Detroit Tigers: This team is an embarrassment

The Detroit Tigers are bad and should feel bad

After the Detroit Tigers opening series against the Tampa Bay Rays, I wrote about four overreations from that series. It was one bad series against a good team with an amazing pitching staff. Surely this wouldn't be a sign of things to come, right?

Well if I were to sit here right now and tell fans of the Detroit Tigers that everything is going to be fine, I would be doing fans, and most importantly our readers, a disservice. Fans have every right to be upset with this franchise right now.

I don't care if we're nine games in. I don't care if they've had a tough schedule to begin the season. This team is terrible. They have very few major league caliber players on the 26-man roster at the moment.

Nobody can hit with runners on base. Nobody can throw strikes. Nobody can make routine plays in the field. It's embarrassing.

Do you want to know what the worst part about all this is? This is by design. They did not intend to compete this year. They're not trying to win, and it's so blatantly obvious.

We were all worried about the offense, and while it has been as bad as advertised, the pitching has been particularly bad, especially the bullpen. Again, nobody can find the zone. Nobody misses bats. It turns out trading away all of your best relievers and signing a bunch of guys a minor league deals and pray they work out wasn't the best choice of action. I would say that's on Scott Harris, and he deserves a share of the blame, but he's being enabled by his boss, who we'll get to in a bit.

Then there's A.J. Hinch. The guy just looks like he doesn't care and doesn't want to be here, and who could blame him? He went from going to two World Series in Houston to what is going to be three straight years of losing in Detroit. What is supposed to do with the likes of Zach McKinstry, Jonathan Schoop, whatever remains of Miguel Cabrera, and the bullpen he's been given?

This all comes back to Mr. Ilitch. He gave Scott Harris a shoestring budget to work with, and it shows. You get what you pay for. Some have speculated that Harris is just a yes man for Ilitch, but I'm not convinced of that yet.

What I am convinced of is that this team will never be good until Chris Ilitch sells the team. He doesn't care about winning. This fanbase deserves so much better than that.

And for those of you that don't think spending money equates to winning, I've got news for you: you're simply wrong. Look at the top payrolls in baseball last year. Of the 14 team that had an above average payroll in 2022, nine of them made the playoffs. You want to know why the Dodgers win the NL West every year? They spend money. They are crazy good at developing talent, but they also have a payroll well north of $200 million.

When the Tigers were good from 2006-14, they spent money. They once had prime Miggy, Prince Fielder, prime Verlander and Scherzer, and more on the same team. They didn't get the job done, but they tried. They still made a deep playoff run. I'd take that over the craptastic teams we've gotten the past several years any day.

Tigers fans deserve so much more than this garbage. This team hasn't had a winning record since 2016, and it doesn't look like that's going to change any time soon.