When you picked the mighty Los Angeles Dodgers to be the primary crew to win 50 video games this MLB season, you were not alone.
You have been additionally unsuitable.
When you picked the Detroit Tigers, congratulations! We’re unsure we consider you, however we’ll provide the good thing about the doubt.
The Tigers gained their fiftieth sport on Tuesday, a full day earlier than the Dodgers, they usually bought there because of huge contributions all season from ace Tarik Skubal, the red-hot Riley Greene and the resurgent Javier Baez, amongst many others.
However are they actually pretty much as good as they’ve performed to date? Are they even the American League’s finest crew? Might they defeat the Dodgers (or whichever crew comes out of a stacked Nationwide League) within the World Collection?
We requested MLB consultants Bradford Doolittle, Tim Keown, Jeff Passan and David Schoenfield to deal with all issues Tigers earlier than they play host to the Minnesota Twins on “Sunday Evening Baseball” (7 p.m. ET, ESPN and ESPN2).
Who’s the most important menace to Detroit within the AL — and would you’re taking the Tigers to beat them in an ALCS showdown?
Doolittle: The Yankees nonetheless have the AL’s finest roster and stay the favorites within the circuit, even with the Rays and Astros closing in quick on each Detroit and New York. This looks like a season during which, by the point we get to October, there’s not going to be a clear-cut front-runner within the AL. But when we zero in on a doable Tigers-Yankees ALCS, I just like the interchangeability of the Detroit workers, which we noticed in motion late final 12 months. Max Fried and Skubal cancel one another out, so it actually comes all the way down to the variety of favorable matchups A.J. Hinch can manipulate throughout a sequence of video games between two postseason offenses possible predicated on well timed multi-run homers.
Keown: It is clearly the Yankees — until it is the Rays. Tampa’s lineup is deep and insistent, and the pitching workers is precisely what it at all times appears to be: constant, stingy and comprised of fellows solely hardcore followers can determine. They’re actually, actually good — by far the perfect huge league crew enjoying in a minor league ballpark.
Passan: It is nonetheless the New York Yankees. They have Aaron Judge, they have Fried and Carlos Rodon for 4 begins, they have higher lineup depth than Detroit. Who wins the theoretical matchup might rely upon how aggressively every crew pursues enchancment on the commerce deadline. Suffice to say, the Tigers is not going to be buying and selling Jack Flaherty this 12 months.
Schoenfield: I used to be going to say the Yankees as effectively, however as I am scripting this I simply watched the Astros sweep the Phillies, holding them to 1 run in three video games. As nice as Skubal has been, Hunter Brown has been simply pretty much as good — if not higher. (A few Brown-Skubal matchups within the ALCS could be tremendous enjoyable.) Throw in Framber Valdez and you’ve got two aces plus among the finest late-game bullpens within the biz. The offense? Nothing nice. The difference-maker is evident: getting Yordan Alvarez wholesome and hitting once more.
Who’s the most important menace to Detroit within the NL — and would you’re taking the Tigers to beat them in a World Collection matchup?
Doolittle: The Dodgers are the crew to beat, full cease. In some ways, their uneven begin to the season, attributable to so many pitching accidents, represents the decrease tier of L.A.’s doable vary of outcomes. And the Dodgers nonetheless are proper there on the high of the majors. I can not consider any good purpose to choose in opposition to them in any 2025 aggressive context. In a Tigers-Dodgers World Collection — which might in some way be the primary one ever — I simply cannot see the Tigers scoring sufficient to beat L.A. 4 instances.
Keown: The Dodgers. No must get cute right here. The Dodgers are the most important menace to simply about every little thing baseball-related. And whereas the matchup could be a hell of a number of enjoyable, crammed with all these contradictory juxtapositions that makes a sequence riveting, let’s simply say L.A. in seven.
Passan: It is nonetheless the Los Angeles Dodgers. They’re getting more healthy, with Shohei Ohtani again on the mound and nonetheless hitting extra residence runs than anybody within the Nationwide League. Will Smith is having the quietest .300/.400/.500 season in reminiscence. Freddie Freeman is doing Freddie Freeman issues. Andy Pages is enjoying All-Star-caliber baseball. Even Max Muncy is hitting now. And, sure, the pitching has been an issue, however they have sufficient depth — and sufficient minor league depth to make use of in trades — that they are certain to seek out 13 more-than-viable arms to make use of in October.
Schoenfield: A Tigers-Dodgers showdown could be a basic Authentic 16 matchup and people at all times really feel somewhat extra particular. Though who would not wish to see a rematch of the 1945, 1935, 1908 or 1907 World Collection between the Tigers and Cubs? These have been cut up 2-2, so we’d like a tiebreaker. However I digress. Sure, the Dodgers are nonetheless the crew to beat within the NL — particularly since we have seen the Phillies’ points on offense, the Cubs’ lack of pitching depth and the Mets’ inconsistency. The Dodgers have accidents to take care of, however there’s nonetheless time for Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow and everybody else to get again.
One sport, season on the road, who would you need on the mound to your crew: Tarik Skubal or some other ace within the sport?
Doolittle: I would go along with Skubal by a hair over Zack Wheeler, with Paul Skenes lurking within the three-hole. The way in which issues are going, by the tip of the 12 months it is perhaps Jacob Misiorowski, however I am in all probability getting forward of myself. Anyway, Skubal has carried final season’s constant dominance over and he is simply in that uncommon zone that nice starters attain the place you are shocked when somebody truly scores in opposition to them. He and Wheeler are tied with essentially the most sport scores of 70 or higher (18) for the reason that begin of final season. Their groups are each 17-1 in these video games. It is a coin flip, however give me Skubal.
Keown: Skubal. There are many different candidates — Wheeler, Fried, Jacob deGrom, and the way about some love for Logan Webb? — however I am all however sure a ballot of massive league hitters would reveal Skubal because the one they’d least prefer to face with every little thing using on the result.
Passan: Give me Skubal. Even when others have the expertise and pedigree, I will guess on stuff. And no one’s stuff — not even Skenes’ — is at Skubal’s stage proper now. He would not stroll anybody. He strikes out everybody. He suppresses residence runs. When you might construct a pitcher in a lab, he would look quite a bit like Skubal.
Schoenfield: I am going with Wheeler, simply based mostly on his postseason monitor file: He has a 2.18 ERA over 70⅓ profession innings in October, permitting no runs or one run in 5 of his 11 profession begins. These are all since 2022, so it is not like we’re taking a look at accomplishments from a decade in the past. And Wheeler is arguably pitching higher than ever, with a career-low OPS allowed and a career-high strikeout price.
What’s Detroit’s greatest weak spot that might be uncovered in October?
Doolittle: I believe elite October-level pitching may expose an overachieving offense. It is a stable lineup however the crew’s main run producers — Greene, Spencer Torkelson, Zach McKinstry, Baez, and so forth. — can pile up the whiffs in a rush. If that occurs, this can be a crew that does not run in any respect, and that lack of versatility issues me.
Keown: The Tigers are the odd crew that does not have a obvious weak spot or an particularly obvious energy. They’ve a number of actually good gamers however only one nice one in Skubal. (We’re protecting a second spot heat for Riley Greene.) They’re managed by somebody who is aware of find out how to navigate the postseason, they usually’ve rolled the boldness they gained with final season’s outstanding playoff run into this season. So take your choose: Any facet of the sport might propel them to a title, and any facet might be their demise. And no, that does not reply the query.
Passan: The left aspect of Detroit’s infield just isn’t what one may think about championship-caliber. With Trey Sweeney getting a lot of the at-bats at shortstop, the Tigers are working out a sub-replacement participant on most days. Third base is even worse: Detroit’s third basemen are barely OPSing .600, and whereas they could have discovered their reply in McKinstry, counting on a 30-year-old who till this 12 months had by no means hit is a dangerous proposition.
Schoenfield: I am not utterly offered on their late-game bullpen — or their bullpen on the whole. Little question, Will Vest and changeup specialist Tommy Kahnle have achieved the job to date, however neither has a dominant strikeout price for a 2025 nearer and total the Detroit bullpen ranks simply twenty fifth within the majors in strikeout price. How will that play within the postseason in opposition to higher lineups?
With one month left till the commerce deadline, what’s the one transfer the Tigers ought to make to place themselves excessive?
Doolittle: The massive-ticket additions could be a No. 3 or higher beginning pitcher or a bona fide nearer — the identical stuff all of the contenders want to add. A lower-profile transfer that might actually assist could be to focus on a shortstop like Isiah Kiner-Falefa, whose bat truly improves what Detroit has gotten from the place simply by way of uncooked manufacturing. However he additionally provides contact skill, one other stolen base menace and a plus glove. For the Tigers to maximise the title possibilities produced by their nice begin, they should assume by way of a number of roster-filling strikes, not one huge splash.
Keown: Prevailing knowledge says to beef up the bullpen and enhance the offense at third base, which might put names like Pete Fairbanks and Nolan Arenado on the high of the checklist. However the pitching and offense are each top-10 in practically each significant statistic, and I contend there’s an equally good case to be made for the Tigers to go all in on a top-line beginning pitcher. Offering Sandy Alcantara a recent setting would deepen the rotation and lighten the psychic load on Tarik Skubal and Casey Mize. (Each phrase of this turns into moot if the MLB return of 34-year-old KBO vet Dietrich Enns is definitely the reply.)
Passan: Deliver Eugenio Suarez residence. The third baseman, who at present has 25 residence runs and is slugging .569, signed with Detroit as an novice in 2008 and spent 5 years within the minors earlier than debuting in 2014. That winter, the Tigers traded him to Cincinnati for right-hander Alfredo Simon, who, in his solely season in Detroit, posted a 5.05 ERA in 187 innings. Suarez’s energy would match completely within the Tigers’ lineup and is strong sufficient to recover from the fence at Comerica Park, one of many largest stadiums in MLB.
Schoenfield: That is the fantastic thing about the Tigers: They will go in any course. Nearly as good because the offense has been, it looks like a number of of those guys are ripe for regression within the second half: Baez, McKinstry, possibly Torkelson and Gleyber Torres. That group is all method over their 2024 stage of manufacturing. If these guys fade, an impression bat is perhaps the reply. However is one obtainable? Arenado definitely is not an impression bat anymore and won’t be traded anyway. Possibly Eugenio Suarez if the Diamondbacks fade. However the likeliest and best reply: bullpen assist.