Detroit Tigers - part 1 of 2

Clearly I am not the first to wonder just how the Tigers have managed to transform themselves from a team that was a joke as they celebrated not taking the all time loss record in 2003, to the team on pace for 100+ wins in 2006.

A detailed year by year analysis of how the Tigers have improved can be found over at Baseball Prospectus (subcription required) - with a hat tip to The House That Dewey Built. However, what did we all miss - all the things that the Tigers have done were in place pre-season - why break out in this fashion, this year?

I will look at the pitching tomorrow - that is probably the bit that people had 'predicted' - the joy of being as bad as the Tigers for as long as the Tigers is that you get a lot of early draft picks, and the organization was lauded for picking up good young arms, even if it was felt that all that "learning in the majors" was a painful experience to watch.

How has the hitting fared this year?

		League Rank
		Tigers	Sox
BA	.278	9	6
OBP	.331	21	1
SLG	.453	6	4
R	600	9	2
HR	146	9	5
BB	302	28	1
SB	48	20	25
TB	1,845	6	5

As you can see the Tigers are above average in BA and SLG and in scoring runs, but they are not the most patient lineup - a point made by Buster Olney this morning - again you need a subscription to read. So as a team the Tigers are doing ok on the hitting side, not close to the Sox, which suggets there is more in this story on the pitching and/or fielding front.

Are there many Tigers hitters delivering more than we could / should have expected?

		2006	Career
C	Rodriguez	.295/.320/.430	.304/.342/.484
1B	Shelton	.277/.343/.477	.283/.350/.482
2B	Polanco	.294/.325/.359	.300/.343/.409
3B	Inge	.243/.301/.466	.239/.299/.394
SS	Guillen	.307/.390/.501	.286/.354/.434
OF	Granderson	.273/.355/.432	.272/.343/.446
OF	Ordonez	.301/.349/.473	.306/.363/.514
OF	Monroe	.273/.307/.499	.268/.312/.462
DH	Young	.261/.308/.450	.290/.347/.478

Well, Carlos Guillen aside, none of that lineup is having a career year - but what does stand out, is how close to career averages every single member (Young excepted, but it hasn't quite been a normal year for him to date) of the team is performing. Yes a number of them are below career level, but some of that will be attributable to the Comerica effect.

So nothing particularly standout there - but between starting this post, and reaching this (in)conclusion, the Tigers have put 5 runs up against the Sox in the first 3 innings - they are doing something right!