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Someone likes Scott Harris. This is the kind of thing that helps get decent players interested in coming to Detroit.

if there was a silver lining, it helped us forget the incessant and pointless Candelario debate for a minute.

"We are pleased with the acquisition of Michael Lorenzen. He's a quality player and we think he is going to be a fine addition to our ballclub"

Avila lacked imagination - never saw that he had alternatives. They could have at least tried to sign JD to a reasonable extension. It didn't matter if was more than they wanted to pay because as a controlled high value hitter they could have moved in him the following off-season or even in a year at the next deadline for a better return as controlled player. As long as the contract was reasonable enough that he was stil tradeable, the Tigers weren't going to have to pay much of it.

I am going to assume that the Tigers will now extend Rodriguez and he'll be a Tiger for the next 4 or 5 years. Harris won't just let him go for nothing. This is not a bad outcme in my opinion.

So many assumptions, so little direct knowledge.

Jeimer debate is pointless.......

in other words, henning has no sources in harris' front office.

Perfect time to head over to the politics forum. That’s where all the excitement is.

I’m sure he’ll get grilled by Shep and CMo

Pronounced "How You Lee"

From Rosenthal this morning

JD was arguably the second best Tigers hitter of my lifetime after Cabrera (I missed Kaline's prime). I would rather he had stayed the last two months than be traded for garbage. Candelario is pretty good, but he's not JD.

And we didn’t have to surrender ERod. Major win!

I can see the resemblance . . .

Racist. 😉

Not defending Harris failure to trade Eduardo as being a good thing—it's definitely not—but I think most of us understood that he was always going to be a more difficult trade than Lorenzen was. The deal we signed saddled us with a guy who would be a rental if he pitched well for a new team, and four more years at 60-some million if he either did poorly or went down Tommy John-style. That's a big risk for a buying team. I also wonder what role Eduardo's agent played in this whole drama. It's not as though Harris was dealing directly with Eduardo during the negotiations—he was almost certainly dealing through Eduardo's agent, who might have been on a very different page than he should have been throughout this. He might have been leading Harris to pursue a deal with LA for reasons such as he thought he could sell it through to the pitcher. And as we learned during last year's ghosting incident, the agent, Gene Mato, is not exactly the most high-powered buttoned-down agent in the game.

The real question is how does this affect our ability to sign Jeimer Candelario?

Also, when Dombo was with us, he was operating in a relatively Luddite world where other teams didn't have nearly the information at their disposal that teams do now.

Taiwan is a country.

And if Jack Morris were still here..... (ducks)

We've discussed him here too

And I would counter that Hinch has to push buttons now because he did not have players he can plug in everyday, not necessarily because he loves loves loves pushing buttons. I would guess that once he does have everyday players, he will push buttons a lot less. I guess in a couple of years we will see.

Here's my after action report, just for you Echoes... 1. Cut River Bridge: This is a bridge a short distance away from St. Ignace on the southern coast of UP. There's a place you can pull off an park next east of it. Trails lead from the parking lot to the bridge. You can walk under it as well as take stairs up to the bridge. Good views, worth stopping and looking. Warning that the sidewalks are narrow on the bridge with traffic moving very fast, but there is a barrier between pedestrians and vehicles. I'd recommend stop. Cost: FREE ✭✭✭✭☆ 2. Kitchi-iti-kipi (aka, Big Spring): The largest Spring in Michigan. Pretty interesting. There's a raft you can ride on with an open center so you can see down. It's located west of Manistique along the southern short of UP. It's a state park with a gift shop. It's a very short walk from the parking lot to the spring. We were there on a Saturday and had to wait a bit for our turn on the raft. I'd recommend if you're in the area. Cost: FREE (but requires a State Parks Pass for your vehicle if you don't already have one.) ✭✭✭✭☆ 3. Waterfalls around Munising: There are a LOT of smaller water falls around Munising. Most of them are free, but some are on private property and inaccessible or require admission. Some are literally 5-steps off the road while some require longer walks. Most were cool to visit. I would especially recommend Au Train Falls. Be ready to there to walk in the falls (wear shoes you can take off, maybe bring a small towel). Very wide falls like steps of rocks. Really cool. Cost: Varies... many FREE. ✭✭✭✭✭ 4. Glass Bottom Shipwreck Tour: This leaves from Munising Bay and is about 1.5-2 hours long. It was pretty interesting. The first ship was by far the best, the second was mostly ruins. You see a very little bit of the cliffs, but it's really about the shipwrecks. Cost: $38 pp ✭✭✭✭✭ 5. Picture Rocks Boat Cruise: There's a number of different boat cruises you can take. We chose picturerocks.com, the Spray Falls true. Really enjoyed this. The captain/narrator of the cruise was excellent and we got to see a lot of very cool sites. Be warned: It will be much cooler than you think. Bring a jacket! Cost: $55 pp ✭✭✭✭✭ 6. Miner's Castle/Miner's Falls: If you like walking in nature or seeing natural sites, then I'd recommend this. If you're not a fan of walking paths/trails, then this isn't really worth it. The falls were very cool, but a 1.2 mile walk round trip over some uneven ground. Cost: FREE, but requires a NATIONAL park pass for your vehicle, $20. This is different from the state pass. ✭✭✭✭☆ 7. Tahquamenon Falls, Upper and Lower: We stopped at both place. They've built up giftshops/food places at both of these since we were last here many years ago. Worth looking at if you're in the area and haven't seen them before. Cost: FREE (req. State pass for your car) ✭✭✭✭☆ 8. WhiteFish Point: If you've never been, it's worth going to look. If you have been before, not much new/different. Cost: Free to visit, but a $15pp charge for the Ship Wreck Museum. ✭✭☆☆☆ 9. Headlands International Dark Sky Park: This is just west of Mackinaw City. It's a a place located on the coast where light pollution is heavily limited to provide good viewing of the night sky. It was a semi-bust for us because it was slightly overcast and lots of smoke from Canadian Wildfires. Still they have a few telescopes setup to look at the moon, which was really cool. There's a Gift Shop there. Bring bug spray and be prepared to wait quite a while for it to get full dark after sunset. Cost: FREE ✭✭☆☆☆ 10. SkyBridge at Boyne City: The largest wood supported bridge in Michgian or something... I dunno. Take a ski lift up the mountain, walk across the bridge, walk back across the bridge, take a ski lift down. It was cool... scary at times. Certainly interesting, but I wouldn't say spectacular. Cost: $25 pp. ✭✭✭☆☆

So Harris needs to come away with five bodies today.

Except in 2022, when he delivered on none of the three.

Thread cleanse

Jeimer couldn't give less of a sht about "that's all you could get for me".

So McCosky says in his latest column the Tigers can get a comp pick if they keep Rodriguez. They can't. He is wrong again.

I just can't believe the amount of hand-wringing that has been done for a player that was not going to be part of our future and at the end of the day I would have rather given those AB's to Maton to find out if he was worth anything than to get what would amount to prospects on the level of Abel Bastidas and Troy Melton.

Exactly, every prospect is, in essence, a lottery ticket, you can't look at any one at a point in time and say this one sucks and this one is a future star. Do some have greater odds of reaching success? Sure, but all have a ceiling to be fruitful major leaguers. JD Martinez himself was once a lousy prospect. The game is to accumulate prospects that have traits that you believe your staff can develop and profile in line with organizational values, and are upgrades from whoever they will replace in the organization. Most aren't going to make it, but if you keep upgrading at every level, at every opportunity, that's how you build an organization.

The fact that a woman assigned to a U.S. military facility in Alabama would have to travel outside the state for proper medical care would also have to be a factor in selection of a location for Space Command.

Desantis is toast. The nomination is Trump's. He can't lose the nomination and he can't win the election. The drama in 2024 will be over Congress, and whether Trump actually ends up convicted somewhere before the voting so we have the first Federal Election in history with a convicted felon on the ballot.

I'd rather have kept JD than traded him for the junk that came back in return. Let the fans enjoy him, probably get a draft pick? Getting something for JD was not better than zero.

I swear. They are worse than sabers!

This is all likely old news that happened days ago.

I usually assume it's all about the money, but given the personal problems he had last year, being close to home certainly could be an important consideration for him.

Wouldn't you want to make sure you get a trade you wanted before going to a player and being like what to do you think? Why go to him before you have a deal you like? You already know what teams are on his no-trade.

Cue Al Avila laughing.

He's on my list now. 😏

I don’t see how Trump can suck up all the media oxygen in America with his antics for the next fifteen months, which he definitely will, and that people will start tuning him out and become too apathetic to vote. Those two circumstances don’t mesh for me.

Dombrowski is always looking to improve his ballclub, but he said that he felt good about his team and didn't anticipate making any deals before the deadline.

Went down the Tyler Childers YouTube rabbit hole and found Rhiannon Giddens. Where have I been the past 15 years or so?

When I was traveling in Denmark last year it was during HS/primary school graduation season. Many of the newly minted Danish grads would drive around on a bus or back of a truck all day with their friends. They were drinking, eating, listening to loud music, and celebrating graduation all day. Perhaps Sweden has the same or similar traditions. Maybe its a Nordic/Scandinavian thing?

I'm going to highlight this point because, again, I think the decision to move on from Candelario was the first "calculated risk" that Harris took.... aside from whatever misgivings he had with Candelario's style of play, I think he did it with the idea that he could get equal or better value to replace his position in the field. I think what came after Candy is fair game.... Maton has been underwhelming, although has looked somewhat better since coming back up. But it was a decision that had to be made at the very beginning of last offseason, before anything else had happened, and overall decision to move on was fine.... one that most execs in that situation probably would have made even. Lastly, I think the conversation on Candelario really absolves Candy of any responsibility for his role in being non-tendered. He really did earn his way out of Detroit in 2022 and was a major factor in the teams record last year. He shouldn't be let off the hook for that.

I'd rather vote for a dead Joe Biden than a living Republican.

Who is this Codify guy that doesn't understand L R L R L batting orders?