Tenacious D

Have tickets, too, but bailing due to the heat. Hope you see a good show.

I’m 56 and lived through the mid 70’s, 90’s black hole, 2003 historically bad team, but nothing feels as bad as this. I’m mostly indifferent, which is probably the worst for a fan. I don’t like or care about this team.

The dearth of elite college pitchers in this draft is going to work against the Tigers. Not because they should take another, but because of serious arm injuries (some are TJ) to 3-4 guys who likely would have been top 15 picks, means that the 11 teams ahead of us will be drafting position players, some of which might have fallen to us. Saw a few mocks where Brock Porter, a local pitcher from Orchard Lake St. Mary HS, will be the first pitcher drafted. By whom you might ask? According to the mocks, the Tigers will take him with their 12th pick. I don’t think that will happen, but it’s just the Tiger’s luck that the best position players will likely be gone before they pick.

Hinch has an out-clause in his contract, but not sure how that would apply to Fetter. It would also be an incredibly bad look for Hinch to bail on his team, which is why I don't see it happening. After the cheating scandal, I doubt he'd want to take on more needless heat. I'm also fairly confident he had a hand in on how this roster was assembled--they don't sign Baez and Eduardo, trade for Meadows and Barnhart without his blessing. We have had an insane number of injuries (basically our entire rotation, except for Skubal) and a head-scratching lack of offensive production (that seems to be going around MLB)

Not sure why Hinch and his staff are given a free pass. These are mostly established major leaguers with track records. How is this all on Avila? If he wants to leave, good on him.

Haven’t seen anything about an injury, so assuming it was pitch count related. Have to figure he’s heading to Toledo sooner than later. Maybe Madden or Smith move up to take his spot?

Calling a Meadows HR today.

I would be surprised—Hinch doesn’t seem like he would scapegoat someone.

Part of this is roster composition—we have multiple guys who are 125-150 K hitters over the course of a full season (Grossman, Baez, Meadows, Candy and Schoop). All are being exploited, along with a rook (Tork) with one on the way, who K’d a ton last year (Greene). If we draft another high potential hitter with a propensity for “swing and miss,” i.e., Parker Meadows and Gage Workman, then we clearly will not have learned anything.

There are a lot of star/very good players that are having poor offensive years relative to their historical performance, but it seems more prevalent and pronounced on our team. It’s baffling.

I don’t think it should take many years to turn this around (we were abysmal in 2003 and in the WS in 2006), but I don’t think Avila is the guy to get us there.

“Hey, Beau, you realize that whatever doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger, right?. Hope that helps.”

He keeps pitching like this and they’ll need to start calling him Cy Madden, I reckon.

Not sure the extent of his injury, but Keith was put on the IL because it’s 2022.

Ty Madden says, “hold my beer, kid”

Casey confirmed to need TJ surgery. TBD on when it will happen. Seemed inevitable. Let’s get him back on the road to recovery sooner.

He’s not injured—had an exposed to COVID. Sounds precautionary and probably a protocol.

I like how the old board would use characters (#$%&) to block swear words. Made it more impactful than actually seeing them.

if he was younger/more junior in his career, he'd be extended some mercy and sent to Toledo to work things out. Unfortunately, he has to try and solve this facing MLB pitchers--I suspect a lot of it is mental now and is just digging a hole for himself. I'd give serious consideration to bringing in a former coach who has worked with him (and not currently hired by another organization), if that person exists. The guy needs to hear an external voice that he can trust right now.

I’d actually be shocked if we see Baddoo back in Detroit this year. He was a great story—we’ll always have fond memories of 2021.

MLB OF: Grossman, Meadows, Greene and Reyes Toledo: Baddoo, Cameron, Hill and Robson Carpenter’s very high K rate looks like it will be a problem for him as he moves up another level, though I’d still be OK with he and the Maple Hammer changing teams.

Daniel Cabrera has raked since being demoted to High A. Hope he can work on some things and make his way back up to Erie at some point this season.

Competent baseball

As a reminder, this is the 11:35 am ET game on Peacock. Tune in to see if the Tigers are able to score a run.

Only if Lynn Henning declares it so. Right now he thinks Greene requires 5 weeks to rehab.