The Detroit starting rotation got better over the winter. The trade bringing Dontrelle Willis, among others, to Detroit is the main reason why. He’s been labeled as a possible fifth starter in the American League by some and a “star” by others who is “approaching his prime“, but the fact is that in even the worst case Detroit needed another end of the rotation starter.

When it became obvious in early June that Mike Maroth wasn’t going to give the team the starts that it needed, the team pulled the plug quickly and traded him away. The vacant slot was filled with a mixture of minor league talent and end of the rotation starters such as Virgil Vasquez, Chad Durbin, Andrew Miller and Jair Jurrjens. This approach saw some outstanding starts by young talent but ultimately didn’t fill the void that was needed.

With the addition of Willis to the rotation, there are quite a few less questions around how the starters will fare this season. There are, however, a number of key points in which the starting rotation will need to improve or avoid to have a successful year and take the burden off of other areas of the Tigers game. I’ve outlined a couple of key areas below:

In other news:
- The Tigers sold 176,000 tickets through 6PM yesterday.
- Kenny Rogers takes the mound today against Jake Westbrook (CLE). The game is at 1pm on 97.1 (WXYT). Also scheduled to pitch: Jordan Tata, Jason Grilli, Zach Miner, Matt Mantei, Bobby Seay and Yorman Bazardo.
- Tigers have renewed Jason Grilli’s contract for the 2008 season. (See above press pass link, I cannot find news link yet.)

Keys for 2008 Starters:

1) Game Depth - The biggest question facing the Tigers currently is who will be sitting out in the bullpen. With Joel Zumaya out until at least late June/early July and Fernando Rodney showing signs of continued arm stiffness, the team’s one-two punch from the 2006 season could be sidelined again. Because of this, it will be important for the Tiger starters eat up more innings to keep the bullpen rested and innings low.

Detroit starters dipped a bit last year, from 2006, in the amount of innings they stayed in the game. In 2007 Tiger starters combined to eat up 64.41% of the innings compared to 67.41% in 2006. This put them 18th among all clubs and 10th in the American League. Below is a chart outlining the percentage of innings pitched by a AL teams starters last season:

Dontrelle Willis will help in this regard as he’s pitched 200+ innings for the past three seasons.

2) Stay Healthy - I initially didn’t want to mention something the team didn’t have a heck of a lot of control over but it does pose the largest question around this years starters. There were major health worries with Kenny Rogers, Jeremy Bonderman and Nate Robertson during last year. Each of whom missed out a number of starts due to injury.

Rogers was brought back this season on a contract that pays based on innings pitched. This limited the teams monetary exposure if Kenny were to be injured but they haven’t done much to limit their on-field exposure. He has the largest question mark around him.

Bondermans’ end of the year collapse has been attributed to some lingering injuries. He says he’s healed and ready to go. We’ll probably see quickly whether this is the case. One thing is for sure, he doesn’t appear to have gotten rid of his first inning blues. That is, if his first spring training outing means much.

Nate Roberston missed a few games with a ‘tired arm’. There was much dispute as to whether there was really an issue or not. His performance through the season will be watched closely.