After the Detroit Tigers traded for Edgar Renteria, Miguel Cabrera, and Dontrelle Willis, most of the baseball experts around the country started handing the Central Division title to the Motor City Kitties. They are being projected to score over a thousand runs on the season, with the most relentless attack outside of New York. Of course, the last team to score that many runs in a season was the 1999 Cleveland Indians, who lost in the first round of the AL playoffs to the Boston Red Sox. However, you need to look at the age of the Tigers before you hand them the crown.
The Tigers starting lineup has an average age of 31.8, and Indians is 27.7. In fact, every member of the Detroit starting lineup is on the wrong side of 30, except for Cabrera and Curtis Granderson. Moreover, they are all 32 years old or older. Two players, Gary Sheffield (39) and Ivan Rodriguez (36) are closer to 40 years old than they are to 30. Most stat guys will point out that the peak of most players careers hit from ages 27-29. Therefore, most of the Tigers’ numbers should decline from what they did in 2007.
On the other hand, the only Indians over 30 are DH Travis Hafner, 3B Casey Blake, and the left field platoon of David Dellucci and Jason Michaels. Also, several Tribesmen are at or younger than the peak years mentioned earlier: Ryan Garko (27), Asdrubal Cabrera (22), Jhonny Peralta (25), Grady Sizemore (25), and Franklin Gutierrez (25). All of these guys should improve their numbers from a year ago, with the possible exception of Cabrera, who has very limited experience.
The spot the made me smile was centerfield. The new flavor of many baseball people is Granderson, who emerged last season with a huge year. On the other hand, Sizemore has been a star at the big league level since his first year as a regular in 2005. However, check their ages. Sizemore is a year younger than the Tigers’ CF, and Grady didn’t have as good a season as he did in 2006, so I look for a bounce back season coming up this summer. If that’s the case, we are talking about a possible MVP season for the man named Grady.
The ages of the pitching staffs are about the same. The Kitties have three young starters in Justin Verlander, Willis, and Jeremy Bonderman, although the latter two have had issues with performance recently. It will be interesting to see how the lefthander acquired from the Marlins does in the AL after his struggles in the senior circuit the last two years. Those three are roughly the same age as the Tribe’s C.C. Sabathia (27), Fausto Carmona (24), and Cliff Lee (29). Both squads have veterans in Kenny Rogers (43) for Detroit and Paul Byrd (37) for the Indians. A pair of 30 year olds round out the rotations in Jake Westbrook and Nate Robertson.
One of the reasons the Indians prevailed last season was the farm system. The Tribe got contributions from several players down the stretch, people they weren’t counting on when the season opened. The Tigers didn’t get that from their system, and they gutted that part of the organization further during the off-season. I’m not saying the Cleveland Indians are a shoo in this season, but I’m also not ready to coronate the Tigers. Just don’t be surprised in Magglio Ordonez doesn’t hit .360 again in 2008.
KM
Cleveland Sports Perspective 