Jim Leyland is an Idiot

Why on earth is Don Kelly starting tonight? He's in, and Delmon Young is benched. The same Delmon Young who has a 9-game hitting streak and is batting .441 with 4 homers and 12 RBI over that 9 game span.

Don Kelly is batting .173 on the season and hasn't even started a game since July 15th.



Why do you bench someone who is hot and start someone who hasn't even been playing regularly? I've questioned Leyland's stupidity for the last few years now but this move, in what I'd consider to be a must win game to keep the division race close, makes absolutely no sense at all.

And who knows, maybe Kelly will come through, but it's like Leyland pulls names out of a hat when he writes up the lineup card rather than using common sense. That's not how you win.

He badly needs to go...a manager who has a clue would have 85 wins by now with the team Detroit has this season.



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I'm sure he, much like Dusty Baker, has some reason that us novice baseball peons would never understand

After watching the way Lefties have hit Justin Masterson this season, I totally understand.

I could never stand Leyland, i hated when the signed him. Trammell got screwed. Leyland got lucky because he came into an already stacked team and then he gets all the credit for them going to the World Series.

i have always been leyland fan but enough is enough...they need to fire him, if they dont make the playoffs this year im confident he will be fired as they have all the parts they need..he just keeps making dumb decisions, he let raburn play two months more than what he should have as well and than the other day i hear he was going to start him but he didnt because of a leg injury..seriously it makes me not even want to watch them...and kelly has done absolutely nothing all year when he has gotten his chance to play, delmon does not need rest i mean he plays 90 percent of the time at dh

moxacaine said:

I could never stand Leyland, i hated when the signed him. Trammell got screwed. Leyland got lucky because he came into an already stacked team and then he gets all the credit for them going to the World Series.

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I am not a fan of Leyland, at all-but to say he had a stacked team in 2006 is just not right. This years team is stacked, but 2006 was not stacked.

With that said, the sooner Leyland goes, the better. I think he is an average in-game manager at best, and he just continues to be loyal to players who aren't doing a darn thing(Raburn time and time again). He needs to go.

i agree...tigers need a manager who will come in and not have any favorites and just play the guys who are better

hail2thevictors said:

I am not a fan of Leyland, at all-but to say he had a stacked team in 2006 is just not right. This years team is stacked, but 2006 was not stacked.

With that said, the sooner Leyland goes, the better. I think he is an average in-game manager at best, and he just continues to be loyal to players who aren't doing a darn thing(Raburn time and time again). He needs to go.

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hail2thevictors said:

I am not a fan of Leyland, at all-but to say he had a stacked team in 2006 is just not right. This years team is stacked, but 2006 was not stacked.

With that said, the sooner Leyland goes, the better. I think he is an average in-game manager at best, and he just continues to be loyal to players who aren't doing a darn thing(Raburn time and time again). He needs to go.

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poor choice of words. there were a bunch of young guys on that team with a ton of talent who were finally coming into their own. Sadly it didnt happen until after Trammell left. Trammell molded that team into a winning team, he was just canned before they were able to show that and Leyland has been reaping the benefits but as i suspected then his poor managing skills catching up to him.

KOBEARODLT said:

i agree...tigers need a manager who will come in and not have any favorites and just play the guys who are better

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That's hard for any manager/supervisor to do no matter your profession.

It's a sad fact of life but people have favorites or chose people who dont produce.

Sure, a new guy could come in, but give him 5-6 years there and the same thing will happen.

It's a cycle

thats fine with me, this team is built to win now, in 5 or 6 years it wont matter

HPC said:

That's hard for any manager/supervisor to do no matter your profession.

It's a sad fact of life but people have favorites or chose people who dont produce.

Sure, a new guy could come in, but give him 5-6 years there and the same thing will happen.

It's a cycle

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How is this team built to win? They loss Vmart but get a replacement; they did not get crazy better on offense. So it must be the SP; who is after Verlander?

Masterson is vulnerable to lefties. For his career his splits are as follows:

vs RHB: .608 OPS
vs LHB: .799 OPS

There's your answer.

George_Calfas said:

How is this team built to win? They loss Vmart but get a replacement; they did not get crazy better on offense. So it must be the SP; who is after Verlander?

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Verlander is Verlander.
Fister was a monster down the stretch last year, he has been a bit of a letdown and dealt with injury this year.
Scherzer is incredible when he's on, but he's been very inconsistent.
Porcello is even better than Scerzer when he's on (albeit in a different way), but he's also been inconsistent.
Anibal Sanchez is a great addition but he's been known for inconsistency as well.

The main improvement was picking up Prince Fielder and adding him to an already good offense. Omar Infante is a nice boost to the offense too for the middle infield to compliment Peralta, and then they have Austin Jackson, Delmon Young, Brennan Boesch, and Andy Dirks to choose from in the outfield, all of whom are decent options, with Jackson putting up All Star caliber numbers and playing GG defense. Alex Avila is capable of hitting for decent average and decent power especially for a catcher. Add that to Miguel Cabrera and you've got a pretty tough lineup.

It seems like they just haven't put it all together. A lot of the guys are having good years if you look at their numbers individually, but I'd be willing to guess their clutch hitting numbers are pretty poor. A lot of the problem is pitching inconsistency too, the starters have fine numbers, but consider Scherzer: he either throws 8 Innings of 1 run ball with 11 Ks or he gets blasted and gives up 8 runs in the first three innings. If they could level things out and stay consistent, they'd be much better off.

I thought they'd run away with the division this year, but at this point, they're going to have to fight just to make the postseason.


Edited to add that the other problem is that Leyland played Ryan Raburn over the above guys for two months and Raburn hit like .063, and he constantly rotates in guys who belong in Triple-A. It doesn't matter if Babe Ruth is on your team if he's sitting on the bench... if you're still choosing to start Ryan Raburn and other career AAAA players over the much better players, you're simply not going to win.

George_Calfas said:

How is this team built to win? They loss Vmart but get a replacement; they did not get crazy better on offense. So it must be the SP; who is after Verlander?

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Scherzer has been the second best pitcher in baseball after Medlen the last month.

Worse than anything is his handling of the bull pen. You can tell if Valverde is right after the first pitch. Yet he just leaves him in to blow it.

That said, the biggest problem recently had been the hitting. On the radio the other day they said the starters have given up 2 or less runs in 12 out of the last 13 games. Yet they found a way to give away about half those games. You should win every game you only give up 2 runs.

nborton said:

Worse than anything is his handling of the bull pen. You can tell if Valverde is right after the first pitch. Yet he just leaves him in to blow it.

That said, the biggest problem recently had been the hitting. On the radio the other day they said the starters have given up 2 or less runs in 12 out of the last 13 games. Yet they found a way to give away about half those games. You should win every game you only give up 2 runs.

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Anibal has had some tough luck, he's given up 0 or 1 runs in 6+IP in 4 of his 7 starts with Detroit but is only 2-1 over that stretch. He should absolutely be 4-0.

have you ever heard of a guy named max scherzer?

George_Calfas said:

How is this team built to win? They loss Vmart but get a replacement; they did not get crazy better on offense. So it must be the SP; who is after Verlander?

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Detroit Tigers are one of the best teams in baseball.........on paper.

On the field....no so much.

I'll trade Girardi for Leyland all day every day.

KOBEARODLT said:

have you ever heard of a guy named max scherzer?

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Just because he is 7-1 after the AS break does not erase his 8-5 start with a near 5 ERA. He is pitching as a #2 yet he should be a #3 or #4.

My comment was more about the lack of what the Tigers have not what they do have. They needed to acquire some pitching last off season but did not; going into the season who honestly thought this was a WS pitching staff?