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For a front office that is so tough to deal with, they sure made a lot of trades (8) with several different teams (7) leading up to the deadline.

I’m disinterested in the opinions of the industrial sports media complex (to borrow and redefine a concept from President Eisenhower). It thrives on splash, attitude, big money, big stars, big talk… etc., etc.. It’s impatient and doing anything based on process that requires time to evolve is inimical to their model. That doesn’t mean I’m happy with what happened regarding the Tigers today. I’m not but I get it. They’re doing things differently. On purpose. I guess now we’ll see how it pans out.

You don’t build a team for the playoffs. They have a huge division lead. Don’t sacrifice to build on that. If you can’t win the division this year with what you have won to this point then that itself is a reason going “all in” would be a mistake. One player doesn’t prevent a massive slump. This org and players have been at the highest performance over the last calendar year. They have earned the benefit of the doubt. I have no beef with today. People get caught upon the adrenaline and breaking news and psychologically feel left out and assume something is wrong. I like that the org isn’t holding to some idea of a “window” like they did 10 years ago because we had a dying Ilitch and Cabrera and Verlanders careers to worry about. We don’t have to win now because of Skubal. Give us a system that contends every year and let the pieces fall where they do.

ESPN considers us one of the losers of the trade deadline. which means we had a solid deadline.

Phillies should have added more at the deadline, clearly

Hey, this is a game thread not a political thread.

There's, very correctly, a ton of concern coming out of this about Trump cooking and / or juking the numbers to make things look good for his political concerns (I'll leave those for the other thread), but the reality is that businesses need reliable data in order to make decisions that are in their strategic/fiduciary best interests. Trump, by doing this, is basically undermining the basis of the data going forward. Just adds yet another level of uncertainty to an environment that he's already injected a bunch of uncertainty into.

No, because it's not baseball. I am interested in watching a baseball game, not a home run hitting contest. How about two extra innings and if it's still tied, then do the free base runner thing. There aren't that many games that would go longer than 11 innings and my goal is to have as many real baseball games as possible.

I am not especially thrilled with what they got at the deadline, but I don't know what it would have cost to obtain more impactful players. I don't think they significantly impoved their chances of going all the way this year, but how do you do that? There was no urgent need because they have such a big lead and the teams in back of them aren't really trying to win. I think the post-season is mostly a crapshoot, so I am not in favor of selling the farm just for what might turn out to be one series.

Starting today, the goal is to get a bye in the wild card round, and make sure that Skubal is rested and healthy for game 1 of the playoffs.

If there is a site these days that is going to cherry pick stats between Fangraphs, Baseball Reference, or the corpse of Sports Illustrated, I know which one I am going to be suspicious of.

If it was really only about losing money, wouldn’t they have axed him immediately, instead of continuing to lose money for another nine months?

Now that the dust has settled overnight, the take away is that the people running this club really believe in the process they have set in motion, that the successes they’ve gained are not incidental, and that they’re not sacrificing the future for short term gains to please either low information fans or the many existing versions of the sports commentariat whether it be corporate or more casual. Other teams didn’t want to do the Detroit Tigers any favors, they were prepared for this, and the Tigers didn’t blink.

Batting average, RBI and home runs?

Fans get caught up in the emotions but Harris is paid not to. He has to evaluate who WILL be good. We all know who HAS been good and that's what fans focus on. All of us here know performance in April doesn't mean anything in October. Let's use Suarez as an example. Great power numbers in the first half. Does that mean he's worth the price the Tigers have to pay for his second half performance at Comerica park? Harris didn't think so and I think he's right. Without the power numbers, Suarez is a poor fielder and Detroit has multiple options at third who could provide value at that position.

I am happy with this trade deadline "haul" and retaining our core prospects. But I value "success" by having a large percentage of the season , April thru October, as being relevant rather than just rings. Baseball is a very long season and having experienced so many without hope and so few with titles I appreciate the measured approach. Winning at the MLB level and watching players progress from draft to Detroit is enjoyable for me. I remember Harris stating something very similar during his opening press conference after being hired. It's when I knew we had the right guy.

Some insight from Harris.

I like what Harris is doing in general, and we misunderstand him if we think he is undertaking this mission in Detroit as anything less than a vocation and a challenge to do something great where it’s not expected. If he were interested only in fame and money, he probably wouldn’t have come to Detroit and to an organization so long struggling. People who think he’s some kind of pris who will flee to the highest bidder for wine and cheese parties elsewhere really underestimate his seriousness. He’s not done yet and he proved that today whether any of us like the way he did it or not. It’s a privilege to have a front row seat in this unexpected spectacle that began to reap dividends after the deadline last year.

Jack is pitching a good game.

Wouldn’t it be some s**t if this Bristol game got rained out after all that’s gone into the planning and work!

Before I post the results, I gathered the following for every major league reliever acquired in the week leading up to last year's deadline: Win Probability Added (WPA) before the trade. WPA for the acquiring team (regular season). Postseason WPA The Athletic's Trade Grade for that trade Ranked by postseason WPA, any guesses roughly what the leader's total ended up being? What about second place (a bit of a hint that the leader was something of an outlier). I'll post later tonight. Note, I focused on WPA because I really don't like WAR for relievers and wanted to look at how they affected the team's postseason fortunes.

I’m moving to Detroit in a month and I’m pretty excited about it. I look forward to not being around these people.

She is a convicted sex trafficker. How ****ing dare they make her life easier. A jury heard evidence and convicted her of multiple counts of criminal behavior. Every damn day my anger level just skyrockets.

I'm torn... most of the time I roll my eyes when people tell me my city is burning to the ground or is too dangerous to walk around... Another part of me likes it because I'd rather not have them around anyway.

Did you see a lot of hillbillies in Louisville?

On another topic... how many of the people blocking release of the Epstein files, and bending over backwards to support a certain person were campaigning to 'restore dignity and honor to the White House' in 2000?

I absolutely destroyed the Phillies in my MLB The Show play of this series. Their stadium is a 1/8 sized model of a phone booth.

It was dumb then, and this is dumb now. Personally I'd prefer a society where stupid culture war **** was less pervasive and didn't matter more than material consequences as it pertains to society, but here we are. And while you can blame the influencers, the media that blows the stuff out of proportion and the consumers of said media who eat it up bear as much or more responsibility for why it keeps happening.

This. I have to deal with people who are tough negotiators, and with people who are jerks. Both are difficult to deal with. But I don't mind the first. I do avoid the second. There is also a sour grapes aspect of the comments that Stavenhagen collected -- somebody saying Harris is difficult to deal with maybe just means he wasn't as pliable as that person wanted.

Whether they want it or not...

1.) Those are massive revisions downard 2.) No wonder Americans have bad vibes about the economy

.358 avg, 301 HR, 1.010 OPS, 127.3 WAR, 9th all time for batters. McGonigle would be the greatest player, other than Bonds, of the last 50 years. Never heard of Eric Longehagen, but just from that comparison, the guy must be a bleeping idiot.

hard pass on that. you know who people liked dealing with? Idiot trader Al Avila. One reason Harris is not well liked is that he has literally won almost every Tigers trade he has made, and people are pissed he did not settle for less, or will not give up prospects who other teams really want.

Enns was a separate trade. Micah Ashman was traded for Morton and cash. Enns was traded for cash.

three things can be true: 1) pre season means almost nothing; 2) the only real important thing is that the lions stay healthy; and 3) the lions look terrible.

plus the situation changes a lot from the 1st half when you factor in that Keith is now also an option at 3rd, which allows Torres, Tork and him to all be in the game and still save DH to add a Perez.Veirling or Carp in the at DH.

I also imagine there is panic in Detroit when a tackle lines up across Hutchinson.

"Some of them are going to get here this year."

You can’t trust entertainment accounting. They can make it come out any way they want for their narrative.

the one thing this game needs more of is sterling sharpe... /sarcasmfont

This season is gonna be awful without Ben Johnson. It's clear Morton has not idea what's he's doing. Way over his head!

I'd rather they start Paddack and Melton. Morton has been horrible this year.

Lemonade out of lemons? Scott Harris has just communicated to this group of guys that he believes they are good enough as is to take us deep into October and maybe even November, and don’t need help from high-priced trade targets that cost us anyone from the top of our system. That kind of thing means a lot to extreme competitors as major-league players are, especially on a team on which most of them all came up together and are growing as major leaguers together. Take that for what it’s worth.

I don't get the criticism here. Not counting Dobnak (that was a pure salary dump to balance the trade), the Tigers have added five pitchers to the mix. When your depth is ravaged*, that's a good thing. I much prefer that to putting all your eggs in one basket. And we are criticizing them for not giving up enough? I'm trying to figure that one out.

Just win, baby

Just because it’s Black Friday or Prime Day doesn’t mean you have to go shopping.

It’s a matter of style. I prefer a gm who builds a strong farm and values prospects. I don’t want him to make a trade unless it’s a good value and I don’t want him making a trade that isn’t a good value simply because he feels pressure to fill a perceived hole.

At least right now it looks like Liranzo is sticking behind the plate. That would be my guess on why he’s rated higher.