AL Central – Detroit Tigers
With almost all teams having a few minor and major changes for a better performance this season, even the Detroit Tigers take up a bet on Austin Jackson. The team signed up the New York Yankees player in an offseason game trade. Although Jackson has never played earlier in the big leagues, there are chances that he might be the team’s leadoff batter if he performs as expected.
The Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland mentions this change a necessary adjustment for the team and the changing game. Leyland also mentioned that the team had performed poorly last season with the RBIs and hence looks forward to doing a better job in the early games this league. The Tigers hit just .177 as compared to their league average of .190 when their batters played with two strikes. Last season, they successfully produced just 201 RBIs in the two strike conditions which was the second lowest in the entire league.
This season, the Detroit Tigers are significantly a different team which lost the last season’s AL Central Championship in a tie breaker against the Minnesota Twins. The fresh team has Max Scherzer a right hand batter who was traded in from Arizona and will be replacing Edwin Jackson. The team also has Scott Sizemore as the second baseman and Jose Valverde as a free agent for the Detroit Tigers.
Placido Polanco and Curtis Granderson who were in the last season’s top lineup will be replaced by Jackson and Johnny Damon (left fielder).
