Dan S released his ZiPS projections for the Tigers this morning at Baseball Think Factory, so I thought we could take a quick look..
First off, two key quotes from what Dan wrote about the team:
If the season started today, I'd pick the Tigers to edge out the Twins and a little behind the White Sox.
Ooh, that's a good start. Not great, but good. But due to some of the team's best hitters edging toward the sunsets of their careers while Detroit lacks impact prospects anywhere near major league ready,
I still think that the Tigers are likely to win somewhere between 84 and 90 games, but 70 wins would surprise me a lot less than 95 wins
OK, so how about a few specific predictions?
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Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer will both be quite a bit above league average, but Rick Porcello, Brad Penny and Phil Coke will bunch up below average (at around 4.66-4.72 ERAs for the trio).
My take: I think Porcello's going to find improvements in his peripherals this year due to increased experience and abilities. - Joquin Benoit will be the best reliever in the bullpen, but Jose Valverde does pretty darn good for himself too.
My take: Sounds reasonable to me. -
Austin Jackson will have a .274 average, .329 on-base percentage and .384 slugging average.
My take: The average sounds reasonable but I wouldn't be surprised if he hit a bit better. -
Miguel Cabrera continues to be superman. Magglio Ordonez, Victor Martinez and Ryan Raburn all find different routes to above-average seasons.
My take: The numbers all look reasonable to me. Raburn is a wild card since he's never done it for a complete season but it certainly seems possible.
And there's a whole lot more than that. So head on over and look for yourself and see if it passes the smell test for you and let us know what you think.