casimir

Hinch had Marwin Gonzalez for a bit in Houston. It kind of seems like he's trying to find that player in Detroit. I think there's definitely value to having that kind of a player, especially given the roster inflexibility and landlocked positions that the Tigers have with their starters. But I agree, bite the bullet now in the bigs and just bring up the defensively appropriate players. They probably aren't that much offensively inferior to the Castros. Let the position flexibility experiments happen in Toledo. Gain on the defense, and hope the underperforming starting bats heat up. At least it gives the Ps a better chance to reduce extra outs, which in turn might lead to not needing that 14th P.

I was eyeballing where they have been as hitters in terms of career. Probably not the most exact way to do it. Either way, they should be better hitters than what they've been so far this young season. I would think the early season league wide OPS should increase over time. BSD had a stat earlier on this season, and I don't recall what hitting stat they used, but it was broken down by month, and there was a general ramp up throughout the season. It was probably just proof of a general theory, but this put some actual numbers to it. Just as a cheap barometer, OPS going back a few seasons have been .728 last year, .740 in 2020 (which maybe gets flagged with an asterisk), .758 in 2019, and .728 in 2018. Now, if you want to look at just April (which I think is a bit more germane to the season), that becomes .699, N/A, .742, .719. I can understand an argument for bringing Clemens/Short up. If it costs CastroH (I thought someone said he's out of options), that's fine. I hate the 14 man pitching staff and shorting the bench, but unfortunately circumstances are kind of dictating that now above preference. Too many SPs have been dinged up and there doesn't seem to be enough length per arm in the BP. So where does that leave things with the position players? Well, they aren't going to move any of Barnhart, Haase, Cabrera, Torkelson, Schoop, Candelario, Baez, Grossman (let's assume he doesn't need an IL stint), Meadows. That's the catching duo and every starting bat except for CF, so 9 of the 12 position player spots. Some combo of Hill/Baddoo in CF, which brings up the total to 11 (and keep in mind the Reyes probably isn't too far away). That leaves one spot for a backup IF, and that cat has to cover 2B, 3B, and SS because that backup doesn't exist among any of the aforementioned players. Granted, there's not going to be a lot of time needed to cover these spots, but the nagging day-to-day things that pop up on a road trip and Baez needs a day or two off of his feet after getting a shinburger or something like that. It kind of excludes Clemens at the moment, and the team is stuck with choosing among Castro, Castro, and Short. Clemens' only shot might be an injury to one of Schoop/Candelario (maybe Torkelson if they slide Schoop over to 1B at which point we'll all be miserable at this season) or reduction of the pitching parts from 14 to 13.

Ha! I just looked at the coaching staff. Only Coolbaugh and Nieves are younger than me. Now, I’m not that much older than Hinch, Paul, and Lombard, but older nonetheless.

Candelario (.200) and Schoop (.175) also have pretty low BABIPs so far this season. Clemens might be the shiny thing in Toledo, but it might be best to just grunt through these slumps and assume that they’ll rebound towards the mean. We all know players go through boons and busts. Either or both could be on the verge of flipping the switch. And if the Tigers were to try Clemens or Short in place of Candelario or Schoop, what becomes of the latter? Can’t send them down. Just release them? And then what if Clemens/Short isn’t the answer? Who else is in the system to call up? I don’t think there’s much else to do right now other than ride things out with the vets. I suppose there’s an opportunity to demote a Castro and call up one of Clemens/Short and maybe go with some sort of 3 players for 2 defensive positions rotation. That could be a way to go for now.

Chris Fetter is younger than me by over a decade.

Uh....... Who forgot to mention this to the 2003 Tigers?

Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.

I want to laugh and cry. Which emoji is that?

Bad defense puts them in a deeper than they should be hole again. I can deal with batting and pitching slumps. Fielding shouldn't be this much of an issue with this group. I get CastroW is going to have his Es, Haase is out of position in LF, the OF has poor arms. We know and understand that there are some limitations on this roster. But good grief, the amount of fielding miscues this season is just unacceptable.

I don't like the running lane not squared with the base. I can see this call as debateable as Lux was fair territory the whole time (although straddling the line) and hitting the base with his right foot. But if he's on top of the line and hits the base with his left foot, do they make the same call? The contact happened over the base, but on the foul line side of the base. We're almost asking the batter the graze the foul line side of the base as the base is outside of the running lane.

I looked up Perez’ numbers with the Tigers. .389/.427/.533 in 96 PAs. He’d be getting intentionally walked if he were dropped into the current lineup.

Yeah, there seems to be too much highs and lows with some folks trying to make it though a 162 game baseball season. I don’t know if there’s too much of a football mentality that gets pulled into it, at least in regards to the magnitude of one game/series in relation to the entirety of a season.

He'll be available for the rubber game.

We'll all be thinking the same when we see this replay 100 years from now.

You be onto something. Or just on something. Not sure.

Might as well win the series.

Utter nonsense right now.

Garneau. Gotta do something with him, right?

"Do you realize there is more hope for the Lions right now than the Tigers?" is easily the dumbest sentence I have come across this month, but we still have today to get through, so there's time. Atlanta was 8 games behind on June 16 last year. There is a lot of season yet to go.

No NBA games today. Final day of the NFL draft. I would think both sports benefit from this?

Its just another example in this day & age of needing around 8 SPs (of varying degrees and minor league options) to get through the season. I think specific to Alexander, he was probably only a 5 IP strictly twice through the lineup at most type of SP. I dpn't know if the shortened spring training is a culprit here, but I think he was pretty limited as a SP to begin with. Expecting him to last long against a deep lineup like the Dodgers is just wishful thinking.

Wait a minute, there's talk of firing Hinch? Utter nonsense. Caveat -- I know there were some that were suspect of the Hinch hiring because of the trash can episode, and I understand that.

Do the robo umps come with a complimentary robo scorer? I think Candelario is pressing too much right now. Earlier in the game he sliced on to RF, but there was a pretty good play made on him. If memory serves me right, it could have scored a run (runner on 2nd?). So, it was nice to see that approach. I don't think the ground ball was too egregious (again, just going off of spur of the moment memory). He ain't hitting, and maybe he simply lost track of alignment and who is at SS while trying to make a play and have some positive impact on the game. And if they make that out, stop that run, slow down the game, they still have a chance. This play was frustrating. The Hill line drive double play with Barnhart just simply screwed unless he didn't have a lead off was frustrating. Cabrera's soft liner to 2B with runners in scoring position was frustrating. A couple of feet in other directions on these plays, and maybe its a different game.