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I do love the idea of other execs griping that Harris wouldn’t accept their ****ty prospects and AAAA guys in exchange for Eduardo and Jack a few years ago, or his refusal to include Kevin and max and Melton in rental deals last year. The same execs mad that he wouldn’t accept the ****ty prospects are the same ones not accepting Jace Jung and Hao Yu Lee last offseason.

I think this particular team, as it came north, should have, and could have, won the Central this year, except for the unusual number of injuries which cost us dearly, not only in some expected number of wins, but also in the effect it had on the psyche of the remaining team. I do believe there might be a corollary to Newton’s law at work here: a team that’s winning stays in motion toward winning, and a team that’s losing stays in motion toward losing. I really do believe that kind of momentum is a real thing. After all, we are talking about human beings here. That said, I also believe that this particular team, as currently constructed, was never supposed to be the team Scott Harris had in his vision as the one he would win with long-term. That team is still at least a couple of years away. This team, or more exactly the fans’ reaction to it, is the result of the dramatic overachieving of the last two years. I know a lot of people would like to see Harris and Hinch fired (and perhaps even literally set on fire 😉), but that’s not going to happen, nor should it. A organization that would fire its management mainly because 40% of its 40 man roster went onto the injured list is an organization wallowing in chaos and confusion, and I don’t want to have to root for that team anymore.

Petry. Stupid autocorrect. Saying they swing out of their shoes and get behind in the count and then just watch straight fastballs right down the middle to strike out on. Tork and Keith

It's political Christianity, not spiritual Christianity, the difference between them being easy to tell because even they know Jesus would never say or endorse any of the **** they do.

There are 255 teams in major league history through 2025 that have started the season 22-38 or worse, sixty-four of them starting exactly 22-38. Not only did none of them make the postseason, but also, not a single one of them even finished as high as .500. The highest such a team finished was .493, by the 1899 Louisville Colonels, who'd started out 20-40 and finished 75-77. The highest a team finished after starting out exactly 22-38 was the 1927 Cincinnati Reds, which finished 75-78 for a .490 winning percentage. The average final winning percentage achieved by a team starting out exactly 22-38 is .399, which is roughly the equivalent of 65-97. Even the 1914 Miracle Braves, considered the gold standard anecdote of a team starting out terrible and still winning the pennant, started out 25-35, albeit in last place. Bottom line: according to history, the Tigers' season is done right now. Selling our greatest assets that seem destined to walk during the offseason anyway is a defensible, even preferable option at this point. This is where we see whether Scott Harris has the big boy pants to pull off such a trade and get a favorable return. It can be fairly said that the fate of his entire tenure is riding on how he handles this.

Bibi doesn't want this to end and Trump can't seem to do anything about it.

I am think maxing out at the deadline pretty much guarantees that. I am not saying this isn't an option. Maybe that's what they need to do, but trading away everybody that's good except for a few players would seem to lead to a long period of limited results unless they get a load of high level prospects in return and they develop quickly. Realistically, the prospects that they get will be at different levels of development and some of them won't pan out.

Any religion that puts Trump above or on par with the deity is f'd in the head.

calling a "freedom from religion" group a group that "hates Christians' is some of the biggest pussy ass thinking you can find. Grow a pair. Man up. Stop acting like a victim just because someone doesn't want your theology shoved in their faces. What a coward. It really shows a lack of faith and confidence in your own beliefs to have to play victim all the time. But we knew that.

I don’t think Mize will be traded. For one thing, putting him on the market alongside Skubal gives people a backup option to trade a mid tier package for a decent SP rather than pay up for Tarik. But that’s minor. The larger aspect is that I don’t think the potential return is going to be much higher than the comp pick, and I do think Mize is right in that sweet spot where he accept a QO and we would be happy if he did. And if he didn’t, I think he’s good enough to get the FA deal needed to net the good draft pick. That said, if a team out there wants to trade a top 50 prospect for him, then he’s gone. But I don’t see it.

I think meadows was basically a lock to play every day against RHP, and even occasionally against lefties, in the fully healthy roster scenario this season. I do recall how much criticism he got in the spring when he hadn’t gotten many hits early on, but that always felt like an overreaction to me. I’m surprised to see you refer to him as a provisional member of the 26 man roster because I see very few scenarios where they would choose to keep him out of the lineup, at least through the end of this season. The only thing that made it feel somewhat minor when he went out was that Javy had shown the ability to play CF well and hit enough while doing so, and it was annoying that he was taking SS reps from Kevin, so it felt like a minor thing to swap Javy into CF and lean on Colt and Kevin to play the left side.

By May 15, 1976 I was a pretty passive baseball fan. I was 11 years old I went to a few games with my dad. I collected baseball cards, but I really wasn't that into it. On that cloudy, cool Saturday my dad took me to a hardware store. Not a chain store, a really small and crowded store on Van Dyke south of 14 Mile Road. My dad was one of those guys that would want to talk shop with the hardware guy. Pretty boring for me. But while he was doing that, I stayed at the front of the store, where they had a little black and white TV. The Tiger game was on. There was this kid I'd never heard of pitching. Skinny and tall. All arms and legs and he was just kind of goofy-looking. Circling the mound after every out, getting down on his knee to pat down the mound. The catcher would throw the ball back to him and the next pitch would come right back. No pitch clock needed with this kid. One little, Two little, Nine little Indians made one out after another. I think my dad finally got done with the hardware guy and we left in the 5th inning. We lived 3 miles away. He made one quick stop at the store. I got home and turned on the TV and there was only two outs to go. The game was already over and that goofy kid was still pitching. Six weeks later the rest of the country was introduced to Mark Fidrych on Monday Night Baseball. In just six weeks the Tigers were selling out games he started and after that Monday night game - FIdrych was selling out road games too. He didn't even really know who Babe Ruth was. He was an instant Superstar, but he was genuine. It was innocence. It was real. He is the reason I fell in love with baseball. That Summer was wild. We had 3 All Stars (Fidrych, ,Ron LeFlore, Rusty Staub). The Bird started the game in Philly. I'll never forget the stats 19-9, 2.34. We thought it would last forever but it was over in less than 4 years. But I will never forget that Saturday - 50 years ago today - that changed my life. I'll never get tired of watching this clip. Here's the box score from that game. Wow 50 years man. Where the hell did it go? https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/DET/DET197605150.shtml

BEEEERRRRRTTTTT

We have Bert.

RILEY! BACK-TO-BACK-TO-BACK!

GREENE MACHINE!!!!!!!!!!!!! WE HAVE BERT! I REPEAT, WE HAVE BERT

June! It's a new month. Flowers are blooming. The song of the turtedove is heard throughout the land.

The part of the game before the Tigers inevitably give up the lead can be pretty fun to watch.

Reality bites, but it always gets the last word.

I don't disagree with the gist of this, but it's not as though Tork is blocking someone better. It's entire possible we'd end up with something worse at first.

Case in point... Player Framber Valdez $36,466,899.38 Tarik Skubal $32,000,000.00 Javier Baez $23,333,333.33 Gleyber Torres $22,025,000.00 Jack Flaherty $17,500,000.00 Kenley Jansen $11,000,000.00 Justin Verlander $10,013,204.43 Kyle Finnegan $9,500,000.00 Drew Anderson $7,000,000.00 Casey Mize $6,150,000.00 Riley Greene $5,000,000.00 Colt Keith $4,773,750.00 Zach McKinstry $4,200,000.00 Spencer Torkelson $4,075,000.00 Will Vest $3,950,000.00 Kerry Carpenter $3,275,000.00 Matt Vierling $3,255,000.00 Jake Rogers $3,050,000.00 Tyler Holton $1,575,000.00 Burch Smith $1,275,401.07 Enmanuel De Jesus $1,260,695.19 Beau Brieske $1,157,500.00 Dillon Dingler $834,900.00 Jahmai Jones $832,200.00 Reese Olson $818,100.00 Parker Meadows $805,300.00 Brant Hurter $796,200.00 Trey Sweeney $788,700.00 Troy Melton $785,500.00 Jackson Jobe $784,300.00 Bailey Horn $784,100.00 Kevin McGonigle $780,000.00 Wenceel Perez $767,631.02 Keider Montero $760,296.63 Brenan Hanifee $701,153.93 Ty Madden $695,688.77 Hao Yu Lee $691,886.63 Zack Short $672,727.27 Drew Sommers $560,039.04 Sawyer Gipson-Long $391,112.76 Connor Seabold $273,796.79 Ricky Vanasco $227,085.56 Gage Workman $169,155.08 Jace Jung $148,151.34 Eduardo Valencia $117,400.00 Yoniel Curet $114,186.10 Thayron Liranzo $63,600.00 Jake Miller $63,600.00 Trei Cruz $63,600.00 Grant Holman $48,200.34 Nick Sandlin $0.00 Tomas Nido $0.00 Tanner Rainey $0.00 Bryan Sammons $0.00 Konnor Pilkington $0.00 Troy Watson $0.00 Carl Edwards $0.00 Scott Effross $0.00 Corey Julks $0.00 Jack Little $0.00 Tyler Mattison $0.00 Tyler Owens $0.00 Sean Guenther $0.00 Dugan Darnell $0.00 Matt Seelinger $0.00 Dylan Smith -$96,601.60 Justyn-Henry Malloy -$100,000.00 Eduardo Rodriguez -$933,333.33 Player Salaries $225,244,459.71 Pre-Arb Bonus Pool $1,666,666.67 Player Benefits $18,206,789.00 CBT Payroll $245,117,915.38 CBT Threshold $244,000,000.00 CBT Room -$1,117,915.38

LOL - DOA. Unserious legislator - as he has ever been.

Slush fund is over

Oh lord

If anything the injuries this year proves that organizational depth is very important. If we "clear the barn" we might be ensuring the same result next season on a smaller scale. Trade Skubal - Mize- -Janssen - Torres for the best you can get and re tool in the off season. Hope Carpenter - Keith and Torkelson can rebuild their value the remainder of this off season and then trade them if they do.

I think they're counting on Valdez for next year. That, and his contract makes me think there is close to zero chance he's moved. If they move him, they are punting on next year, and there is no reason to do that IMO.

SpaceX insiders will get to sell shares earlier than usual after the IPO

It is well within the realm of possibility that the widespread underperformance is more bad luck than poor development. If it were to keep up like that for a couple more years, then I’ll start asking more questions about development.

Sweet purity test

Index funds have been a good idea for a lot of people for a long time now, made sense that eventually the bastards would find a way to ruin it for everyone else. I'm now out of indexed investments.

Exactly. Wemby forces you out of the paint. You beat Wemby with a team like the old Warriors. They weren't concerned with shot blockers when they were killing you from three point range. Problem is, it's tough to build a team like that and other teams without Steph that just fire up threes all day (Boston) have shown that the variance is high enough you can just get bounced in the 1st round.

do they hate Jews too? Or Buddhists? How come those religions never whine about it? It's always the Christian Nationalists. SEriously... look through history. Every important social evolution that's taken place in our nation's history had protestant Christianity opposing it. Slavery. Womens rights. Civil rights. Interracial marriage. Gay acceptance. Yet they bitch anytime you call them out and pretend to be victims.

Somebody has been two busy self promoting to actually do a smidgen of research on the founders view of Freedom of Religion. Most of us critical of organized religion support the right to decide who and how to worship, not just blindly follow what the TV and most MAGA Church leaders want us to believe. Basically they hate educated folks

I agree with alL of this except for the phrasing of the Morton/paddack “process” not being sound. The results were of course very bad, but I rarely agree with “the results speak for the themselves”. For the same reason, I’m not sure whether you can say the process for signing Framber was sound. If he pitches to a 5 era over the next few seasons and we are stuck paying him a big chunk of our budget, the results will surely be bad. Signing Framber put us right up against the tax threshold, and that’s probably going to be fine because it doesn’t look like we will need to add anyone this year. But anyway, I agree that teams should lean into more present day risk when you are within a championship window. It sucks that they seemed to do so for this year only to get absolutely screwed in the luck/injury department. It could very well be the case that we had a nice offer on the table last year involving melton that we didn’t take. I think it’s clear any deal involving Kevin was rightfully declined. Maybe there was a deal to be made for max clark that we didn’t make. Hard to say. I do think they probably screwed up not getting the Bregman deal over the line last year.

Yes but a friend of a friend of a Jew may have donated at some point to her campaign.

All this platooning and playing the numbers is something you do when you don’t have good players. After the deadline deals in 2024 when everyone expected a true collapse, the miracle of the team’s rebound was like getting high on sniffing glue or gold paint. It’s great until it isn’t. The collapse at the end of last year was a signature moment. Whatever was happening there, dumb luck or motivation, God only knows, all that played itself out. Add to that the spate of inexplicably ill-timed injuries this season, I think all we can bet on is good luck: balls going into the gaps instead of being hit right at somebody that kind of stuff. I guess it could happen. It might happen this series. Hopefully the kids on the farm will turn things around the next few years.

With the right moves, this team can be good again soon. I suspect both Skubal and Mize will be dealt this deadline and we should get some good players in return. We also will clear a ton of salary this offseason (Skoobs (regrettably), Flaherty, Jansen, Verlander and Torres). The rotation will include Valdez, Montero, Melton, Jobe and some combination of pitcher(s) we get in trade return, Reese and a free agent or two. McGonigle, Keith, Greene and Dingler will be back. Hopefully the Max’s will be ready. I can see a free agent or trade upgrade at 1B and/or RF. The pen is a mess—can really only count on Vest at this point, but Holton and Finnegan will likely be back, too. There is a foundation, but Harris is going to have to be more aggressive than he has previously been to acquire impact players.

Another injury which nobody is talking about is Meadows. Everybody was complaining about him and saying that he sucked, but he was an excellent defender and he hit a lot better than half their line-up is hitting now. Their offense and defense was a lot better before all the injuries.

I don't know if they have to be picked apart when they just fall apart

Bill Simmons doesn't know ****, per me

$9 Trillion Collapse Machine - About the AI stuff.

This is why you go for it when you have the chance. you never know what next year brings. progress is not linear.

If they had signed Verlander before they signed Valdez, I would have called it a lazy move. Since he was signed right after Valdez, I was OK with it.

I do think it’s hard to avoid complaining and lashing when everything is going wrong. But I’m with you in that I really don’t understand the volume of complaints against management. I guess it’s like the old saying about driving on the highway. Everyone driving slower than you is a weak idiot that needs to get out of the way and everyone driving faster than you is a madman that is going to get someone killed. In my view, I’m happy to complain about why we have guys like Wenceel and short and Lee and workman on the roster when we appear to have higher ceiling replacements available in AAA. But I’m also willing to grant that there may be valid roster considerations in play, especially as such moves would require 40-man changes and the current state is still somewhat of a short term problem with a near term solution of guys like Torres and Kerry being back soon. I think it’s pretty hard for people to give up on their position, and it’s natural to double down. I think most people do it, myself included. The important thing to remember is that my view is objectively correct and everyone else is wrong. It’s just a matter of how much they are wrong relative to my objectively correct position.