With the Detroit teams all in varying degrees of a rebuild, the Tigers have perhaps been more willing to embrace the struggle.
That said, "we'll be good in a few years" is a hard sell. Even harder in today's win-now culture.
The folks over at fivethirtyeight.com keep track of the Elo ratings – a system originally derived to rank chess players – for college football and basketball, NBA, NFL and Major League Baseball teams.
Tigers mailbag: Have we seen rock bottom yet in rebuild?
And as many media entities are doing year-end wrap-ups, Neil Paine at fivethirtyeight.