I'm guessing a good number of you have strong thoughts on this; I'd love to hear an insider's view.
Tigers' pitching is still the best in baseball. Their rotation is a thing to behold, and not something that comes along all that often. Boston has some great bats, so it's going to be a big challenge, however, especially with the way the Tigers have been swinging lately. Cards are clearly the best team in the NL (unless the Dodgers can somehow get Kershaw to make 3 starts, a la Denny McLain in the '68 Series against your team, but of course that would never happen today, and especially not in a non-WS situation), but baseball is baseball, and anyone can win a series. Last two times the Tigs were in the show they got absolutely spanked by teams that were no where near as good as them in the regular season.
a) Leyland is the best manager in baseball. b) if anyone could go three in seven it would be Kershaw, but they started him on three days' rest because they don't trust Nolasco and I'm hoping it'll bite him in his starts coming up. c) we fucked up and had to use Wainwright again, so unless Kershaw
pitches on short rest in game seven, they won't face each other -- edge, Cardinals. d) we hit Kershaw better than anyone in the majors for some reason. e) I don't want to face Scherzer and Verlander at home and go down 0-2 so you guys had better win in 7 if you win at all. f) fuck the All Star Game. g) fangraphs or someone did a great analysis on Cabrera becoming a "singles hitter" in September after his injuries, but that was before last night. h) good luck in the ALCS!
Agree on all of your points except (a). Leyland is a chronic underachiever (well, the Tigers are; hard to say how much is Leyland's fault directly). He has been the manager in Detroit for 8 years. They have 4 post-season appearances, with three division crowns. Doesn't sound bad until you 1) think about how they're in arguably the crappiest division in MLB, and 2) their payroll crushes the rest of the AL Central. Again, not all Leyland's doing, but if we look at a manager's overall impact as the ability to get the most out of his players, then I think he fails that test (but sure, to be fair, he's not the one handing out $25M/yr to dough boy Fielder). Point (g) is by far the most interesting to me. Cabrera is the best hitter I've personally ever seen. I didn't think that I would ever be more intrigued by a hitter than Pujols in his prime (and, arguably, Pujols's career numbers are better through each one's age 30 season), but Cabrera has such a grasp of contact and power hitting. It's remarkable. The dude, when healthy, hits 400 footers to all fields with regularity, but also knows how to poke a single when the right situation exists. He let's the pitcher basically tell him where to hit the ball (his spray chart is crazy; basically a third of his hits go to each field). I never got to watch Pujols as much as Cabrera for obvious reasons, but the one thing that really sticks out to me about both is that their at bats aren't at bats; they're events, things that I'll stop what I'm doing to sit and enjoy. There haven't been any other hitters I've felt that way about (dead pull hitters with tons of power can be fun, but they're just not that interesting).
Joe Posnanski I believe it was wrote the other week/month about the romanticizing of Cabrera -- how, probably because of the triple crown or maybe because he stands out more post-steroid era, people are putting Cabrera on a pedestal and missing the fact that before Cabrera there was Pujols, and before Pujols there was Frank Thomas, both routinely hitting .320 with extreme power. He's right but of course that doesn't diminish Cabrera at all. I saw another article pointing out that he's one of five greatest RH hitters ever (and, fuck, I actually managed to find that one). Anyway. Let me see if I can find the singles hitter article, because the numbers are startling and encouraging to the Red Sox, Dodgers and Cardinals. This is not it but you get the gist. Slugging .333 from September. I agree that we'll find out more about his injuries after the season is over. EDIT: completely forgot to say, Leyland hasn't made the most of all of his opportunities, but he has won a title, he's turned around some programs, he's consistently in the playoffs -- and there aren't any all-time managers active right now since TLR and Cox retired.
Last time a righty won three batting titles in a row? Rogers Hornsby back in the 20s. Cabrera's numbers this year were better than last year all together. He finished first or second in every major offensive category. That's a year to remember. Big Hurt was amazing, but I don't think of him in the same company with Miggy or Pujols. Those two are generational hitters.
He never got the attention he deserved, in my opinion. Slightly different skillset than Cabrera or Pujols -- walked more than he struck out, better career on-base numbers than all but ~15 guys. Power, sure, but a bit more discipline, especially compared to Cabrera. Unfortunately only had one really good season after he turned 32 (and his might be a career to pay attention to when trying to figure out what Pujols and Cabrera are going to do with their 32-40 years). I'm in the camp that puts little to no stock in batting titles or batting average in general. Too much generational change, too many external factors. I would give Thomas the edge over Cabrera (and Pujols, when it comes to hitting) for quite a few years yet. It'll depend how well they finish out their careers.
I don't get to see many games, but I watched the Tigers/A's game last night. What a pitching clinic by Verlander. I was a starting pitcher through high school and though I wasn't the greatest pitcher, I still really enjoy watching someone like Verlander work the mound. It's just as exciting, if not more so, than watching a hitting fest imo. Anyways, Go Tigers! I'll be watching from here on out. I stole my parents cable login/pw and can watch online now.
I watched too, for the same reason -- watching Verlander work the plate in a pressure situation is like free crack for an addict. If anything falls through and you -- or anyone -- can't watch, I've got at least a dozen streaming sites because I'm blacked out of Cardinals games.