EAST TAWAS – The Detroit Tigers have had a rich and storied history since their founding in 1901 as one of the core franchises in the newly-established American League. The signature “Olde English D” has been worn by more than 1,000 players since, and Tigers’ baseball fans often debate the issue of which players were the greatest over time.
Long-time Detroit Tigers’ beat writer Tom Gage, who reported on over 5,000 games during his 36-year tenure covering the team, has developed a means to objectively rank, in order of career excellence during their playing time in Detroit, the 400 greatest players in the history of Tigers’ baseball.
Teaming with former Detroit Tigers’ catcher and current MLB Network analyst Alex Avila, Gage has written “Your Detroit Tigers – The Great, The Good, The Top 400,” which clearly lays out the case for each player ranking.
Gage and Avila appeared in person Oct. 14 at the East Tawas Community Center at an event sponsored by the Iosco-Arenac District Library.
Gage told an appreciative audience that the idea for this book stemmed from comments made after the recent retirement of Tigers’ first baseman Miguel Cabrera which labeled Cabrera as “the greatest Tigers hitter ever.” While acknowledging Cabrera’s outstanding career, Gage explained that others were indeed better and devised a formula to prove his point. Gage established a scoring system based on fourteen offensive statistics to rank each hitter and went on to use eight different metrics to evaluate Tigers pitchers over 125 years. Using statistics generated solely from players’ tenures with Detroit, Gage said his goal was to create a system that was not subjective but based on math.
Gage introduced Avila by citing Avila’s career statistics as well as the fact that Avila caught 116 games started by recently retired pitcher Justin Verlander. Avila disclosed that he maintains a close relationship with Verlander, who was aware of the publication of the book during spring training of 2026. According to Avila, Verlander was curious as to where he stood on the list at which time Avila said he responded, “Sorry, you’re not number one.”
Mickey Lolich topped the list of Tiger pitching greats, with Verlander ranked second, Avila added, saying that Lolich and Verlander “represent an era of not just Tigers pitching, but all of baseball, that we’ll never see again.”
Longevity played a major role in Gage’s system, which he said led to a number of surprises when compiling his list. When ranking players by their primary position played while with Detroit, Gage found that two players, Travis Fryman and Brandon Inge, scored higher than Hall of Fame third baseman George Kell, simply because Kell played more than half of his career with other teams. Avila commented that Fryman didn’t receive the credit he deserves due to having played on some poor teams, and that Inge was “the greatest athlete” Avila ever played alongside, being versatile enough to play third base, catcher and centerfield at a high level.
Gage also acknowledged the effect of historical events and injuries on players’ career statistics that prevented some from higher rankings. Hank Greenberg, who Gage suggested might be the greatest power hitter in Tigers history, lost four years in his prime while serving in World War II, and Mark Fidrych, whose career was severely shortened by a shoulder injury, represent two such examples.
Personality and likability, nor the love-hate relationship between athletes and the media, did not factor into the rankings in this book, Gage said. He cited Jack Morris, ranked number four on his all-time list of greatest pitchers, who once said that he (Gage) “should be covering shuffleboard.”
Gage said the biggest surprise on his list came when outfielder Bobby Higginson was found to rank 14th. Gage referred to Higginson as “very consistent” during his playing days.
Both Gage and Avila entertained the audience with stories and anecdotes, took questions from those in attendance and signed autographs at the conclusion of the event.