By Matt Wallace

Rick Porcello, Detroit’s highly touted first-round pick from the 2007 draft, was the big story in Lakeland in 2008. The Tigers’ top prospect finished 2008 with a deceptive 8-6 record while taking the Florida State League ERA crown with a mark of 2.66 in 125 innings. That is an achievement to be proud of for a 19-year-old kid in his first professional season.

A telling positive indicator about Porcello’s future was that more than 60% of balls in play against him were grounders, the best in the league—which partly explains his relatively low strikeout total (72). In any event, Tigers fans should be excited by the poise and intelligence this young man showed—the hard-throwing righty is clearly an elite prospect in an organization that’s not exactly overstocked right now.

Aside from Porcello’s debut, Flying Tigers fans deserved better in 2008. After all, the club’s small but devoted fan base had to sit through a miserable 2007 that saw Lakeland go 53-87, finishing last in the Florida State League in both runs scored and allowed. Perhaps they felt they had earned it when they learned that the jewel of the Tigers’ farm system, Rick Porcello, would start his professional career in Lakeland.

An added bonus was that another important pick from the 2007 draft, Cale Iorg, would be joining him. The difference from 2007—when the big names in Lakeland were Andrew Miller and Cameron Maybin—was that the top talent was being joined by core players from the Midwest League champion West Michigan Whitecaps.

On Opening Day, the impact of this new blood showed quickly. In the first game of the season, Porcello threw five innings of one-hit ball, Iorg hit a triple, and former Whitecaps Ryan Strieby, James Skelton, and Brennan Boesch all had key hits in the victory. The honeymoon didn’t last long for a squad getting used to a higher level of competition though. By the end of April, the aerial Tigers found themselves at 11-15 as their fans found themselves with the all-too-familiar problem of looking up at .500.

The talented Lakeland squad was not without its early success stories. Unheralded pitcher Luis Marte had been quietly successful in 2007 after dominating the Dominican League in 2006. He didn’t get a lot of attention with the Whitecaps, but had been a key arm in their championship run.

Now in Lakeland’s rotation, Marte’s success was no longer so silent. He made seven starts in the FSL and, in 41 innings, posted a sterling ERA of 1.98, struck out 41 while walking only 11. The problem for Lakeland fans turned was that Marte was pitching too well: the reason he made only seven starts was a quick promotion to Double A Erie.

Despite losing Marte in the second week of May, things took quite a positive turn in the season’s second month. The Flying Tigers improved their record to 30-25, going 19-10 in May as the offense added a run per game from their April output and the pitchers knocked a half run off what they had been allowing.

Leading the way on the mound was Jonah Nickerson. Building on a one-hit shutout in his final April start, the 23-year-old was phenomenal in May. In six starts, he fell just shy of 40 innings, fanned 33, walked only eight and allowed just one homer to go 3-1 with a 2.50 ERA. The high point came on May 18, when the right-hander took a no-hitter into the eighth inning for the second time in less than a month. Nickerson couldn’t duplicate his May success, but he did finish the season with a 12-4 log and he was among the league leaders in innings pitched (146.2).

Unfortunately for Lakeland fans, May wasn’t just the high point of the season for Nickerson. The Flying Tigers opened June with three losses and played .500 ball for the next two months. By August, the club had simply lost too much talent to promotions and injuries and it slumped to 12-19 in the final month of the season.

One of the biggest stories of the 2008 season was 6-foot-5, 235-pound first baseman Ryan Strieby. The big, right-handed swinger had been a little disappointing in the first half of the season, hitting just .251 with eight homers before the All Star break. That’s not terrible output for a pitcher’s league, but it’s also not what the Tigers had been hoping for when they took him in the fourth round of the 2006 draft.

The 22-year-old slugger caught fire in July, hitting 13 home runs, including one stretch where he hit a homer in six straight games. When August rolled around, a foot injury ended his season early, but not before he had clubbed six more homers in only 10 games. Strieby ended up with a stunning .722 slugging percentage in the second half with a Lakeland-record 29 home runs on the full season, earning him the Tigers’ Minor League Player of the Year Award.

Lakeland ended the season at 67-70, in fourth place, 18 games out of first. Of course, for minor league teams, wins and losses are a secondary part of the story, as their primary function is to prepare players for eventual roles with the parent club. With all the talented players that went through Lakeland last year—including the addition of pitchers Ryan Perry, Cody Satterwhite, and Robbie Weinhardt from the 2008 draft—it’s conceivable that 2008 ultimately will be remembered as a banner year by Flying Tigers fans.