The tigers proved 2 years ago. Its always a tight race until the trade deadline. What was detroit back in 2024. 22 games behind at the all-star break?

That 162 game schedule. It allows cover for prolonged poor play. Im starting to believe. Being healthy when july 4th arrives. Limiting innings of your pitchers. Platooning your lineup. Playing easy swing at the plate. Having pitchers pitch to contact as a plan to keep pitch counts down. Focusing on control, not strikeouts. Focusing on defensive fundamentals and contact hitting. Doing these things in the 1st half of the season. Is the wise path to then arrive at the trade deadline healthy and fresh.

Id take it a step further. If a team has 13 pitchers & 12 position players. The goal should be for all of your pitchers to have near same pitch totals on july 4. And your position players should have near similar innings played in the field as well as at bats.

Its almost the exact oppsite the current approach of "max effort" every pitch/ full swing speed on every swing. That approach has lead to a state of play where players are constantly spending time on the IL.

Itd be different if the season was 60-80 or even 100 games. It's not. And the data is now present for how max effort plays out across the 162 game sprint. Like any marathon where the human body doesnt finish a marathon well if the body isnt wisely paced. The data is telling us, getting to the final month with the tank still half full leads to a better chance of playing at your best for the playoff push & post season.