Have any of you ever gone into a project or a situation saying or thinking, “I know this needs to get done, but man I do not want to have to do this.”?
That’s How I felt all day prior to writing this week’s column.
As you may know, I work for an oldies radio station out of West Michigan, so I hear this classic Sonny and Cher hit often.
And if they were Tigers fans, they would have stopped singing by now.
Six straight losses.
One win in the last ten games.
A weekend sweep at the hands of the Royals.
And then last night, just for good measure another loss to a good Tampa Bay team.
At this point, the Tigers aren’t so much playing baseball as they are conducting a weekly demonstration of how many different ways a team can lose a baseball game.
Seriously. The constant collapses of this team in the last two seasons should be studied.
And the beat(ings) goes on.
The Tigers sit 61-70, seven games behind in the central and three and a half games out of a wild card spot. So, despite this string of losses, there is still a chance at a postseason spot. And there is still enough baseball left for the regular season for things to get interesting.
But good grief, it is awfully difficult to believe it is going to happen.
I thought we had a plan.
I though Framber Valdez was going to be the guy. The guy the Tigers signed so that when the inevitable day came that Tarik Skubal was no longer wearing the Olde English D on his chest, we still had an anchor in this rotation.
Well? About that…
Framber is 8-9 with a 4.35 ERA and a 1.41 WHIP. That includes last night’s performance, in the middle of a six-game losing streak, when Valdez went six innings, allowed four runs—three earned—and didn’t record a single strikeout.
So, we have a team falling apart and what is coming up for us?
2 more with the Rays. Oh boy.
After that?
Tarik Skubal as a Dodger.
Think about this.
You spend your entire professional career with one organization. You become a two-time Cy Young winner. You become one of the faces of the franchise.
Then, in the middle of a season in which your team is still fighting for a playoff spot, they trade you.
And now you’re pitching for the Dodgers.
I don’t think that necessarily makes you pitch worse.
If anything, I’d think you’d be motivated as all get out to go back and show them what they had.
But this is not the first time this has happened.
Since Chris Ilitch took over principal ownership in 2017, the Tigers have developed a pretty uncomfortable habit of saying goodbye to their best players.
Verlander. Martinez. Kinsler. Fulmer. Soto. Jiménez. Skubal.
Not all equal. Not all Ilitch’s personal decisions. Not all bad trades.
But that’s a whale of a list.
Justin Verlander left Detroit and won championships. Then? eventually came back to Detroit because he still believes this place can win one.
Skubal was traded still talking about the championship he wanted to win here. HE DID NOT WANT TO LEAVE.
Tigers finally develop a star, then we hear about contracts and control and prospects and payroll and the future and what make sense for the organization.
And then?
They’re gone.
Call my cynical if you want and no, I do not believe Chris is sitting in his office counting money like Ebeneezer Scrooge while the tigers lose games.
I don’t know Chris Ilitch.
I’ve never had dinner with the man.
I’ve never sat across from him and asked him what matters more: making money or winning a championship.
And I’m certainly not going to pretend I know what’s in his head.
But I do know what his decisions look like to Tigers fans.
And it looks like this.
We’re willing to spend money.
Just not really on the guys you don’t want to lose.
That’s what makes the Valdez situation so interesting.
The Tigers were willing to spend big money to bring him to Detroit.
They were willing to bring Justin Verlander back.
This isn’t simply a case of saying, “The Tigers are cheap.”
That’s too easy.
The better question is:
What are you spending the money for?
If you are spending it to win a championship, you have to decide that your best players are worth keeping.
Not just when they’re inexpensive.
Not just when they’re under team control.
Not just when they fit nicely into a spreadsheet.
At some point, you have to say:
“This guy is ours. He’s one of the best players in baseball. We’re keeping him.”
That’s what championship organizations do.
And that’s where Tigers fans are getting restless.
Because we’ve seen what this team can be.
We’ve watched Riley Greene develop.
We’ve watched the young players come through.
We’ve watched Skubal go from a promising young pitcher to a back-to-back Cy Young winner.
We watched the Tigers make the postseason.
We watched them come within a game of the AL Championship Series.
And then we watched the best pitcher they’ve developed in years get traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
That’s a tough one to swallow.
Especially with a six-game losing streak and desperately trying to stay alive in the Wild Card Race.
But here’s the thing.
I’m not ready to say the season is over.
Not yet.
They’re still close enough to make this interesting.
If they were 15 games out, I’d turn the page.
But they’re not.
They’re seven games out in the division and only three and a half games out of a Wild Card spot.
There are still games to be played.
There are still players who can get hot.
There is still time to make a run.
But eventually, “there’s still time” becomes “there isn’t much time.”
And that’s where the Tigers are right now.
The beatings can continue.
Or somebody can finally decide to turn the music off.
Because Tigers fans don’t need another team that’s merely good enough to keep us interested.
We don’t need another season where we’re told the future looks bright.
Or another collection of prospects who might someday become stars.
We want the stars they already have.
and October baseball.
We want a parade.
And a championship.
And most of all, we want to believe that when the Tigers finally find a great player, the organization will do whatever it takes to keep him in Detroit.
Because that’s what this is ultimately about.
Not Framber Valdez.
Not Tarik Skubal.
Not even Chris Ilitch.
It’s about whether the Detroit Tigers are actually building toward a championship…
or simply building another team that is good enough to make us believe one is coming.
For now, the beat goes on.
Unfortunately for the Tigers, so do the beatings.
And Tigers fans are running out of patience waiting for the song to change.
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