Is there an excuse for a team to play so poorly? Seriously, when one looks at the roster, the team looks capable of going about .500. Will Rogers/Jones do anything to help? Will Dombrowski do any more?

I'm tired of boring summers.

supposing they can stay healthy (nobody missing more than a couple weeks maybe), I think they are legit wild card contenders. they were this year for a while and their starting pitching should be better with Rogers. Their hitting faded last year too, and hopefully Maggs and Guillen will play a lot.

If so, it should be a decent year. At least good enough to by time until Verlander/Zimya are ready to take us higher.

Who is Zimya? Is he some stud from Zimbabwe who is like 7 foot tall and thows the ball 127 mph?

Joel Zumaya. I don't know much about him, so I can't say much, but I'm sure somebody here can. Rumor has it he can throw a slider that slides so much it ends up going into the dugout.

I wasn't serious. I know who Zumaya is, I was just being a prick. LOL...

Zumaya is a SP with a wicked delivery and he brings serious heat between 98-100 mph. He has used this heat to absolutely dominate class A/AA hitters and will try to do the same in AAA this year. Needs work on his other pitches but shows enough potential that they could to someday be above average. Comparable to A.J. Burnett.

Players quit on the coach last year too. Hopefully this new guy will be a prick and shut some of our "rock star" players up.

Tigers biggest problem is starting pitching and lack of getting on base. If the Tigers cannot improve their dismal OBP, then they will be 4th in the division again.

The Tigers are not WC contenders unless Bonderman has a sub 3.50 ERA, Rogers has a sub 4.00 ERA and Jones saves 40 games on the pitching side and they need Pudge to have an OBP higher than Dmiti's weight. Magglio needs to hit 30-40 HR, Guillen comes back healthy and PP is solid.

I think the Tigs really need to trade Pudge and move Inge back to catcher. I dont want another Brookens at 3B for the next 10 years, which is who Inge reminds me of. Good enough to barely keep the job, but not really good enough to be in the top 10 of 3B in the AL.

They made a good choice as manager for the Tigs. Leyland will make sound baseball decisions, which could translate into 3-5 more wins that Alan would have blown with his decision making. Tigs reach .500 this year and then 2007 when Verlander gets here for real and Zumaya comes up, then the Tigers have something brewing.


Art

Trust Dombrowski. I'm serious. If you look at his track record, he always put teams in a position to win talent-wise. His teams would have won a lot more if their ownership opened the checkbook to keep the talent Dombrowski put there.
Dombrowski has increased the talent level of the major league squad significantly, and took a minor league system that was the worst in baseball and made it decent. With David Chadd on board now, the minor league system will be top 5 in all of baseball. As long as Ilitch makes a long-term commitment to keep the talent that will come through the pipeline, we will eventually have a long run of consecutive seasons over .500 that will make some fans forget all about these past few seasons (other than the 119 loss season, we'll probavly always remember that)

The real question is, with the big FA market opening up at the end of next season, will the Tigers try anything now, or hord what little money they have and call the 2006 season a loss.

I think the Tigers will try, but it'll just be more of the same. Frankly, if things go like they did this past year, I won't mind if they don't sign anyone big. Teams like the Tigers can't afford to waste the little extra revenues they have on any big mistakes (cough, AJ Burnett, cough cough, BJ Ryan).

Trust Dombrowski. I'm serious. If you look at his track record, he always put teams in a position to win talent-wise. His teams would have won a lot more if their ownership opened the checkbook to keep the talent Dombrowski put there.
Dombrowski has increased the talent level of the major league squad significantly, and took a minor league system that was the worst in baseball and made it decent. With David Chadd on board now, the minor league system will be top 5 in all of baseball. As long as Ilitch makes a long-term commitment to keep the talent that will come through the pipeline, we will eventually have a long run of consecutive seasons over .500 that will make some fans forget all about these past few seasons (other than the 119 loss season, we'll probavly always remember that)

I agree.

DD has a been a good GM so far. I don't really like some of the decisions he made on the major league level but I like what he did the minor leagues though.

Toledo was the Triple A champion last year. Our minor league teams finished with the best winning percentage in all of minors last year, so that's pretty big because it means our prospects are performing well. And I think the David Chadd appointment will pay even more dividends in the future. I thought our draft last year was great and it could have been a lot better if we didn't lose that 2nd round pick in the Percival signing.

old post thought it was funny to read

supposing they can stay healthy (nobody missing more than a couple weeks maybe), I think they are legit wild card contenders. they were this year for a while and their starting pitching should be better with Rogers. Their hitting faded last year too, and hopefully Maggs and Guillen will play a lot.

If so, it should be a decent year. At least good enough to by time until Verlander/Zimya are ready to take us higher.

Just imagine how good we'll be when we get this Zimya guy... : )