Why the Tigers Won’t Win the Division in 2011

‘Tis the season for optimism.  Spring training has begun, and for the next month you’re going to be hearing a lot of people saying a lot of good things about the Tigers chances this season.  Tigerdog1 over at Bless You Boys thinks they’ll win the division this year, and he’s certainly not the only one making that claim.  I’m here to be the pessimist, to play devil’s advocate, and to deflate everyone’s hopes and dreams.  If you want to remain blissfully ignorant of the Tigers’ failings and continue to dream of a hundred victories, read no further.

Allow me to clarify:  I am a Tigers fan.  A huge Tigers fan.  When Detroit gets kept out of the playoffs because the umpire fails to call a hit-by-pitch on Brandon Inge, I start throwing things and screaming at the TV.  Just like everyone else.  I want the Tigers to win the division.  I just don’t think I was born with that optimism gene.

Without further ado, the 10 reasons to lower your expectations for 2011:

1.  Miguel Cabrera is due for a regression.  This isn’t in any way related to his recent incident with the Port Saint Lucie PD, but Cabrera gave the Tigers about two more WAR last year than he averaged in his first two seasons with Detroit.  Last year Cabrera set career highs in his walk rate and isolated power and a career low in his strikeout rate.  He’s not aging, he’s not injury-prone, but it’s never a good idea to expect that a career year has defined a new baseline for a player.

2.  Austin Jackson simply can’t keep this up.  We’ve discussed his sky-high BABIP a great deal already, and there is no need to beat a dead horse, but no-one is likely to have a BABIP 90 points above league average in consecutive seasons.  If Jackson only gives us a BABIP 40 points above average, we are stuck with a number 8 hitter leading off (and getting more plate appearances than anyone else on the team), basically the situation we had for the decade before Granderson arrived.

3.  The defense is going to be atrocious.  I’ve mentioned before that fangraphs and baseball-reference have opposing views of Austin Jackson‘s defensive contributions, and I still have no idea why, but they are in complete agreement about the Tigers defense overall in 2010.  It was good.  By fangraphs methods, the Tigers saved 17 runs more than average – according to baseball-reference 19 more.  The problem?  All of that came from Don Kelly and Ramon Santiago, both of whom are likely to see substantially reduced playing time in 2011.  Take them away, and we’re below average already.  We’re going to get a full season of Jhonny Peralta, and lots of Carlos Guillen & Scott Sizemore at second.  Rhymes and Worth are acceptable with the glove, but bats are going to get the starts.  Gerald Laird couldn’t hit a lick, but he was pretty good defensively.  All those innings he logged last year will be going to the defensively suspect duo of Alex Avila and Victor Martinez.  The Tigers defense is probably two wins worse than what we saw last year.

4.  The back end of the rotation is really no better than it was last year.  Enthusiasm here needs to be curbed.  Brad Penny has talent, but he’s only averaged 1.1 WAR and about 100 innings over the past 3 years.  His career ERA is over 4, and it’s almost all come in the offensively challenged National League.  His only (partial) season in the AL was, not coincidentally, his worst.  Marcel the Monkey projects him to make only 18 starts and give us a 4.33 ERA in 2011.  Is that really so much better than the 4.41 projected for (the usually healthy) Armando Galarraga?  Bonderman was awful last year, but Phil Coke doesn’t exactly look like top-of-the-rotation material.  He could very well succeed, but personally I expect him to be about as good of a starter as C.J. Nitkowski was.  Starting is a lot harder than relieving, it usually adds close to a full run to ERA.  Coke was quite decent against righties last year, inspiring Tigers brass to give him this shot at the rotation – but he had never had decent splits before.  Is this improvement in his changeup  something we can bank on?  I really don’t know.  I can tell you one thing for sure, though… he’s going to be seeing a lot of righties this year.  Either or both of these guys could collapse completely, bringing us to…

5. Tigers bloggers can’t count to five, so we go directly to…

6.  Especially weak 6th and 7th starters.  This is a problem that the Twins and White Sox simply do not have.  Do you think anyone will cringe to see Brian Duensing or Chris Sale take the mound?  Well, we Tigers fans might but no one in Minnesota or the Windy City will.  How about Brad Thomas?  Makes me a little queasy, I can tell you that.  Armando Galarraga was our 6th starter entering 2010, he wound up making 24 starts.  Do you like our odds if we get 24 starts from Charles Furbush?

7.  A lineup that’s aging, injury-prone and shallow.  Defensive issues aside, the Tigers should be able to score a decent number of runs in 2011… if they can stay healthy.  In my personal opinion, we got used to the idea that players in their thirties can stay in the lineup and maintain a high level of play – just like 25-year-olds can – during the steroid era.  Players weren’t just juicing to get big, they were juicing to recover from those aches and pains that start to nag on older players.  We have a new normal, and it’s the same as the old normal – the normal that saw DiMaggio retire at 36, and a whole host of superstars give 80% of their career WAR before the age of 30.  Ordonez will be 37, Guillen 35, Inge 34, Martinez 32.  None of these guys are great bets to play 150 games, and what is potentially worse – they may play a lot of games in pain. Of course Detroit isn’t the only team that has key players on the wrong side of the hill.  It’s a big problem because of the lack of depth.  We don’t have top-tier talent waiting in the wings like some teams do.  If the Yankees have an injury to Posada or Martin, they get Jesus Montero.  Who do we call up if Martinez goes down?  Honestly, if you know please tell me.  Likely replacements run from all-glove-no-bat (Santiago, Worth, etc…) to no-glove-probably-no-bat (Sizemore, Boesch).  Anything above replacement level that we get from any of them is, as far as I’m concerned, an unexpected bonus.