Team 106: The 2002 Detroit Tigers

• Year: 2002
• Record: 55-106
• Win Percentage: .342
• Win Percentage Change: -65 from the year before
• Run Differential: -289
• Pythagorean Record: 52-109
• AL Finish: 14th of 14 teams
• Manager: Phil Garner and Luis Pujols
• Best Transaction: Couple of decent moves here, actually. First, the Tigers drafted Curtis Granderson and Joel Zumaya in this draft, nothing to sneeze at there. Second, prior to the start of the season, they picked up Craig Monroe off of waivers. This means they gave up nothing for a guy who would hit 101 homers while with the Tigers.  Say what you want about C-Mo, (he was the easiest K ever) but you just couldn’t beat the price and he had some good years in Detroit.
• Worst Transaction: Releasing Tony Clark. Tony the Tiger had a decent year in 2001, slumping a bit in power, but his OPS+ was a healthy 131. However, the Tigers needed to make room for Carlos Pena and Clark was a casualty. It’s possibly, though, that the Tigers gave up on Clark too soon. Believe it or not, the old man played this past season in Arizona with the Diamondback at the age of 37.  Since leaving Detroit, he’s hit 95 home runs and has been a world-class guy in many club houses around the game.
• Upper: Randall Simon. Seriously, this was the biggest plus I could find on this team. Simon was fresh off landing in the papers for being the target of John Rocker’s infamous racism and was new in Detroit.  Simon anchored an anemic offense by leading the team with 19 homers (ugh!) and posting a batting average of .301. Sure he took a cut at any pitch within 12 feet of him, but he was still the best the Tigers had that season.
• Downer: The offense. When your leading “slugger” has only 19 home runs during the peak of the steroid era, you just have to shake your head. Brandon Inge was the Tigers' catcher in 2002 and got 351 plate appearances while hitting only .202.
  
  The biggest joke, though, was Chris Truby. Truby was brought in to hold down third base, but it’s currently difficult to think of a worse hitter. Truby hit .199 and had only 17 extra-base hits all season. Truby’s partner at 3B was Craig Pauquette, who hit only .194. That’s a 3B platoon that couldn’t even clear the .200 mark.
• Summary:  This season was a prelude of things to come.  The year was a loss and Randy Smith was fired, along with Phil Garner, after the first week of the season.  Dave Dombrowski came on board, drafted differently, and cleaned house.  He traded my favorite Tiger, Jeff Weaver, at the height of his value and got the Tigers Jeremy Bonderman and Carlos Pena. 
  
  It was clear that Dombrowski was gutting the team and I remember thinking that it couldn’t get any worse than the 2002 team.  The 2003 team went out the next year and proved us all wrong.

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