By Dan D’Addona

Heading into the 2008 season, the Whitecaps had won three of the past four Midwest League titles. So things looked promising from the start, and the Whitecaps challenged for yet another championship in 2008. Detroit’s Class A farm club had a strong season and made the Midwest League playoffs for the fifth consecutive season–behind what has driven the Tigers’ minor league system for the past five years, pitching.

Two starting pitchers in particular led the ‘Caps to the postseason: left-hander Jon Kibler and right-hander Alfredo Figaro. The duo gave West Michigan possibly the best one-two punch in their history. Both pitchers were named Midwest League Postseason All-Stars, the first time two Whitecaps starters have made the team in the same year.

At 21, Kibler struck an imposing figure on the mound at 6-foot-5 and 210 pounds. The former Michigan State star was named the 2008 Tigers Minor League Pitcher of the Year, leading the Midwest League with 14 wins, a 1.75 earned run average (second-best in the Tigers’ farm system), and 154.1 innings. Kibler delighted Whitecaps fans by going 10-2 at Fifth Third Ballpark, West Michigan’s home in Comstock Park outside of Grand Rapids. He was named the Midwest League Pitcher of the Week twice and was the Tigers’ Minor League Pitcher of the Month in May.

It was the third straight season a Whitecaps hurler was picked as the organization’s Minor League Pitcher of the Year. Lefty Duane Below won the award in 2007; Burke Badenhop won in 2006. These three were just the latest in a series of dominant starters in West Michigan. Jair Jurrjens, Virgil Vazquez, and Jordan Tata performed well for the Whitecaps in years past and turned out to be good enough to make the leap to the majors less than two years after leaving West Michigan.

Kibler’s best performance came on August 5 when he was nearly perfect against Great Lakes in Midland. He allowed no baserunners into the seventh inning before Erik Kanaby singled to left with one out. Kibler allowed only one more safety while shutting out the Loons, 5-0. He faced 28 hitters, one more than the minimum, in his second complete game of the season.

Just as dominating was Figaro, who turned 24 in early July. The slender righty (6-foot-0, 175 pounds) posted a 12-2 record in 19 starts before being promoted to Advanced Class A Lakeland on July 29. Figaro dazzled Midwest League hitters and posted a sparkling ERA of 2.05; his victory total and ERA were second in the league to Kibler’s. Figaro was leading the loop in innings and shutouts at the time of his promotion. Born in Samana, Dominican Republic, Figaro was on a six-game winning streak at the time he was promoted, which wasn’t bad for a castaway from the Dodgers’ organization who was signed by Detroit as a free agent in 2005. He was named the Pitcher of the Week on May 4 after posting his best week of the season when he went 1-0 in two starts, allowing no runs and notching 20 strikeouts. His first win came via a three-hit shutout of Quad Cities when he fanned 11. Six days later, he struck out nine in six innings in a no-decision.

“He was throwing his fastball, curveball, change-up, and slider for strikes and that kept their hitters off balance,” Whitecaps pitching coach Mark Johnson told MinorLeagueBaseball.com. “Alfredo and I have worked on making adjustments between pitches, as opposed to between batters. He was fastball-heavy one inning and changeup-heavy the next. He mixed them all in, and more importantly, all in the strike zone.”

First baseman Chris Carlson, outfielder Casper Wells, and infielder Joe Tucker joined Kibler and Figaro on the Eastern Division team, although by season’s end, there was no standout hitter. Kody Kaiser led the team in homers with 11 and in RBIs with 57. Justin Henry led the team with 74 runs; his .295 batting average was the best of any hitter with at least 300 at-bats. No Whitecaps hitter with more than 200 at bats finished with a OPS over .800.

While the Whitecaps’ aces were showing Tigers fans what to expect in the future, two of Detroit’s biggest stars visited West Michigan on rehab assignments. On April 18, Curtis Granderson started in center field, rapping a single and a triple in four at-bats and making a running catch on the warning track in left-center. On July 14, Magglio Ordonez played with the Whitecaps, sparking a rally that led West Michigan to a 10-2 victory over Peoria.

The Whitecaps clinched a Midwest League playoff berth on June 14, defeating Fort Wayne to take a wild card slot in the first half. (The top two teams in each half of the season from each division earn playoff spots.) Kibler pitched seven innings to earn the victory in the clincher.

West Michigan faced South Bend in the first round of the Midwest League playoffs. Two first-round draft picks of the Diamondbacks, Jarrod Parker and Daniel Schlereth, helped the Silverhawks beat the Whitecaps, 5-3, in the opening game of the best-of-three series. The Whitecaps struck back in the second game, routing the Silverhawks 11-0 at home to force a third game at Fifth Third Ballpark. However, South Bend scored two unearned runs on their way to a 3-2 victory to end the Whitecaps’ season.