BP looks at how the Tigers were built
posted in Out-of-Town Media |Baseball Prospectus looked at the Motor City ballclub today (Subscription req’d) in part 1 of a 2 part article. Tomorrow they promise to write about the molding of the club, but today’s focussed on finding the spare parts. This is similar to the Hardball Times article set awhile back, but another nice spin.
It is impossible to overstate the magnitude of what the Tigers are accomplishing. With apologies to the Mets of the late 1960s and the Braves and then Indians of the early 1990s, the Tigers are on pace for the most remarkable rebuilding project of all time.
Which makes them the perfect case study for solving that intellectual challenge, asking the question “how do you build a winning team?” The answer is that there are multiple solutions, but few teams have ever presented a solution quite so elegant as these Tigers have.
One of the most important moves, according to the article (and any Tigers fan I’m sure) was “Grand Theft Shortstop” of trading Ramon Santiago and somebody for Carlos Guillen.
This season Guillen is at .307/.389/.511, with a stellar .298 EqA, second only to Derek Jeter among major league shortstops.
And maybe Rob Parker and others should listen to this expert baseball opinion:
Sphere ItA detailed look at his body of work makes it clear that Dombrowski ranks as one of the five greatest front-office executives of the last 25 years, even if his Q rating wouldn’t rank in the top fifty.
