Tigers Grades
The Tigers bound into the second half of the season
Big Al over at the Wayne Fontes Experience pulls out his red pen and grades each position player’s performance for the first half of the season. Here’s what he has to say overall:
Overall: At the season’s midpoint, the 2007 Tigers have the best offense in all of baseball. 1 through 5 in the batting order could almost be considered a modern day “Murder’s Row.” Granderson leads MLB in extra base hits. Polanco, a prototype #2 hitter, is hitting .335. Sheffield leads the team with 21 HR’s, is hitting .303, and has solidified the middle of the order. Ordóñez leads the majors in hitting at .367. Guillén is hitting .325, and had an 11 game RBI streak. Led by that quintet, the Tigers currently lead MLB in BA, hits, runs, RBI, 2B, and SLG. Most stunningly, they are 3rd in OBP. With all their offensive dry spells last season, I never would have seen this kind of improvement coming. As good as the pitching was in 2006, the offense has been in 2007. A
Big Al’s grades for the pitchers can be found here. Mack Avenue Tigers dispenses with the grades but goes with the “if you told me…” approach:
If you told me before the season the Tigers would enter the break near the top of the sport, I’d have agreed with you.
If you had then told me “But Joel Zumaya missed most of the first half. Kenny Rogers missed most of the first half, so Chad Durbin started.. Fernando Rodney pitched poorly and bounced off the disabled list multiple times. The Tigers went through 19 pitchers. And their defense wasn’t all that great,” then maybe I’d have called you a liar.
When I was talking with my brother in late May-early June about the team my only concern was that they not let Cleveland build up a big lead while Rogers and Zumaya were out of the lineup. The Tigers were able to stay right behind the Tribe and have actually moved 1 game ahead of them as the second half of the season starts today.
Mack Avenue Tigers also has an extensive rundown of articles on the Tigers in this post. D-Town Baseball also has a nice comprehensive post on the status of each player the Tigers recently drafted.
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