Tenacious D

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.

Somewhere, Senor Smoke is smiling

Wonder if Todd Jones makes it to the 9th inning or will they pull him for Carlos Peña?

Half-way there. Tigers need to get him a lead this inning, though.

His announcing is as uneven as his pitching was.

This Tigers lineup has no business winning tonight. So, of course they will.

I had forgotten that he managed a lot of the ‘84 guys as they were coming up.

A bit of a gamble, but only if another team claims him. Which isn’t very likely. However, your point is well taken—I’d rather have Buddy on the team right now.

LLM bringing the goods, as always. Thanks, man!

Here are the top 10 picks in both Mize and Tork’s draft. I purposely didn’t go beyond 10 picks, because anyone drafted after nine other teams passed on those players, in addition to the Tigers. With the exception of a couple of guys (Bohm, India), we really didn’t pass on anyone much better than our selections (so far). Also, it’s too early to give on Mize and Tork—perhaps they won’t live up to 1-1 expectations, they could still end up contributing more than others we might have picked.

He won’t be the first 1-1 that didn’t work out (if he doesn’t). We now have two #1 picks (Tork and Manning) that have been demoted to Toledo, along with a #2 pick (Meadows) and two other #1’s (Mize and Faedo) that have underperformed. Lets hope that Harris’ development team can help Jung, Jobe and Clark, among others, pan out. (Ironically our best pitcher was a 9th rounder and hitter was a 19th).

Why can’t we get to the starting pitcher?