Detroit Tigers

For those of you too young to remember (d-bags), Carnac the Magnificent was a character played by the late, great Johnny Carson on the old “Tonight Show”, back before Jay Leno ruined the program. (Sorry, I’m with Coco.)

The Tigers were well on their way to the ALDS last year before a September collapse and an Alexi Casilla single ended their 2009 season and left them on the outside looking in, despite leading the AL Central race for much of the year.

Did you hear? Sounds like Magglio Ordonez is going to have a big year.

Literally sounds like.

The audible feeling is that Maggs is going to look more like the Ordonez of 2006-07 than the impostor who wore his uniform for all but the final month of the 2009 season.

More than once this spring training Manager Jim Leyland and GM Dave Dombrowski have alluded to the sound that Ordonez’s bat is making when it connects with the baseball.

The Tigers have a pitching conundrum on their hands.

Two rotation spots remain for three players: Jeremy Bonderman, Dontrelle Willis, and Nate Robertson. All three have had impressive moments in the spring, but all three carry scars of a couple seasons of ineffectiveness.

The question of which two to take has racked my brain the past two weeks, but I think Zac summed it up best a few days ago by saying:

Once again the baseball season is upon us.

With the steroid era still looming over the league, players and fans try to move on and look toward the future.

Last year we saw the Yankees come back into Championship form winning their 27th title.

Will they repeat or will some dark horse win the race?

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For five months, Miguel Cabrera led the Tigers' charge for first place in the Central division.

MVP, MVP, MVP!

With a beastly average of .330 to support 33 home runs and 101 RBI, Cabrera embodied all that was good in Detroit.

He, the young-blooded Venezuelan, along with Justin Verlander and the upcoming phenom Rick Porcello, was among the successful faces of the 2009 season.

Ah, pure rejoicing—the playoffs seemed inevitable.

Deep breath, cross fingers.

It’s the most romantic, glorified position in our most romantic, glorified sport.

Even when baseball was played with mushy balls by men wearing baggy uniforms and pillbox hats, and you traveled to the ballpark by horse and buggy or traipsed there by foot, center field was the glamour position.

Ty Cobb started it, pretty much.

Cobb used his freakish speed and sheer determination to patrol center. And he slap base hits all over the field at a robust .370-plus clip every season.

Dmitri Young, a 13 year veteran and career .292 hitter with most of his success coming with the Detroit Tigers in the mid 2000s, has been named vice-president of the Oakland County Cruisers of the Frontier League.

“What you’re going to see is good old-fashioned baseball and people able to take their families to the baseball game,” said Young, who also signed autographs and answered questions from a number of youngsters in the gathering.

Gerald Laird might have been the best catcher in baseball in 2009—defensively.

But Detroit's catcher forgot to pack his bat when he left Spring Training.

His seventh campaign was his most disappointing at the plate. In 413 at-bats, Laird limped to a .225 batting average, four homers, and 33 runs batted in, all while providing top-notch defense. With an on-base percentage well-below .300 (.278), he was a major blockage in Detroit's light-hitting bottom of the order.

So the Tigers' backstop worked endlessly in the offseason to improve the weak point in his game.

When you commit $64 million dollars to three pitchers over the span of two years, there are certain expectations that need to be met.

Take a look at the San Francisco Giants. Their three headed monster of Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, and Barry Zito are making $54.05 million collectively in 2009 and 2010. Last year they won a combined 39 games in 98 starts and struck out 586 batters in 635 innings pitched. Those numbers are produced by, what some regard, the best top end rotation in the league.