I give you a break from March Madness to present to you a quandary. And again, if you haven’t already signed up for March Madness over at numberFire, feel free to do so now. And once the Madness is over, you can still turn to them for fantasy help as well. For all sports. Now, back to my quandary.
Detroit Sports fans were forced this offseason to say good bye to two prominent figures. I know….it hurts to lose Reggie Bush and Nick Fairley. It really does. Honestly, I don’t know how this Lions team will go on.
Kidding! I’m just kidding!
Seriously though, the departures of Max Scherzer and Ndamukong Suh were big in the landscape of Detroit sports. But today I ask, who will be the bigger loss? Which one will hurt their respective team the most? At first, my knee jerk reaction was Ndamukong Suh. Probably one of the best defensive players the Lions have had, and has people comparing him to Reggie White. Lions bungled it, and now he and the Suh Squad are headed to South Beach. Then, I started to think about Max Scherzer. 2013 Cy Young award winning pitcher for the Tigers. Came over from Arizona, and then really upped his game as a pitcher here in Detroit. Unfortunately, Scott Boras and the Tigers couldn’t come to an agreement, and now Mr. Scherzer is pitching for the Nationals.
While they are both going to be missed on their respective teams, I’m going to have to say that Max Scherzer is going to be missed more. Allow me to expound. Last year the Tigers were supposed to win the division going away. They had a former Cy Young pitcher in Justin Verlander, reigning MVP in Miguel Cabrera, not to mention Scherzer, and Sanchez. While they did limp into the division title, it wasn’t all what we as sports fans thought it was going to be. JV wasn’t Verlander of old, who at anytime could have thrown a no-hitter. Rick Porcello proved to be decent, but not always 100%. Scherzer was the pitcher that could stop the bleeding. He lead the team in wins, ERA, and strikeouts last year. He was the Tiger’s shining star on the mound. And now he’s gone. The Tigers did acquire David Price in a midseason trade, and that will help solidify the rotation, but the Tigers need that 3rd ace to help round out their 5 man rotation. And while Shane Greene has potential, I’m kind of a what can you do for me now type of girl. And Alfredo Simon….yeah. He was an All Star last year, but again, I gotta see it.
Now, Ndamukong Suh.
(I think I’m just happy that soon I won’t have to type Ndamukong as much!) He will be missed, but I have higher hopes for the Lions defense next year than I do for the Tigers pitching staff. First off, the Lions have a pretty decent defensive coordinator named Teryl Austin. The Lions have had Suh since 2010. And that year they were 19th in defense in the league. Since then they were 23rd in 2011, 27th in 2012, 15th in 2013 and 3rd in 2014. What changed between 2013 and 2014? I’m going to say that Teryl Austin was able to get these guys to play at a higher level. Did Suh help? Of course he did. He had is second best year as a Lion last year. But there were also some great people around him as well. DeAndre Levy, Glover Quinn, James Ihedigbo, and they ALL had great years. And they’re all going to be back. PLUS, there was the addition of Haloti Ngata, while yes, he’s getting older, he’s still serviceable. And did I mention Teryl Austin?
My thoughts are that The Tigers are going to miss Max a little more than the Lions will miss Suh.
Sonja Greenfield
I write sports, cause I love sports. And a couple of other things too. But mainly sports. And please don't ask me to cook anything.
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