The first quarter of the season is in the books and here is how the Bless You Boys staff is feeling about the Motor City Kitties.
Tigers legend Sparky Anderson used to say that you cannot judge a major league baseball team until it has played 40 games.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, the Detroit Tigers just passed that mark and the staff here at Bless You Boys is prepared to offer their respective first quarter assessments. While AJ Hinch and Co. have played more than 40 at the time of publication, we are just going to focus on the first set the team played to open up the 2025 campaign.
At this point, the Tigers owned the best record in the American League at 26-14 while holding a 2.5-game lead over the second-place Cleveland Guardians in the AL Central. When also considering the National League standings, Detroit is tied for second place in the majors with the Los Angeles Dodgers and behind the San Diego Padres by virtue of win percentage.
Suffice it to say, the Motor City Kitties have roared since getting swept by the Dodgers in the season-opening series and have proved that last season’s profound push over the final couple of months was not a fluke. Additionally, the franchise has already dealt with some key injuries, but seems to keep shaking the issues without really missing a beat.
So without further ado, here are the Bless You Boys roundtable grades for the first 40 games of the 2025 campaign.
Cannon at the Hot Corner: A-
They’re a great team due for a little regression in some places, but not as much as you’d think. I’m slightly worried about the back of the rotation right now with Mize out and Flaherty plus Jobe struggling, but otherwise it’s entirely a complete team. Assuming they figure it out, I’m underrating the team.
Some guys will regress. Javy Baez won’t hit .315 all year, and McKinstry is already cooling off after Brandon jinxed him, so that’s unfortunate. At the same time, Keith is just now getting hot, Torkelson looks pretty legit, and the pitching staff is top tier. Plus, reinforcements are coming.
Matt Vierling is back next week. Parker Meadows is rehabbing and due back soon. And they’re certain to add at the trade deadline to patch whatever hole might appear through injury or underperformance. So they’ve got a top-five pitching staff, and somehow a top-five lineup that’s only getting deeper.
Pair all this with the best manager in the sport and an organization determined and proven to maximize the entire 40-man roster, and it’s hard not to think of Detroit as anything but a top-5 team. I’m all in. For the rest of the season, a .500 W% gets them to 87 wins on the year. .550 W% gets them to 93. They’ve banked a quarter of an elite season and are built to last. Look out, baseball.
Ashley MacLennan: A!
Hot damn I’m on the hype train and never getting off. Choo Choo!
Rob Rogacki: A+
They’re on pace for 105 wins. Don’t know how you could grade that any lower?
Adam Dubbin: A
Realistically, this is pretty much as good as any of us could have expected ahead of the season — and far exceeds many of our more pessimistic outlooks (yours truly included). With Tork and Mize looking like the No. 1 picks they were supposed to be and Baez rising from his grave, everything’s coming up Milhouse!
Why no “+” you may ask? Take a look at how Pete Alonso and Alex Bregman are doing now. Then look at Alex Cobb. Tell me this team would not be AMAZING if we had also gotten at least one of those two and passed on the corn.
All that said, I really do not have any complaints so far, and as Cannon notes, this hot start could be enough to give Detroit a sure shot at the postseason. I just hope it all lasts.
Peter Kwasniak: A-
It’s been an incredible start. Contributions from so many guys I had written off or had thought of as role players. Seriously, Can you imagine where this team would be without the contributions of Mize, McKinstry, Torkelson, and Baez???
Now, with all that said, I think there’s been a confluence of really hot starts at the right time. I don’t think Baez will keep this up. McKinstry is probably gonna cool off and Tork has already cooled a bit. Fortunately, it has come as Greene, Keith, Torres have heated up.
I also look at the schedule and see a lot of bad teams they’ve beaten so far. White Sox , Rockies, Angels, Twins. They’ve beaten up on them, which good teams should do.
Finally, the Tigers lead the league in BABIP. That’s usually a sign they’re getting some lucky hits. So, I’m expecting some offensive regression coming, but they’ve gotten off to a great start and they usually are a slow-start team.
Overall, I’m really happy with this start, and there are some key contributors who should be returning soon. They have a really good shot at playing solid to above-average ball the rest of the way, which should be enough to get them in the playoffs.
Frisbee Pilot: B+ (he grades hard)
I’d give an A except I don’t really know how much of this early success is built on luck. Is Báez really this good? Is Torkelson finally here? Is Tomás Nido the real deal?
The pitching has been mostly good, but with Mize’s injury, I hope that doesn’t cause a knock-on effect with the rest of the staff with things having to shift around.
I welcome the returns of Vierling and, eventually, Meadows… but will it take them a while to come up to full speed?
Overall, I’m very pleased with how things are going. But being a Tiger fan for past however-many years, obviously, I’ve been hurt before. Don’t hurt me again this time, boys — or, at the very least, just let me down easily.
Brandon Day: Easy A
Just about everything has gone great through the first quarter. The Tigers lost Parker Meadows and Matt Vierling, and then Wenceel Pérez, and they didn’t just handle it, they’ve thrived. Getting some hot starts from guys like McKinstry and Báez, who aren’t likely to sustain it, was perfectly timed to balance those injury losses. The rotation and bullpen have been very good overall as expected, and I expect them to sustain all year.
There are going to be more injuries. Guys are going to run hot and cold like they do every year. The Tigers are not the 1927 Yankees . There will be adversity to overcome, but as we saw last year, they’re very capable of coming up with creative and effective solutions. Probably more capable than all but a few other clubs.
So, getting out to a great start doesn’t mean they’re going to just win 2/3’s of their games week in and week out. Baseball is all about riding the hot streaks and the periods when you’re pretty healthy, and still manage to scrap out solid performance even when injuries bite and key performers have a cold stretch.
If we go back to last year’s All-Star break, the Tigers have been among the elite teams in the game for over half a season now. At this point, they don’t have to do much more than play .500 the rest of the way and they’re highly likely to make the playoffs. That’s a great position to be in, not because they’re going to just run away with the division, but because trouble always comes eventually.
So, the Tigers are in a great spot. That’s all you can do in the early part of the season. This club under AJ Hinch has consistently improved over the course of each season. They just never had the hot start to build on as they went. Couldn’t have gone much better, but baseball seasons are a long, arduous rollercoaster, so I’m just enjoying it and have not started counting the chickens.
Mr. Sunshine: A-
… because this team is overachieving like heck, but they’re also making most of the right moves.
Maeda was cut loose far earlier than I expected, the rotation has been nails outside of a few recent starts, they somehow cobbled together an outfield after losing a ton of guys right out of the gate, and the bullpen has been nothing short of miraculous.
It’s not perfect; guys are cooling off after hot starts, Jace Jung still looks lost at the plate (get well soon Vierling!) and the depth behind the starting pitching is sketchy at best. End of the day, this is far better than expected, so just sit back and enjoy the ride.
Brady McAtamney: A
It has to be an A. Even though we’re hitting a slump right now, it can’t be ignored how good the team has been through these first ~40 games. Yes, some guys are due for regression; Javy, Zach and Dingler probably won’t (in some cases, haven’t) stay at all-star levels.
There’s still room for improvement on the roster, particularly in the lineup, but we genuinely have an honest-to-goodness big league roster. The bullpen is legit, the rotation is legit and a good deal of our top hitters are legit.
We’ve seemed to prove that last year’s run was no fluke. Baseball season is long, and there’s a long way to go still. But the Tigers are a good baseball team.
Cam Kaiser: A
The Tigers have one of the best records in baseball through 40 games. Of course, I wish the Tigers signed more bats this offseason, but through 40 games, I have nothing to complain about.
Do I expect them to keep this pace up the remainder of the season? Of course not, but I’m enjoying it right now.
Patrick O’Kennedy: A-
I just wrote a whole brilliant article on this topic, and Brandon’s editing made even brillianter!
David Rosenberg: A
Being one of the best teams in the AL a quarter of the way through the year is better than most expected and guys like Javy Baez and Spencer Torkelson are producing. Kenta Maeda is gone, too.
Things are going well, but this club needs to make a move at the deadline to finish the year on top of the AL Central and make some noise in the playoffs.
Now it’s your turn to grade the Detroit Tigers! Let us all know your grade and your thoughts in the comments below.