Quote:

jafabian said:
AMERICAN LEAGUE
Central: Twins, Indians, White Sox, Tigers, Royals



I see you are playing it safe by placing the Tigers in fourth. I read an article on MLB.com that pointed out something very interesting. Here is an excerpt from Bullpen could save Tigers' day, by Jim Molony:

Quote:

...
The Tigers improved by 29 wins last season, tops in baseball, but also tied Cleveland for the league lead with 28 blown saves.

That glaring weakness was addressed, with the Tigers adding free agent closer Troy Percival, acquiring hard-throwing right-hander Kyle Farnsworth and keeping Ugueth Urbina.

With those three, Detroit will be less likely to squander as many leads this time around. If the Tigers had managed to convert just half of those blown saves last season, they would have had a winning season and a second-place finish. Had they been able to save 75 percent of those chances, they would have notched 93 wins, or one more than the AL Central Division-winning Minnesota Twins finished with last year.
...



Now, like he says in the next paragraph, "if" is a big word. But, there is no reason not to believe that the Tigers will win at least half of those blown saves this year, and there is no reason to think they won't win at least as many games as last season without winning some of those blown saves. Plus, they should get increased production from their lineup, and they should also have fewer errors on the season at every position. The only real question mark this year is the starting rotation, since the bullpen looks to be very strong, and there is no way the Tigers will trade away Urbina, like some rumors suggest. That would just create a new hole in place of an old one. I don't know that the Tigers will win the division, and I don't know that will even finish in second place. But I do believe that they will be in it down the stretch, at least through August. It's easy to write them off because they have been so bad, and it's easy to overlook them because the other teams have made improvements. But if the Tigers would have had Urbina and Percival last year to pitch the 8th and 9th innings, they just might have won the division. That potential (even though that's all it is at this point) can't be overlooked.

Last edited by PenWing; 2005-03-07 5:35 PM.
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