The Detroit Tigers take on the New York Yankees starting Friday night in The Bronx. The Yankees finished 97-65, first in the AL East and the American League. The Tigers won the AL Central with a 95-67 record third best in the AL. The Tigers laid waste to the AL Central, going 50-22 in the division, including 16-3 against the division in September.

Offense

The Yankees are half a run better on offense than the Tigers. While the Tigers perform better at producing hits, the Yankees excel at avoiding outs and hitting the ball out of the park. Detroit concentrates their offense a bit more than the Yankees, with Miguel Cabrera, Victor Martinez, Jhonny Peralta and Alex Avila doing the bulk of the heavy lifting. Losing Brennan Boesch hurts the Tigers here, as he would give them one more tough out in the lineup. The Yankees have nothing but tough outs. Of the likely starting nine (including Jesus Montero), the only Russell Martin brings an OBP below .340. The seasons posted by Robinson Cano, Curtis Granderson and Mark Teixeira are extremely competitive with the Tigers top three. New York simply brings in much more depth. They’ll have batters reaching base, just waiting for the big hit.

And the big hits do come. The Yankees slugged .465 with men on base, and .601 with the bases loaded. In other words, their long hits tended to come when they would do the most damage.

The Yankees steal bases somewhat better as well. The Tigers choose their spots, successful in 49 or 69 attempts, 71%. The Yankees stole almost 100 more bases, successful in 147 of 193 attempts, 76%. New York runs often and runs well.

The Tigers hitters and base runners are good, the Yankees are good and deeper.

Pitching and Defense

The Yankees come out ahead on pitching and defense as well, allowing about 0.3 fewer runs per game than the Tigers. As far as the three-true outcomes go, the Yankees beat the Tigers in strikeouts, but are nearly identical in walks and home run allowed rates. The Yankees defense is superior to Detroit’s so New York ranks better in runs allowed per game than they do in ERA, while the Tigers ERA rank is better than their runs allowed rank.

What makes this series hard to call in terms of pitching comes from teams tending to stick with their front line hurlers. In this case, the Tigers are a little better on the starting side, and the Yankees are somewhat better on the relief side. If a starter falters, the Yankees have a pen that can shut the opposition down for five innings. Late in the game, Al Alburquerque and Jose Valverde can blow batters away as well as David Robertson and Mariano Rivera. The latter two show much better control. The Yankees hitters are selective enough to let the Detroit relievers get wild, and hope for a hit with men on base.

I like that the Yankees are going to use CC Sabathia on three days rest in the series if game four is needed. That’s telling me, however, that the Yankees want to end this series in four games. If Sabathia can beat Justin Verlander in game one and Freddy Garcia can defeat Max Scherzer then I can see that happening. If Verlander and Doug Fister can hold down the Yankees offense in the first two games, I would give the Tigers the nod in the Verlander vs. Ivan Nova game five.

The Series

I like the Yankees offense to carry this series. In their seven games head to head, New York batters pretty much hit their 2011 averages, while the Detroit batters saw few walks and their OBP dropped to .313. That should carry the day for the Yankees. The pitching staffs are just two close to favor one over the other, especially with the front line pitching for both teams. I give the Yankees a 52% chance of winning.