“Disregard what I said about us winning the division. The Tigers acquiring Willis and Cabrera sealed the deal for them, son of a (expletive)!”

That's a quote from an email I received from my friend Shnydes, who's currently serving a military deployment in Afghanistan. He's the only guy I know who loves the Indians as much as I do.

Contact from military members in hot zones isn't always consistent, but after serving a tour in Iraq and in the middle of another in Afghanistan, Shyndes was as distraught as I'd ever head him.

Well, I’m going to tell you, the reader, exactly what I told Shnydes in a spirited response.

Not only am I not giving the Tigers the World Series yet—I’m not even convinced they'll win the American League Central.

At this point, any Tigers fans reading this are tearing their clothes and gnashing their teeth...so let's get right to the flaws.

 

Starting Rotation

Let's not ignore the obese circus clown in the room—these five gentlemen are a big part of the reason Los Tigres came up short of the postseason last year.

Unfortunately, I don’t see much improvement.

In his piece about the Marlins trade, Detroit columnist Mitch Albom wrote, “The Tigers' lineup—with Cabrera, Renteria, Guillen, Magglio Ordonez, Gary Sheffield, Placido Polanco, Pudge Rodriguez, Jacque Jones and Curtis Granderson—is shaping up to be a brick-smasher. And with Willis, Justin Verlander, Jeremy Bonderman, Nate Robertson and recently re-signed Kenny Rogers, well, nothing shabby about that rotation.”

On the contrary, I find plenty “shabby” about that rotation.

Once you get past perennial Cy Young-candidate Justin Verlander, you have an ancient Kenny Rogers (43 years old) and the mediocre duo of Nate Robertson and Jeremy Bonderman.

For five years, I’ve been hearing about Bonderman’s potential—but now he's 25 and has posted a career record of 56-62 with a 4.78 ERA.

Robertson’s career numbers are eerily similar to Bonderman's...only he's five years older.

That brings us to the Golden Child, Dontrelle Willis. I hate to have to be the one to say it, but the D-Train looks derailed.

Since his one outstanding 2005 season, Willis has seen win total decrease from 22 in ’05 to 12 in ’06 to 10 last season. His ERA has ballooned from 2.63 to 3.87 to an embarrassing 5.17. His innings and strikeouts have gone down each year, while his walks are up.

And as if that weren't enough evidence, Willis served up 29 homers last year. What's the over/under on how many bombs he’ll surrender to superior American League sluggers—35? 40?

 

Bullpen

Only one of Detroit's three bullpen mainstays is reliable—and he spent most of his second season on the disabled list.

If Joel Zumaya can stay healthy, he could be either a great setup man or a solid closer if (when?) Todd Jones craps out.

The second scenario, of course, would leave the Tigers without a dominant setup man.

The Tigers team ERA was 4.57 in 2006, good for 18th in baseball. All told, I think they should have done more to address their pitching.

 

Lineup

Okay, I’m not foolish enough to say the lineup will fail to score plenty of runs—but will the Tigers be a team of nine All-Stars as some have claimed?

The first concern is age. Detroit is relying on some creaky old bones to hold up for six months.

Gary Sheffield is 39, and has played just 172 games the last two seasons. He only hit .265 last year when he was healthy.

Pudge Rodriguez will collect Gold Gloves until he retires based on reputation, but at the plate the guy is done. Don’t believe me? Look at the 36-year-old’s stats.

The Tigers are also counting on several guys to repeat career years. With the exception of Barry Bonds, who hit his prime at age 37, hitters in their 30s tend to get worse, not better.

Magglio Ordonez, who will be 34 on Opening Day, hit an impossible .363 in ’06. Think he'll do that again? Newly acquired Edgar Renteria hit .332 in the pathetic National League. The odds are he'll return to somewhere near his .291 career average this year—and he cost Detroit a tremendous young pitching prospect in Jair Jurrjens.

Jurrjens shut down the Tribe twice last year—thank goodness he's gone.

The rest of the Tigers lineup should produce big numbers, but this is a team that finished third in baseball in runs scored last year with 887. That only propelled them to an 88-win season.



I applaud the Tigers front office for being proactive. If nothing else, it's a sharp contrast to the “stand-pat” strategy of Indians GM Mark Shapiro, who comically still believes Travis Hafner to be a big-league cleanup hitter.

But imagine if the Tigers had made a deal to land former Oakland ace Dan Haren instead of trading for Cabrera and Willis. They still would've had a solid lineup—and their rotation would have featured two Cy Young-caliber starters.

Gee, that sounds familiar. Isn’t that how somebody else won the Central last year?