Tigers must become better baserunners

Yep, I'm up late. That benefits you if you're up late, too, because it means you can be among the first of your friends and my loyal BYB readers to check out my column at the Detroit News.

I wrote about baserunning, as it's actually a pretty interesting topic. I've detailed in the past, on more than one occasion, that the Tigers would score more runs simply by being better baserunners. Their total incoherence on the basepaths really cut into their offensive production.

While we know that half, well, probably more than half, of the team will never be great baserunners, any incremental improvement will help, be it moving Tom Brookens across the field to third-base coach, or keeping speedy players like Quintin Berry and Jeff Kobernus around for deployment in key situations, or even new baserunning consultant Jeff Cox.

The Tigers shouldn't be expected to improve by leaps and bounds. But they're only hurting themselves if they don't improve, because you can't just sit around waiting for the three-run home run to happen. Sometimes, you have to force a bit of the action, too.