Hometown zeroes: Detroit sports are straight up garbage

Detroit sports are nearing an all time low. The Red Wings are struggling to even come close to a .500 win percentage, the Tigers win percentage was .395 last season. The Pistons are almost at .500. The Lions went 9-7. Detroit has gone 10 years without a championship, which is Detroit’s longest drought since the 15 year one in 1968 to 1983. Having hope for Detroit is necessary, but with two of our four teams in “rebuilding mode,” it is tough. When I say rebuilding mode, I mean that we are trading away all of our good players for prospects and draft picks. But that alone is failing, we are trading away too much for too little.

The Tigers, for example, traded away Justin Verlander (starting ace pitcher) for Franklin Perez, Daz Cameron, and Jake Rogers. Never heard of them? Yeah, neither has anyone else. They are highly ranked prospects, but they are still playing positions that we do not necessarily need for this season; a catcher, pitcher and another centerfielder. The Tigers released Brad Ausmus last season and have since hired Ron Gardenhire to be his replacement. It is good to have a new manager, because Ausmus was failing, but Gardenhire has failed on every team he has managed so far, including the Minnesota Twins, which was one of the worst teams in baseball during his reign.

The Detroit Lions are also a perfect example of how a front office can ruin a team. Time and time again, the Lions have wasted high draft picks on selected players that do not perform. The Lions just franchise tagged Ziggy Ansah, a player who only had 39 tackles last year, which is a decent number, but not franchise tag worthy, as he seems to be injury prone. I believe that we wasted too much money on him. Instead, we could have signed a running back that might actually run. Or an offensive lineman who knows how to block.

The Pistons are by far the biggest letdown in Detroit they came into this season with high hopes to be one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference, and they started off the season 10-6. After that, Detroit lost seven straight, spiraling us into a season full of gloom. The Blake Griffin trade was a huge move, and Griffin has played very well, but the rest of the team has not. The trade is a bust as I predicted, and the team is still playing horribly.

Detroit sports need to change, and fast. Moves need to be made, players need to be traded. Failing managers need to be replaced. Big changes need to come or we are looking down a dark ugly hole. We cannot expect anything good to happen with these teams when we are still scoring more points than the average IQ level of its athletes, and we are not scoring very many points.