DETROIT — There is a different vibe in the Tigers’ clubhouse this season. It is more sour. The players are not as boisterous. It is a palpable difference. And the Tigers, even after Friday’s 6-5 win over the Yankees, are the most disappointing team in baseball right now.

This brings up a classic chicken-and-egg baseball question:

Is the atmosphere bad because the Tigers are struggling?

Or are the Tigers struggling at least partly because the atmosphere is bad?

Amid all the preseason talk about these Tigers making it back to the World Series, we forgot something. This is a very different kind of team than the ‘06 American League champs. Almost every one of those Tigers had something to prove; in many ways, that season was a referendum on their careers to that point. Most of the guys had not made big money yet.

On paper, almost every move since 2006 was an upgrade, at least in the short term. The Tigers somehow made the 2006 World Series without a DH; they then picked up Gary Sheffield. They got Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis without losing anybody who would be on their active roster. They moved Carlos Guillen to first (and then third) and picked up Edgar Renteria.

Again: on paper, all good moves.

But have the Tigers lost something intangible since 2006?

“I don’t worry about that at all,” Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. “I think we have more talent than we had two years ago. And I’ll take talent.

“But I also think some of the guys are making adjustments. Cabrera is making an adjustment to the new league, and I don’t think it’s easy. People have a perception that this is slo-pitch softball and it’s not.”

Cabrera is the symbol of what has changed here. He is one of the great talents in the game — more gifted than any Tiger in years. He is off to a poor start by his standards, yet he has already hit more home runs (six), than last year’s first baseman, Sean Casey.

But Cabrera is a symbol in another way, too. The Tigers signed him to a $141-million contract extension before he ever played a game for them. They then switched him from third base to first. I suspect they wanted to make that move in spring training, but they couldn’t, because they couldn’t risk upsetting him before he signed his extension.

Now Cabrera is taking fielding lessons every day. He has an unusual, almost Manny Ramirez-like approach to the game. He works hard but doesn’t seem to worry about hitting. He just hits.

In time, Cabrera will make Tigers fans very happy. I am certainly not pinning the Tigers’ slow start on him. But when you have a $141-million import, learning a new position on the fly ... well, it adds a different dimension to the team.

When I asked Leyland about the atmosphere, he said, “I think there is uncertainty. If you look at the clubhouse when we won the game the other night, you’d think it was the best chemistry in the history of baseball. Chemistry is dictated by wins and losses.”

My point here is not that the Tigers should try to clone the 2006 team. In 2006, the Tigers really didn’t have a designated hitter; in late September, their primary DH was actually Matt Stairs, who joined the team so late that he wasn’t even eligible for the postseason roster.

During one postseason game, Leyland stuck Alexis Gomez at DH. Gomez must be the worst DH in postseason history — he has not played since that season, and he has one career regular-season home run. Yet when Leyland made Gomez his DH in the postseason, Gomez homered.

The point here is that duplicating what the 2006 Tigers had is much harder than anybody thought.

Leyland is adamant that his guys have played hard. But he acknowledged that it doesn’t always look that way.

“When you’ve got a team that’s not a fast team, that’s not hitting ... when we hit we look fine, because we hit into gaps and slug it over the fence,” he said. “When we don’t hit, we do look lethargic. But we’re not lethargic. We’re just slow. I think people have a misperception. There is nobody here not trying.”

This is a fair point. It’s amazing what shapes our perceptions sometimes. Just look at the Pistons: When Rasheed Wallace plays phenomenal defense and coasts on offense, we think he is a loafer. When Rip Hamilton runs around on offense but gets caught flat-footed on defense, we think he is playing hard.

And yet: There is something to be said for having more young energetic players. The Tigers acknowledged as much when they cut veteran Jacque Jones and brought up rookie Matt Joyce. In a long season, high-energy players can help maintain a team’s collective intensity.

That is what made 2006 so special — at the time, but especially in retrospect. Those Tigers were young, they played together, and everything went right. Seasons like that are rare. The Tigers might find their way back to the World Series, but there is no going back to 2006.