Remember 2006? Remember what a magical season that was for us Tigers fans? It seems like so long ago when our team was the surprising upstarts that everybody expected to stop winning anytime.
With each passing month from the end of the 2006 World Series, that team becomes less and less like the team we currently have. Gone are Monroe, Casey, Pudge and many others. Just look at that little picture I have with the team waiting to congratulate Magglio after the walk-off HR to finish off the ALCS. Count the players they still have on the team and it is a small count. Lets take a look and compare that team with our current team.
2006 Starting Lineup on opening day
Granderson
Polanco
Pudge
Ordonez
D.Young
Shelton
Guillen
Monroe
Inge
That's right, Pudge hit in the 3 hole and Dmitri Young hit 5th - ahead of Guillen. These sound crazy now, but this was the start of something great, so it is hard to criticize Leyland in hindsight.
Rotation
Kenny Rogers
Jeremy Bonderman
Nate Robertson
Mike Maroth
Justin Verlander
Verlander was the 5th starter!!! He was unproven at this point and was at the bottom of the rotation. All these guys had good years, especially Kenny and Justin. They were outstanding. Total number of wins from these 5 starters in 2006: 66 (plus 7 from Miner). If we get anywhere near that in 2009, we'll be doing great.
Key call-up: Zach Miner
Key acquisition: Sean Casey
2009 (projected) Starting Lineup on opening day
Granderson
Polanco
Ordonez
Cabrera
Guillen
Sheffield
Inge
Laird
Everett
Rotation
Justin Verlander
Jeremy Bonderman
Edwin Jackson
Armando Galarraga
#5 ??? [Miner/Willis/Robertson/Porcello]
I'll analyze the changes position by position in a future post.
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