Touring the Detroit Sports Scene
Detroit Tigers
After the Tigers lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in the 2006 World Series I thought they’d need to make a trade that would be the equivalent of the Red Wings trade that brought Brendan Shanahan to Detroit.
Going back to the Red Wings analogy, the team finally made it over the hump from contender to champion when they traded for Brendan Shanahan. They traded Keith Primeau, Paul Coffey and a first round pick to the Hartford Whalers to acquire the power forward. It remains to be seen if Tigers general manager Dave Dombrowski determines there is a need for such a trade and if he is capable of pulling one off if necessary.
I thought Gary Sheffield could have been that trade that put Detroit over the top. He certainly did help make the Tigers offense more dangerous as the team sat near the top of the rankings in nearly every key offensive stat:
Runs scored: 3rd in MLB
RBIs: 2nd in MLB
Hits: 2nd in MLB
SLG: 2nd in MLB
Pitching was clearly the area that prevented the Tigers from making a repeat appearance in the playoffs.
ERA: 18th in MLB
Hits: 14th in MLB
WHIP: 19th in MLB
Saves: 7th
The trade for Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis now looks like it could be the blockbluster trade that brings another world championship to Detroit. It’s certainly jump-started ticket sales for what was already a very hot commodity in Detroit. If the Red Wings want to start packing JLA or a new barn, their best move might be to lobby the NHL to alter its salary cap or at least have it rise to the level where the Red Wings can do what the Tigers have done in adding top talent like Magglio Ordonez, Gary Sheffield, Dontrelle Willis and Miguel Cabrera to their lineup.
The one area that needs to be solidified is the bullpen so I suspect Dave Dombrowski will do his best to receive a reliever in exchange for Brandon Inge, who has requested that he be traded to a city where he can be the starting 3rd baseman. Francisco Cruceta will join the bullpen this season and seems likely to be a setup guy along with Fernando Rodney, not a closer. Detroit isn’t likely to get a closer in return for Inge so I suspect they’ll add another middle reliever.
Michigan Football
The past week has brought about a flurry of activity that resulted directly from Kirk Herbstreit’s report that Les Miles agreed to become Michigan’s next head coach merely hours before Miles’ LSU Tigers were to play the University of Tennessee in the SEC Championship game. The LSU head coach held a hastily prepared news conference to announce that he’d agreed to an extension to stay at LSU. That has done nothing to in any way dampen the support for Miles to become the next head coach at Michigan.
I certainly wasn’t among the throngs pushing for Miles to become the next head coach - I’ve been a big Brian Kelly fan. Kelly’s basically gotten the Les Miles treatment, with nefarious rumors about his past indicating he has no shot at the job. However Les Miles has some very vocal supporters with definite pull, as well as a large contingent of Michigan fans who are pulling for the University of Michigan to offer the job to the coach.
It’s been fascinating to watch the process play out, and it bears remarkable similarity to the way the team has underperformed on the football field in recent years [26-11 over the past three seasons] and this past season in particular. That’s a big part of why I was a strong advocate of Brian Kelly coming in and moving the program forward from its current inert state.
Few details have emerged regarding which coaches athletic director Bill Martin is considering for the job opening. Some reports suggested Martin interviewed Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano on Wednesday, but other reports suggest the interview took place on Thursday. A few news articles suggest Schiano was offered the job while others indicated he wasn’t given an offer but was under the impression the job was his if he wanted the job. That sounds a lot like the Kirk Ferentz rumors that got the coaching search rumors rolling.
At this point there have been erroneous reports that Kirk Ferentz was offered the job, Les Miles accepted the job, and that Greg Schiano accepted the job. In true Michigan football fashion there are even reports that the university will punt and name an interim coach. Both coordinators interviewed for the job and it is being reported that Brady Hoke, head coach at Ball State and former defensive line coach at Michigan, also interviewed for the job. Well, Hoke may have interviewed for the job opening or it might have just been a phone conversation with Bill Martin.
I think you can look at the top three names of Les Miles, Greg Schiano and Kirk Ferentz and say those are all very solid candidates for the position. If anyone told you shortly after Lloyd Carr announced his retirement that those three coaches would be in the running for the coaching vacancy you’d think the search went well. But three weeks later the Michigan fanbase is getting restless and there are no signs that the search process is close to selecting Lloyd Carr’s successor. The athletic director publicly stated that he’d like to get a head coach in place by the end of the month so if that is to be taken at face value there’s no reason to worry about the status of the search.
Yes, Michigan will lose out on having the new coach contact prospective recruits prior to the quiet time that prohibits contact. But the university would be putting the cart before the horse if they made a hasty selection in order to get a coach in place to recruit if that new coach isn’t successful on the football field. So at this point the question as I see it is whether any other coaches are being seriously considered for the job opening. No names have surfaced in anything other than a speculative manner, but that was how Greg Schiano’s candidacy started.
If no serious candidates emerge from this point forward it will be intriguing to see if Michigan makes a play for Les Miles. I wasn’t a huge Les Miles fan prior to this entire melodrama so needless to say I’m not entirely thrilled about the prospect of him coming to Michigan after signing an extension to stay at Louisiana State. If this process had re-affirmed my thoughts on anything regarding the coaching search it’s that the football team needs a leader who can reinvigorate a stagnant program. Brian Kelly’s done that at three universities so that’s why I’ve never wavered from my support for him to become the next head coach.
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