Most fans of the Detroit Tigers are getting ready for a long season. However, Former Tigers skipper Jim Leyland has a message for you.
Jim Leyland says there are plenty of reasons to be excited for the #Tigers future. https://t.co/jw1JZW4kM5
— Detroit Tigers (@tigers) January 31, 2018
Just recently, the Tigers farm system has been ranked 21st according to Baseball of America. Also, Keith Law has had harsh words to say about the Tigers youth in recent weeks ranking only two in his top 100 with neither being listed in the top 50 (Franklin Perez came in at #68). So hopefully this can comfort fans to some degree that the old skip gives this young team a vote of confidence.
http://gty.im/657682718
For those who are wondering what Leyland is doing nowadays, he is a special assistant for the Tigers front office. Leyland retired from managing after the 2013 season. It is not his most recent job as a manager as he managed the gold medal-winning Team USA in the 2017 World Baseball Classic.
Leyland spent eight seasons as the Tigers skipper going 700-559 in the regular season which was good enough for a .540 win percentage. He has a career record of 1,769-1,728. Leyland also had stints as a manager in Pittsburgh, Maimi (then Florida Marlins), and Colorado before coming full circle and managing the Tigers (signed by the team as a catcher in 1963). He won three league championships in his managerial career (two with the Tigers) including a World Series with the Marlins back in the 1997 season.
As Jim Leyland claims in the video above, he has always been a “positive” guy, so you could take what he says about the teams future with a grain of salt. However, if you are a Tigers fan looking to believe in the upcoming rebuild, hopefully, this will help. Only time will tell how these young players will adapt on the fly in the big leagues. Hopefully, for the Tigers and their fans, it happens sooner rather than later.
