50 Games Down....112 to go

June 1st, 26-24, 2nd place, 4.5 back, 85-win pace

Not bad. About where I figured this crew would be...(I predicted 85 wins for BillyTuttle's list...but had felt they were an 80 to 86 win ballclub all the off-season)

The recent stretch of going 5-8 has put some folks in a funk about where this club is heading. We'll see.....a 6-2 stretch would perk up plenty of folks.

Verlander, Porcello, and Scherzer. This season hinged on these three guys more than any others in my opinion. Certainly that has not gone well overall. Some positive moments....but not the steadiness needed to enable the club to exceed expectations thus far. However we now see Scherzer regaining his velocity and, if it continues, that gives him a good chance to compete and post some good starts for the club. Verlander is coming into form. Porcello has looked a bit better at times. Then Bonderman has gotten into a decent rythm. This rotation could do good things this summer with a few breaks.

The bullpen has been relatively solid for two months. Some nights of stellar work including picking up emergency "bullpen games" when Willis was not ready to answer the bell.

Defensively this year the corner outfield play has been poor. The Tigers overall have fallen back to 22nd in Team Defensive Efficiency. But they've been rising a bit of late. We'll see what Guillen's addition to the infield means on a regular basis. (at least until the DL comes calling)

Offensively......a bit sporadic. Better than last season for the most part until the last week or so. Top heavy in the batting order as we know. I think some of the under-performers will play a bit better and inch back to their career norms as happens a lot in baseball. How long will A-Jax/Boesch continue to contribute? That's a bigger question over worrying about Laird/Everett in my opinion.

The Farm is still a work in progress. I coined the farm system to be "craptastic" in '09....but they've come on since then. Much more middle-of-the-road now with some guys coming along and a surprise or two possible like Rawley Bishop. Still, the system is a little light on position talent and a couple of the big arms haven't been ready like Casey Crosby.

The Tigers took a new course last off-season. It was needed and very justified. They have a chance to shed some of the bad Hindenburg Contracts over the next year and install some homegrown talent into the 25-man roster. Its the best way to build a ballclub in my opinion. While I haven't been a full bodied voice behind "the 2012 will be great!" Movement, I get the sentiment behind it. The club almost had a lucky playoff appearance in '09. They missed. But they weren't good enough as consituted to do much more than what we saw last year (in my opinion). Dombrowski hamstrung himself w/lousy contracts....but since he didn't get canned, he has to dig himself out. I think he chose the right course....younger talent has been installed, some more will return that didn't take on the first go-round, and more is coming. Spending flexibility is coming as well...that's a double-edged sword of course, he can't repeat the mistakes of '07/'08....but this has always been, in my mind, a transition year to the chance for something better. They brought in Damon/Valverde to still maintain their shot this season....and that still has a shot to work out.

No, I've enjoyed these 50 games that some seem to be bored with. They are building a younger team on the whole and investing in their organization. Hopefully they will spend their way into a couple of overslot signings to bolster the system in next week's draft as well. They need to identify a young guy or two and pay them out of going to college or to leave college early.....making up for losing the draft choice for signing Valverde (their only highly questionable move of the off-season) is critical to me. They need to keep amassing young talent to move forward with. (keep an eye out for Levon Washington...or Tyrell Jenkins)

We'll know a lot more after game 100....can't wait to see where they're headed then.