Maybe it’s just the fact that my fragile ego is incapable of taking a serious hit, but I’ve never been big into the whole prediction game. Baseball is the hardest sport to predict. Sometimes bad players have great years. Sometimes great players have down years. You never know what these guys are going through mentally or physically. Still, I like to believe that I have my fingers on the pulse of the Tigers better than I do on any other team, so I like to do one of these prediction videos every year and then come back around at the end of the season to see how wrong I was.
This one is definitely different than any of the other prediction videos that I’ve done. The expectations are higher than they’ve ever been. The team has spent more money than they ever have in the time I’ve been making videos about them. It’s very exciting, but with excitement comes expectations. I left that out of the video: I have no doubt this team won't be overwhelmed by the expectations. I don’t see the lights getting too bright for them. This team reflects its manager. They never get too high or too low. More often than not, they’re pretty laid-back, but also quietly intense. The philosophy hasn’t changed, even if the roster in the budget hat. This team is going to try to win every day.
Part of the fun of this game is how wrong we end up being. Somebody on this team is going to be well above their pay grade this year. I don’t think anybody a year ago expected Zach McKinstry to be on the All-Star team. And somebody that we have legitimate expectations for is going to come up short. There’s enough depth in this organization that they can count on a few players underperforming and still win the American League Central. Unlike previous years, though, there’s going to be certain people who believe that just winning the AL Central won’t be enough. They have their eyes on the prize.