Sour Candy

 

The Detroit Tigers this year have hit just 72 home runs.

Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton this year have hit 72 home runs combined. In fact, if we're sticking with Yankee comparisons, EIGHT Yankees have more home runs than any member of the Tigers does right now. Which isn't a very high bar, as the Tigers' home run leader is Javier Baez with 11. 

...Joey Gallo hit 12 home runs as a Yankee. And people point to his Yankee tenure as a failure. If THAT's what a failure is, who even knows what to classify any of these Tigers as?

The Tigers are just dripping with people brought in to perform to standard and refusing to. Javier Baez is comparatively having a nice year, but he's hitting .224 with 45 RBIs. In 2018, he hit .290 with 111 RBIs, and nearly won an MVP, ultimately thwarted by Christian Yelich. Now, on a team that is relying on him to perform to his peak, Baez is providing his most subpar season since his .203 pandemic-shortened year in 2020.

Even worse, the preexisting power hitter, Jeimer Candelario, is hitting just .194 with 65 hits and 10 home runs. This comes after Candelario had the best season of his career in 2021, leading the league in doubles and hitting his career high RBI mark with 67. Candelario is 28, is still in an important role in keeping the Tigers along, and even he's floundering. Meanwhile, Miguel Cabrera is hitting .260 but because he's not getting on base much, the WAR gods are calling his season another negative one. 

So many people this team banked on to succeed this year, like Akil Baddoo, Eduardo Rodriguez, Tucker Barnhart, Spencer Torkelson and Casey Mize, have all let them down. One of their best success stories, Tarik Skubal, just got shut down for the rest of the season. The people helping this team along have been mostly pitchers, bullpen pieces, and spare parts like Willi Castro, Eric Haase and Victor Reyes. The core this team was trying to cement has caved in.

And I feel like a lot of 2023 is gonna be spent undoing a lot of this year's mistakes. Waiting for some contracts to expire. Maybe shuffling some out the door at the deadline. And then actually picking the right guys to rebuild and compete again. I hate that this wasn't the year for the Tigers, but I hate even more that this year might have made things worse.

Coming Tomorrow- A rookie pitcher for the Reds. No, not that one. Not that one either. Ooh, yeah, I should do that one eventually, but no. Yeah, that's the one.