Most important Tigers
posted in 2008 Spring Training, Analysis |At The News, Wojo came out with his list of most important Tigers for the club to have a shot at the World Series. With some columnists, this sort of list could have been a wreck. But I thought Wojo had a pretty good theme guiding him — less emphasis on repeating a typical season from a star player and more emphasis on the player not struggling — and a fairly respectable list to show for it. So I’ll respond with mine.
5. Gary Sheffield — If you look back at last season, you’ll see how important Sheffield was. When he was injured, the Tigers slid from first place to missing the playoffs. It can’t all be put on Sheffield’s then-achey shoulder, but that was one of the reasons. Due to the addition of Miguel Cabrera and Edgar Renteria — and the addition of Jacque Jones doesn’t hurt either — the importance of Sheffield having a successful season isn’t huge. But for the Tigers hitting to make up for any pitching problems, he’s going to have to be healthy and productive in every month of the season. Fortunately, his shoulder seems fine.
4. Dontrelle Willis – Popular to contrary opinion, starting pitching in Detroit has as many questions as relief pitching. For the Tigers to contend, Willis is going to have to be better than he has been the past two years. And, oh yeah, now he’s facing American League hitters. So Willis is the unknown quantity in the Tigers (worrysome?) starting rotation. We know Justin Verlander is a safe bet and Cy Young hopeful. We know Jeremy Bonderman, when healthy, is going to give you a chance to win most days on the mound. With the improved offense, this might be closer to every day he’s on the mound. And we’re pretty sure Nate Robertson is going to bounce back, not as good as 2006 but not as bad as 2006. (Well, I think so anyway.) But that leaves us two people: the newcomer and the old man. If the newcomer can throw strikes and pitch more relaxed, maybe he can get closer to being the guy he was two years ago who was second in Cy Young voting as a 23-year-old. If not, more pressure is put on the bullpen not to blow leads the other four days.
3. Edgar Renteria – It’s not an accident two of the national leaguers are back-to-back on my list. The Tigers went out on a limb, trading young starter Jair Jurrjens (and utilityman Omar Infante) to the Braves for Renteria. The move allowed them to move Carlos Guillen to first base, vastly improving the weakness at that corner while decreasing the defensive mistakes at shortstop and hopefully preserving the career a guy with an expensive contract. But Renteria has to fulfill his part of the bargain. His last stop in the American League, with Boston, didn’t go well at all. And he may be a former gold glover, but the important word is former. How big a step above Guillen is he defensively? We’ll have to see.
2. Kenny Rogers – He’s 63 43. He’s coming off not just one, but two injuries last season that took him out of sizable portions of the season. The Professor started just 11 games last year, which was worrysome, but acceptable, because we had a slew of pitching prospects. With so many trades, that’s no longer the case. If he can’t pitch every five days, then … wait a minute, who is the sixth starter these days? Oh yeah, we don’t really know. But we can make a pretty fair guess it’s going to be a sizeable step down. Rogers doesn’t have to be an All-Star. But he does have to be healthy from April to October because the dropoff quite concerns me.
1. To Be Determined – Is it cheating to only name four players? I was trying to come up with a reliever for the list, as the bullpen is a confusing mess. Well, that’s what I went with. The most important Tiger is somewhere in the bullpen. He might have a familiar name. He might not. But fact is, he has to step up his game and become a reliable setup man, or seventh inning fireman, because with Fernando Rodney’s tendinitis and — a theme is appearing — sore shoulder, and with Joel Zumaya’s freak injuries and — theme! — repaired shoulder, there’s a gaping late-inning hole and we don’t know who is going to step into it.
If anyone.
If not, the Tigers are going to have a great season, but it might not end on the the happy note we — and they — expect.
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