casimir

Y’all saw the 17 pitch at bat between Rodriguez and Meadows, right?

Ima consider the source of this answer.

Oh, so you’re the one screwing this up. Thanks for nothing!

Reliever roulette is unkind tonight.

Is saving a .300 AVG in AAA really a priority in this day and age?

Interesting theory about Prince & Torkelson.

He has two arbitration seasons left which get him through age 29. Is it foolish to offer him a 5 or 6 year deal this off-season?

I'm not sure Semien gets a long term deal. If he gets one, it better not be with the Tigers. I think Correa and Seager get career ending contracts. Story probably does as well. And by career ending, I'm talking through age 36/37. They may have a handful of seasons afterwards, but certainly these contracts will use up the rest of their prime and go into the downsides of their career curves. Semien, Baez, and Taylor are going to be interesting cases. Three or four year deals? I guess that gets Taylor to 35, so maybe he is kind of in the previous paragraph, but he's already 31 and hasn't really established himself as an everyday SS. Looking at Baez again, and his offense might look better than I think his reputation suggests, but that probably depends upon how one weighs OBP. Simmons, Gavlis, and Iglesias (I guess we can toss the last two into the conversation) are going to be year-to-year, maybe a year with an option of some sort.

I suspect Story is going to get at least 8 guaranteed and/or opt outs after 1 or 2 seasons (if he has to settle for 4 or 5 years). I kind of doubt the market completely sours on him after one average season, but who knows. Seager is still in the playoffs and might elevate himself above Story. Correa is in the playoffs and might further the gap between himself and the others that it affects the others. The one thing that sticks out to me about his 2021 season vs other seasons is that his BABIP was merely around league average whereas he is clearly above that in his previous seasons. This was something that occurred throughout 2021. Now, maybe the season was an anomaly, or maybe there's something else in the scouting that suggests there might be some Troy Tulowitzki about to happen decline about to happen. Although in fairness to Story, he has been more durable than Tulowitzki, and injuries kind of brought Tulowitzki's demise. All that said, yes, the Tigers need to address SS and need to have several avenues to pursue. Maybe Story is indeed the best available fit. Maybe Correa and Seager resign and the Yankees go after Story and the Tigers are left going after the others (and we should probably pray that Baez long term isn't one of them).

I would think Story is looking for his big contract this off-season. I don’t think 4 years is what he is looking to get. He will be 29 on Opening Day. Unless he signs a really short term deal to try to show last season was a fluke and still hit free agency within the general prime season window of around 27 to 31, I think he looks at this off-season as his best shot at maximum contract leverage. Or, he could sign a longer term deal with opt outs after a couple of years. Didn’t Castellanos sign a 3 year deal with opt outs after the 1st and 2nd year? A 3 year deal isn’t long term, so I guess it’s not a perfect comparison.

Hmm.... how does Manfred apply that MLB postseason seeding?

Drat, none of them are for message board GM? My dream job still doesn't exist.....

Who?

Wasn't it returned to its previous size or is it just in the middle of what it was and what they did to it for the one season?

One offs like the Stars and los Tigres are fine. Although, to be honest, I don't like the navy blue accent along the the buttons & collar on the Stars jersey.

It'd be interesting to know the psychology on all sides about a Correa & Hinch reunion.

If Verlander wants to join the next winning culture of the Detroit Tigers, he will sign with them. If not, they will beat him.

Don’t need no stinkin’ 3rd jersey.

I think part of the issue with signing multiple players for $15M rather than 1 or 2 for $15M is that they were trying to fill more holes going into 2021 with little in the way of winning (ROI). The math is different for 2022 with Torkleson and Greene close to the majors and Mize and Skubal having shown they belong and the out of nowhere with Baddoo. Much was made of the presser the other day and making a splash or whatever. I think they got very good bang for the buck out of Grossman (2/$10M). I’d like to see more acquisitions like that. It wasn’t a headliner kind of deal, but so what? For $5M the Tigers got 2.8 WAR out of Grossman. Resigning MartinezV was a headliner and his WAR per season was -1.8, 1.5, -0.5, and -1.3.

Yes, he did. Didn’t he sort of fess up to it a little bit at the Prince Fielder press conference? I don’t remember what the exact question was, but his response to something related to an impulse buy was simply “I want the best ball players”.

Going to need a pitcher after trading Wily Peralta for CJ Abrams.

Classic mountain out of a molehill.

Any mention of the Toledo War outside of the context of college football deserves an applause.

Is there a way to trade Peralta to Dombrowski in Philly for the next Eugenio Suarez?

He was clearly less than pleased with the proceedings. I didn't realize he was already at 94 pitches. They TV guys were talking about his recent string of pitches and looking like had just pitched his best sequence of the night, but I don't think they ever mentioned the pitch count.