Jim Leyland admitted Saturday he is experiencing “a lot of anxiety right now,” as he lays in bed night after night, pondering the decisions that are still pending and the cuts to the team that still must be made.
        “It’s getting hairy,” said the Tigers’ manager, who skipped the team bus and stayed behind in Lakeland Saturday morning to watch Jeremy Bonderman and Dontrelle Willis throw in the bullpen before driving to Tampa for a matinee against the Yankees.
        Big cuts are coming. Some major decisions remain.
        Who will be the Tigers’ fifth starter? Nate Robertson, Rick Porcello, or Dontrelle Willis?
        Who will be in the bullpen behind Brandon Lyon, Fernando Rodney and Bobby Seay? Right now, Juan Rincon is among the leading candidates.
        Will Jeff Larish or Ryan Raburn, or long shots Brent Clevlen or Timo Perez, win that final seat on the bench? That field has actually gotten more crowded.
        Right now, even Leyland doesn’t have the answers.
        What he does know is,  “We’re not where we need to be.”
        The number of decisions hanging over the Leyland’s head have not diminished. But the time he has left in which to make them has.
        Last week, Leyland told his team it is time for the guys who are on the bubble to put up or shut up. “The guys are really stepping it up, and I appreciate that,” he said.
        “We’ve still got time for decisions,” Leyland added. “But there isn’t time for guys not stepping up and showing something.”
        No doubt, some players will be hurt by the cuts. Some will be angry. Some will be shocked.
        “The thing we’ve got to do is to make sure (those decisions) are not 100 percent performance-based,” Leyland cautioned.
        Spring training games have a way of distorting the true picture. “You don’t put all our stock in spring training,” Leyland said. Other factors such as experience, past performance in the big leagues, contracts and options also have to be considered.
        “I think about it a lot,” Leyland admitted. “I guess you’d call that getting anxious.  It’s not health anxiety. It’s baseball anxiety. I guess you could call it good anxiety. I’m anxious to find out.
        “There are some nights when I wish I knew,” Leyland said. “Other nights, I think, ‘I’ll just keep throwing ‘em out there and we’ll see how it plays out.’
        “This is going to be tough,” he predicted.
        “I hope my decisions will be the toughest I’ve ever had to make,” Leyland added. “But I’ll be happy when it is all said and done