While sitting around and waiting for spring training to begin I was reading an article over at Detroit News covering winter roster changes for other teams within the American League Central. This got me to thinking; What better way to pass the winter months than to start analyzing the Tigers competition for the coming season? It is only 94 days until Opening Day and month less until Spring Training, so we really only have 2 months until baseball games are being played.

But before we start looking forward I want to take a look back at the remarkable 2006 season. Since around 46% of the games played throughout the year will be within the AL Central, it is hard to have a winning season without being at least mildly successful within the division.

Let’s start off by looking at the splits between the Tigers and the rest of the AL Central. None of this is likely a surprise to anyone, and overall the Tigers were very successful in this division in which they ended with an overall record of 45-30.

Obviously the Tigers had the most trouble with the Chicago White Sox with the Sox being the only AL Central team to post a better Win % against the Tigers than against the rest of MLB. The White Sox were certainly a challenge continuously through the year but mostly to Justin Verlander. Of the Major League Baseball Rookie of the Year’s 75 earned runs given up through the regular season, 18 were given up to the Sox on 4 games over the year with an ERA of 8.11.

The Twins were no joke this past year either. While the season started off rocky for them by loosing their first three games to the Tigers by a margin of 33-1 (over 3 games), they ended it by winning by a margin of 25-14 (over 4 games). In addition the Twins ended the year by winning the division and accepting awards for American League MVP, American League Cy Young, 1 Golden Glove, 2 Silver Sluggers, and the MLB batting title.

The Indians certainly struggled for much of the year owing many losses to their weak bullpen. At the same time they ended the year second in team batting for 2006 and if you take the Detroit games out of their overall win/loss the Indians played greater than .500 baseball.

The Royals, well they were the Royals. They did end the year on a high note by keeping the Tigers from winning the AL Central by sweeping Detroit over 3 games.

With the exception of the White Sox, most of the other AL Central teams successes against Detroit came in the second half of the season. This was during the well known and written about Detroit Tigers second half slump and the following graph shows the results for all games against AL Central teams highlighting the second half drop off.

Not to sound so doom and gloom, but while the Tigers had a very successful year highlighted by the fact that this was the toughest division in the MLB; it will likely continue to be one of the toughest divisions into the 2007 season. Each of these teams has made many moves during this off season to continue to be competitive and each of these teams has done a pretty good job of filling the holes that the Tigers capitalized on during the 2006 season. This is not to say that the Tigers haven’t made some needed changes as well, or that more changes aren’t to come.

Through the next few weeks I will be breaking down the off season moves of each of the AL Central teams and taking a look at what this means for the Detroit Tigers into the 2007 season.

Please stay tuned!