I have had the honor of watching the Detroit Tigers play 23 innings in about the last 24 hours. Wait, honor is the wrong word. What is the opposite of honor? The Tigers are brutal. I know their record is much, much, much better than the Twins' record, but they are brutal. They have 3 great starting pitchers: Verlander, Fister and Scherzer (who can be pretty hit or miss). They have three great hitters: Cabrera, Fielder, and Jackson. They have one player who is regularly in the lineup that provides good defense: Jackson. Oh, and Joaquin Benoit is a legitimately good pitcher.

Their defense is lower than rat excrement. The infield defense is particularly terrible. I usually enjoy watching good teams play, but either this is not a good team, or this is some crazy exception. I wanted the Tigers to overtake the White Sox, so I could watch Verlander in the playoffs. I am starting to think that having to watch their terrible defense for even one more minute might not be worth watching one of the very best pitchers in baseball.

Am I missing something, or is Detroit just an awful team masquerading as a decent team? If Detroit and Chicago are the class of this division, then how bad are the Twins and Indians?

No, this display of baseball is almost exactly what I was predicting after they signed Fielder and shifted Miggy to 3rd. They have probably the lowest fielding range in the Majors, and they are relying on their hitting to overcome their severe problems with fielding. They sometimes do, but more often than not their fielding hurts them more than their hitting can overcome.

This Tigers team might be the perfect embodiment of Mike Trout's MVP argument. If you think that baseball is solely about offense and that defense and base running mean nothing, Miguel Cabrera is the MVP. If you think there is more to baseball than just offense, you have to give the award to Trout. However, if baseball was just about offense, you would think the Tigers would be a much better team.