sabretooth

On 11/1/2022 at 10:04 AM, Cruzer1 said:

There should be zero expectations for 2023. They need to figure out their pitching staff and what they will do for the long haul. I'm sure there will be a lot of transactions, just like the past year.

Yeah, the rotation is practically non-existent at this point.  

I'll leave it to others to decide if the characterization of my responses are accurate.

55 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said:

Excuse me?

Tone what down?

Asking which planet you're from is so egregious that it needs to be "toned down"?

Don't be so thin-skinned.

You make a point without getting personal and nasty about it.

"Average" does not = "Top 5"  I have been saying "at least average payroll" for the last 7 years.  Said it about 10 times just in the last 48 hours in this thread.

4 hours ago, 1984Echoes said:

LOL.

During a rebuild. What were you expecting during a rebuild, a top 5 Payroll?

Seriously, where does your logic come from? Which planet?

You really need to tone it down.

9 minutes ago, Tenacious D said:

Avila had convinced him that signing expensive free agents was not sustainable and that the team needed to be built via the draft.  This differentiated himself from Dombrowski’s approach, where we routinely sacrificed draft picks when signing veterans.

I have a buddy who knows Chris—he told him the plan was to build a foundation through draft (basically tanking), and spend  when the time was right.  Apparently both Al and Chris believed that the progress made in 2021 warranted last offseason’s free agent investments.

I’m cautiously optimistic.  Won’t be a bunch of impulse purchases, like signing Fielder long-term because V-Mart got hurt, but that’s probably a good thing.

Sure, I'm hopeful about what Harris can do relatively speaking, my point is simply that there's a pretty clear limit to what a good GM can do on his own without at least average $$.  There's also a limit to what $$ can do, that's not an answer in and of itself, though spending a lot of money consistently like the Yankees does at least ensures a pretty consistently good team -- though of course the Yankees and Dodgers and Red Sox are the few teams that can do this due to their market bases, and success in W/L is never exactly proportional to $$. 

The answer to all of these questions (scouting v stats, $$ vs development, development v trading, etc.) is that the answer for sustaining success is at least a good amount of each thing.  For what it's worth, I've been saying that the answer is in a balanced approach since at least 2015; my consistent suppport for any owner willing to spend his or her $$ and my opposition to the tanking crowd makes me a target for some who want to paint me as a spend-first/spend-big advocate. 

I always supported Mike I's spending in the heyday, and it should be noted that a billionaire can spend whatever he wants if he's willing to use resources from Pizza Business X to support winning for Team Y, but I also have consistently acknowledged that a balanced approach is more sustainable.

12 hours ago, oblong said:

I think hiring Harris, and before that Hinch, tells me Ilitch won’t be a cheapskate. Will be be like his dad and go ape shit?  No.  And I wouldn’t ask that as a fan.  I’m now convinced he doesn’t want to just ride this org as a cash cow with as little risk and effort as possible.  I think they will be payroll competitive.  That doesn’t mean they have to be in the conversation for every big name free agent. 

I never expected nor need to see Mike I level payroll. 

For what it's worth, the apparent collapse of the regional cable TV model nationwide probably means that guys like Chris have to focus more on building a winning product to make profit, and cannot take the low-risk road to modest profits that the cable TV model provided to every team (even the bad ones like the Tigers) before COVID.  At least I hope that's the case going forward. 

Winning = $$ = happy owner + happy fans.  That's how it should be. 

No tanking to get cheap top-5 picks to save the owner $$, and no leaning on shared revenue or other sources to make a safe little profit.  

In a word, just win, baby.  And nobody except the Rays and A's wins without at least an average payroll.

I want to **see** that Harris has the resources to compete.  No disrespect to anybody here, but your hopes are not facts until Chris proves it.

Chris absolutely increased payroll in 2022 but team payroll was still below average in 2022; and while Miggy's $30M (or whatever exact $$ figure it was in 2022) had PR pizzaz and some ticket/jersey sales, nevertheless it was known before the season that he would contribute nothing or next to nothing to winning games in 2022, so the effective payroll from an on-field performance standpoint went from bottom 5 in 2021 (again, discounting Miggy's $$ as basically non-contributory) to still wayyyy below average.

1 hour ago, mtutiger said:

They fell slightly below league average in payroll during the 2022 season. Spending almost the same as the team that went ape shit signing Corey Seager and Marcus Semien.

So I wouldn't say they were "low payroll" in 2022. The fact that the payroll increased as it did, even if folks didn't like who they signed, suggests to me that he will spend to a degree

I was typing that on my phone...."low payroll" was short-hand for "below average payroll".

I do agree that he will spend to a degree, he did increase payroll in 2022, and I supported that whole-heartedly and I thought along with the projection systems that they would be an OK team. 

That having been said, I seriously doubt that he will spend an average amount consistently or more than average amount in any given season.

I hope I'm proven wrong.  I'm really tired of seeing shitty teams (or at best shitty teams aspiring to mediocrity) year after year after year.  

1 hour ago, Edman85 said:

FWIW, I talked to a former Rays scout on another forum, and he said Metzler likely got paaaaaaaid to leave his situation in Tampa.

(Also told me a hilarious story about when he interviewed with the Tigers at Winter Meetings, involving a random bloody nose and Jim Leyland running to the suite bathroom to get toilet paper to help him and laughing his ass off)

thats cool

2 hours ago, KL2 said:

There's no evidence he won't either. But you just refuse to acknowledge that so you keep projecting your made up beliefs as fact 

There is six years of low payroll as evidence.  There are zero years otherwise.

Disagree based on your hope but your hopes are not facts.

5 hours ago, Tenacious D said:

Why argue this point now?  We’ll know within a few months time if ownership is interested in increasing payroll.

A fair point.

2 hours ago, 1984Echoes said:

Which already explodes Sabretooth's "projected reality" (my words) as PURE FANTASY.

Dark and dreary fantasy... but fantasy nonetheless...

The Chris era has been completely dreary, and thats no fault of mine.

What is fantasy is believing that a guy who has never supported even an average payroll (other than the one he inherited in 2017 and tore down/firesold immediately thereafter) will suddenly do so.

The best hope is that the collapse of the Bally Sports bottom line recently will force Chris to put a winning product on the field to make a reliable profit.

2 hours ago, Tenacious D said:

There really is no evidence that Ilitch Jr would/will not spend.  You might not like the return, but the Tigers made significant investments last offseason in Baez, ERod, Chafin and acquiring Barnhart.  I see no reason to think he will prevent Harris from doing what he needs to this offseason.  
 

I don’t think he’ll have an open checkbook like his Dad did, but few teams do.

Theres no evidence that Chris will spend an average or better payroll consistently (or at all).

He did increase his spending in 2022, I supported that openly, but it was still a below average level of spend even with Miggys huge $$.

I will believe it when I see it.

2 hours ago, 1984Echoes said:

Wow...

There is no basis for reality here whatsoever. This is nor realistic at all... it is simply your OWN PERSONAL PROJECTION.

Quite a bit off the charts, and laughable, actually. Hilarious.

Your PERSONAL PROJECTION onto what Ilitch/ Harris are going to do for Tigers is the OPPOSITE of reality.

Just wanted to let you know that...

You *know* for a fact that Chris is going to spend at least an average amount on team payroll?  Great!  Glad to hear it.  Can't wait to see what Harris does with those kinds of resources.

Rock on dude.

Bottom line is I'm feeling about Chris WRT to the Tigers the same way I feel about SFH and the Lions.  It's just not gonna work from a winning standpoint until they sell.

Chris could choose to push for a 90 win team but he'd have to spend a lot more $$ than he's ever done before, and I don't see that happening now or ever. 

In fact, if Harris is successful in building an above average (85-90 win) team somehow without at least an average or above average payroll for a year or two, Chris (and a bunch of other people) would take that as prima facie evidence that you can win on the cheap (which is true for 2 or 3 teams, but not for the rest).  The winning probably would not last with a below average payroll, and it would probably fall back to mediocrity or worse, as it did in KC after their brief flirt with success.

If on the other hand, Harris is not successful in building a fairly consistent above average team with a below average payroll, Chris will at some point fire him and replace him with another GM and ask him to do the highly improbable/impossible.

Either way, I don't see Harris building a fairly consistent above average team with a consistently below average payroll.

I suspect what is more doable for Harris is a team that wins 75-80 games most of the time, and every 3rd or 4th year eeks into winning territory and they rent a player or two via ASB trade to try and make the playoffs in those years, and every so often stumbles into the 60s.  After a decade of conditioning fans to accept a crappy product (reinforced by near-constant failure from the other professional Detroit franchises), that will probably be Chris's (and the fans') measure of "success", I would guess.

We are starting to feel like Kansas City or St. Louis, but without the Chiefs or the Cardinals.  Blech.

9 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

The Buck 3 pt shooting at the end was the difference, though the Pistons also did fall into standing around watching Cade a little too much on a couple of the last possessions.

Yeah they did, though I have to say it's been really nice to see Cade in this mode of leading the offense.

He's been very effective the last few games, but he does need to get others a little more involved, especially Bey.

13 hours ago, Deleterious said:

 

Yeah it looks like a different player....more of a pace-setter, slashing more, taking more shots....good to see.

1 hour ago, NYLion said:

Two of their main bench bigs are on the shelf so that's not surprising.

What's the deal with Noel anyway? Apparently he's healthy enough to play and they can certainly use some size and defense in the interior so it's odd that he hasn't played yet especially with such a condensed earlier schedule and depth being important.

Noel is healthy?  They really need a guy of his size and apparent skill level out there.

4 hours ago, casimir said:

Over 39 minutes last night.  I didn't realize he was out there so much.  Probably doesn't bode well for tonight.  But Golden State at home, there's a chance to win it against that kind of competition, let the kids chase that win that's right in front of them.  Golden State kept pushing back in the second half, but I don't think they were able to get closer than a half dozen.  There was some good back and forth and each time had some runs (Poole had his own), but the Pistons established that lead and didn't give it up.  Sure, Golden State was on the end of a back to back on the road, but given the talent discrepancy, this should be something the teals should be proud of.  

The crowd noise..... look, I get the top teams are going to have fans all over, but it sounded 50/50 at best early on.  That's kind of frustrating to hear.

Honestly, I can't blame the fans for being divided at this point.  The Pistons have been a crap team forever and were off to a bad start this year.

1 hour ago, Deleterious said:

 

I love this guy but this seemed a little off at first blush for someone who will be 35 years old in the second year of the extension.

Given the partial guarantee of only $2M that seems reasonable.

1 hour ago, Deleterious said:

How does Killian have the balls to bring the ball up, dribble for 12 seconds, and shoot without passing to anyone?

Killian is the only player on this team that I actively dislike.  Just zero basketball sense, lots of TOs, poor shooter...gah.

Great production of course from Bey and Beef Stew, terrific effort everywhere from both of them.

Great win tonight...great effort, team game, lots of ball sharing.

Bogey really showing them how to play and how to communicate.

3 hours ago, Motor City Sonics said:

So, when they are,  what,  2-6 ? 

I hope not