casimir

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.”

Went from the Pirates to the pirates, eh?

I think it’s more about the home run, which the hall helps. Hit it out or get struck out. Too much of that these days.

I know he had a rough season, but I think he has more trade value than "giveaway".

Yes, exactly. My opinion, which admittedly ain't worth nothing, is that pitching has more or less devolved into throwing. I think this leads to the 6 man pitching staffs, the 13 man pitching staffs, shorter duration/game on the mound, etc, etc. I don't know, it seems silly to me that with better conditions for athletes, better health (training and nutrition, etc) and we're still dealing with injury issues despite shorter outings. And, sure, all of these advancements and better conditions are helping the hitters, too. I don't know, I'm trying to not be "back in my day" guy, but the modern day pitching just doesn't make sense to me.

How many 19 inning games are there in a season? How about using SP for more than 5 innings and RP for more than 1 inning?

Has anything changed from (1) any of the mass shootings previous and/or (2) the traitorous insurrection which directly affected a lot of politicians? Its a ridiculous parallel because one is a real scenario to deal with and another is just entertainment, but the gun culture is a lot like instant replay in football. The 2nd amendment is the rule/play in question and is argued about from whatever side people are on. The gun culture is what it is. Until enough people in power start to feel the pain of these incidents directly from a personal standpoint, the play won't be overturned, there will be no significant change. And even then, these people will likely ignore the obvious and stick their head in the sand because of some faux principle of holding up an amendment that some slave owning politician thought over 2 centuries ago back when life couldn't even contemplate consider any non white male as an equal human being. Its really just that simple.