Not enough white players was the reason they collapsed.
It's too bad, they had a good run going. Although I did not follow the team much this year. I go back 40 years as a Tiger fan and I have about zero interest in the team now. I won't even watch the playoff games unless I'm somewhere were it's on.
Nobody I really like on the team. There are virtually no white position players except for Brandon Inge who is treated like a bitch by the club, he is among the leaders in HR's on the team yet usually bats eighth or ninth.
They dumped Chris Shelton to the minors when he had a little slump, the kind of thing that can only happen to a white player, if they did that to a non-white the govenor would intevene.
They tried to give his position to Dimitri Young, but Young botched it by playing and acting like crap. They got Sean Casey to play first but he is a shell of his younger self.
The pitchers are nearly all white and great, the reason the Tigers won anything at all. Even in the last 50 games when the team only won about 20 of them the pitching was still good until the last week when they all went to hell together.
The Tigers have too many hispanic players, they stike out too much and swing at everything, they never move the runner up and can't get a guy in from third because they always swing for the fences and either stike out or ground out to the corners.
When you are scoring in bunches the free swingers are great but when runs get scarce, as the did in September the thing to do is put the ball in play. Which they couldn't do to save their lives.
If the bats get hot they can be tough because the pitching is phenomonal. They ended the season so poorly that it is tough to see them doing much in the post season.