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All these cardinals are total losers. One of them, a big burly man with tears in his eyes, came to me the other day and said sir, you should be pope. You’d be the best pope, because popes until now have been weak. I would be a great pope, like you’ve never seen before. Did you know popes go back over 1,000 years? Nobody knew that. But I asked, why is all this stuff in Latin, a language nobody ever heard of? Everyone knows Jesus spoke English, which is the only language anyone understands. Did you know popes get to change their name from their real name to a pope name? Like Francis, what kind of name is that? It’s a pretty stupid name, a weak name. I’m gonna keep my name, Donald Jesus Trump. This will all happen soon, very soon, in about two weeks.

ChasGPT

Tork being good makes this team so different. What a win.

What a game. I forgive them for all past misery in Anaheim. I sat and watched the stadium empty while we mashed four homers in the ninth. Wow.

An excited Dan Dickerson calls Tork’s winner Tork Walk Off Over White Sox.m4a

This is how far i read before i got bored

He did do it, just not on the field

The season is barely one-sixth over, but I think we can all agree that what Zach McKinstry is doing this season so far is nothing short of amazing. He qualified for a batting title his first and only time so far in his third big league season and ended up with 1.1 fWAR (Fangraphs). He was reduced to super utility status last season, his fourth, yet he still matched that 1.1 WAR. He is an everyday player once again, but already, he has 1.3 WAR so far. Just how unprecedented would his season be if he somehow maintained this pace? Well, simple math tells us that Zach would end up with 7.8 WAR. I don't think anyone reasonably hopes that could happen, let alone expects it, and probably he himself least of all. But he doesn't have to end up with WAR that high to still have a relatively historic performance. Here's what I mean: This is Zach McKnistry's fifth season. His prior high WAR is 1.1. How high would his WAR have to be to set a record for fifth-season WAR that's the highest versus his high WAR from the previous four seasons? The current record holder is Tommie Agee. His highest WAR in his first four seasons was 0.0. His fifth season WAR was 6.4. That's a difference of ... (checks math) ... +6.4. The next two highest are Darin Erstad, who had a +5.9 WAR bump in his third season (8.7 vs previous high of 2.8), and then our old buddy Cecil Fielder with a +5.8 bump (6.5 vs previous high of 0.7). So if Zach could end up with 7.8 WAR, he would have a fifth season bump of +6.7, which would give him the record. But wait: there's something else. When Agee got his fifth season bump, he was only 23 years old, so he was still heading toward his peak—plus, he was a fifth-season rookie that year. When Erstad and Cecil had their fifth season bumps, they were both 26. That age puts them solidly in the middle of their peaks. Zach is 30 this year—in fact, he turns 30 tomorrow. (Happy birthday, Zach McKinstry!) That's, like, practically a whole generation older than those other guys were, and well past a player's peak. Guys who are 30 don't just turn it up a big notch like that. It's basically unprecedented. So, then, what is the record for fifth-season bump for someone who's 30? Good question. And here's your answer: Ed Lennox and Ducky Holmes. Yeah, I don't know who they are, either. But Ed Lennox had 5.5 WAR in his age 30 season, his fifth season, and the best he'd had before that was 2.8. And Ducky (lol) clocked in at 3.7 WAR in his age-30 fifth season, versus his previous career high of 1.1. Each of these is +2.6 (rounded). But the biggest bump for any over-30 player was Cy Seymour, a legitimately very good player who had 8.7 WAR season at age 32, versus a previous high of 4.6. That's a fifth-season bump of +4.1. But here's the thing about those guys: they were all birth-of-baseball-era players. Cy's age 32 season came in 1905. Ducky's age 30 year was 1899, when there was only one 12-team league. And Lennox's age 30 season was in 1914—in the Federal League. The Federal League?! Was that even a major league? I mean, yeah, technically it is was, but ... I don't know. You tell me. But even including the National League guys, they all played during an era when society was not geared to funneling all the best potential baseball talent into the majors. A lot of the best players actually toiled in the minors, like the Pacific League and the American Association. Aggregating all the best players into one league was a hit-and-miss proposition back then, meaning the talent level they were playing against was probably not even the best in the country that it could be. So it would have been far more likely that a guy who's 30, or 32, could have his best season at that age, and by a long shot, in a way you just don't see today. So here's the bottom line: If Zach McKinstry can manage to end up with a 3.8 WAR or better, he will have the highest age-30 fifth-season bump in history. And if he can manage to end up with 5.3 WAR, it will be the the greatest ever fifth-season bump for any player age 30 or over in history. And he will have done so in much playing in tougher circumstances against highly-optimized competition that the other three age 30-plus players did not experience. Oh, and by the way: How's Carlos Guzman doing these days?

Tigers now working on increasing their RAB: Runs Above Bert.

Don’t look now, but Parker Meadows has just been cleared to begin throwing

Brewers going with the McCosky All Stars tonight on the mound... Is Rony Garcia next?

Good thing he didn't get the job when Harris did, eh? Or the GM job when Greenberg was brought it.

Tigers need a home run celebration. I propose a pair of crutches.

I think I suffered an oblique injury cheering just now.

Think of Cade this way. He just had a great season and playoffs while still having some problems in his game. Now imagine what a monster this kid will be when he starts to solve some of those problems.

So glad I decided to go at the last minute. And surprisingly I even stayed till the end and didn’t leave when they were losing since that’s usually what happens there. What a game. What a team. El Mago so nice to see you again

Nothing worse than Blubaughs

Not true. It’s the second time since 1911: the funeral of Pope Pius X was on August 24, 1914, on which day the Tigers took two from the Senators, 3-1 and 11-0.

Sack Like an Egyptian

trump has someone new writing for him. You can tell because: a) this is too long to be a normal Trump post b) the vocabulary is several steps above the normal Trump post c) it's too logical to be a normal Trump post. d) and the slam dunk: there is actual concern expressed for people other than Trump.

It was only 9 months ago that Baltimore's rebuild was considered to be miles ahead of the Tigers.

If he wants too much, take the comp pick and develop more Skubals. If the Tigers stay revenue sharing recipients, you are talking 3 of the top 35 picks or so in 2027.

The blacker and whiter it gets, the closer we get to openly rounding up and disappearing entire groups of people in plain view of everyone else, who will comment about what’s happening before their eyes at their peril.

Playoff drought snapped! Winning this game on the road when the three ball completely abandoned you is huge. Also wonder if JB discovered something here. Nobody is stopping Brunson’s flopping, but maybe more minutes with Schroeder harassing him so Ausar can work his off-ball roaming, stealing, and disruptive help defense without fouling out. Worth trying.

Hinch is a genius. Using our #6 SP against a tired SD team. Now we have Flaherty and Olson on an extra day rest. We need Flaherty to give us 7 innings tomorrow.

Coaching and playing are two completely different deals. Signed, a great engineer who admits to flailing when being asked to lead engineers.

ie, fascists.

While I don't disagree about MTG. I was a bit more concerned about Trumpublican Storm Troopers tasering anyone who dares to object at Town Hall "meetings" These are the same folks applauding convicted felons from 1/6 getting off scott free (and celebrated) while applauding deportments without even a mock trial.

You need to get off of NewsMax

Can't be erased.

I just re-read In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson. A non-fiction book about the American ambassador and his family living in Germany during the rise of Hitler. The parallels to what is happening here in America at this moment are astounding. How regular, ordinary people became enraptured by a beast and all that lead to. Scary times. I never thought I would live to see this in America.

It would be silly for them to trade him after the draft and go into the season relying on a rookie to be a key contributor on offense. They should compete for a Super Bowl this year, and that move would make them worse not better. I'd rather take a 3rd round pick and trade him in March 2026 than a 2nd round pick and trade him in May 2025.

😅 I am chasing around an 18-month-old now, but honestly, the beginning of April is just a busy time at work. I usually do updates at the beginning of my workday, but overseas calls are getting in the way. I should be back with your tiger cub updates here shortly.

I would like to report Trump as the antichrist.

Hasnt the guy they deported suffered enough?

I made the mistake of getting on one of the many Tigers related Facebook groups today and it makes me even more grateful for this forum given the low level of what passes for “discussion“ often times among the unwashed masses. And the problem is not so much the articles posted but the comment section. For a lot of people the solution to this team is the guillotine for everyone. There’s actually people who hate Verlander because they think he left the Tigers to sign a bigger contract elsewhere and they don’t know that he was traded. And people make these comments with a confident triumphalism that’s bewildering and almost makes me feel unclean. This place is Plato’s Academy compared to Facebook. It’s nice to be able to rub shoulders with all of you, or at least most of you. 😉

The same folks who believe that Drag Queens are contagious, yet diseases like COVID and Measles are not

fun to see the knicks fans complain about the refs.

The Dodgers are now 9-4 and tied for 2nd in their division. The Tigers must have worn them down, just like so many teams were losing the week after playing the Lions.