Thursday, August 10, 2006
Back to work
This blog's 8 month hiatus is officially over. There I've said it. Now it's time to get back to work in the Punditocracy. Some things have changed quite a bit this year -- the Detroit Tigers (the Tigers!) are first place, Harry Sinden is no longer running the Bruins and Israel has declared war on the Hezbollah. And some things haven't changed a bit -- Bush still doesn't know what his foreign policy is, elections don't guarantee democracy and Michigan State's defense is still a question mark entering fall practice. Sigh. All right, let's take these one at a time -- and one entry at a time. Up first ....
Deeeetroit Baseballllllllllll
Dave Dombrowski and Jim Leyland deserve full marks for making summer fun again in the 'D.' As USAT's Hal Bodley notes, Dombrowski was widely considered a baseball genius until he landed in Detroit. Then his team's lost 106 games in 2002, 119 in 2003, 90 in 2004 and 91 in 2005 and people wondered what happened his to remarkable touch. Well, here's what happened. He rebuilt the farm system. He developed good young pitchers (Justin Verlander, Jeremy Bonderman, etc.) to take advantage of spacious Comerica Park. He's found hitters who can take advantage of the ATM's dimensions rather than complain about lost home runs. And he hired Jim Leyland to run it all. Now all of his efforts have come to fruition, and he can enjoy this great regular season run. That's right, I said regular season season run. Detroit's pitchers are too young to sustain a deep playoff run. They are already resting Verlander, 23, to try and prevent a sore arm and it's only August. Bonderman, also 23, is just getting his first taste of success after being thrown to the wolves during his first three seasons in the bigs. And Joel Zumaya is just 21. It's been a magical season so far, but it looks like the Tigers are about to join the Pistons and the Wings as Detroit teams who have won regular season crowns, but fallen short in the playoffs.
Deeeetroit Baseballllllllllll
Dave Dombrowski and Jim Leyland deserve full marks for making summer fun again in the 'D.' As USAT's Hal Bodley notes, Dombrowski was widely considered a baseball genius until he landed in Detroit. Then his team's lost 106 games in 2002, 119 in 2003, 90 in 2004 and 91 in 2005 and people wondered what happened his to remarkable touch. Well, here's what happened. He rebuilt the farm system. He developed good young pitchers (Justin Verlander, Jeremy Bonderman, etc.) to take advantage of spacious Comerica Park. He's found hitters who can take advantage of the ATM's dimensions rather than complain about lost home runs. And he hired Jim Leyland to run it all. Now all of his efforts have come to fruition, and he can enjoy this great regular season run. That's right, I said regular season season run. Detroit's pitchers are too young to sustain a deep playoff run. They are already resting Verlander, 23, to try and prevent a sore arm and it's only August. Bonderman, also 23, is just getting his first taste of success after being thrown to the wolves during his first three seasons in the bigs. And Joel Zumaya is just 21. It's been a magical season so far, but it looks like the Tigers are about to join the Pistons and the Wings as Detroit teams who have won regular season crowns, but fallen short in the playoffs.
# posted by vinism @ 8:37 AM 
