casimir

Yeah, I saw that price hike come through this past weekend. I guess I still pay the $30 (not sure what my other radio options are), but it is a big step up.

One would think trying to watch a ball game on TV would be easy given the current technology if one has the cash for it.

Still might be able to outrun Cabrera.

At bats are just a piece of it. It’s overall playing time, which using the DH slot as a partial day of a position player would do. And it’s the roster spot. There going to carry 13 position players. 2 catchers. An OF of Meadows, Greene, Baddoo, Carpenter (all LHHs) and Vierling, 5 OFs. A probable starting IF of Torkleson, Schoop, Baez, and Maton. There’s going to need to be a backup IF, so that’ll be a 5th IF. So that’s 12 position players right there. Cabrera is the 13th. That doesn’t leave a lot of room for platooning, which the projected LHH heavy OF would need. They could use Haase in the OF, but they likely won’t be able to do that against all LHPs. Then they run into issues like they did last season where, because of poor roster construction, they can’t make moves late in the game to PH, PR, or have a defensive replacement. Or someone gets dinged with a day-to-day injury which shortens the bench.

As rotten of a season as Baddoo had in 2022, he’s been a better hitter than Cabrera since Baddoo’s debut. I believe you also wrote that Cabrera isn’t blocking anyone. I disagree with that. He offers nothing defensively, he can’t run the bases, and he’s just not much of a hitter anymore. Essentially he’s a zero tool player at this stage in his career. The Tigers should be in position to play a bunch of kids to see if any of them are worth keeping beyond this season. His roster spot being taken up by a zero tool player is going to limit Detroit’s ability to platoon and the bench is going to be short an actual contributing player (even if it’s no more than a good fielding poor hitting player).

I don’t know. As was mentioned earlier, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that the Tigers have 4 LHH OFs worthy of playing vs RHPs. If it happens, those DH PAs have to go to the 4th OF, assuming Cabrera’s decline continues. It might not look like a crowded OF now, but we’ll see what it looks like once some games get played.

Sure, let him wear the Paws costume and shoot old boxes of Bit Bits into the crowd with air cannon from the dugout. What a real hootenanny that will be.

Then why further it by having him in the dugout? I thought the Tigers already have more coaches than they can have in the dugout during a game.

If he’s off of the 40 man roster, he needs to not be in the dugout unless he has serious chops as a coach. Otherwise, he’s just a sideshow (which I kind of think he is at this point anyway) as a “dugout ambassador” once the regular season begins.

You’re probably correct about 60 games. 60 plate appearances is probably an unlikely possibility unless injury creeps in. On the other hand, if he’s not in shape and the Tigers have enough guys that looks to determine their futures, does Cabrera find himself relegated to PH rather than DH?

He’s going to need it. I think his defensive “success” had a lot to do with favorable shift results. And of course his offense needs to rebound. This is probably not only a free agency season for him, but quite possibly a significant fork in the road for his future.

Plate appearances?

But he’s never looked more well rounded.

I remember Idaho Bert mentioning he grew up in NW Indiana. My guess is he was still able to pick up WJR back then. Maybe he picked up an Angola feed. This all bounces around the fact that there are limited options for baseball to grow the sport on a local level, at least through traditional radio and cable TV means, and the MLBTV blackout rules really restrict things even more. Sure, there are ways to fake out the zip code or whatever for MLBTV, but why force so many obstacles to jump over anyway? And MLB wonders why it can’t grow the sport.

Reading how awful the Tigers’ (lack of) prospect development is some kind of morbid entertainment.

I guess it depends upon what level of listenable one wants. If one wants a crisp & clean feed, the red circle makes sense. Somewhere between that and the purple circle which excludes most (guessing over 80%) of Toledo proper is where the static on a car stereo can ebb & flow between tolerable and highly annoying. That's been my experience east of the tower. Personally I wouldn't consider listing Toledo as a market of 96.1, but that's just me. It's just not strong enough of a signal to reliably pull it in.

A little past Swanton is about it. I know there are a lot of variables that go into picking up radio station signal. I don't think I've ever gotten 97.1 south of the border. I have not tried it in years, maybe the signal is better, but it sounds like the reach is still limited. 96.1 (WMTR) is a family owned station with an office in Archbold and I guess the tower is somewhere around Wauseon. Essentially its a Fulton County station that trickles into the neighboring counties. I think I've heard that their deal allows them to be the only Ohio based signal of the Tigers, but that could be hearsay. Years ago there was also a station in Toledo (1470?) that carried the Tigers, but no longer. I'll put the $30 down for MLB At Bat. At some point MLB will screw that up, but for now it works fine for me.

It’s not a strong enough signal. It barely gets to the western suburbs of Toledo if conditions are right. There’s not a traditional radio signal for it’s t closest significant population base less than an hour drive away.

It’s been my understanding that the blackouts extend beyond the Bally affected RSNs. But it’s like any other contract, isn’t it? Everything is negotiable, isn’t it?

That concentration of seasons is quite interesting.

Yeah, you beat me to it. I hate that game.

I call it reliever roulette.

Oakland tried that for a short bit, I think maybe LaRussa? But I think it was back when teams used 11 man pitching staffs. The “rotation” was 3 pitchers for 3 innings for 3 games. A closer in there, and a spare arm. I don’t think it lasted long, maybe around a month? I don’t know what the rules are on promotions/demotions/options. I suppose that might be the new exploitation if needed. Maybe a team has 13 or 14 pitchers to use among 12 major league roster spots, and a handful of arms are rotated through? Didn’t the minor leagues kind of fade roster maximums away a bit to where it is a maximum of players available per game rather than maximum per roster? It could be a possible plan. Then again, as the great philosopher Tyson once noted, “everyone has a plan until they got punched in the face”.

Tell us his outfield arm is stronger, too. Oh, wait, that’s probably another article for another day.

Saw this elsewhere and I cannot take credit for it: ”If you have not yet been claimed off of waivers and/or gotten an invite to Lakeland by the Tigers, raise your hand, they’ll be with your shortly.”