The playoff start this week

[Cal Lord]

The Tigers essentially are playing two teams this week that they have to beat to get into the playoffs. Every game matters. 

If they had played better down the stretch  it would have been a cakewalk. Now it is a race to the finish line and may the best team win!

(I hope it is the Tigers)

[Roger King]

Fangraphs currently has the Tigers at 84.9% odds to make the playoffs, and 63% to win the division.

Obviously, they still have a 1 game lead over Cleveland so they are going to be at least slight favorites to win the division until that lead changes (if and when).

The thing working in the Tigers favor in terms of just making the playoffs at all is Houston getting swept by Seattle and now in a position where if the playoffs started today, the Astros would be out.  As Hinch said, the Tigers don’t have to rely on any other team to make it. They simply have to win the majority of their remaining games.

Whether there’s legit reason to believe they will is another story :-)

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[Paul Meloche]

We went 4-2 against the Astros this year. Do we hold both a WC and first round bye tiebreaker over them?

Paul M.

On Sep 22, 2025, at 11:10 AM, Roger King <pnag...@pnagency.com> wrote:



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[Roger King]

See this attachment for most likely playoff scenarios for the Tigers.  

I know the Tigers are two games behind Seattle and the Mariners also have the tiebreaker but I’m a little surprised the odds of the Tigers getting a first round bye are not higher than 1%. Really?  Is that just based on the oddsmakers watching them the last week and a half? :-)

[Jeffrey Withey]

Yes this is gambling nonsense. 

Jeff

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From: detroit...@googlegroups.com <detroit...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Roger King <pnag...@pnagency.com>
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2025 5:43:17 PM
To: Paul Meloche <meloc...@gmail.com>
Cc: Cal Lord <calst...@gmail.com>; Tigers List <detroit...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: The playoff start this week

 

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[Peter Welch]

Let’s sweep Cleveland and then we won’t need Skubal on Sunday, and have him pitch the first game of the playoffs instead.

Peter

On Sep 22, 2025, at 4:58 PM, Paul Meloche <meloc...@gmail.com> wrote:

 We went 4-2 against the Astros this year. Do we hold both a WC and first round bye tiebreaker over them?

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/detroit-tigers/94EA4D53-CF1E-4DD4-AB75-0173E64332BC%40gmail.com.

[Roger King]

It’s interesting how this Tigers collapse can’t even really be blamed on injuries. Sure, Olson was a big loss to the rotation but every team is going to have one injury. Can’t expect to be 100% healthy.

And there are others who’ve been out like Vierling, Meadows, and a couple of bullpen guys including Finnegan for 15 days or whatever it was…but really no one you’d call a make or break player to the Tigers success. 

Colt Keith is on the DL now but that has only been a few days. The slide had already started when he was in the lineup.

(insert joke how it feels like Riley Greene *is* on the DL in September)

Roger King
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[Paul Meloche]

They were a mid to high 80s win team all along; it's just more painful because they played so well the first half of the year and they could only go down from there.

Once the offense stopped playing above their collective heads - remember, literally everyone in our typical June starting lineup this year was playing better than last season - we've seen the Tigers for who they are.

That being said, teams that win this many games often go to the playoffs and anything can happen there.

[Peter Welch]

Let's face it, this was still a mostly younger team in rebuild mode that still had a bad contract (Baez) they were stuck with from Al Avila.  We got ahead of schedule last year with a surprising hot streak in the 2^nd half and a playoff berth (and notice how Baez missed a chunk of the 2nd half last year and we did better without him because Sweeney hit better than Baez down the stretch last year).  I think this raised expectations among many fans.

The good luck continued in the first 3 months this year thanks to some overperformance of certain hitters and the starting rotation being healthy.

Once the injuries started to hit the starting rotation (Jobe, Olson, Cobb never being healthy enough to be activated) and the bullpen magic of last year disappeared (especially when Kahnle went into a bad slump) we started to fade badly.

I think Scott Harris has alluded to the team still being in rebuild mode.  Fans don't want to hear it, especially since we have Skubal for only 2 more years and they want to see the Tigers take advantage of having the best starter in baseball and go "all in" to win a WS.

You can criticize Harris for the Cobb signing, but he did try to fill in some gaps by signing Torres and re-signing Flaherty.  Torres has been decent (although he has faded in the 2^nd half), but Flaherty has been maddeningly inconsistent.  I don't think anyone predicted Flaherty to be so inconsistent.

Harris did try hard to sign Bregman, but the deal fell apart at the end (ultimately I don't think Bregman really wanted to play for the Tigers).

Peter

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[Peter Welch]

I do think the major injuries to Jobe, Olson and Cobb hurt the team in the 2nd half.  Also losing Foley, Brieske and Guenther has hurt the bullpen.

K. Montero and SGL weren't reliable enough to pick up the slack.  Melton was good enough to replace Olson or Jobe, but the Tigers turned him into a reliever because they had him on innings limitations.  You can argue if putting Melton on innings limitations the middle of a playoff race was worth it.  Melton might be our 2nd-best starter but he's stuck in the bullpen.

Hinch hasn't been able to do bullpen games to cover for the injured starters like last year because the openers and middle relievers haven't been reliable enough.

The Tigers have less pitching depth this year and it's hurt them.

Peter

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[Michael W]

I think the combination of injuries to Olson and Jobe, after Urquidy, Cobb, and Gipson-Long were already injured, definitely exposed the pitching staff.  We only reasonably can have so much depth there.  If none of those 5 were injured this year, the pitching performance would have looked a lot different.  If only 2 or 3 had been injured, it would have looked a lot different too.

Michael

[Peter Welch]

Plus Manning fading into oblivion didn't help the pitching depth either.

I was surprised Urquidy even pitched this year.  It turns out he only made 2 appearances, but I didn't think he would pitch at all.  I thought the Tigers signed him pretty much for depth next year.

I guess expecting SGL to come back and be effective was probably wishful thinking.  It can take time coming back from TJS.  Also, SGL kept injuring his neck this year but that might have been from turning his head to watch all the balls fly into the stands.

K. Montero is just an inconsistent pitcher at this point.  He could still develop into a decent #4/#5 starter or possibly a reliever, but he's not there yet.

Peter

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[Roger King]

My initial post was more about the last month or two because of course the Tigers were cruising towards a playoff spot *without* many of the guys who have been mentioned.  

It's not like, for example, Carpenter went on the DL and suddenly they had a losing streak.  That kind of thing we've seen in the past that would explain a stretch of losses.  Other than Olson, I can't think of anyone they lost who was a big factor in the success for most of the season.  

Yes, for example, it would have been great to have Jobe the whole season...or Montero & SGL pitch better when they were asked to step up but the Tigers were winning most of the year without those guys.  

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[Peter Welch]

Apart from Vierling and Meadows (and Keith getting hurt last week) the offense has been relatively healthy.  Jones has been a good replacement for Vierling/Meadows (plus Ibanez and Malloy have been ok vs. lefties when they’ve been on the roster) so I don’t think we’ve missed Vierling/Meadows that much (except for maybe outfield defense sometimes).  

It’s the collective inability to advance runners or come up with clutch hits that has killed the offense during the 2nd half collapse.  Some of that has been random bad luck, but we don’t walk enough and rely on swinging for the fences too much, which isn’t necessarily a good approach in Comerica Park.

Peter

On Sep 23, 2025, at 1:01 PM, Roger King <pnag...@pnagency.com> wrote:



[Cal Lord]

I think the offense is as much to blame as the pitching, and even more so in the recent collapse. You can’t win if you get six hits every night.

Cal

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