Changing Expectations For The Detroit Tigers | Costa and Jansen

Changing Expectations For The Detroit Tigers | Costa and Jansen

Speaking of winning teams. Oh, we got one. Oh, we got one, John. Best in Major League Baseball still. And you want to talk about best in the American League? Like it’s it it’s not even really close. It’s got what? A four-game lead over the Yankees, a what? Fivegame lead over the Mariners. And refresh my memory. Have they beaten both of those teams in a series? Yes, they have. Yes. This is a team that is just consistent. They’re not a streaky team like we see with the Minnesota Twins who won 13 in a row until they finally lost yesterday. But they started off the season on a a streak that nobody wants, which is would dug them a huge hole. They’re starting to play better, but I still don’t believe that they’re going to be a consistent team. They can’t even stay consistently healthy. Now, the Tigers have had some health issues, but they’ve overcome all of those because of the wizardry of AJ AJ Hinch. They have put themselves in a different conversation. Speaking of elevated conversations, the Tigers have the best record in baseball and we are not early into the season anymore, right? We’re past 40 game mark. It’s not early. pretty good sense of who they are and they should be getting better with Verling and Meadows good medical reports over the weekend. With your permission, guys, we’d like to move the goalpost, but we want your help in doing so. Where do we move them to? Where are they? What is the expectation for this baseball team? Whatever you thought preseason, whatever you thought before they really got going, things have changed in so many great ways, so many pleasant surprises. It’s no longer early. We think they’ll add at the deadline. They’re going to get healthy. All all these factors have us very excited. Where do we place the goalposts? What’s the expectation, John? My expectation is they get the ALCS, get there, and then see what happens. Could they be a World Series team? Sure. Could they win the World Series? Sure. I’m not going to predict that right now. And the Dodgers still exist, but figure it out. and and but I think that they’re a team that especially if they can avoid the wildcard round and then you drop a pitcher out of the rotation, you got four that you’re playing and do in a seven game series if you have to go to seven games we see school three times potentially if you got it set up. Yeah, I mean I I’ll take that. They should win this division. I think that’s an expectation we can have. fivegame lead currently. If they have one of the two best records in the American League, they avoid the wild card round in the threeame series. I think that’s a fair expectation. ALCS or bust feels like a fair bar for this team. And I don’t know who who in a seven game series you’re afraid of. I mean, look at the series they’ve won this season. Yankees and Mariners. Red Sox played some playofflike baseball against the Tigers this last week and Detroit swept them. Detroit took care of the Padres’s earlier this year. Like look at how they’ve matched up with some of the better teams in baseball. We’ll get to see them against the Guardians later this week. It’ll be a big uh litmus test. ALCS or bust. That’s where we placed the goalpost today. And they’re they’re playing sustainable baseball. Sustainable winning baseball. They’re a team that outside of that Dodger series that they started off. It’d be kind of ironic what start with the Dodgers, finish with the Dodgers in the in the World Series and see how much better they are at the end of the year with, you know, we have no idea what other injuries other injuries are going to happen, but they have found ways to overcome those. And I talk about a streaky team. They’ve had a couple of fivegame win streaks. They’ve had a couple of four-game win streaks. Their longest losing streak was at three against the Dodgers. Since then, the longest skid they’ve ever been on is two games. Well, that that’s because of pitching. With pitching, you don’t go on prolonged losing stretches because the next guy takes the ball and gives you a chance to win. So, they’re consistently performing in every facet of the game. They’re methodically beating everybody they play. And correct me, I I you may not have heard me say this. I’ve said this a number of times. Greg will probably roll his eyes when I say this. Consistency is the truest measure of performance. Two thumbs up from Greg. And you have to you are and and especially in 162 if you can just be consistent. You don’t have to win every game, but you got to be consistent. And they have done that through the first quarter of the season. Yeah. I mean, if they play 500 ball the rest of the way, they’re a 90- win team. I believe 89. Okay. Round up. But you get the point. Round up. We don’t round up. Yeah. They’d have to go 59 and 57. Yeah. Something like that. 56. Whatever it is. Math on the radio. Math on the radio. Um, I say that because I think they’re going to be better than a 500 baseball team down the stretch. They’re incredible at solving problems, right? They they lose three center fielders and they navigate it. Last year they have a pitcher and a half. They navigate it. They’ve solved problems on the fly and they’re going to get solutions with moves at the deadline. Like if you’re at all nervous about this bullpen and I’ I’ve seen some whispers about the bullpen. They are top five in bullpen RA, but if you want some more swing and miss, a high leverage guy, Hinch doesn’t do closers, but high leverage guy, it’s the easiest thing to acquire at the deadline because half the teams in the league aren’t going to be in a position to buy and a lot of them will sell. Yep. That’s going to cost you the least. Yeah. You’re not giving up top 100 prospects to get backend relievers. It’s the cheapest, easiest thing to add at the deadline. If that’s your biggest concern, I got good good news for you. You’re going to be able to add that. They’re going to have creative solutions to any problems that pop up along the way. I think they’ve shown that. So, yes, one of the two best records in the AL, avoid that wild card round, winning your division. These are things they didn’t do a year ago. Winning the ALDS, something they didn’t do a year ago. Hard to fault them at that point. If if they don’t get further than the ALCS, you’ll be bummed because they lose, but you won’t look at the season as a disappointment. No. And we’re always looking for measuring sticks with this team. Is it is it for real? I think after a quarter of the season, you can say, “Yeah, it’s for real.” Sure. And the next measuring stick will come against Cleveland. Four game stretch at home at the end of the month. Three games on the road to Kansas City. We’ll know even more. And as master of the obvious, the more baseball you play, the more you’re going to learn about this team. And what we have learned is they’ve got really good pitching. They’ve been other than that really the the series against LA, they’ve been very opportunistic with runners in scoring position. They are disciplined with the strike zone and AJ does a great job of creating matchups, protecting guys in the order or exposing guys when they have a good matchup and it and it no no lineup is the same. The only thing that’s really been consistent is Jav Bayas is bat in ninth. Other than that, you’ve got to, you know, sometimes you got a different leadoff hitter bounces around from, you know, third, fourth, fifth. Green two will bobble up and down. Yeah. Look, that’s the other thing with this lineup, and we had questions about this lineup before the season started. They don’t have easy outs in this batting order, right? The hole in the lineup has been they’ve always had the one, right, with Jace Young, uh, Colt Keith early in the year, Akquil Boo now, but they don’t have like they used to have four or five like that’s my point. at the back end of the lineup. You got Dingler who’s hitting almost 290. You got Bayz who is hitting 290. That’s your your your seven and N hitter and then all of a sudden Verling comes back and do we had this text earlier. Do we were kind of building up Verling as he’s like this allar coming back or Parker Meadows is an all-star coming back. Jace Young was batting 100. It’s awful. Akquil Badu right now is batting 167. Do we think either of those guys will be better at the plate than Jace Young or Akil Badu? Both should be. And both are are good defenders. I want to see Verling in the arm, but both win healthy are good defenders. They’re also good base runners, which is the other thing this team does really well. The thing is it’s like there’s a little bit of a charm or magic to this because you’re right about bed. He’s he’ll be gone soon. He’s going to go down when Virill comes back, but he makes that catch yesterday, right? A game of two catches. Two catches, right? the, you know, and he’s in the like in that spot at that time when they need him. It’s the wizardry, right? It’s the piecing together that look, you can be what all the wizard you want. That’s that’s lucky timing that he just so happened to be up to make that play. Is it lucky when it happens over and over? Like JC needed bed a week ago when they said young. Yeah, I’m going to need him in Toronto. The only the only time it didn’t happen was last year in the ALDS games four and five. And I think it’s a different conversation when you get deep in playoff series. But for the regular season, the mixing and matching the money ball thing. I mean, the A’s never won a World Series, but you could have some great regular seasons. And if you have a good enough regular season in today’s baseball, you avoid the wild card round. And how much does that experience? Sure. Being in that position playing Cleveland, how much does that pay off this year? Especially since those guys weren’t blocked. Really? I had to throw it in. I’m going to show real growth. I’m not going to take the bait. We’re going to go to commercial. We’re going to continue this riveting conversation. We have a bunch of thoughts on the ticket text and the phones. It’s 971.

Have you changed your expectations for the Detroit Tigers? Jon and Jim have. #tigers #mlb #baseball

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