Tiger Geist

Interesting thought I had today about Leyland’s defending his coaches this week.  The whole announcement is to be expected;  he’s standing up for his guys.  But Leyland seems like a guy who avoids questions he doesn’t think need to be answered, just to appease sports talk or the fans.  In spring training, he’ll walk by the seats and everyone will scream “HEY JIMMY!” and he doesn’t even look up.  He’s very very old-school.  If someone asked him if aliens came down and took Nate Robertson’s body and switched the insides with a transvestite hooker… Leyland wouldn’t answer the question.  But in this instance, none of his coaches are in danger of losing their jobs.  Leyland will be loyal to them, and Dombrowski is loyal to Leyland.  He doesn’t care about sports talk radio, and he probably doesn’t care about the beat writers.  He cares about winning.  And I don’t think the coaches need a pat on the back via the media to feel good about themselves.

Question:  If Leyland knows the coaches aren’t going anywhere, and if he doesn’t care about the media or the fans perception of things (outside of winning or losing), why even talk about the coaches?  Why not ignore the question and move on?  If he thinks Chuck Hernandez is doing a fine job, he probably thinks a someone inferring that Chuck isn’t doing a fine job is an idiot.

My thoughts:  Leyland knows his players limitations, and thats what he’s really talking about.  Pre-season, someone on the detroit tigers podcast roundtable had an excellent point — what if this is Jeremy Bonderman.  What if he’s reached his growth potential?  What about Nate Robertson?  Probably the same issue (though Robertson is now north of 30 years old).  Kenny Rogers is Kenny Rogers — two of his best years were 2005 / 2006;  not like he’s going to continue to turn back the clock.  Leyland knows this.

Hitting — the team isn’t hitting well.  Many guys were hurt (Polanco, Granderson), some are still hurt (Sheffield), and some are hitting close to their career averages (Thames, Inge).  Some probably aren’t listening (Cabrera).

My thoughts:  Leyland’s rant was as much about calling out the players as he’s going to do via the media.  He’s very good at avoiding the elephant in the room — IE why don’t we have an answer as to why Gary Sheffield isn’t on the DL right now?  His response to the question on coaching has everything to do with sending a message to the players.

Deep down, i have a fear that this is reality:  After games, Leyland and Hernandez sit down in the office and enjoy a nice bottle of Johnny Black;  sipping it back and reading Tiger blog entries.  One starts laughing uncontrollably, and says “get this!  Some douchebag living in San Francisco wonders why Bonderman can’t throw a split finger!  Seriously!”  And the other one doubles over in laughter, responds, “bonderman?  Jeremy bonderman.. of the tigers?  HAHA.. has he ever worked with bonderman?  Who do these people think we are, magicians?  Bonderman throwing a changeup was like watching a monkey hump a football!”

Twisted, but how far from reality is it?

Doesn’t this feel like the Tiger’s management philosophy right now?  Nothing new to see.  Nothing new to try.  My only hope is that, at the end of July, all media outlets are saying “SEE!!!! Everyone who said that Sheffield was washed up was wrong!  Pudge still plays like the old Pudge!  The pitching staff has come around!”

That would be awesome.  I wonder what type of success the team could have if it were given more of a floating roster, much like the NFL / NBA / NHL. You have a roster of X players, but only (X - Y) players can be active for a given game.  Similar to how the Pistons kept Lindsey Hunter stashed away for most of the season, maybe that is what is needed for Sheffield.  Let him start playing in May or June every year and see how effective he might be.  Pitchers could get a few weeks off without going on the DL for fake injuries (tired arm?  Can you even look that up on WebMD?).

This may be at the heart of why Detroit can’t jump-start itself:  It has to wait for Sheffield and Cabrera to turn it around.  They have no roster flexibility at the moment, which is what you get yourself into when you have a veteran team with too many guys who only play one position.

Inter-league play does bring an interesting test to the hitters.  We’ll have to watch how Migule Cabrera handles this — part of his slump could be described as an issue with switching leagues.  We’ll see how this plays out (though Detroit plays the NL West this year).