Tenacious D

Randy Smith = Nepo Baby

I believe Samuel Gil might be the first Amish player ever for the Tigers. In addition to his impressive baseball skills, he’s also adept at churning butter and an invaluable contributor to any barn raising.

If you’re going to trade him, at the deadline is when you should do it. More competition and urgency for his services. I really don’t see him going, though—highly doubt they would trade both him and Flaherty in season.

I’d prefer the player(s) in a trade, but at least we’re not forced into settling.

Another point that Cody made on his pod is that Flaherty is eligible for a qualifying offer after this season, so we’re not obligated to accept a trade offer that we’re not excited about. We can offer him a one year deal for ~20M—if he accepts, we have him for another season which would be a good outcome. And if he declines and signs elsewhere, we’d get a draft pick. Nice to have options.

The JV trade was a very different situation. As you’ll recall, we had to pay part of his salary. Skubal is younger and cheaper—he would command a bigger return. As much as we’d like to have MLB ready to go guys in return, most contenders won’t want to weaken or disrupt their rosters unless they are trading from some depth. At best, we could hope for AAA/AA guys who are ready but maybe have been blocked. That’s why the Orioles make so much sense as a potential partner. They are going to make the playoffs—Skubal can help them win a World Series championship.

I don’t think he’s played since he got his bell rung a few games back. Concussion protocol, perhaps?

Suits had a renaissance on Netflix recently. Megan Markle was on the show. Madison Avenue just trying to capitalize on it. And poorly.

Trading Skubal, without knowing what you’d get in return, doesn’t signal anything. Most casual fans, which comprise the majority, would not care about it after a week, if at all. Sure Tigers Twitter might freak out, but who cares. Here’s a few realities: -A starting pitcher can only impact 20% of the games a team plays. -They are prone to injury. -Skubal is only controlled for two more seasons and has Boras as his agent. He will become a free agent. -He strikes me as someone competitive who will place a premium on a winning culture (admittedly a guess here). -There is a strong likelihood that he will be on a different team in 2027. So how does trading him set this team back 5 years, if he’s likely gone in 3? I personally like having him on the team, but given all of the deficiencies we have throughout the organization, if he nets a haul from a team who is thinking playoffs and has depth to move, we’d need to be receptive. He’s not a distressed player, so absolutely no reason to give him away, but trading him would also not doom this organization long term. If done properly, it might actually accelerate our competitiveness.

Baddoo is filling a spot—they don’t have a better or viable replacement right now. Maybe Vilade or Madris?

Until Meadows can demonstrate he can hit a breaking ball, he might want to start looking for a longer term lease in Toledo. I don’t think they should move him prematurely. Look how that worked out for Maton last year.

Agree. Avila > Smith

Those dudes that can bring the heat have tree trunks for legs. Scherzer built the same way.

Bert, tell us again what it was like seeing Cobb play?

Not dead yet

I miss Mario

And for all of the Chris Illitch bashing, I don’t question his heart or willingness to spend. For me, it’s more about his sports business acumen and ability to hire and move on from executives when necessary.

The Lions needed to do it after Quinn and Patricia. Underscores how critical it is to hit on the right executive in charge—the wrong one will set you back at least 7 years (four of their own tenure and at least three for their successor). Let’s hope that Harris is not Quinn or Weaver.

Agree—had Pudge, Polanco, Guillen and Granderson up the middle. Not elite defense, but pretty good.

In another lost season, hopefully this will be a positive development.

We’re currently not getting any production out of three bats we needed to count on (Tork, Carpenter and Baez), so I do think we’re in trouble unless something clicks for Keith, Malloy, Kreidler and/or Perez. I’m not holding my breath.

Cody had some interesting takes on his Pod this week. One of the topics was how the Brewers manager apparently shared that he felt his team was perfectly suited for Comerica and insinuated that the Tigers weren’t. If the shift will be to find more guys who have contact skills with speed, that would make sense to me. Probably not an accident that Clark and McGonigle both seem to fit that profile. Maybe get some big boppers at 1B and 3B and fill in the rest with Brewers-type players. I would put Greene borderline in that camp. Small sample with Lee, and he has a long way to go, but he seems like a good profile for the CoPa

Couldn’t find the Old Friend thread

Perfect!

I would like to see us acquire a 1B and or C