{"id":527845,"date":"2026-01-19T16:54:24","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T16:54:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/527845\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T16:54:24","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T16:54:24","slug":"a-look-back-decades-apart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/527845\/","title":{"rendered":"A look back, decades apart"},"content":{"rendered":"

Inspired by Mike Carlucci at Over the Monster<\/a> (and, perhaps, an Instagram trend) I thought it would be a fun exercise to look back at Detroit Tigers teams from ten, twenty and thirty years ago and put myself in the shoes of the average fan in the winters just before those seasons.<\/p>\n

Some of you here may be relative newcomers to the Tigers; in that case, welcome aboard, and just know that being a serious playoff contender isn\u2019t always a frequent occurrence. But sometimes things line up just right \u2013 and, of course, a certain pizza-chain-owning mogul decides to blow his entire bank account on the team for which he once played in the organization.<\/p>\n

Some of you have followed the Tigers for decades longer than others; in that case, feel free to fill things in for forty, fifty or more years in the past down in the comments. To that end, fifty years ago marked the debut of one of the singular sensations in baseball history, Mark Fidrych<\/a>. He\u2019d put together a good year across three minor-league levels in 1975 at age 20, capping things off with six very good starts at Triple-A Evansville (completing four of them; ah, different times, then). Did anyone see his 1976 coming? I doubt anyone would\u2019ve, including Fidrych himself, may he rest in peace.<\/p>\n

Anyway, on with the exercise at hand.<\/p>\n

\"DETROIT,<\/a><\/p>\n

DETROIT, MI – AUGUST 27: Victor Martinez #41 of the Detroit Tigers hits a single in the first inning during a MLB game against the Los Angeles Angels at Comerica Park on August 27, 2016 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Dave Reginek\/Getty Images) Getty Images<\/p>\n

A sense of dread hung over Tigers fans that offseason, as the window for a realistic shot at a World Series title appeared to have mostly snapped shut in the second year of Brad Ausmus\u2019 tenure in 2015. Core stars like Miguel Cabrera<\/a> and Victor Mart\u00ednez<\/a> were aging, Justin Verlander had re-emerged as one of the best pitchers in the league in the second half of the season but most weren\u2019t yet convinced and they\u2019d failed to build back around him, and it became clear that Ausmus was not the guy to reassemble the Tigers into anything ressembling a good team. Plus, Dave Dombrowski quit as General Manager and his longtime deputy, Al Avila, was expected to pilot the ship along roughly the same course as before.<\/p>\n

And, let\u2019s face it, the less said about Alfredo \u201cBig Pasta\u201d Sim\u00f3n<\/a>\u2019s season in Detroit, the better. Yikes. (How did that trade with the Reds turn out? I hope what\u2019s-his-name turned out alright. You know, ol\u2019 Jonathon Crawford<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

But, like all good baseball movies, the aging veterans surely had to have one last turn in the Sun in them, right? Besides, J.D. Martinez<\/a> had a great season with 38 home runs and 33 doubles, and while he wasn\u2019t so hot with the glove, you could stick him in right field and have him occassionally DH, you could get away with some suspicious defence now and again. Al Alburquerque<\/a> and his amazing slider could baffle hitters in the late innings, and Bruce Rond\u00f3n<\/a> was going to be the Closer of the Future.<\/p>\n

While the 2016 Tigers finished with 86 wins \u2013 short of a Wild Card spot after a wretched August and September in which they went 23\u201332 \u2013 it was pretty clear that the extended run of consistently good teams, stretching back to 2011, was over. Ausmus was kept around for another year in which the Tigers struggled, traded away all the veteran they could, including Verlander, and finished last. Things look pretty bleak for years afterwards.<\/p>\n

\"DETROIT<\/a><\/p>\n

DETROIT – SEPTEMBER 26: Placido Polanco #14 of the Detroit Tigers turns a double play behind the slide of Adam Lind #26 of the Toronto Blue Jays on September 26, 2006 at Comerica Park in Detroit, Michigan. Detroit won the game 4-3. (Photo by Gregory Shamus\/Getty Images) Getty Images<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always felt that Alan Trammell<\/a> got a raw deal as manager of the Tigers for three years in the early 2000s. He was handed a truly horrible team in 2003 and, unsurpsingly, they did terribly; nearly-historically-terribly, as it turned out. When your starting lineup features Dmitri Young<\/a> as, by far, its most valuable hitter (with a nice 3.4 bWAR but a glove as strange as you\u2019ll ever see), and a starting rotation in which one starter had an ERA below 5 (Nate Cornejo<\/a>, ladies and gentlemen), there\u2019s only so much you can do.<\/p>\n

Since things can\u2019t stay that bad for that long, they won 29 more games in 2004 than they did the year before: no pitcher lost twenty games, Iv\u00e1n Rodriguez<\/a> and Carlos Guill\u00e9n<\/a> were solid free-agent pickups, and Dombrowski had a full season on the job to build the kind of team we\u2019d desperately wanted for years. With high hopes and an interesting young rotation, what would 2005 bring?<\/p>\n

A slight regression, as it turned out. They won one fewer game, the bullpen was a mess (although they managed to get rid of Ugueth Urbina<\/a> just in time and flip him for the impossible-to-whiff Pl\u00e1cido Polanco<\/a>), and while the young starters stayed healthy and ate up a whole lot of innings, they didn\u2019t take the huge step forward that many were hoping for. They had a 61-62 record near the end of August, but the bottom fell out and that was that.<\/p>\n

Thus, ol\u2019 Tram \u201cgot the ziggy,\u201d and Jim Leyland<\/a> was brought in to scream and yell and occasionally cry and the room you were sitting in sure got a little dusty when that happened for the 2006 season. As we all know, the Tigers got a Wild Card after skidding backwards into the playoffs, losing the AL Central title to Minnesota, but they made it all the way to the World Series in a run that none of us could have truly predicted. Breakout or standout seasons were all over the place, and some young punk kid named Verlander<\/a> decided he\u2019d go out and win himself seventeen games as a 23-year-old rookie. Not bad at all.<\/p>\n

\"24<\/a><\/p>\n

24 Jun 2001: Jose Lima of the Detroit Tigers relaxes at the dugout during the game against the Minnesota Twins at Comercia Park in Detroit, Michigan. The Twins won the game 14-5. DIGITAL IMAGE. Mandatory Credit : Tom Pidgeon\/Allsport Getty Images<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s where a lot of us start to have slightly fuzzy memories, myself included.<\/p>\n

Sparky Anderson<\/a> retired at the end of the 1995 season. He\u2019d been the manager in Detroit since mid-1979, which is the kind of managerial tenure you rarely see in baseball. He\u2019d turned a boatload of ridiculously talented prospects into a World Series winner and kept things going for a while as those prospects aged into veterans. But the strike in 1994, and management asking him to possibly guide replacement players in 1995 (before the strike was resolved) suggested to Sparky that it might be time to hang \u2018em up.<\/p>\n

Lou Whitaker<\/a> also retired at the end of 1995, but Trammell<\/a> decided he had one more season in him as Travis Fryman<\/a> was clearly going to be the starting shortstop going forward. Kirk Gibson<\/a> had also squeezed one final campaign out of his body and reitred a Tiger, after memorable seasons in Los Angeles (and not-so-memorable ones in Kansas City and Pittsburgh). Chad Curtis<\/a> looked to be a solid pickup from the Angels, but the less said about him the better, too, as it turned out.<\/p>\n

Add Mike Moore<\/a>\u2019s name to the list of fresh retirees, too: he\u2019d lost 15 games in the Tigers rotation in 1995, and at age 35 and after fourteen seasons, he probably figured he\u2019d had enough. The rotation in \u201895 had Felipe Lira<\/a> and Jos\u00e9 Lima<\/a>, two promising young pitchers, and the Tigers picked up Omar Olivares<\/a> as a free agent; he\u2019d had some good seasons in St. Louis. Gregg Olson<\/a> was brought in to be their closer, and he\u2019d had a nice run in the early-\u201990s in Baltimore. Could this patchwork pitching staff get the Tigers some wins, picking up the slack for a questionable starting lineup?<\/p>\n

Nope. The Tigers in 1996 had the worst team ERA in American League history, they lost 109 games under Buddy Bell<\/a>, and it kicked off a ten-season stretch in which they wouldn\u2019t win 80 games in a season, and indeed only cracked 75 wins twice. Bobby Higginson<\/a> sure deserved better than this.<\/p>\n

Again, feel free to add your recollections of any of these past offseasons, a decade apart \u2013 or if you\u2019re of a more refined vintage, something from a previous ending-in-six offseason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Inspired by Mike Carlucci at Over the Monster (and, perhaps, an Instagram trend) I thought it would be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":527846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2386],"tags":[5,147,53,1991,2583,4,594],"class_list":{"0":"post-527845","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-tigers","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-detroit","10":"tag-detroit-tigers","11":"tag-detroit-tigers-history","12":"tag-detroittigers","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-tigers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115922814669061021","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/527846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}