The 1968 tigers...were they really that good?
Question:freehan- B
Cash- B plus
McCaulife- C
Wert-D
Stanley- B minus
Horton-B
Northrup- b minus
Kaline- A plus
Lolich- B plus
McClain- A plus
Earl Wilson- B
Sparma- D
Answers:
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I am really confused by the grades that you gave the players.If you are doing it for their whole career, the grade for Kaline makes sense and McLain's does not. If you are doing it for just 1968 then McLain's grade is fine and Kaline's is absolutely wrong.
McLain was a 31-game winner in 1968 but washed up and out of baseball 4 years later. Kaline was hurt a great deal of 1968 and would not have been the starting rightfielder if Mickey Stanley was not such a great athlete that could move to shortstop.
1968 was definitely "The Year of the Pitcher"; the offensive numbers were down everywhere. The rotation of McLain, Wilson, Lolich, and Sparma was the best in all of baseball that year. The Tigers defense was among the best, especially when you look at the regular infield and include Ray Oyler. The offense was very good when compared to the rest of the major league teams. Freehan, Northrup, and Horton had their best seasons of their very productive careers.
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They weren't an all time great team, but they were quite good. A lot of solid veterans on that ball club, McClain had that freaky season, Lolich was just emerging as a top notch starter, and there was good power throughout that lineup-if I'm not mistaken, I think the Tigers led baseball in HRs by a team that season, a season during which offense was very hard to come by. By today's standards, they would hardly raise an eyebrow, but during that hitting poor era, a lineup of Kaline, Cash, Horton, McCaulife, Northrup, Freehan and Stanley was something to be reckoned with. Something else to consider: McClain was battling either bursitis or tendinitis in his pitching shoulder late in the season, and that carried through to the playoffs. I think Denny lost 2 of his last 3 decisions during the regular season. Also one thing stats alone wont bring out: heart. The Tigers had a LOT of come from behind wins during the regular season, and that heart came to the fore in the WS as they rallied from a 3-1 deficit to win it all.wasn't alive yet, but my guess is that they must have been. the sum being greater than its parts.
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Depends on what you are comparing them to.They had a great record and their Pythagorean W-L matches their true record: 103-59
Scored 671 runs, Allowed 492 runs.
Park Factor: Batting - 103/Pitching - 101 (over 100 favors batters)
So while it was a good hitting team, they had an advantage playing in a hitters park.
They rode Denny McLain to the championship. He had the 31-6 record. However when you neutralize the stats to offense and park and league, his W-L was only 24-11, which is still pretty good. He was the best for that year but just pretty good when neutralized for all time.
Their best hitter was Willie Horton who had 36 HR and 86 RBI, but when you neutralize the stats, they improve (!) to 41 HR and 106 RBI.
Similarly All Star catcher Bill Freehan had an unremarkable 25 HR, and 85 RBI, but when you neutralize the stats they turn into 29 HR, 105 RBI!
You give Kaline an A plus but he only had 10 home runs, and 53 RBI that year and it neutralizes as almost the same. He was near the end of his career and I think he was only a part time player where most of his 74 starts came at the beginning of the season.
The team had only 4 all stars that year.
However, they led the league in batting, they were third in pitching, and led the league in fielding percentage.
When the chips were on the line, McLain lost two of the three World Series games he started.
1968 was called The Year of the Pitcher because so many pitchers dominated that year. Looking back to that year, it is hard to know if the pitchers were just that dominant or there was a lack of good power hitters that year.
I would say the 1968 Tigers were a pretty good team because of their hitting for that era, but because of holes in their pitching (see note below), perhaps not one of the all time great teams.
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baseball is a team sport, not an individual sport. they only had one hall of famer on this team, but so what? they were that good. the '84 tigers who had the leagues best 40 game start in history, 35-5, had no hall of famers. alan trammell and jack morris are the only ones still eligible and barely hanging in there.Im in softball how do you dive?
Absolutely they were!!!! That team brought an entire city back from the brink while defeating the defending champs.The legendary al kaline alone makes that team great.
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68-84..in the motor city those gentleman are gods!!!
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Al Kaline was hurt for most of that year he wasn't just a "part-time player" as was mentioned above.Your lineup looks pretty good but you forgot Gates Brown. He hit something ridiculous like .370 as a pinch hitter in the late innings that year and sparked many come from behind wins.
Yes they were that good. As someone mentioned, that was the year of the pitcher (MLB lowered the mound for the following season because of the pitcher's dominance that year) but the Tigers could hit anybody and proved it all year long. They won the American League by 12 games to get to the World Series and finished with the best record in baseball. The Tigers split the 1st two games in St Louis and then had to rally late in Game 5 to avoid losing all three in Detroit, then took the final two games on the road to win the championship.
Their stats don't stack up among most of the teams that have won the World Series but THAT year, they were the best. The riots in 1967 were the darkest time in Detroit's history and the 1968 Tigers helped heal the city when it needed it most.
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I was too young when '68 season happened. But in later years (and hearing my dad talk about it) you come to realize baseball is a team game. When team's get on a roll, every player contributes. The '67 Tigers came up just short on the final weekend of that season. It seems as though right from the beginning, the '68 Tigers were on a mission.One thing that was not mentioned yet, was the late-game rallies that were the norm during that season. Gates Brown as a pinch hitter (before the DH) came through time after time with timely RBI's. A very resilient team that had to beat Gibson at St. Louis in Game 7 to win the World Series.
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