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Stats: The Tigers have a 74 Rc+ in May...dead last in AL in slugging..dead last in Fangraphs WAR. The pitching will eventually stabilize. This is the offense..nobody is coming to save it aside from Gleyber coming back and producing more. Javy will help with defense and removing an unnecessary platoon guy...Tigers keep punting a decision on what Tork is..but they still need him to be average and he can't consistently do it. Carpenter regressed and is hurt again..Greene, McGonigle, and Dingler are good. They don't have enough mid players. The rest of the team just drops off to awful.

https://steveschmidt.substack.com/p/america-in-free-fall

It is beyond horrifying just how bought off everyone along the way is.

We've seen this the last couple years as well. Lose Carp, Gleyber production down because of hernia and the rest of the offense declines. They have a bunch of average hitters which is tough for opposing pitchers. Lose one or two pieces and everything falls apart. Seven good hitters is tough to navigate. Four not so much.

What an epic disaster of a season. The east hasn't been this wide open in years, and probably won't be for the foreseeable future. Instead of Detroit shooting their shot they sat on their hands and didn't try to improve at the deadline. So you are stuck with Jenkins and Sasser playing big minutes in a game 7. They lost this game in February.

How are you not getting Reed minutes in the first quarter?

Everyone hates Harden

That is great. I miss Taiwan. I had the pleasure of living there from 1984 to 1991 with a year home in 1987. The country transformed before my eyes. In 1984 a taxi would run the locals over to pick up a foreigner and by 1991 they were giving us the finger. Ha Ha..progress for sure. I love Taiwan.

Link to the Pistons salary situation. https://www.spotrac.com/nba/detroit-pistons/yearly They sit at about $135 million with 11 players signed. This included none of the free agents for this summer like Duren. Salary cap is projected at $165 million. 1st Apron at $209 million. 2nd Apron at $222 million. Luxury tax at $201 million. Draft: June 23rd is the first round and the 24th is the second round. Pistons are picking 21st. They currently do not have a 2nd round pick. Key free agent dates: June 30th at 6PM eastern teams are free to start talking to free agents. July 1st the moratorium begins. Teams can continue to negotiate, but no contracts or trades can happen at this time. The league uses this time to go over the books and determine the seasons salary cap. June 6th at noon eastern teams can officially start to sign free agents. Dates related to the Pistons and their players: June 29th - The team option for Jenkins and Smith must be decided by this date. If they pick up Smith's option it is not guaranteed, yet. January 10th - Reed, Robinson, and Smith are guaranteed if still on the roster at this date. Reed and Smith can be cut this summer and cost Detroit $0. Robinson can be cut this summer and cost Detroit $2 million, compared to his $15 million season salary. Pistons free agents: Jalen Duren - Restricted full Bird rights Tobias Harris - Unrestricted partial Bird rights Javonte Green - Unrestricted partial Bird rights Kevin Huerter - Unrestricted full Bird rights Malik Beasley - Unrestricted partial Bird rights. Yes, they still hold the rights to Beasley. Full vs. restricted Bird rights. Full means they can go over the cap for pretty much any amount to sign them. Partial means there are restrictions on how much they can offer. They can go over that restriction, but then they need actual cap space to offer them. Most feel the Pistons will operate as an over the cap team this summer. That means they will have no cap space to use on free agents. They will get the Mid-Level Exception(MLE). The MLE Is a certain percentage of the cap and will probably be around $15.5 million this year. So that is what the Pistons have to work with in free agency this summer, $15.5 million. They did have the Bi-Annual Exception, but burned it in the trade with Minnesota. That means they can't use it this summer, but can again in the summer of 2027.

This is out in the open corruption and theft. …. and the silence is deafening

I don't know about Ivanka, but Melania for sure. Can't leave her behind to start telling tales after he's gone.

He's going to want her buried alive with him in his sarcophagus.

You say nothing is coming to save it, but the problem is not that we don't have enough good hitters—it's that we have good hitters, or at least hitters we are relying on, who are slumping. McGonigle is good, but his numbers in May are worse than the team's overall numbers. Colt Keith is slipping badly. Hao-Yu Lee is hitting like a AAAA player. Carpenter and Gleyber are not delivering their April wRC+ for us this month as they did last month. The guys down the roster are delivering about what they were expected to, if not exactly hoped for. And Tork is just torking the **** out this month. I think we can count on some bounceback from the guys slumping. Even Tork is probably not as bad as 43 wRC+, but you know how streaky the guy is.

I keep worrying he's gonna push the button once he realizes he's going to die any second now, and this does nothing to dissuade me. And the evangelicals thinks this is all just dandy because that's how Revelations has foretold it.

it is ironic that they actually have weathered the pitching injuries in surprising fashion. If they had just hit a little they would have able to stay above water so far.

I'm going to throw out a free agent target I want. Peyton Watson from Denver. 3 and D type. Shot 35% from three last year and upped it to 41% this season. Corner specialist. Shot 42% from the right corner and 47% from the left corner this season. Very good defender both on and off the ball. Big wingspan and is very disruptive in the passing lanes, like Ausar. Can play/guard SG/SF and maybe some small ball PF's. He would be a huge upgrade over Robinson. I have no clue how they obtain him. He is a restricted free agent, and he will cost more than the MLE. So it would have to most likely be a sign and trade with Denver. They want to keep him but probably can't afford to. They are currently at $209 million next year without including his new deal. That is way over the luxury tax. They could dump salary, but the problem is, they don't have draft picks to trade and to dump salary you almost always have to attach picks. Another problem. He will be a very sought after FA this summer. So the price might get too high really fast.

on ku's podcast: ausar extension expected to be done first and quickly. duren is up in the air. his people want a max and the pistons are balking - both for obvious reasons. expect them to make a major move to upgrade the team this offseason, but it may not be the type of "trade five first rounders for a shooting guard" type of trade. if they re-sign duren then stew may get moved. what happens with ron holland? do they wait on him to develop into "ausar-lite"? jb doesnt trust his shot or his defensive intelligence. so kuch so that he played sasser over him.

I’m guessing it’s easier to play shortstop in the low minors than it is to play right field in the majors.

My niece graduated from law school this past weekend. The commencement speaker mentioned AI a few times and was booed loudly each time.

Whaaat? No way...

The knock on JB has always been he's not a strong X's and O's guy, and he did nothing in this series to prove that wrong. For seven straight games the Pistons switched everything. That left two of their worst perimeter defenders out on an island against the two best Cavs offensive players. Most of the time Detroit didn't even fight it. Often switching before Cleveland actually made physical contact on the screen. I don't understand how you make zero defensive adjustments the entire series.

I like these numbers but they need to more a bit more to have the true dialectic effect of crushing the corrupt, racist, theocratic mess that the GOP has us in. So long as land aka money outvotes people we are going to have this problem. Reform Citizens United, end gerrymandering.

I think mid-market teams need to re-tool continuously like the Indians and Brewers seem to do every year. Please don't take that as a criticism of Harris. It's just something that I anticipate the Tigers will have to be doing in the future.

Didn't matter the Cavs dominated in every aspect of the game. Even in the paint where the Pistons make their bread and butter. The idea they where 9 points ahead in game 3 with 3 minutes left leading the series 2-0 and end up like this is unbelievable

I do have that jacket which my wife bought me for Christmas in 1987 shortly after we moved to Boise Idaho. We got it at an ordinary sporting good store on the outskirts of town where we lived. The Tigers were a BFD back then, even in the backwaters far away from Detroit. I have to admit that the jacket fits me a tad bit tight these days.

Post by @aprilwolfe.bsky.social — Bluesky

cade was pathetic. absolute garbage. passive on offense, oblivious on defense. this is how an all-nba guy plays?

Regardless, calling a season in which the team finished with the best record in the ECF, 60 wins, a disaster is simply cray

Tip your hat to the Cavs and hope they beat New York.

The Pistons make this unwatchable. Blaming the refs for a 30 point deficit is ludicrous.

Why is Sasser playing? There is a reason you didn't play him all year. There is a reason you played Green and Holland.

The officiating makes this unwatchable

This better be the last time I see that ****er Harris in a Pistons uniform

We get mauled and no call, then a light bump = whistle.

How about this- if they want to flop then foul the crap out of them Laimbeer style

every piston on the floor should be embarassed with how theyre playing. and jb should be embarassed by who is on the floor.

I can’t take the NBA seriously until they address this. Sorry.

We aren’t going to win if we have to try to score in the half court every time down. We haven’t created any turnovers, stops, or transition buckets.

Can McGonigle run point?

two good plays by jalen duren IN THE SAME QUARTER. holy smokes.

Touch fouls one way mugged the other way

How do we let this happen? 25 bus loads of Cadaver fans?!?

It'll make the comeback even more dramatic!

In a feeble attempt to have a small helping of optimism, Mize is back and looks good, Vest is back and offers high octane gas to the pen, Smith and Seabold might be passable relievers, and Melton could return before too long. Then Skubal. No, I haven’t been drinking or ingesting drugs. What help on the horizon for the hitters? Other than Torres (and Anderson-also a 2B), not much.

Yes, because of course. Their unrequited love of trump has given them permission to embrace their worsening life.

Wallace was amazing to watch because of his lack of height. He shouldn’t have been doing what he was doing because of his height. But he had the quick leaping ability and the strength. You could tell he understood angles and positioning. And that motor was constantly running, there wasn’t much quit in him at all. I think that last part was just who he was given the path he had to take to get to the NBA. Thompson is an athlete that we’re seeing develop into an other worldly defensive beast. Oh, sure, he’s a basketball player, he had those chops coming into this league. But he’s really blossomed this season. His length and his quickness and pure athleticism (I really appreciate the ballet story). He’s reading passing lanes when off ball and is just an absolute pain in the ass on the ball. He’s taken a leap as a shot blocker, pun intended. Can you imagine what his defense will be like with more experience? And what if/when he adds some offensive tools? I think Thompson has a chance to be a better defender than Wallace, although we’re talking different eras and different positions. Heck, since we’re talking the Going to Work crew, is it fair to say Thompson is a combination of Wallace and Prince, but with a better skill set albeit not the strength?