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I have a sneaking suspicion that the Proctor love is real. Brad loves his athletic freaks and Proctor is one of the freakiest physical specimens in this draft. Dan wants a run game that physically dominates defenses at the line of scrimmage. Proctor is the most dominant run blocker in the draft. You don’t have to pass block very often if you are always in 2nd and 3. But yes, sometimes their visions for how players will develop or fit in are not realized and you don’t want to whiff on a first round player who balloons to 400 pounds.

He kind of was "just a utility guy" for the A's. One excellent season, another really good, several pretty decent seasons by WAR, but mostly the the glove and less by the bat. Once he got to Detroit he turned that around to become a really good bat with a sturdy glove. Fun fact: Tony Phillips had, by a long shot, the highest WAR of any player who played his entire career in the All-Star era and never played in the game itself. Kirk Gibson was second, and Reference has their career WARs as being more than 12 apart!

They should sign or draft better ones.

I have a feeling the offense is going to bust out in this one.

Seider and Edvinsson both made great passes to set up goals. Shame our forwards limit their opportunities to do that more frequently

Phillips was overshadowed by Fielder, but Phillips was a better player. After Fielder's first year with the Tigers, Bill James said he was overrated - just a big fat guy that hit homers and struck out a lot and he'd never repeat his 1990 season. That made me angry at the time, but it turned out to be right. Tettleton was better too (although not a free agent)

April 10 https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/april-10

I'll admit that Phillips never occured to me. I'd have bet on Cecil.

I honestly don't know how it all works, but it's been pretty clear to me for a long time that the wealthiest people on the planet control everything. All the money goes to them eventually and they control with their wealth. I know they don't give a **** about the rest of us, but I also figure that their lives will be a lot less satisfying and safe if the world goes to hell. They will do what they can to make sure that doesn't happen. That's not a nice thing to be banking on (pun intended) but it helps keep me sane.

Should have signed Scherzer Mr. I. One of my biggest disappointments as a fan.

The defense hasn't been doing the staff any favors though. Seems like most of the team is struggling in some aspects.

I fondly remember a quote from a keynote speaker for the annual conference of the Pittsburgh, Pa Presbytery. He gave the speech as a sermon to the church we attended over 60 years ago. "I wanted to begin my speech with "My fellow Racketeers"... And that's why I am the way that I am...However I have known a few Pastors in my life that I believe truly heard the call..

I'm officially preparing for the postseason now. I know I mentioned going to miss the regular season a few games ago, but there really isn't anything that can happen now but injuries. Let's just get to the postseason.

They’re just throwing noise out there. Which is fine.

As I look back that whole period basically shaped a lot. of my thinking. My wife was part of the management team of an all news radio station in Chicago, I was working a split shift (6-10, 3-7) as a reporter for a traffic reporting service. Our 9 year old was basically a latch key kid. We had just moved there a few months before... The church we had started to attend had midweek "study groups", nothing similar on weekends. As the Soviet Union began to crumble I received a call from one of the group leaders inviting us to attend. I explained our situation. His response, "I bet they are eating it all up", meaning what was happening in the news. We never returned to that congregation..

Alex Cobb and Verlander? Those two should be on the list. At least Cobb didn't suck, he just cashed his checks.

I was at school living in a dorm with no tv and very poor radio reception. I was talking to my father on the phone and he told me what Gammons had said about Phillips. They also signed Moseby that same week. I knew they would both starting for the Tigers, but I had no idea how good Phillips would be. They also signed Fielder later in the off-season. The next year they traded for Tettleton. That was an amazing group of acquisitions in a short time. Too bad they had no pitching.

I'll never forget the winter meetings when the Tiger signed Phillips. It was right when ESPN got MLB and they covered it a lot more. They were talking to Peter Gammons and he said the Tigers just signed him and to watch out for that, he's going to be a good player for them. He was very high on it. At that time I thought of Phillips as just a utility guy on the A's. Nothing special.

The Joy of Sects. 😉

the collapse September makes this start more concerning. Let’s hope it’s a weather thing or just our rough stretch that every team goes through at some point in the season. It’s just more alarming when it happens at the beginning of the season.

The Tigers offense is not great, but they are a lot closer to performing at their expectation as a group than their pitching. Their pitching was supposed to be a top five staff in baseball and it's been crap, yet all I see is people complaning about the bats. Wenceel Perez is not going to fix their staff.

“And that’s the way they play it in the World Ser …”

Toledo Mud Hens Triple-A · IL St. Paul Saints 3, Toledo Mud Hens 5 #2 Max Clark 1-for-4 | 1 H, 0 R, 2 RBI, 0 BB, 0 K (1 2B) #20 Ty Madden 5.0 IP | 3 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 5 K, 0 HR #26 Eduardo Valencia 1-for-4 | 1 H, 0 R, 0 RBI, 0 BB, 0 K #27 Trei Cruz 0-for-3 | 0 H, 0 R, 0 RBI, 0 BB, 1 K #30 Justice Bigbie 0-for-4 | 0 H, 0 R, 0 RBI, 0 BB, 0 K #30 Peyton Graham 2-for-4 | 2 H, 0 R, 0 RBI, 0 BB, 0 K (1 SB) #30 Izaac Pacheco 0-for-2 | 0 H, 0 R, 0 RBI, 2 BB, 0 K West Michigan Whitecaps High-A · MWL Great Lakes Loons 5, West Michigan Whitecaps 2 #30 Roberto Campos 0-for-4 | 0 H, 0 R, 0 RBI, 0 BB, 3 K Lakeland Flying Tigers Single-A · FSL Daytona Tortugas 2, Lakeland Flying Tigers 10 #17 Ben Jacobs 3.2 IP | 2 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 7 K, 0 HR #21 Jude Warwick 1-for-3 | 1 H, 1 R, 1 RBI, 2 BB, 0 K #30 Jack Goodman 0-for-4 | 0 H, 1 R, 0 RBI, 1 BB, 2 K

And in the game before, our hitting scored six runs. A team should win the majority of their games when they score six runs. We are definitely on a bad little skein here.