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Sorry, I didn't answer your second question. Hard to assess the thoughts of another person. I will say actions (and reactions) are the most important things...being aware is only half the battle. Not acting/adjusting to things like seeing that the combo of Haase and Lange is carcinogenic, makes it a sin of either ignorance or stupidity. So who cares if Hinch/Fetter/old GM (and literally every other person on the Tigers coaching payroll) was aware or not, the result is the same. There is no skill in coaching baseball, there are a zillion guys that can teach fundamentals and hold a stop watch. Baseball 'intelligence' is measured by the observational awareness of talent and one's knowledge of a player's situational abilities... and the quicker you are to see it, understand it, and exploit/excise it to your advantage...the better built and run your team will be. It is why some teams always seem to draft better, trade better and get more out of players. I don't know this for sure...but my hunch is that it is often just one person in an organization with the ability to filter knowledge and that the person has to also have a receptive ear to speak to. Harris could be that guy. I will say, it will take no time to find out his Baseball IQ and what he will do with it, as we have a situation no less aggregious than Haase-Lange still presenting itself. Namely, Cabrera is an active player...and he bats 4th. One can understand/allow Cabrera's existence in 2022...up to a point, it wasn't a baseball thing, it was a fan expectation/revenue thing; a 'we can make a million bucks in extra revenue for every milestone hit, and then a subsequent cash grab, er ceremony, after each milestone'. No issues there, the largest factor in success at the major league level for a club is still disposable money to spend in the bank on players. HOWEVER, fans would have still came if he batted 7th or 8th; and once he had hit 3000, then homerun 500, there is no excuse for not bringing out the 'Victor Martinez retirement chair' 2.0 and letting him choose to sit on it at home...or the end of the dugout for the rest of 2022 and 2023. Every ab after 500 hr was functionally useless...every AB from the 4/5 hole was to spit in the face of the other players and the organization. How can you build a culture of winning, motivate it to play hard regardless of the situation...when you have no bat, no leg, no put down the sandwich guy penciled in at 4 whenever he feels up to playing? Hey, Willie Horton only needs 7 hits to 2000...why don't we keep playing him until he hits it, and let's leave him at the top of the lineup because he is an all-time Tiger great and the fans love him. Harris is more than aware of this for sure, and the recent news that 'Cabrera will be back' is disconcerting...but we haven't necessarily heard the final details or what the fineprint looks like. His job is to get Cabrera and his agent in a room, and explain to them that Cabrera is done (in a nice way) and that he also is really bad at life/managing his money, and convince him it would be smart to take his remaining 40 million (32+8) over the next 8 years (+ interest...~5.5/year) so that the club can better manage payroll immediately ie) 30 million+ more to spend immediately should opportunity present. It's easy to deal with 5 million sunk in a year...not so much with 40. The sell is that 'Mr. Financial mismanagement' Cabrera gets more money...and a solid paycheck for the next 8 years, and in return for doing this, he gets to 'stay on the team,' as a 'player coach' ..maybe take a few swings here and there for the fans. Win-win all around. If he doesn't take it...that's it, you have played your last game. If the Harris/Hinch tandem puts out the lineup card and Cabrera is DHing 4th in 2023...it means they don't care about anything or anyone, other than a paycheck for themselves over credibility (which is why I have developed a cynical eye for Hinch and his value over his tenure so far). It tells everyone on the team that skill and work ethic doesn't matter. And it tells us, the fans of Tiger's baseball, to not watch/buy a ticket...and go find another organization/sport to root for until the house is cleared out, starting from the top...could be a long wait. ...but as all that has yet to happen, let's hope it doesn't, and the 'new fish' brings the necessary change (and backbone) the team deserves.

Are we going to belabor and exhaust the Cabrera situation? He’s on the team next season. Next topic, please.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=langeal01&year=2022&t=p#catch The Tigers' analytics department should have this information and much more. Edit: Split G IP ER ERA PA AB R H 2B 3B HR SB CS BB SO SO/W BA OBP SLG OPS TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB ROE BAbip tOPS+ sOPS+ Tucker Barnhart 33 30.1 0 0.00 108 96 4 10 2 1 0 4 0 10 36 3.60 .104 .204 .146 .350 14 4 2 0 0 0 1 .167 12 2 Dustin Garneau 2 1.1 2 13.50 7 5 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1.00 .200 .429 .200 .629 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 .250 101 109 Eric Haase 36 31.2 24 6.82 156 130 31 37 4 1 5 2 1 20 45 2.25 .285 .383 .446 .829 58 0 2 2 2 1 3 .390 164 132

Well, I did say 'if': "We need to find another role for Haase if we want to keep his bat...." The if/why would be if we still suck. My point is Haase isn't a championship calibre catcher, or even a middle of the road calibre catcher...because he doesn't have the ability to catch extraordinary stuff, and it is unacceptable to have pitchers have to alter their pitch selection in order to compensate for his shortcomings...and that is what is happening. It is uncommonly bad/well illustrated when it comes to Lange...who has exceptional raw talent. Put a man on 3rd with Haase behind the plate and his BA against/ERA goes to the moon. Here are Lange's stats with Barnhardt and Haase catching...I will let the community guess which stat line is with Barnhardt and which with Haase. Lange had an all-timey great season with one guy...and a one way ticket to the minors type season with the other guy. 30.1 ip 0.00 era .104/.146/.350 31.2 ip 6.82 era .285/.446/.829 Unacceptable...not just in the catching performance, but moreso in the lack of fundamental understanding of baseball and analytics. Haase friggin caught Lange 36 times. There are so many of these types of obvious errors of ignorance (whether intentional or not) in our baseball decision/management hierachy....but let's have the axe fall on Santiago and the last standing back-up to the back-up coach that wasn't hired by the current regime. At least the new balanced schedule should fix the 'who could have known that having 19 of 20 starters in our division being righties was going to make Baez not worth his contract in a new league' problem. HuZZah for fortunate accidents! ...not that I feel strongly about it

Down at the game tonight. This team is going to be fun to watch, even through all the growing pains we'll have. Nice to see them battle back and tie it.

Haase seems like a guy you keep around for where you need him most. Could end up that is cacher. Could end up that is the outfield. Could be he is just a platoon at DH. Could be a backup plan for Torkelson at first base. Probably best not to pigeonhole him into one role this offseason and just let the chips fall where they may.

Seems fair, he's belabored and exhausted us as baseball fans for going on six seasons now....

Yes, get the $40 million over with in the next 12 months. Once that contract expires I don't ever want to hear about it again.

Just a friendly reminder

Not sure how to link off my phone, but if you break out seasonal pitching splits you can then sub filter by positional selection (sudenoye: there is an adjustment one should make as there is interference in the numbers via IR, but in this case, doing/allowing for that fractional adjustment is jejeune).

There is a certain consistency in the mindset though. "I say I love my son, therefore I do. I say I am a Christain, therefore I am a good person". There is a certain mind set for which to profess something is to call it into being, regardless of the emptiness of the profession. You can guess where in American society you are most likely to find it....preached.

i see killian and his "revised shooting mechanics" left off at the same point as last year.

So, I got this for free from my town’s “Buy Nothing” FB group….…. And, unlike the cat bed I had to BUY from Amazon, that Sam ignored for a week or so, he took to this cat tree IMMEDIATELY! 🙂

Maggie gets slapped …

Given how certain it looked that they were going to fall short of it, 110 homers represents a pretty good finish. OBT jacked bombs after September 1 at the rate of 172 per 162 games, which is right around league average of 174 for the season and, of course, way ahead of the 95 homer pace we'd been setting through end of August. One more data point for the camp of "Yeah, it was the coaching ..."

That's a bit insulting to the Big12 conference.

I'm ready. New "Quick Dry" t-shirt came in the mail yesterday. Closest thing I could find to Dri-Fit. Better for running than the heavy cotton of my 2008 Stanley Cup t-shirt.