Tiger Droppings — A Detroit Tigers Blog

Freaking Sweet

Look out World, here comes Jimmy and his boys!

200

Gum time = Awesome

These guys are seriously starting to scare me.

When was the last time you saw a Tigers team have this much fun in the dug out, and before you poo-poo their fun as a mere byproduct of the winning something has to be said about the combination of the fun and the focus.

This might all fall in the lap of Jim Leyland or perhaps it's some cosmic force beyond our comprehension bringing everything together at this moment, but my vote goes with Leyland.

The June 12 13-inning win against the Devil Rays was a perfect example of the Tigers new formula for winning "Focus+Fun= Success".

It was months ago someone on a message board said this Tigers team reminded him or her of the 2004 Boston Red Sox. Of course I thought that was overstating it because Kenny Rogers is no Pedro Martinez, Marcus Thames/Dmitri Young is no David Ortiz and Todd Jones is surely no 2004 Keith Foulke, but maybe there is something to this comparison.

Much like the Red Sox of 2004 the Tigers seem to combine a relentless attack with an uncanny knack for keeping things loose (Nate Robertson=Johnny Damon without the girlish arm). This is perhaps the most overlooked quality of winning baseball teams. Over 162 games, it must be next to impossible to maintain the football attitude of "Winning is the only thing."

This is where seemingly senseless insanity like Gum Time pays off. I'm not actually saying the Tigers are winning because they are putting Big League Chew executives into a new tax bracket, but the reason they seem to be winning so often is in the change of attitude, and this brings up another correlation between the Tigers and '04 Sox.

As Leyland has given the Tigers a complete cerebral makeover, so did Terry Francona with the Sox. For them it was letting go of the Curse and ignoring fictitious ghosts that previous teams had used as an excuse and crutch.

For the Tigers, it's been letting go of the "We've lost before we started mentality." It shows that our hot start (powered by Chris Shelton, who is not too unlike Todd Walker, Bill Mueller or any other seemingly obscure Red Sox who killed the AL in '04) not only served to put the Tigers in first place early, but it also legitimized everything Leyland was saying about forgetting the past and competing, there by cementing our new attitude.

So, whether it's"Gum Time" or "Idiots," the formula remains the same, "Fun+Focus=Success"

Miller Time

The Tigers took Andrew Miller with their first round pick today.

The 6-6 210 Tarheel has been the ace of the nation's No. 1 team all season and seems to be a nice addition to the growing stable of power arms in the system.

He throws a four-seam and two-seam fastball with a nice slider and is sidearm from the left side like a slightly softer throwing Randy Johnson. It sounds like this might be a Maybin-type steal for the Tigers because Mr. I is willing to pay top dollar in the draft. KC was supposed to take this guy No.1 overall but passed.

There's a nice scouting report on Miller at The Hardball Times .

The draft's a crap shoot, but this sounds more like Verlander and less like Kenny Baugh.

It's On!

Pudge lets Ozzie Guillen know the Tigers place.

The East coast home stand is over let's get back on the road and hit some dongs.
Tigers open with Roberston, follow with Verlander and Kenny
Bitch Sox go with Garcia, Contreras, Garland

Cheater

Maroth on DL

Lefty goes on 15-day with tender elbow
Tigers call up Spurling

New website

Thanks to the guys at The Hardball Times, I have come across a new website chock-full of awesomeness. It's called Hit Tracker, and the guy who runs it breaks down how far home runs really travel.

He uses such science mumbo jumbo as numbers, physics and reasonable thought and puts up pretty charts with colors and everything to show the flight path of balls.

You can even sort home runs from the 2006 season to see who hits the big moon shots (Carlos Lee's shot that got 206 feet off the ground) or the piss missles (Miguel Tejada's 48-foot high line drive off Josh Becket that traveled just under 120 mph off his bat).

There are all sorts of cool things to check out including the historic home runs section, which pretty much proves Boston is better then the Yankees because Ted Williams red-seat home run went further than Micky Mantle's facade home run. Anyways, check it out you won't be disappointed.