Follow the blue and orange paw prints on the carpet to the far corner of the Detroit Tigers’ clubhouse in Lakeland, Fla. They lead to the smoke-filled office of Manager Jim Leyland, whose desk, strewn with lineup cards and Marlboros, faces a five-foot-tall poster bearing the stern face of Ty Cobb.

Cobb was the greatest Tiger of all, a genius in spikes — as it says on his plaque at Comerica Park in Detroit — but for all of his glory, he never played for a World Series winner. The Tigers won three pennants with Cobb but never took the championship.

It is hard to do, after all. Leyland’s new setup man, Octavio Dotel, wandered to 12 major league teams until he found one last season, St. Louis, that took him all the way. The Tigers’ owner, Mike Ilitch, has dipped repeatedly into his fortune to splurge on free agents, without winning a baseball ring to match those from his Detroit Red Wings.

Leyland has won it all, in 1997 with the Marlins, a team he could face in the World Series this October. Predicting a champion is wildly imperfect — how many of us thought Boston would win last year? — but these Tigers have that look.