was great day for the city of Detroit. The Red Wings squared off with the Avs in Game 2 of the 2nd Round, and dominated from the first whistle to the final horn, winning handily by a score of 5-1. Johan Franzen scored his first career hat trick, and Chris Osgood was spectacular once again, leading the way for the Wings to a 2-0 series lead going into Denver Tuesday night.

Meanwhile, 1.34 miles away, the Tigers and Armando Galarraga took a no-hitter to the 6th inning, only to have it erased by a triple with two outs. Galarraga finished going 6 2/3, with 2 earned runs on just a single hit. After a Los Angeles comeback late, the Tigers got back on top and finished the game 6-4, leaving Tigers fans happy and eager to find the Wings’ score.

It couldn’t all be good though, as all this happened, the Detroit Lions made barely a ripple in the NFL draft with the 17th pick (why did they have to win so much last year?). They selected Gosder Cherilus
. Has anybody heard of him before? All I can say is, at least it wasn’t a wide receiver.