Detroit Tigers Opening Weekend Observations
So, it looks like we’re really doing this, eh?
Yes, despite a Toronto Blue Jays team that was literally homeless on opening day after being denied the approval to play in their home country by the Canadian federal government and Juan Soto, the best player for the defending champion Washington Nationals, testing positive for COVID on opening f’ing day, major-league baseball is back and soldiering on with this season that in so many ways seems doomed to fail.
Oh, and did I mention the fact that MLB expanded the 2020 playoff field to 16 teams just hours before the season started?
This is gonna be a wild ride.
Time to digest the action from the Detroit Tigers opening series against the Cincinnati Reds, as well as how the change in playoff format affects a below-average, yet surprisingly 2-1 team like Detroit.
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Now anything can happen in a 60-game season
Remember that “anything can happen…” take that was being thrown around by every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a microphone when the short season was announced? While it’s true that the realm of possibilities widens as the season length decreases, for the Tigers a 60-game season with a traditional 10-team playoff just wasn’t enough to spawn any realistic postseason aspirations.
But a 16-team playoff where more than half the teams in the American League will be dancing come October? It’s hard to say anyone won’t have a shot in this new format, particularly when every team in the AL is sitting at either 2-1 or 1-2 after the opening weekend.
Two of those 2-1 teams: The Baltimore Orioles and your Motor City Kitties.
Not to mention that it’s absolutely Bananas Foster that the format was changed in the eleventh hour in the first place. Teams had fully constructed rosters and had already designated their “minor leaguers” (alternate training site guys) based on an entirely different playoff expectation. I’m sure there were some rumblings of a last-minute change given the fact that the owners and players union had to agree on the decision, but for most of us, this came “out of left field” (I’m always ready for the lame play on words joke, no bullpen warmup necessary).
An expanded playoff is not in the best interest of a top-tier team who came into 2020 with World Series goals. According to FiveThirtyEight’s preseason playoff projections, the Dodgers, Yankees, and Astros – the teams with the best championship odds entering the season – saw their title hopes drop by nearly 5% combined. Might not seem like much, but the top dogs now being all but guaranteed to make the postseason does not offset the cost of having to play an extra three-game opening-round series.
It’s the middle-of-the-pack teams who have the most to gain from the new format. The Red Sox and White Sox each saw their odds to make the playoffs go up by over 30%, while 18 other teams saw their odds jump by over 20%. The Tigers were not among those 18 teams, because FiveThirtyEight considered them a drastically improved but still bottom-5 team with a 25-35 projection. But make no mistake, after a huge road series win against a far superior Cincinnati Reds team (a dark horse WS candidate in their own right), the Tigers have taken a big step toward short season mediocrity, which is all 2020 requires.
What’s our target?
It’s helpful to identify a rough number of wins it will take for the Tigers to pull off an unlikely playoff run in 2020. Unfortunately, we’ve never seen a 60-game season or a 16-team playoff in baseball before, so we will just have to ballpark it (I’m in midseason form already).
In an effort to keep it relevant to recent history, I factored in the last five years of American League baseball only. The average win% of the lowest-seeded team to make the playoffs since 2015 is .559. This equates to 33-34 wins in the new 60-game format. Expanding the playoffs lowers that target win% to .495, which means it’s entirely possible a team below .500 could sneak in.
Making things even more interesting is the fact that there are multiple avenues to making the playoffs since the top two teams in each division get in regardless of overall league record. This would have caused a team to get screwed out of a playoff berth as recently as 2018, when the Minnesota Twins (78-84, 2nd in AL Central) would have bumped the 80-win Los Angeles Angels (4th in AL West).
Send in the reinforcements?
Of course, we are getting wayyyyyyy ahead of ourselves thinking about the playoffs after one series. But what can I say? Sports are back (for now) and it was a damn fun weekend of Tiger baseball.
That being said, this current crop of post-hypes and castoffs (and Miguel Cabrera) won’t be enough to keep this team around .500 without the help of some of the young studs in Toledo, who are mostly there for service time purposes (despite the lies Al Avila wants to feed you).
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This guy.
He’s 100% blowing smoke here, I just hope behind closed doors he’s shooting it straight with the prospects themselves. Could you imagine being Casey Mize – one of the top prospects in all of baseball (and 23 years old already) – and having your GM tell you “sorry kid, you just aren’t ready to help us win”, while he heads into opening day not knowing who his 4th and 5th starters will be?
And if Avila was telling the truth (he’s not) about not considering service time or not being taught it from his “predecessor” (nice excuse)…uh…fire the guy now, because team contract control is a really, really, ridiculously critical factor for a rebuilding franchise to consider.
I know I shouldn’t get hung up on semantics. We all know what’s really going on here, and it doesn’t behoove Avila to admit to service time manipulation. But there has to be a better way to sidestep these questions than spinning a story about how you were taught by your GM mentors – who were fired…er…released because ownership thought you could do a better job, not continue the status quo.
Back to the matter at hand. For prorated reasons, the Tigers only need to hold out Mize (or Matt Manning, Tarik Skubal, etc.) for the first seven games in order to retain an extra year of team control through 2026. Of course, they could also keep the prospects on the shelf the entire year and then do the whole service time dance again next season, but that would really be doing the more seasoned prospects dirty. Mize himself is on record of saying it will be much more difficult to improve if he doesn’t get to face major-league hitters this year.
I think we will see Mize fairly soon, if not next week when his seven-game alarm goes off. But if the Tigers are floating around .500 come mid-August, will Avila and Chris Ilitch feel the pressure to accelerate the rebuild timeline and give 2020 a real shot by bringing some of the other kids to the party?
Weekend observations
Here are my takeaways from the Tigers surprising series win in Cincinnati, which featured pretty much all highs and lows and not much in between.
Welcome back long ball
The boys were swinging that big wood in the ‘Nati. One year after barely contributing to a league-wide power surge, the Tigers have deposited six homers in three games, one off the ML lead. New faces – C.J. Cron (stud) and Austin Romine – have accounted for half of them. If fact, one-third of the Tigers’ hits have left the yard so far in 2020. Which is good, because when they aren’t hitting home runs…
Those strikeouts tho…
Good lord. If you thought 2019 was bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Detroit broke the major league record for team strikeouts last season (1,595), averaging nearly 10 per game. Through three games this season…wait for it…they lead all of baseball with 46 SO. The next closest are the Royals with 40, who the Tigers play this week to open their home schedule.
On the bright side, when the Royals aren’t striking out they aren’t doing much of anything. The Tigers have tripled up KC’s home run total and doubled their RBI output.
Striking out 46 times in three games is a team effort, but it is notable that three returning players – Miguel Cabrera, Niko Goodrum, and Christin Stewart – lead the team with 6 SO apiece. At least the first two have displayed their power stroke (and some smooth defense, in the case of Goodrum). Stewart, however…
Christin Stewart needs a time out
Or maybe just put him in quarantine to think about what he’s done. Seven at-bats, six strikeouts. Thanks for coming. All of that while hitting fifth behind C.J. Cron, who thankfully has been driving himself in with his moonshots.
At some point this is going to become a problem, and a guy who can’t make contact is going to get an extra at-bat with the game on the line. Power potential is great, but if you can’t put the ball in play let alone drive in a run it’s a waste of a premium spot in the order. Bottom-third or bench fodder ’till further notice, if you please.
Maybin this wasn’t such a good idea
Third time hasn’t been the charm so far for Cameron Maybin, who is now on his third stint in Detroit. His triple slash reads .000/.000/.000, but slow starts happen to the best of them.
What doesn’t happen to the best of them, though, is pulling a Fauci and throwing the ball into the grass several feet in front of you.
Who did it better?
Yes, that lowlight from Maybin came before the Tigers recorded their first out of the 2020 season, during a mini Matt Boyd meltdown. So you can understand why Maybin would be a little upset with himself later in the game after popping out and deciding to bounce his bat off the opposing catcher’s grill in frustration.
It’ll get better.
Jack No More-ris
If Maybin supplied the bloopers on the field in game 1, Jack Morris provided them from the broadcast booth in games 2-3.
We’ll start things off with some pandering/terrible analysis/old-man-number-confusion (you be the judge). Ivan Nova, Detroit’s game 2 starter, struggled in his Tigers debut. He gave up three runs over five innings, surrendered two homers, and walked twice as many batters as he K’d (4:2).
Color Jack Morris impressed by that sparkling line. His take: “Pretty good numbers, really…you’d take that almost every time”.
Maybe Morris is still getting “stretched out” much like a player in the early going. That would explain why he kept mixing up the names (Nick) Castellanos and (Luis) Castillo. It’s not like anyone knows who those guys are anyway. No harm, no foul.
Finally, in game 3, Morris seemed to short circuit while trying to say the names (Jonathan) Schoop and (Pedro) Strop in the same sentence. There was a good 5-10 seconds of dead air where it seemed like Morris was getting a software update in his brain. I think he’s all up to date now. Expect a smooth and clean performance the rest of the way.
I will say, it’s kind of charming to hear Morris root for a ball to clear the fence or for a close defensive play to be made with grunts, hoots, and hollers. My wife tells the story of her grandpa watching Walker Texas Ranger in his 90’s, fidgeting and shadowboxing in his rocking chair along with every Chuck Norris roundhouse kick on the screen. I’d like to think Morris is doing the same in the booth.
Late-game heroics
What better way to cap off the return of sports than a couple of two-run go-ahead bombs in the 9th inning on back-to-back days for the W. After a 7-1 mop job loss on opening day, late-game heroics off the bats of JaCoby Jones and C.J. Cron gave the Tigers an unlikely series win.
Which one did you like better?
They’re both pretty great, but C.J. Cron is on my fantasy team. So he’s my Tiger.
I could get used to this whole “sports bringing you joy” thing.
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