Detroit Tigers: Things to improve, things to maintain for playoff push

Improve production from the big bats

The Tigers, as a team, have been exactly average with the bat. They rank 13th in team wRC+ with a mark of 100. That’s not bad, but it’s nothing to write home about. They might have a built in excuse — they’ve faced the toughest pitching of any team so far this year — but we’re talking about a difference of 5% or so.

The Tigers can’t be a middling offense if they hope to make a push for the postseason. They need the likes of Miguel Cabrera, Victor Martinez, Justin Upton, J.D. Martinez, and Ian Kinsler to hit like the All-Stars they were brought in to be. Those five players have combined to be worth 6.5 runs above average so far this season (thanks mostly to J.D. Martinez’s 9.3 runs above average since returning from the disabled list).

Those same players combined to be 87 runs better than average last season which would have been about 24 runs every 45 games. That puts this year’s club nearly 20 runs off the pace set by their top hitters last season.

The rule of thumb in baseball is that a team can expect to win one additional game for every 10 run additional runs scored or prevented, so the big-name hitters have cost the Tigers two wins so far this year (in a manner of speaking) by failing to meet expectations.