Still, by this standard the Tigers could be as much as 11 wins better just based on these upgrades. Keeping in mind that they were a "true" 49-win team in 2003 (falling six games short of their projected, or Pythagorean record, based on runs scored and allowed), you can project 15-20 games of improvement even before considering the possibility that the returning players will get better. That’s certainly a worthy achievement, but it’s more important to evaluate the Tigers in terms of what they are now, comparing them not to their wretched performance of a year ago, but to their competition. Are the Tigers really comparable to the Twins, White Sox and Royals, or even the Indians?
Not long ago, a Chicago judge tossed out a lawsuit against the Cubs, who had set up their own company to scalp their tickets. They’d done so on the grounds that (essentially) by being two parts of the same company, it wasn’t like it was the same company doing it, as prohibited by the law. Explanations readers suggested for that finding ran from stark judicial incompetence all the way to the Tribune Company getting one of those Wrath of Khan creatures into the judge’s ear somehow.
Meanwhile in the gray, gray, gray state of Washington (contrary to our reputation, it’s only rained a couple of times this winter: October-December, then it snowed, December-January, then it snowed again, then January through today), where local government isn’t quite as corrupt as Chicago but is racing to catch up, judicial insight flared.