Tenacious D

31 players were drafted before the Yankees selected him, including Jonathan Crawford by the Tigers.

Ok, Wally Pipp—here’s your chance.

Maybe you’re the problem?

Rolls off the tongue, don’t it?

I don’t see Canha or Ushela commanding much, if at all, but Kelly and Flaherty would be upgrades for some teams. Would be nice to re-engage with the Dodgers.

The MLB Network guys are fans

Wasn’t this an episode of the Sopranos?

He’s definitely better than Shep, but not as good as Mario. Feels like he’s trying too hard to maintain the adulation of the Tigers Twitter mob.

We let Candy and Castro walk.

McGonigle is a man amongst boys—3 for 4 with a BB tonight. .355 batting average.

We all know Jung will fail. All of our position prospects do. I’m OK flipping him for someone younger with a better contract—we can always add to him for the right player.

Why burn one of your better pitchers against our lineup?

Here’s an example of a trade Harris could pursue. Not saying he should, but this is feasible. Tigers trade Jace Jung, Ty Madden Cardinals trade Nolan Arenado, $25M Jung is a top 75 prospect who has put together two very good consecutive seasons. Madden has struggled at AAA, but still a good prospect, even if he ends up a reliever. Arenado is 33, and having an atypical season for him. Signed for another 5 seasons ($144M) and rumors are that the Cards might become sellers soon. Arenado becomes our best position player and a much needed veteran presence. Keith and Jung are a bit redundant, making him available. Feel free to poke holes, but this is the type of trade that Dombrowski would make—sending unproven prospects for a proven veteran.

And all that consternation about Harris’ willingness to make a trade. Don’t you all feel silly now?

I think we had a lot of trade capital—coming into this season, we were consistently ranked as a top 10 farm system, with multiple players in the top 100. Heck, we traded a AA reliever who wasn’t in our top 25 rankings for Canha. We just have to be willing to trade prospects, which I would support, for the right player(s). We’re also in a good position to take on payroll, if a team is trying to address that.

Harris definitely has a “type” so far into his Tigers tenure—reclamation projects and other team’s discards, hoping that the org’s player development can improve some of these guys. It’s worked in a few instances—Ibanez, Holton, Lorenzen and Flaherty. I think he needs to start going after more established players, particularly at positions where we don’t have an imminent solution—1B, SS and a corner OF.

I think he realized he was drafted in the 19th round and is now getting exposed against better pitching.

Why does it need to be a rebuild? How about going out acquiring three legitimate bats and see if the lineup protection can help Greene and Keith (maybe Tork) improve as well as support Clark and McGonigle when they are ready. The draft is a bit of a crapshoot—I like the Dombrowski model where you improve through trades for more proven players.

Seeing some nice performances from out top position prospects, but our minor league pitching prospects have been awful, outside of Hamm and Jobe (when he was healthy). Montero, Flores, Hurter, Madden, Melton and Smith have not been good so far this season.

I think the standards are pretty low in assessing catchers these days. 20 years ago, a sub-.220 BA would almost assure a career as a backup. Now, that, combined with good defense and some pop, makes you a coveted starter.

I think the solution with our catchers is to flip one for a position of need, i.e., 1B or SS. The Cubs are in desperate need of a catcher upgrade and would probably love Rogers, but I didn’t see a logical trade opportunity while perusing their MLB, AAA and AA rosters.

Conversely, no Tigers from any of the 2014-2017 teams have named their sons Brad, as of yet.

We were spoiled by the Dombrowski/Leyland era, which has been the greatest in my lifetime. Was alive for ‘68 and ‘84, but the 2006-2014 stretch was the best, IMO.

Kind of interesting. He has been playing well, but is this more a case of being a college/older guy? Clearly, McGonigle has been more deserving.

For anyone keeping track at home, the Tigers are undefeated since demoting Tork. So, there’s that.