View from the Corner Desk

The Tigers are Big Boys now

OK. Yes. I'm going to miss Andrew Miller. I'm going to miss Cameron Maybin. And I know I'll miss my favorite backup catcher, Mike Rabelo. And then the other prospects, they could turn out. You don't really know. So those are losses to the farm system.

But!

If you can't get excited at the prospect of Miguel Cabrera playing for your team, alongside an already incredible lineup, you can't get exited, period. Think about it like Jim Leyland is right now. Where do you put them all? It's not Murderer's Row, but it's pretty darn impressive. Not an actual lineup below, I took no lefty-righty considerations, but look at how it stacks up.

• Curtis Granderson, 20-20-20-20 year, 136 OPS+
• Carlos Guillen, 123 OPS+
• Gary Sheffield, now surgically corrected, of massive power and hitting ability, still 120 OPS+
• Magglio Ordonez, now healthy and coming off a .167 OPS+ year
• Miguel Cabrera, 150 OPS+, still getting better and lost weight
• Edgar Renteria, 125 OPS+ SS
• Placido Polanco, coming off a .388 OBP/.122 OPS+ year
• Jacque Jones, Well, he's a lefty anyway.
• Ivan Rodriguez, uhm, yeah. Someone's gotta catch.

OPS+ definition: a quick way of comparing a player to average. 120 means his stats are 20 percent better, basically.

Now, deny excitement in that lineup. You can't. It's going to score runs big time. Maybe relief pitching won't be such a big deal with those kinda batters on offense most nights.

Cabrera is one of the best young hitters in the game. That much is clear. He's only age 24. That's hard to imagine. He lost weight in the offseason. We should probably expect he'll continue to move towards a peak. Hopefully not a peak too soon, locking him up long term is imperative.

And we hope Dontrelle Willis returns to form. Can he return to 2005 form, when he finished runner-up for the Cy Young award? Maybe not. But I have no doubt 2007 was an outlier with a young team playing behind him. Still, he's got to cut down the walks and let Comerica Park and an improved Detroit defense do its job. I trust he'll be a reliable No. 3 starter. If Jeremy Bonderman's elbow feels fine and he's smart enough to talk about his pain, then that's a pretty strong top of the rotation when you throw in Justin Verlander, whom I have no worry about.

So am I excited? Oh yeah. Am I concerned the minors are near empty? Not really that much. The Tigers have made themselves World Series contenders in 2008, and that's why you play the game. 2010 on still looks pretty good. 2009 suddenly looks a lot brighter. And we don't know what will come in return for Willis and Cabrera. Long term contracts? First round and compensatory picks? A trade down the road? So yeah, the cupboards are bare for now, but they don't have to remain bare.

It's weird to think of the Tigers as a team that gets into blockbuster trades though, isn't it? They're not the guys who trade for the big name stars, make a splash, and get all the baseball world talking about it. They're not the team that explores a $125M payroll.

Guess what? They are now.

With their actions the Tigers have stated they are a team at the upper tier, with upper tier financial backing. They have smart management to go with this. This makes it more clear than ever before, they're the Big Boys now.

And you can bet the other Big Boys are scared.

Yeah, I'm excited.

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