casimir

First night I’ve heard cicadas this summer.

That’s what I thought but I wasn’t sure.

Montero seems to have jumped ahead of Manning. Manning has had ample time. Mize, I think, has been what could be expected given his return from injury. I suppose he’s looked at more as back end of the rotation than front end. Ok, fine, it’s disappointing given his draft slot, but can they make lemon shandy out of lemons. They don’t seem comfortable with Malloy on defense. 24 games in the starting lineup, 21 as DH, 3 as an OF. I’m not sure this team is in position to have a defenseless position player on the roster. Torkelson hasn’t shown any progress, at least via stat line. Whether or not he’s doing what has been asked of him is another story. Jung has cut down on his SO%, which was definitely needed. Don’t know about the defense. I still wonder about Jung and Keith and whether they fit at 2B or 3B or 1B.

The only optimistic thing about it is that part of his inaction will be over the all star break. Can they bring Baddoo back if Meadows goes to the injured list?

Living just outside of Toledo, I remember when YouTubeTV cut out all 3 previously available Fox/Bally Sports offerings, Detroit, Cleveland, and Cincinnati. Depending upon what happens, since Toledo is easily within the MLB's Tiger blackout zone, it might be radio only for me as well. I would think the Detroit sports teams would want to maintain their coverage outside of the Detroit metro area. So would we be looking at short term pain (ie, end of this baseball season) in order to build something up for viewers like you and me in time for Opening Day 2025?

I think I’d wait until they bag these next 7 Ws before the all star break.

Alright, so random thought I have while sucking down coffee this morning. Jump on the bicycle to go for a ride this morning. Put on the Motor City Metrics podcast which dropped yesterday. One of the podders (Chris Brown?) brings up Ibanez as possible trade bait. So, not as original of a thought as I thought it was when I thought it up.

Word.

Might as well sweep.

He’s got a hard hit % well above career average which is probably boosting his BABIP and HR%. Is that sustainable? The hand/wrist issue is a reasonable call out. I don’t know how much that would hamper the numbers.

I don’t think I’ve seen his name brought up, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Andy Ibanez’ name come up in trade rumors. He’s arbitration eligible for 3 more seasons and we know his resume hitting bs LHPs. He’s also 31 years old already, which adds an interesting wrinkle given his contract control.

Kelly is having a nice season and all, but his resume suggests this might be a bit of a mirage. If they can trade him for some prospect of reasonable value, by all means do it. A catching tandem of Rogers and Dingler isn’t what will hold them back next season.

I guess I missed that commentary. Thanks.

He definitely has had issues lately. And then the long break while the Tigers sent 9 or 10 guys to the plate in their half inning. I was afraid he’d come out in the 8th slopping things up right out of the gate. Give the Tigers pitching and management thereof some credit. They got through a bullpen game allowing only 3 and had to trust a few unlikely sources a bit more than they should have, athough in a bullpen game you kind of have to.

I’ll be honest, I thought the alignment of Canha in RF, Vierling at 3B, and Urshela at 1B was odd. I suppose a smaller OF would allow for Canha to have an easier area to defend. But I guess I don’t see why they wouldn’t roll with Vierling in RF, Urshela at 3B, and Canha at 1B. Has Canha been that bad at 1B? I don’t think he has, but I’m a hack, so maybe I’m missing something.

They got time to get things in order so that they can defend their in season championship.

Well, it’s on the internet now, so it must be true.

That was fun. In the immortal words of Donkey in the original Shrek movie, “Let’s do that again!”.

The defense last year gave up 40 point quarters numerous times. So, hey, improvement.

Hard to create havoc on the bases when not on the bases.

The fun is not strong with this one,

The no trade clause can probably be waived if they find a deal with a situation that he is amenable to. Cunningham, Ivey, Harris, Fontecchio, Duren. Sasser, Beasley, Thompson, Holland, Stewart. Injuries will remove someone from the above on a nightly basis. The scoring floor has been raised at least. Maybe?

He's been with the organization since the 2019 trade deadline. At or above AAA since 2022. He'll be 27 at the beginning of the playoffs. The old adage about lefties sometimes being late bloomers might be his best bet at this point. He did have a good April, but so did everybody else not named Maeda. If this is a season of evaluation, he stays in the bullpen to show if he can figure it out there. That's his future.

That's a good point. Another variable that popped into my mind was the variance between three mounds and how that release point height could be affected. My guess is that noise is taken out of it, but I'm a hack, I don't know. Or, how does the distance to the batter upon release come into play?

Sure. Just pointing out a "risk" to the stretch him out as a SP in Toledo theory.