While it is true only one team can win the world series it is also true that not all teams are actively trying to win it every year. This year I don’t think Baltimore is trying, I don’t think the Nationals are trying.
The Yankees may be the devil, but you can’t say they don’t always try.
My point is…the Tigers can still have a very good year and do well and play hard. But without a shut down closer they are not ‘really’ trying to get to the world series. They are hoping things break right for them and hopefully get into the playoffs and hopefully catch someone by surprise.
And in the grand scheme of things an 85 win year really does not count for much. It makes for a nice summer, but they don’t raise banners for pleasant nights in July.

Then the starting pitching was brutal most of the time, except for Galaragga and Minor. Willis and Robertson showed that they can still pitch, but they have some big mechanical and mental hurdles to get over. Bondo and Verlander are the backbone to the staff. We need them to win 15+ games each. Rogers was almost a total waste the last 2 seasons. I’m not sure what was worse last year: Rogers , Willis. or Nate. Jackson will hopefully fill that weak spot in the rotation.

The bright side was that for a 2 month stretch, from June to August, the Tigers were one of the best teams in baseball.

http://tw.news.yahoo.com/artic.....1cqde.html
(those are in Chinese though)

Anyway, if true, Ni becomes the first Taiwanese player ever to sign with a major league team after playing professionally at home first. he’s 26 years old and have been one of the top pitcher in the league over the last couple of years , last year he was the strikeout king in the league. he’s also the ace of Team Taiwan during the last few international competitions.

Ni’s scouting report claims that he throws in the low 90s touching mid, from my recollection that seem to be a overstatement, though that might have been because the more recent recollection of him was as a workhorse starter.

Either way, Ni probably profiles as a reliever in the majors.

Here’s a clip of him dominating team Canada during the olympics qualifiers.
http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=966cDP4trsk

here’s a clip of a 8.1 IP 13k 0BB dominant outing in the CPBL (along with a interview)
http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=AR-LTzhsEZg

I’ve got WAR projections up as well and have the Tigers at 81-81 with the current club we have — which includes going Bill’s route of having the rest of the bullpen as replacement level other than Seay and Rodney — and I’ve got the Tigers at 80.8 wins this year (we’ll call it dead even at 81-81).

Dave T,

that’s a fairly narrow view ala Ricky Bobby’s “if you’re not first, you’re last”, and doesn’t really sum up the realities of playing out an actual season. in fact, since only 1/30 teams win the W.S. in any given year (and that they don’t tend to repeat that often); you could argue that setting the W.S. as you’re goal is pretty unrealistic.

many sports pundits had all but penned in the Tigers as the W.S. Champs around this time last year and i don’t think anyone was talking about Philly, but as it turned out, the season had other things in store. i doubt too many people (even within the Phillies organization) had firm expectations for them to win the W.S. at the start of the year, but that didn’t seem to matter too much in the end. even within the AL-Central, the two most written-off teams ended up needing an extra game to be played last year to decide who would go on to the playoffs while the overwhelming pre-season favorites had long been eliminated.

the Tigers didn’t spend the equivalent of a small nation’s GDP on free agents, but they did address several of the issues they needed to in order to stay competitive in a weak division (we think, who the eff knows this year) and did so while being financially hamstrung. since there’s no clear favorite, its just as likely that the Tigers will be competitive as not. just because they’re not odds on favorites, doesn’t mean “throw away” to me.

Any season where your goal is anything but to win the world series is a throw away season. Can anyone say the moves they made so far this off season are designed to help them win the world series?

I don’t think this is a throwaway season either, but I am concerned the bullpen could undermine it from the beginning. At least last year we brought in some arms to try out. So far this year, we are hoping people rebound/get healthy/surprise on the upside.

A question for anyone who knows: Has any team ever tried a starter platoon? Specifically, is there any precedence for having Nate and Miner platoon based on LH/RH heavy lineups and having the other act as the long guy? If that’s not a thing, getting one more league-average starter is a much higher priority than closer in my mind. Especially with the distinct possibility that Verlander, Galarraga, and Jackson will be below league average, and that Bonderman, Nate, Miner, and Dontrelle will be unpitchable.