MLB: Summer’s Here and a Lesson Learned

With Memorial Day being celebrated all over the United States, the unofficial start to summer has arrived. And now is when the games really begin to have a little more meaning. And so do the standings. If a team is still around at this point they have to be seen as a contender. And if a team is at the bottom of their division then that has to be considered real as well.

And that’s why the Tampa Bay Rays have to wake-up feeling pretty good about themselves today. They are back in fist place in the AL East – a half game ahead of the Boston Red Sox. The Rays have won four straight and they do look like a team that just might still be around on Labor Day.

And that’s also why the Detroit Tigers have to be considered a huge failure. They lost again on Monday and dropped back to 9 games under .500. If not for the Royals being on a 9 game losing streak, the Tigers would be alone in the basement of the AL Central.

And there is a lesson to be learned here.

Two years ago the Tigers went to the World Series. They did it with very strong pitching, a couple All-Star players, and a bunch of role players. Last year they had basically the same roster and they had the best record midway throught the season. The injuries decimated them and caused them to fall back and miss the playoffs.

For some reason the Tigers figured they had to do somethign different. So they did what never worked for the Yankees. They traded away very good young talent – mainly Andrew Miller and Cameron Maybin – for Dontrelle Willis and Miguel Cabrera. They thought they’d be one of the best hitting teams in the Majors. Instead they are horrible.

The Tigers got shutout in 12 innings on Monday. That’s their 8th shutout in 51 games. What? That’s right. They are being shutout 15% of the time. That is horrible. In fact, you could pretty much put a Triple A team out there everynight and expect to socre at least one run more than 85% of the time.

But this just proves that you can’t buy wins. You can’t buy team chemistry. And you can’t buy heart. And I know Jim Leyland, the Tigers manager, claims they’re all working hard to right the ship but I don’t buy it. Sure, they might be going through the motions but they aren’t really working hard. If they are then everything I’ve ever been taught and seen in sports is wrong. Talent + hard work + heart = success. That is a winning. So since the Tigers aren’t hitting at the plate then there is something missinig and it isn’t talent. So it’s either hardwork or heart. I suspect it’s a lot of both.

But the lesson here for other clubs is not to mess with a good thing and don’t trade away young talent for older talent. It just doesn’t pay. Just look at the Tigers.