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.

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.