Interesting Interview with Jim Leyland

While most of Central Florida is preparing for the Tampa Bay Rays first trip to the postseason, the Detroit Tigers, who hold their Spring Training in Lakeland, are closing the books on a pretty disappointing season. Tigers Manager Jim Leyland was on the Mitch Albom radio show in Detroit yesterday and gave a very candid and revealing interview as to what he thought happened this season with his team. The Detroit Free Press has a transcript of the interview and it is definitely worth checking out. Leyland talks about everything and even traces some of the downfall back to Spring Training:

On if the bullpen was questionable from the start

“I think so. I think it even started in spring training. I think it was chaotic in spring training. You know there was position moves and there was (Brandon) Inge floating around, and we just never got in sync. I think there is a lot of different reasons that happened. Even though we didn’t hit like people thought, I never bought into 1,000 runs and all that, but we hit good enough over the course of the year…..”

Here is the entire transcript. Again, it is a very interesting interview and definitely worth a look. Leyland never pinpoints one specific thing to blame on the bad season, but he talks about several areas that he thought were lacking.

What do you think happened to this very talented Tigers team? This is a team, on paper, that looked like they could be a World Series contender but ended up in the cellar of the American League Central Division.

By the way, countdown to 2009 Spring Training: 151 Days (roughly) until the Tigers first Spring Training game. We will have their Spring Training schedule posted here as soon as it is released.