I wanted to address Tigers hub-bub from this week's Bill Simmons chat:

Craig (Kalamazoo, Michigan): As a Tiger fan, how long do I have to wait untill I get to see Zumaya with the closing job?

Bill Simmons: It's completely illogical. It makes no sense. He's the best reliever on the team, but the 3rd-best reliever (Jones) closes games. My buddy Hench and I whine about this all the time because we have Zumaya on our AL team -- when Jones blew the KC game this week, we were going nuts. If you're the Royals, who would you rather face in the 9th -- 103 MPH throwing unhittable Zumaya, or a guy who looks like he was just signed from a semi-pro beer league? It makes no sense.

I disagree with Simmons entirely here.

You want your best relief pitcher pitching when the game is on the line. This is one of the core beliefs of the "sabermetrics" school of baseball analysis immortalized in Moneyball. However, the old-school coots running the game still think there's some magic ability to getting three outs in the 9th inning with no one on base. So we apply this inflated value to the so-called "save situations."

In reality, however, games are more often on the line when the starter or a middle reliever gets into a jam towards the end of the game, but before the 9th. If Zumaya is truly the Tigers best reliever - I think that's fair - I'd much rather have him come on to record two outs with the bases loaded in the 7th than face the bottom of the order with nobody on in the ninth.

However, if he were the "closer," Jim Leyland would have to answer all sorts of questions using him in the non-traditional situation. Under the current arrangement, the Tigers can deploy their best reliever (Zumaya) whenever they need to. Plus, they have the best of all possible worlds, because Todd Jones is a pretty top-notch reliever in his own right. Yeah, he's probably a tick or two behind Zumaya, but there's no denying his success at closing out games.

Sorry about your fantasy team, Bill, but the Tigers are marching to the World Series. Using their best reliever in the most important spots is a key component of their winning formula.

PS - Tigers win today in extra innings. Huzzah!