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Going into the 2006 off season we could see a few things, for sure and a few maybes going on with this Tiger team in upcoming years.
With pretty good certainty we all could see that a handful of the Tigers regular players still had at least 2-3 really productive seasons: Pudge, Polanco, Guillen, Granderson, and Magglio.
We knew that the Tigers needed to address 1B and DH for sure. It could also be forecast that perhaps Craig Monroe in LF and Inge at 3B could have had career years in 2006. While both did not have their career best year in BA in 2006, they both did have career best years in HR, RBI and R.
Only one of those four spots has been resolved for any length of time, DH. For the first half of 2007 Sheffield was looking like his typical MASHING self. Wouldn't you know it though a guy troubled with injuries on and off throughout his MLB career gets hurt giving Magglio a day off in RF. Sheffield should have saw the field less than Ortiz in that 2007 season, and Cleven or Raburn should have been the Magglio needs a day off guys.
1B was another position that was not properly addressed. The Tigers signed Casey based off of his stellar World Series performance, but only to a one year deal. Who knows maybe it took Casey a season and a half to adjust to the AL pitching/umping, but before being injured this season the guy was looking like the Sean Casey we expected in Boston. Besides I miss watching Sean start his invisible motorcycle before each pitch to him.
13 different players logged innings in LF the last 2 seasons. In contrast only 7 different players, and and 8 different players logged innings in CF and RF respectively. Has there been anyone here that would have solved LF, I don't thing so. Would asking Stairs back to at least be a forth OFer/DH been bad, I would not minded. I do think it is passed due to move Magglio into LF and get a solid defensive RFer.
Besides DH for 1/2 a season, have any of those 4 positions been addressed properly, no. Now the way the pitchers have been going is something we could not have forecast, between Zumaya and Rodney's injuries and the starters having so much a drop off. That is for another post however.
With pretty good certainty we all could see that a handful of the Tigers regular players still had at least 2-3 really productive seasons: Pudge, Polanco, Guillen, Granderson, and Magglio.
We knew that the Tigers needed to address 1B and DH for sure. It could also be forecast that perhaps Craig Monroe in LF and Inge at 3B could have had career years in 2006. While both did not have their career best year in BA in 2006, they both did have career best years in HR, RBI and R.
Only one of those four spots has been resolved for any length of time, DH. For the first half of 2007 Sheffield was looking like his typical MASHING self. Wouldn't you know it though a guy troubled with injuries on and off throughout his MLB career gets hurt giving Magglio a day off in RF. Sheffield should have saw the field less than Ortiz in that 2007 season, and Cleven or Raburn should have been the Magglio needs a day off guys.
1B was another position that was not properly addressed. The Tigers signed Casey based off of his stellar World Series performance, but only to a one year deal. Who knows maybe it took Casey a season and a half to adjust to the AL pitching/umping, but before being injured this season the guy was looking like the Sean Casey we expected in Boston. Besides I miss watching Sean start his invisible motorcycle before each pitch to him.
13 different players logged innings in LF the last 2 seasons. In contrast only 7 different players, and and 8 different players logged innings in CF and RF respectively. Has there been anyone here that would have solved LF, I don't thing so. Would asking Stairs back to at least be a forth OFer/DH been bad, I would not minded. I do think it is passed due to move Magglio into LF and get a solid defensive RFer.
Besides DH for 1/2 a season, have any of those 4 positions been addressed properly, no. Now the way the pitchers have been going is something we could not have forecast, between Zumaya and Rodney's injuries and the starters having so much a drop off. That is for another post however.