Reasons Behind the Tigers Struggles
The Detroit Tigers made some blockbuster moves over this offseason including the signing of Prince Fielder. They went into the season as huge favorites to win their division, but right now they’re in third place. This isn’t the first time that a Detroit Tigers team has signed big name players and has been unsuccessful with those big name players. So what exactly is the reason behind the Tigers not performing up to the potential and expectations? They have one of the best teams on paper, but aren’t even .500 on the season. I’m going to try to explain why the Tigers haven’t been the team that everyone expected them to be.
One of the main problems has been the pitching. No Detroit starter has more than 5 wins and only two pitchers have that many. Keep in mind that this includes one of the best pitchers in Major League Baseball, Justin Verlander.
Last year, Justin Verlander won the Cy Young. He deserved it, no doubt. He was so good, in fact, that his great numbers this year look like there’s something wrong with him. It is true that he hasn’t been good in his last two starts, giving up five runs in each one, but he has still been a really good pitcher. Obviously Verlander isn’t the problem, and nobody thought that he was. But it is in fact a myth that Verlander hasn’t been “good” this year. He hasn’t been unreal like he has in the past, but he’s still been the clear-cut ace and is leading the team in wins, ERA, WHIP, and strikeouts. The second half of the season will probably prove to be better than the first half was, but that doesn’t mean this half was bad. Verlander is still the extremely dominant pure ace that he’s been for years.
So, if the problem isn’t Verlander, what is to blame on the pitching staff? One stat that is great for determining whether a pitching staff has been lucky or unlucky is BABIP. The league average is .300 and usually if the team’s BABIP is higher than that, the defense hasn’t been good or they are just really unlucky because of things like ballpark, wind, etc. The Tiger’s team BABIP isn’t terribly high at .316, but there are quite a few pitchers that have a .400 or above BABIP. That will likely go down as the defense becomes more comfortable and things go back to the norm.
Now that it’s been determined that the Tiger’s pitching failures has been mostly being unlucky and the fact that the Tigers don’t exactly have the most dominant staff in the league. The pitching hasn’t been good and has been unlucky. Nothing spectacular will happen over the All-Star break to suddenly make their pitching staff good, but they might have better luck and therefore have a couple better starts from pitchers that might not always have great starts. The pitching staff is the weak point of these Detroit Tigers.
The offense is the one thing that was supposed to be a lot better after the Tigers acquired Fielder. 
The combination of Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder was supposed to dominate the other teams’ pitchers and be one of the best combinations in the middle of the lineup. Neither player has been a big disappointment this year, but they certainly aren’t the best combination in the league.
Cabrera currently has his worst batting average, .317, since 2008 when he batted .292. He has his worst OBP, .368, since he had an on base percentage of .349 in 2008. His slugging percentage, .550, is also the worst since 2009. It’s easy to see that Miguel Cabrera this season is not playing the same level of baseball that the Miguel Cabrera of the past couple years when Cabrera was one of the best hitters in the game.
Prince Fielder’s season hasn’t been disappointing yet. He has the highest batting average of his career, one of his best slugging percentages, and his on base percentage isn’t bad. He’s striking out less than he has in the past, but he’s also walking more. The big difference is that he isn’t hitting quite as many home runs. Right now he has 10 which would be a pace to hit about 25. The last time he had under 30 was in 2006. Maybe Fielder has found a way to be more productive by not relying on the long ball and hitting for average, but that isn’t really what the Tigers signed him for. Home runs give the team pop and right now he’s not providing that.
When people saw that the Tigers would have Cabrera and Fielder, they predicted that they would be in the center of one of the most unstoppable offenses in the American League. The one problem is that Cabrera hasn’t been himself since Fielder joined. If Cabrera can get back to being one of the best hitters in the league, this duo can be dynamite and probably the best in the league. The problem is getting both of them to hit well at the same time. If the Tigers can get that to happen, the offense might be able to do something and the Tigers can win some games.
The Detroit Tigers have four batters hitting over .300 and yet they don’t have very many runs scored. They have less runs scored than the White Sox and Indians, who are ahead of them in the division, the Rangers, AL west leaders, and they have the same number as the Rays, AL East leaders. The Tigers need to be a team that score more runs because their pitching staff isn’t good enough to carry them through the season.
So the problems for the Tigers come from all directions. This team isn’t what most of the experts believed it would be at the beginning of the season because players just aren’t playing to the expectations of those experts. If the Tigers start to play up to their potential, they can make a comeback in the division but right now it doesn’t look imminent.
The Triple Steal 