Injuries: 19.2%
Inge/Pudge idiocy 19.2%
Bonderman 2nd Half crap 12.8%
Craig Monroe sucking 4.8%
Sean Casey sucking 9.6%
Leyland’s imitation of the captain of the HMS Bounty: 15.8%
Dombrowski not getting a serviceable reliever in July or any kind of marginally impact player once the season started: 15.8%
May contain peanuts: 2.7%

August 3 – Detroit Tigers in Downward Spiral

“…With the way the Detroit Tigers have been playing lately, one would think they would be in a free fall…the fact remains that the Tigers, once owners of the top record in the majors this season, are being pushed up against the wall.”

When Lynn Henning was advancing that the “Tigers were still the team to beat and were a sure bet to win the Central” simply because they managed first place for 140 games in 2006 and most of this year, the Wall Street Journal had this to say (August 7):

“…So what’s wrong with the Tigers?…The Tigers better figure things out fast…”

And then, on August 24, Mike Castiglione had this to say (right about the same time Leyland was saying the Tiger’s situation was “…no big deal… we can make those games up real fast…”:

Playoff Hopes Slipping From Tigers’ Grasp

“…As talented a team the Tigers are, they are virtually tail-spinning their way out of the postseason. And with the summer season down to its final weeks, that panic button may just be ready for a push…the fact is, Detroit has managed to go from a top-tier team to downright awful in one month’s time…”

That’s not to mention all the disparaging comments from Donovan et. al over at SI.com who genuinely seem to relish the Tiger’s demise.

July 19 until Sept 1 all I saw was the national media ripping on the Tigers and calling a spade a spade

Who was ripping them at that time? I know that Gammons and Rosenthal still liked the Tigers at that time to come out ahead of the Indians – at least up until that last week of August. Cleveland was doing nothing to differentiate themselves at the time and the Tigers at least had help coming in the form of Zum/Rodney.

That said, I don’t ever remember a beat writer criticizing a Leyland decision. And there are glaring questions that don’t get asked after tough losses – at least they aren’t shown on FSN or the answers don’t make the recap the next day.

What influence, if any, does that bear on the Tiger’s play or lack there of? Who knows. Perhaps none, as you say. Although there are some who credit Verlander’s turnaround to specific comments Leyland made in the press.

I’m not going to deny the Detroit beat writers have very, well, optimistic, analysis, when they analyze at all. But their job is to get the people in the clubhouse to give quotes for the fans. And it’s not like they don’t question Leyland on why he makes decisions. Listen to FSN postgame, and they ask the questions. Leyland shoots them down or cuts them off. Repeating it again and again isn’t going make any lick of difference or make it any easier to get you the answers you seek.

One word describes this type of commentary: Complacency. Which is really just another way of propagating a lack of urgency in the media.

Aug 8 – Lynn Henning: It’s tough to bet against the Tigers for the simple reason they were a first-place team for 140 games in 2006, and they were a first-place team for most of this year.”

What kind of analysis is this? In other words, “I’ve been in the Bahamas the past three weeks and have absolutely no idea what’s going on with this team right now.”

Aug 21 – Danny Knobler five weeks in, right during the heat of the storm, during a stretch when the Tigers had the worst record in baseball: “…So to those of you who were so sure Zumaya’s injury would doom the 2007 Tigers, you were wrong…Somehow, the Tigers seem to have survived his absence [Really? Wow. I want whatever happy pills Knobler takes]…you asked, way back in June, if they could survive three months without Joel Zumaya….the answer, most definitely, was yes.”

Again, this is the kind of complacent media sentiment I’m talking about. No one in the NY press would dare even print something like this after an ongoing five-week collapse. That’s equivalent to saying, “Gee, guys. The Yankees are playing .500 but they’re surviving! They’re okay! I’m okay! You’re okay!”

Does this sound like a reporter remotely in reality? Here we have the Detroit media analyzing a team amid a colossal collapse (which arguably is due to aforementioned injuries) and not even acknowledging the injuries.

Look, I can buy and respect the points you are making about how you can’t compare the Yankees to the Tigers. But I’m sorry, your “…media isn’t guilty of not holding players/teams/managers accountable” argument just doesn’t fly.

What, exactly, were the Tigers supposed to do? They couldn’t trade away the minor league system — there really wasn’t that much interest in it or players on the trade market to get anyway. They couldn’t get the guys in the minors to step in, they tried that repeatedly. Didn’t work so well. And the fact remains, when the Yankees were missing 3 or 4 out of 5 starting pitchers, they were awful, too.

I’m sorry, it has nothign to do with heart or the players looking at the calendar. It has to do with the organization’s ability to absorb poor performances. The Yankees spend $200 to get top of the line players. The Tigers can’t.

It has nothing to do with the fan base or media not holding the players accountable. It’s just being realistic here. The organization is going in the right direction, but it isn’t there yet, and it will never have the resources to be the Yankees or Red Sox (did their media and fans not hold them accountable when they fell apart with injuries last year?).

If Bonderman, Rogers, Zumaya were healthy this year I doubt we’d be talking about their lack of urgency.

I don’t want to imply that I’m discounting all the woes and injuries as the major factor of the slide. I’m aware of the primary cause. I suppose what I’m really trying to finger is something more elusive and much harder to quantify, something akin to the manner in which the team/media (and less so the fans) reacted to a Perfect Storm that transmorgified the Tigers from a World Series favorite to the KC Royals (or worse, really) during those dismal 7 weeks.

The reason I disagreed with you, and others, about the Yankees is precisely because I saw the exact opposite from the Yankees. And grant it, what I’m really talking about is something very hard to quantify. The Yankees had problems of their own, but they just seemed to turn a light on, put blinders on, and address the problems instead of shrugging them off and saying, “that’s just baseball. Injuries happen.” Their media and fans didn’t make excuses al la Danny Knobler/Jerry Green/Lynn Henning et. al — they criticized and held the team and manager accountable and up to standards perhaps the Detroit fan base and the Detriot media just aren’t willing to do. In short, the Yankees just didn’t look like a .500 team despite that 70 game away-sample that said otherwise. They looked like a team that has 25 championships under their belt and a team hell bent for another one.

For example, Mussina has a couple dubious outings, and he gets yanked from the rotation in favor of Kennedy. Mussina! Borderline HOF pitcher. Proctor falls flat and they get rid of Proctor at trade deadline. Farnsworth et. all get beat up and all of sudden here comes Chamberlain.

I’m also aware you can argue the Tigers did the same thing with Lopez, Bazardo and all the rest of the Mud Hens that came up through the system.

The bottom line is, the Yankees were not going to lay down. The Tigers? I’m not at all saying they laid down and gave up — I’m just not so sure I could say the same thing about a Detroit Tiger ballclub with the same degree of conviction.

All this being said, it’s time for the Yankees to make me look like a blabbering and pontificating moron, embark on a glorious losing streak of their own, and play to their .500 road standards that started this conversation in the first place.

So, if Dombrowski is making attempts to better the team (not by getting Jack Wilson or something ridiculously stupid like that) then that’s all we can ask, and should expect, from him.

That’s not an excuse, just a fact. If the backups were that good, they’d be in the majors, not the minors. (Unless they play the position as a perez or grilli, apparently).

You wanted Leyland to pull their starterrs faster during the season, T Smith? But you also wanted them to have a better bullpen. (didn’t we all?) so it’s not like Leyland exactly would be improving the situation much.

Teams get hurt don’t win the world championship, no matter if they were some people’s favorites at the start of the year. Teams that stay healthy and emerge from the shadows and do. You know what? That’s sports and always has been.

Greg,

I like the way you’re thinking.