casimir

I was out at dinner, away from TVs. Did I miss something?

1B Carlos Pena 2B Warren Morris 3B Eric Munson SS Infantiago

How many spots on the 26/40 man rosters can they turn over in an offseason? What's the realistic expectation given lackluster free agent options? Maybe I'm taking too conservative of an outlook on it. I'm just not sure the resources outside of the organization are going to be available to acquire to pull this team up to .500.

I would be happy with prioritizing setting up the structure of the organization. Set up the mechanisms of the on field talent acquisition & development parts of the franchise. Get the bones of the structure in place. I think we are seeing some of that now with some of the job postings that have been broadcast. And the eventual GM hiring falls in place with this as well. That's not to say that filling out the major league team isn't on the to do list for 2023. But take decisions like Candelario & Schoop. If they decide to take the chance that they are recoverable pieces with the right batting coaches, that's fine. Focus on a RHH OF, healthy SP arms, some depth at C (the recent swap of Papierski in and Sanchez out ain't that) this offseason as the top of the player shuffling, OK, I can see that as reasonable. And they probably need to hope like crazy that Baez has an absolute bounce back to use his opt out. I think now that he's been on the roster for a season, it is more apparent that he cannot be the best player on a good team. He can be a valuable part of a championship roster, be he cannot be the player to build around.

You gotta do what you gotta do to tank for Wembanyama.

Look at those rally towels.

Penn State - Michigan at noon. Alabama - Tennessee at 3:30. USC - Utah at 7:30. That's not a bad TV lineup for today.

I know the popular theory is that at least one of Candelario and Schoop do not return next season. The free agency list just isn't there for both 3B and 2B. Trades and waiver wire acquisitions are always questionable to predict. I can see a scenario where they are both back (ugh....). I did see commentary somewheres on the idiotnet about Harris taking a season to evaluate some things. And I think its fully understood that he cannot patch up all of the holes in one offseason. He's had his look at the organization from the outside and probably had ideas on what needed to be kept/changed from that viewpoint. But now that he's on the inside, you kind of wonder how his list of priorities has evolved from the first week to now.

No argument here. I think the 1st overall picks were pretty much consensus picks, so, to a point its hard to critique those choices. But it seems like the plan at hand was to scrape bottom, draft high, and eventually the team would pop up to the top of the standings. A seven year tenure didn't deliver that.

Avila may have won those trades (I think that's fair), but then you roll in what Shepard said about overthinking the players' abilities, and that's where the team is. The combination of acquisition and development just wasn't where it needed to be during the Avila era. Wherever you want those slider bars to be on individual players/transactions or as a whole, it just wasn't where it needed to be.

It’s a new regime. Some assumptions like terminating Coolbaugh and cutting ties with Hutchison (for now) are easy assumptions. But I think there’s a lot of unknown, at least in regards to specific players, this off-season.

Tough to argue given the results.

The comic sans seems to be out. Supply chain issues.

Sure, Hinch can be wrong with some of that usage. And Soto can be an ineffective pitcher. Both can be true.

How about a go at the 2020 election conspiracy theorist wackos?

What's telling are his save vs non save splits. I'm not a believer in bullpen roles. If a pitcher gets the ball, the role is to get outs. Soto allowed more baserunners in non save situations than in save situations. Why is that? Don't know. Don't care. Bottom line is that he walks too many guys and hasn't shown much improvement on that over the years. I want more effective pitchers on the roster.

Remember when they had too many bigs on the depth chart?

I don't know. He might fetch a snack size bag of Cheetos, but Cheetos are awful. No way he fetches a family size bag of Doritos.

Oh, hold on now, Palacios pitched in 2 MLB games this season. I see what's going on here.

I think this move lines up with Short as well. CastroW showed more competence in the OF than the IF, but that's not much of a bar to clear. Its not to say that I think he will be retained. Its a new regime, so more guesswork from a message board view. Maybe I'm just being lazy because Short and Palacios are both RHH IFs with reputations of defense.

I guess the Baez to 2B rumors might have some legs after all. (sarcasm alert)

He's certainly no Daz Cameron.

That’s good stuff.

There’s that option, too. You wonder what other teams think of him. You wonder what other teams think of the Tiger pitching in general. Is it some combo of coaching and smoke & mirrors? What about the injuries?

You say creative solutions. I think the actual baseball term is horseshit ideas. I think the conventional thought is that he returns for a final season. But we don’t know about Scott Harris, so there’s that. And like I said before, he may not have the final say on Cabrera regardless of what he would like to do anyway.