RedRamage

Just starting a new 2025 general comments thread.

I think the issue with Indy is that close by neighbor's would object. Cubs and White Sox are < 200 miles away. Cardinals are 250, and Cincinnati is just 120. Even Detroit and Cleveland (~300 miles) aren't too far away. Now personally... I won't mind it too much. Add Indy as an NL team, move the Brewers back to the AL, then we can have the AL Central North of Chicago, Milwaukee, Minnesota, and Detroit. That way I can hate on the same cities in baseball that I hate in football. But again I think there's gonna be too many neighbors complaining about losing fans, especially when there are other viable options out there.

According to the SportsLogo.net: 1901-1902 https://www.sportslogos.net/logos/view/7184/Detroit-Tigers-Logo/1901/Primary-Logo Not sure how accurate that is, but I actually do have a hat with that logo... I mean, a modern recreation, not an original of course.

Totally agree, and he seems to want to be here. I'm just unsure why the Lions don't seem to want him.

Okay, lemme say that first I fully recognize that we're arguing over stats for game. It's a minor thing to be "upset" about. Just want to make that clear before anyone posts: "Why are you going off on a stat that doesn't matter?" Okay, disclaimer out of the way: My contention though is that it DOESN'T do this. Some of the time a Win does that, but like in my example above: How can you say a pitcher throwing 9 inning of 1 run ball most contributed to the loss? Or how can you say a pitcher who gives up a ton of runs, but the offense happens to have a monster night most contributed to the win?

I just think the whole concept of winning and losing pitchers should be dropped all together. I mean even if we look at complete game situations there's still stupid stuff that can happen: Monday Pitcher A throws 9 innings, gives up 8 runs, but the offense exploded late in the game and scored 10 runs. Pitcher A gets a "Win." Tuesday, Pitcher B throws 9 innings giving up just two run, one of them because of a fielding error. But the offense was totally shut down that day and only managed one run. Pitcher B gets a "Loss." Over a full season, and more so of a full career, then a good pitcher will probably end up with a good W/L record and a bad pitcher will probably end up with a bad W/L record, but only in probably and only generally speaking. There are way too many other variables... A perfect example of this is our old friend Jeff Weaver. In 2002 with Detroit Weaver had an ERA of 3.18 and a WHIP of 1.192 but had a 6-8 W/L record in 17 starts. Then he was traded to the Yankees mid season. With the Yanks in 8 starts he had a 5-3 record. Does that mean he got better when he went to the Yankees? Well, the stats say no. His ERA with the Yankees was 4.04 and his WHIP was 1.231. Defense, Run Support, Who you end up pitching against... these are all variables that are way outside of the pitcher's control yet drastically effect the W/L record. It's a dumb stat that at best tells you a good career W/L probably tells you the pitcher was better than average.

A quickie update here but I keep meaning to re-visit this but always forget and I don't have time right now to do a deep dive. Since the all star break the Rockies have been playing much better baseball. It's still bad of course, but not "historically" bad. A 4 game win streak that was snapped last night has helped them play just under .500 since the break (14-16). This puts them at 35-90 and makes it seem very unlikely that they will end up with fewer wins than the '24 White Sox (41) or '03 Tigers (43). Based purely on percentage the Rockies are looking to finish a number of games ahead of the the White Sox and Tigers, and this doesn't include that both the other teams saw a late season surge as other teams where resting players and/or "trying out" new blood. That said, the Rockies do not have a good schedule moving forward. Of the 36 remaining games they have 18 more games against teams battling for division titles (Dodgers 5, Padres 7, Astros 3, Cubs 3). They also have 9 against Wild Card contenders (Giants 6, Mariners 3), leaving only 9 games against teams that probably have nothing to play for right now (Angles 3, Marlins 3, Pirates 3).

Not sure if it's an unpopular opinion or not, but I think W/L record for pitchers is one of the stupidest stats in baseball.

How fitting is it that in a extra innings game with zero runs that it ends of a walk?

I think it's fair to also point out that we have a new DC and OC this season. Now we hope that this isn't going to be a major speed bump, but we honestly don't know. I tend to think our new OC and DC, with Campbell's leadership and the skillful players we have, will be able to keep the train rolling down the tracks, but we obviously won't know for sure until the season is under way. All of this is to say that we might trade of Hendricks because this is our year to go for it and then see the offense totally collapse under Morton. (Given that Sheppard is a hire from within and given that in this senario Hendricks is on the team, I don't see the defense as being as big of a liability.)

Or any time that Lions beat the Packers, at least according to some Packers players.

On one hand: Yeah...we'd definitely be favorites. On the other hand... fate is a fickle mistress. We saw last year how injuries can ruin a season and even in the best of situations the old adage of "any given Sunday" is still true. Given what we've seen with how Holmes builds the team I'm reluctant to mortgage too much of the future on a "legit chance of a championship" when I feel like we're already almost there.

Now that's an interesting possibility. If you trade him for a 7th then you a degree of control where he goes, and it's less likely (certainly not impossible, but at least less likely) that he's gonna get cut from that team and be available to be picked up by our rivals. I wonder what Ben Johnson's opinion of Hooker is? I wouldn't care about shipping him off to Chicago because BJ already knows the Lions well.

Part of me agrees with you, but part of me also says 2025 doesn't agree with you. If the playoffs happened right now: Blue Jays - 5th Tigers - 17th Astros - 7th Red Sox - 12th Mariners - 16th Yankees - 3rd Brewers - 23rd Dodgers - 2nd Phillies - 4th Cubs - 10th Padres - 9th Mets - 1st (Payroll source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2025/04/02/2025-mlb-team-payrolls-highest-lowest/82751012007/) There's more variation there than I would expected there to be going into the 2025 season. Having said that I would still prefer to a more level playing field in terms of payroll. I mean when the top spending team is spending close to five times as much on payroll as the bottom team more often than not that's going to make a huge difference in term of record. Now, on a side note: Maybe expansion is the perfect time to enact some level of media revenue sharing. Given that media is where the big dollars are, that gives a major market team a leg up, and smoothing out this discrepancy could go a long way to helping keep the league from falling into 4 vs 26. You could offer the big market teams a larger share of the expansion dollars in return for new rules for heavy sharing of media money.

I think you'd need an indoor stadium there too, which will be more expensive. When three of months of the season average in triple digits you're not gonna get a lot of fans hanging out outdoors.

Okay, now I've got to see what that looks like.

So... from a strategy stand point: Do you want to cut a QB who's been in your system for the years that Hooker has been? This is another factor that makes me think they'll try to hang onto him. Ultimately I think @1984Echoes makes a good point if they look at it and say: "We REALLY want to keep player-X, but we don't have room unless we cut Hooker," that's a factor against keeping him. But the idea that GB or the Eagles or whomever could pick up Hooker who's been learning out playbook for years is perhaps a reason to keep him around if the team is on the fence with him this year.

Who do I need to "talk" to to make Benetti our play-by-play guy for the Lions during the regular season?? I think I enjoyed the broadcast more than the product on the field.

I don't see the Lions cutting Hooker. I wouldn't be shocked if it happened, but I don't see it unless some good backup QB becomes available. After that last game Hooker is a distant 3rd on the depth chart, but what other options are out there? Unless the Lions decide to not carry a 3rd QB, Hooker is probably better than all the other options because: He's relatively cheap He knows the offense If some "better than adequate" backup QB gets cut from a different team and the Lions are able to land him, then I could see Hooker being cut. But I also don't see that as a likely thing to happen so Hooker'll be here as the 3rd emergency guy for 2025. Now after this season? I expect him to be cut barring a major turn around in practice during the year.

I think how TeSlaaaaaaa does this year will have a huge impact on how the Lions handle Jamo. Just to make it 100% clear: I'm am NOT saying that TeSlaa is as good or as fast as Jamo. What I am saying is that if TeSlaa shows he can project to be a capable #2 then the Lions may not feel the need to resign Jamo, or at least not break the bank to resign him. Considering all the other young players the Lions need to resign, if you have legit depth at receiver getting Jamo resigned drops down in priority.

So you're saying it's super easy, barely and inconvenience?

Wow... a second and a sixth round pick? Oh... you mean the FIRST Khalil Mack trade... Two 1st, a 3rd and a 6th in exchange for a 2nd and a conditional 5th... plus Mack of course. Feels like a lot given the way that Holmes drafts. Plus of course I'd assume that this would also require a new big contract for Parsons, which might limit the Lions ability to resign other people... Not 100% sure I'd do that. Not 100% sure I'd not do it either... but it's not an automatic yes from me.

I wonder what the price would be. Would you pay two firsts?

I thought about that too but then I thought I could easily justify the decision from two completely opposite ways so decided I just shouldn't read too much into it right now. Pro: The Lions know what they have in Hooker and they're comfortable with what they see, so they put in the other guy to get some "game tape" on him and get a better evaluation with better players. It's not that they don't like Hooker it's just that the wanted to see the new guy under the best reasonable conditions to get a good evaluation on him. Con: The Lions know what they have in Hooker and they're not terribly impressed so they want to give the new guy the best shot to evaluate him and make sure he's ready to be the primary back up.

It was a "middle" risk, high reward pick. If Hooker panned out and if Goff didn't didn't repeat his performance Holmes would have looked like a genius. Right now it looks like a wasted 3rd round pick... which isn't the worst thing in the world, but certainly isn't a good thing either. I just looked back at the 2023 draft for round 3 and I don't see any names I recognize but I also am not expert enough in other teams to know if those are solid contributors who just aren't household names either. So I don't think we "missed out" on some star by picking Hooker, but a solid rotational guy certainly seems like it would have brough more value that what we've got from Hooker so far, or likely to get from him in the future. On a completely side note: As I scanned through the list I notice that there are two "Byron Young" players taken in the 3rd round. The first was a DT drafted by the Raiders. The second a DE taken by the Rams. Now obviously the player himself knew ahead of time because we see that the teams call the guys before they announce the picks on air, but it must of have been a bit weird if Byron Young (the DE) was a friend or distant relative to hear his name called at pick 70, only to see it wasn't your Byron Young... and then just 7 picks later your Byron Young is drafted.