Offseason In Review: Detroit Tigers

Next up in our Offseason In Review series, the Tigers.  Here’s what I wrote about them on September 18th.

Additions: Edwin Jackson, Brandon Lyon, Gerald Laird, Matt Treanor, Adam Everett, Juan Rincon, Scott Williamson, Alexis Gomez, Timo Perez

Subtractions: Edgar Renteria, Matt Joyce, Kenny Rogers, Aquilino Lopez, Todd Jones, Casey Fossum, Gary Glover, Kyle Farnsworth.  Midseason: Ivan Rodriguez

In September we were talking about the Tigers slashing payroll drastically, but they’re in the $125MM range to start ’09.  The club remains saddled with multiple bad contracts.

While the Tigers’ offense last year didn’t quite meet expectations, the team did rank fourth in the AL with 5.07 runs per game.  The ’09 lineup has new regulars Laird and Everett and will be without Joyce at the outfield corners.  Using CHONE projections and Baseball Musings’ lineup analysis tool, it seems that this crew can match last year’s performance.

The question mark remains on the runs allowed side of things.  Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski took steps to improve the team’s defense (8th in the AL last year according to the Fielding Bible II) by bringing in Everett and Laird.  Using Inge at third base all year will help as well.

The Tigers had lousy pitching last year, in both the rotation and bullpen.  Jackson is an improvement over Kenny Rogers, while Justin Verlander and Nate Robertson should bounce back to some extent (though Armando Galarraga should regress).  30 healthy starts from Jeremy Bonderman would go a long way toward solidifying this group, but it almost has to be better than the ’08 rotation.

I feel similarly about the bullpen.  Lyon is better than Todd Jones, and Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney are hopefully healthy.  The pen should be better, we can say that much.  It’s hard to predict, but if the Tigers are able to get to around 775 runs allowed they should be on track for 85-86 wins.

Bottom line: Dombrowski trimmed payroll but still made improvements to the Tigers’ defense and pitching.  If a few of the many wild cards in the rotation come through they’ll be in contention.