It had to happen sometime: Jim Leyland finally called it quits last week after 8 seasons as manager of the Detroit Tigers. Now, whether you liked the man or not, you have to admit that, at the very least, his arrival coincided with a major turnaround for this team. I might bitch about questionable bullpen moves, or the continued existence of Don Kelly, but you know what? I lived through Randy Smith's reign of terror over this team. I remember how abysmal this team was for the entirety of my childhood. I didn't know what the hell a competitive Detroit baseball team looked like for the first 16 years of my life. I sat through as many games as I could during the 2003 season. I wouldn't even wish that hell on Boston fans. Well, maybe.
The point is, Jim Leyland got this team to two more World Series and three more AL Central championships than the triumvirate of incompetence that ran this team in the 11 years prior to his arrival. And for that, I can never thank him enough. But for better or worse, the Marlboro Man has finally decided to ride off into the managerial sunset, so that begs the question: Who in the hell do you bring in to take his place? A look at some of the possible candidates:
Lloyd McClendon- The in-house favorite for the job, and a longtime associate of Leyland's, Legendary Lloyd managed the Pirates for six seasons in the early 2000's, to little success. But considering what Dave Littlefield gave him to work with, no one can really blame him for that. Not to mention, even Pirates fans will tell you guy can manage a pitching staff, something everyone's gotten on Leyland about this year. Of course, they'll also tell you he is rather resistant to playing rookies for any reason. Other than that, if you're a fan of staying the course with the current coaching staff, McClendon's probably the best in-house candidate.
Tom Brookens- It seemed for the longest time, Brookens was heir apparent to the position of Tigers' manager, having managed through their minor-league system before replacing the human windmill, Gene Lamont, as third-base coach. But then, he sucked at that job once he got here. Do not want.
Gene Lamont- Leyland's right-hand man since his Pirates days, and the guy who took over for him in Pittsburgh, didn't exactly impress in his first go-around as a manager. Pirates fans will tell you he was the worst manager in the post-Leyland era. Do you know how bad you have to be to earn that honor? You have to completely destroy the arms of any decent pitchers you have, and throw everybody and anybody around you under the bus in the process. Not interested.
Manny Acta- Not much of a track record here. Managed some dreadful Cleveland and Washington teams, but one can't hold that entirely against him. Though, the more sabermetric-minded corners of the Tigers' fanbase like his willingness to consider advanced statistics and disdain for the bunt. An interesting option, anyway.
Dave Martinez- Joe Maddon's bench coach in Tampa Bay for the last 6 years. The closest thing you're gonna get to Joe Maddon, seeing how he's still under contract.
Brad Ausmus- Best known as the guy that Randy Smith traded for every other year. Here's the problem: he's never managed at any level before, save for Team Israel in the World Baseball Classic, which is a little like saying your numbers in church league slow-pitch qualify you to play in the major leagues. And with the Tigers in World Series-or-bust mode, he's hardly the guy for the job, at least this year.
Torey Lovullo- Who? A one-time Tigers prospect, Lovullo managed his way up through the Indians system, ending up in Boston after being passed over for Manny Acta to manage the Tribe. Managed AAA Pawtucket before becoming part of John Farrell's coaching staffs in Toronto and Boston. If you're gonna go with any guy without major-league managerial experience, he's probably your guy.
Don Mattingly- My, the Dodgers' coaching situation just got interesting, didn't it? It seems like only last week that his option vested to keep him in LA through 2014, and then the most awkward press conference ever happened with him and Ned Colletti on Monday, in which he essentially called out upper management for not extending him sooner. The money quote: "My option vested once we beat Atlanta, but that doesn't mean I'll be back." The Dodgers responded by firing his hand-picked bench coach, Trey Hillman (you may remember him better as the awful manager of the equally awful Kansas City Royals), indicating that Donnie Baseball might be on his way out. But it looks like he's not going anywhere, for the moment. Third base coach Tim Wallach, however, might be...
Tony LaRussa- Not going to happen. The odds are better of him replacing Bud Selig than of him coming out of retirement to manage anywhere.
Kirk Gibson- As much as I'd love to see it, there's no way he'd ever come back and coach the team that hung him and Alan Trammell out to dry after 2005.
Charlie Manuel- The resume speaks for itself: winning the NL East 5 years straight, back-to-back NL pennants, and a World Series ring with the Phillies. Great track record (save for the last two years with the Phightin' Phils), and a reputation as a "players' coach" like Jim Leyland, make him probably the best of your available outside experienced options, but only if you're looking for a short-term fix.
Ozzie Guillen- Yes, he won a World Series with the Sox. But, he's also a ticking time bomb and a sideshow that'd make P.T. Barnum green with envy. Look how quickly he flamed out with Miami during the four months this decade that Jeffrey Loria actually made an attempt to field a competitive team. Dude can't keep his mouth shut to save himself, and that could prove to be a huge distraction to a team that doesn't need it. Do not want.
Eric Wedge- Why is this even an option?
Dusty Baker- If the Tigers hire him, I will start rooting for the White Sox.
Jose Canseco- LOL.
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Tying Up Some Loose Ends On The 2013 Tigers' Season...
(First off, an apology for having completely up and bailed on this thing for the better part of a month, but the time just hasn't been there of late. Hopefully now I'll actually stick to this thing for more than a few days, now that I've completely abandoned what few readers stumbled across it in the first place. So I'll kick off my long-anticipated (?) comeback by putting a wrap on the Tigers' season before I move on to... God-only-knows-what.)
My worst baseball-related nightmare has come true (apart from, perhaps, the Tigers trading Max Scherzer and Miguel Cabrera to the Yankees for Alex Rodriguez and the reanimated corpse of Nate Cornejo): The Red Sox and the Cardinals will be playing in this year's World Series. And for the record, I have no rooting interest and I won't be watching. If I did, though, I'd be rooting for the Cards to stomp the Sox into the ground in a 4-game series in which St. Louis wins every game by at least 6 runs. Why? Because I am beyond fucking sick of this "#teamofdestiny" bullshit being spewed by Sox fans, expecting the country to rally behind Boston because, y'know, karma.
I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but the reason I hate the Red Sox, and Boston teams in general, so much is because of the ignorant, know-nothing mouth-breathers who comprise the vast majority of their fanbase, their illiterate moron of a mayor included. These people walk among us, and it disgusts me. The same people who chant "steroids" every time Jhonny Peralta comes to the plate, having conveniently forgotten that David Ortiz still plays for them. The same people who think Dustin Pedroia should win MVP over Cabrera, Mike Trout, or Chris Davis, not based on stats or facts of any sort, but because of grit, heart, scrappiness, intangibles, and other meaningless tripe of the sort. The same people who won't think twice to run damn near anyone not named Pedroia out of town on a rail and trash the hell out of them, no matter what they might have done for the team, including the manager who led them to their first World Series in 86 years! Up until 2004, they wanted your pity because of some ridiculous 'curse,' and ever since, they've been the most insufferable pricks in all of sports. Moving on to actual Tigers-related business...
It's just the way it works with this team sometimes: when it goes wrong, it all goes wrong at once, and in the most spectacular fashion. Game 6 against the Red Sox, in particular, proves this.
Bullpen meltdown? Check. Completely stalled offense wasting a masterful performance by the starter? Check. Prince Fielder failing miserably at every facet of the game? Check, and check. Where in the hell did he go once the playoffs started? Between baserunning blunders, rally-killing at every possible opportunity, complete defensive indifference, and the comments he made during and after the series, Prince risks becoming the most hated Tiger in this town since Juan Gonzalez. Yeah, he did what Prince always does in the regular season, but a lot is expected from a guy who signed the ridiculous deal he did, especially in the postseason. If he comes back in 2014 and puts all his off-field and on-field struggles behind him, though, he should be able to avoid that fate.
That said, I don't know how in the hell Miguel Cabrera is still walking at this point in time, much less hitting a baseball! Turns out he's got a grade 2 or 3 groin strain, which could potentially require offseason surgery. I know a lot of people were criticizing Jim Leyland for running him out there every day towards the end of the regular season, myself included, but if this is as serious as it appears, then it's highly unlikely that a few more days of rest would have done much good, nor that playing through it did any greater damage to it. The good news is that, if it's checked out and treated very soon, as opposed to trying to rehab it first and having to undergo the surgery anyway, all indications seem to be that he should be 100% healthy to start spring training next year.
As for the bullpen... I tend to question Leyland's obsessive mixing and matching of relievers far more than the general effectiveness of the 'pen. Pulling your likely Cy Young winner after just over 100 pitches in the playoffs, burning through four different relievers over the course of an inning, and not leaving any of them in long enough to face more than one pitcher, tends to mean you don't get the benefit of the doubt. Both times he did this, it led to game-tying or game-winning grand slams. The first one turned the series around, the other put the nail in the coffin.
Finally, looking forward to next season. I don't care what other moves you make in this offseason, Dave Dombrowski. I don't care if you make any other moves this offseason. You can spend the next three months campaigning to replace Bud Selig, for all I care. But please, for the love of fuck, sign Omar Infante to at least a three year deal! I'll address the other potential offseason moves in a post later this week, but I just felt the need to put that out there.
This team has been absolutely frustrating to watch at times, especially for the last month or so, and it's been an absolute joy at others. It feels like this team fell short of expectations, but then again, maybe our expectations were too high in the first place. And even so, look at all they managed to accomplish along the way. We saw possibly the greatest hitter of our generation flirt with a second consecutive Triple Crown, then tell his strained groin to fuck off and continue hitting like crazy. We saw a guy two years removed from winning the Cy Young get completely overshadowed by two of his rotation mates, and saw them all combine to strike more batters out than any other pitching staff in major league history. We even watched them make the playoffs for a third consecutive year, something this team hasn't done in over 100 years.
Certainly it's hard not to be bitter about the way it all ended. But whether you realize it or not, it's a damn good time to be a Detroit Tigers fan. And by all indications, the good times ain't over yet.
My worst baseball-related nightmare has come true (apart from, perhaps, the Tigers trading Max Scherzer and Miguel Cabrera to the Yankees for Alex Rodriguez and the reanimated corpse of Nate Cornejo): The Red Sox and the Cardinals will be playing in this year's World Series. And for the record, I have no rooting interest and I won't be watching. If I did, though, I'd be rooting for the Cards to stomp the Sox into the ground in a 4-game series in which St. Louis wins every game by at least 6 runs. Why? Because I am beyond fucking sick of this "#teamofdestiny" bullshit being spewed by Sox fans, expecting the country to rally behind Boston because, y'know, karma.
I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but the reason I hate the Red Sox, and Boston teams in general, so much is because of the ignorant, know-nothing mouth-breathers who comprise the vast majority of their fanbase, their illiterate moron of a mayor included. These people walk among us, and it disgusts me. The same people who chant "steroids" every time Jhonny Peralta comes to the plate, having conveniently forgotten that David Ortiz still plays for them. The same people who think Dustin Pedroia should win MVP over Cabrera, Mike Trout, or Chris Davis, not based on stats or facts of any sort, but because of grit, heart, scrappiness, intangibles, and other meaningless tripe of the sort. The same people who won't think twice to run damn near anyone not named Pedroia out of town on a rail and trash the hell out of them, no matter what they might have done for the team, including the manager who led them to their first World Series in 86 years! Up until 2004, they wanted your pity because of some ridiculous 'curse,' and ever since, they've been the most insufferable pricks in all of sports. Moving on to actual Tigers-related business...
It's just the way it works with this team sometimes: when it goes wrong, it all goes wrong at once, and in the most spectacular fashion. Game 6 against the Red Sox, in particular, proves this.
Bullpen meltdown? Check. Completely stalled offense wasting a masterful performance by the starter? Check. Prince Fielder failing miserably at every facet of the game? Check, and check. Where in the hell did he go once the playoffs started? Between baserunning blunders, rally-killing at every possible opportunity, complete defensive indifference, and the comments he made during and after the series, Prince risks becoming the most hated Tiger in this town since Juan Gonzalez. Yeah, he did what Prince always does in the regular season, but a lot is expected from a guy who signed the ridiculous deal he did, especially in the postseason. If he comes back in 2014 and puts all his off-field and on-field struggles behind him, though, he should be able to avoid that fate.
That said, I don't know how in the hell Miguel Cabrera is still walking at this point in time, much less hitting a baseball! Turns out he's got a grade 2 or 3 groin strain, which could potentially require offseason surgery. I know a lot of people were criticizing Jim Leyland for running him out there every day towards the end of the regular season, myself included, but if this is as serious as it appears, then it's highly unlikely that a few more days of rest would have done much good, nor that playing through it did any greater damage to it. The good news is that, if it's checked out and treated very soon, as opposed to trying to rehab it first and having to undergo the surgery anyway, all indications seem to be that he should be 100% healthy to start spring training next year.
As for the bullpen... I tend to question Leyland's obsessive mixing and matching of relievers far more than the general effectiveness of the 'pen. Pulling your likely Cy Young winner after just over 100 pitches in the playoffs, burning through four different relievers over the course of an inning, and not leaving any of them in long enough to face more than one pitcher, tends to mean you don't get the benefit of the doubt. Both times he did this, it led to game-tying or game-winning grand slams. The first one turned the series around, the other put the nail in the coffin.
Finally, looking forward to next season. I don't care what other moves you make in this offseason, Dave Dombrowski. I don't care if you make any other moves this offseason. You can spend the next three months campaigning to replace Bud Selig, for all I care. But please, for the love of fuck, sign Omar Infante to at least a three year deal! I'll address the other potential offseason moves in a post later this week, but I just felt the need to put that out there.
This team has been absolutely frustrating to watch at times, especially for the last month or so, and it's been an absolute joy at others. It feels like this team fell short of expectations, but then again, maybe our expectations were too high in the first place. And even so, look at all they managed to accomplish along the way. We saw possibly the greatest hitter of our generation flirt with a second consecutive Triple Crown, then tell his strained groin to fuck off and continue hitting like crazy. We saw a guy two years removed from winning the Cy Young get completely overshadowed by two of his rotation mates, and saw them all combine to strike more batters out than any other pitching staff in major league history. We even watched them make the playoffs for a third consecutive year, something this team hasn't done in over 100 years.
Certainly it's hard not to be bitter about the way it all ended. But whether you realize it or not, it's a damn good time to be a Detroit Tigers fan. And by all indications, the good times ain't over yet.
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