Is This Tigers Team "Great"?
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00:00This is just a good team, not willing to say they're great, right?
00:04Even if they win the world series, I don't know if we can look at this and say, well,
00:07they're a great team because you start comparing them to other great teams across the history
00:11of major league baseball and they don't measure up.
00:13But can we just say that they're good now and they're playing good baseball?
00:17Can we admit we got a good baseball team, not just a hot team that, that, you know,
00:21lightning in a bottle.
00:22Cause that's part of the story.
00:23It's not like they won 10 straight to get in or, or eight of nine to get in.
00:28It goes back almost two months.
00:30Can you really fake it for two months?
00:32Like this idea of the way they're doing this isn't supposed to be sustainable.
00:36The two man rotation, the bulk relievers, the, the committee approach in the bullpen,
00:40the super platoon, the money ball to the extreme.
00:43It's eventually the smoke and mirrors are supposed to get exposed yet.
00:47Do you just kind of throw up your hands and go, maybe it's not smoke and mirrors.
00:51Maybe they, they struggled in the middle of the season, but they were actually capable
00:54of this all along because they are a good baseball team.
00:57I think it's a combination like Javi Baez being on the team hurt them.
01:01He's not here.
01:02Are they a better team without him?
01:03Of course.
01:04These relievers weren't on the team in May and June, and now they're here.
01:07They've become a different baseball team and we could say a good baseball team because
01:11of it.
01:12Right.
01:13Trey Sweeney helps them become a good baseball team and Trey Sweeney that I'm glad you went
01:17there because I mean, not only, okay, the, the, the relief pitching, the pitching staff
01:22has been good.
01:23I'm sorry, Tarek Scuble has been great, but we don't talk about the defense enough, right?
01:31How many times are we looking at, at the relievers is, oh man, they came in, they got us out
01:35of an inning.
01:36Well, part of that is Parker Meadows and center field making a play that not a lot of other
01:43center fielders can make stealing a home run that and other against other teams is just
01:48a home run.
01:49And now you're looking at it, go, oh, wow, this reliever, boy, they just, they blew it.
01:53I think there will be people hesitant to say they're a good team because of just how miraculous
01:57this feels.
01:58But I get what you're saying.
01:59Like the team in may was not a good team.
02:02No, like flat out.
02:03They deserved what happened to them in June and may because they were not a good team.
02:08Just like they deserve what's happening now because Parker Meadows wasn't there.
02:11Then is now Trey Sweeney's here.
02:13Wasn't then the bullpen the hobby swap out now that he's off the, you know, off the roster.
02:18It's all of this.
02:19It's Torkelson is better now than he was then.
02:22Carp's healthy carp.
02:23That's a huge one.
02:24Like all these ifs kind of finally came together and that's showing that they are at least
02:28a good, no one's saying great, good team.
02:30And I would tell you the style of baseball they're playing is playoff baseball.
02:34John, I would point out to you that there are teams that did this all the way and won
02:39it all.
02:40The idea that this, this style is only built to win a three game series or only built to
02:44squeak out a five game series.
02:46I would tell you the 2002 angels are a team that came in with little to no postseason
02:51experience.
02:52They finished the season on a 20 and 10 hot at the right time mentality.
02:56They had one player with postseason experience.
02:58The Tigers, Matt Verling was the only player with postseason experience.
03:01They did it with base running, with a bullpen, with a smart manager and Mike Socia.
03:06Same could be said of the 2015 Royals scrappy young.
03:08They ran the bases, super bullpen, 2010 giants.
03:12They had nobody with power or speed.
03:14They had a bullpen.
03:15They had a mentality.
03:16Those teams didn't just win the opening series.
03:18This style of baseball is good baseball.
03:21It's the style of baseball that can win a world series.
03:23Well, the giants won three world series in five years doing it.
03:28I think they're a great team.
03:30I don't mean that in talent.
03:32I mean that as a team, I think they've accomplished that unique rare thing and that's why we've
03:37seen this magical run.
03:39Like you, it's, it's inexplicable what NC state did back in the day.
03:44The miracle ice was inexplicable.
03:47They weren't the better team talent wise, but they achieved that.
03:51I think that team glue all the way around and the egos aside, and that's so hard to
03:57do it.
03:58It's so hard to do a professional sports in baseball.
04:01I think of all the sports has the biggest like DBS in terms of the attitude, cockiness,
04:07ego, uh, salaries, you know, the, there's no salary cap in the game.
04:11I, I, the, the love of the home run, you know, chicks dig the long ball, right?
04:17The whole, it's like, this is the, like, even though the tigers do hit with some power at
04:21time and they had no 25 home run player, I mean, and sometimes you've got to go through
04:26all of those moments to get where you're at.
04:29If you don't go through that process of struggling, maybe they're not the team.
04:34They're not as unified as they need to be right now.
04:38And John, you came off three, four loss seasons and then won a national championship with
04:43a quarterback that was left for dead.
04:45But some of the things you've told me on and off the air is you guys got that magic going,
04:52that glue together.
04:53You had to go through the Notre Dame three fumble, fourth quarter loss in 97 to get to,
04:58you know, there were bumps, but you somehow still find a way to, it was a win, but you
05:02won, right?
05:03Yeah.
05:04Have all the tigers wins been pretty?
05:05No.
05:06I mean, you almost lost the Iowa game that year.
05:07Do you remember?
05:08Yeah.
05:09In 96, we lost the Purdue game in Purdue.
05:10Who loses to Purdue?
05:12But it was something that it was an experience that we had to draw on that next year when
05:17we're playing Iowa and you shouldn't have lost to Iowa at home.
05:19You had to come back like all of those things.
05:21Like you've got to go through a certain process to make your team and bring your team together.
05:26And how many times did we say, what if, what if Parker Meadows started the season?
05:34Like he's ending it.
05:35What if Spencer Torkelson didn't get set down and was the player that everybody wanted him
05:41or expected him to be?
05:43What if Kerry Carpenter wasn't hurt?
05:45What if all of these different things were that way consistent throughout the course
05:50of the year, then all of a sudden they're not making a historic comeback at the end
05:55of the season when all those what ifs finally paid out, they could have been a team that
06:00what if they were competing for the guardians for the division, right?
06:04But now they're competing for him for the division head to head to go to the ALCS.
06:09This is being called Tom's best take ever on the ticket text that they are a great team
06:14emphasis on team.
06:15Someone else has said, don't use the word great.
06:17Use the word real.
06:18They are a real team in every sense of the word.
06:21I think that's what you're saying is this is a true, I'm going to say great.
06:25I think when you're achieve what they're doing and nobody cares about themselves and they
06:30care about the team.
06:31I mean, it is what Bo said.
06:32It's the team, the team, the team.
06:34I actually think the Tigers that maybe that's one of their internal things.
06:37Okay, hold on.
06:38That's two Michigan references.
06:39One more and we are the blue wall.
06:40So just be very careful.
06:41You know, I think at times I'll, I'll be fair here, but I think Mark D'Antonio's teams accomplish
06:45this and that's why they were so good.
06:47That's how you beat Ohio state in a big 10 championship game to go to a Rose Bowl or
06:51when you are the vast underdog, no one is picking you.
06:56Sometimes when you're a great team and you have that chemistry, that unity, it just,
07:02it overcomes talent deficiencies, right?
07:05Backup quarterback at Columbus made the playoff, you know, it's just, I guess it's whatever
07:11magic voodoo, whatever.
07:14This is the craziest thing I've ever watched in Detroit sports.
07:18If they win it all, I don't, I, I don't know if a lion Superbowl would top it.
07:23Oh, a lion Superbowl would top it.
07:25But yeah, but I don't want to at all in my lifetime, I've seen a tiger's world series.
07:30I know that I don't mean it that way.
07:32I mean, in terms of most improbable championship ever.
07:35Oh yeah.
07:36Listen, I think, I don't know.
07:37There's some, some people that still think the lions will never win a, a world championship.
07:41Their first name is Brian.
07:45Last name is a name we'd like to bring up on the show.