sabretooth

Skubal's return is hopefully May 2023, who knows whether he will have the same stuff. Mize is out probably until 2024. Turnbull is a maybe for 2023. If we can get ONE of these two guys back in form by 2024 that would be good. Two seems hopeful, three seems like a pipe-dream. I would be surprised to see any of them pitch up to their previous standards in 2023. Breiske, Hill, Alexander, Hutch, Garcia, Faedo....love what they've done this year to fil lin for 5-15 starts each, but everybody knows that these are all marginal pitchers, not key parts of any future winning team. None of them has above average command, or out-pitches, or groundball production, or more than 1 or 2 reliable pitches in their repertoire. None of these guys should be counted on as a solution. So yeah you've got ERod, who should be able to give you 25 starts with 15 QS and an above-average ERA. You have Manning, who has turned in a decent 60 IP this year with a nice fastball, plus control, below average secondary pitches, and an unsustainably low HR/FB% of 7%....projects to an average starter, not bad, hopefully he can pull down 20+ starts in 2023 that sustain/improve on his current profile as a hopefully-middle-of-the-pack SP. Wentz is kinda interesting, he might turn into a decent starter, if he can stay healthy. Flores might see some action in Detroit in 2023, and Madden projects to 2024, they look like they might be decent or better. Maybe one of these guys pans out as an effective SP? Seems to me that we would be in great shape if we had four guys from the above list throwing 20+ starts effectively for them in 2024. In my opinion, even if things worked out, they would still need at least one more good pitcher from outside the system to build a winning rotation in 2024. I'm betting two. Baddoo is basically a "hoped for" guy at this point, I hope that he can churn out a decent season or three a la Boesch. Tork is still a premiere prospect who MUST be a 3+ WAR player for this team, and based on how he's been hitting since he came back from Toledo, that seems increasingly likely....if not, we are in worse shape than I thought. I think Carpenter, Kreidler, Lipcius, Perez, Dingler, and others will be getting a shot at playing time in 2023/24. I feel pretty confident that Carpenter and Kriedler can add some value, and I think Carpenter can be a 2 WAR player in 2023. I think Lipcius might also push out some of the potential deadwood (Candy) in the IF with some higher quality play. Perez and Dingler might be valuable semi-regular/bench players by 2024. Hopefully some/most of the above positional prospects (other than Tork and Greene, who project to be above average or better) wind up being average players in their respective roles, but I don't think anyone sees positional all-stars coming out of the minors within the next couple of years. No ONE thing can "fix" this team overnight, that's never been my claim. But hoping for or expecting this roster and minor-league system to produce a winning team is a total pipe-dream. Most or everything that broke this year has to improve or bounce back to normal levels in order for them to chase 80 wins. In order to build a winner without waiting 3-5 years, they were always going to need at least one or two more good players from outside of the system to make it happen. Bottom line: if Harris is going to build a winner in less than 3-5 years, before 2024 starts, they will be adding at least two good multi-year FAs.

I don't think anyone will object to a 1-year evaluation period before pulling the switch on bigger plans. But an evaluation year doesn't require that they stand pat either.

If Jared Goff were President, he would be called Baberaham Lincoln.

I dont think that they can achieve winning without first increasing payroll. The minimum definition of "winning" in this context is successive winning seasons. If Harris isnt able to produce this without another interminable delay of more than 3-5 years, that would be a fail. In my opinion, there is no way that they will have successive winning seasons in the next 3-5 years without **first** achieving a league average team payroll. Miggys wasted $$ in 2023 notwithstanding, they are going to be $45M below average. They will need that $$ to help fill major gaping holes that the minor leagues does not have the capacity to fill. They desperately need to find a handful of new players beyond their existing roster/system who can produce league average production: . And any new draft picks are going to need at minimum 3 years and likely 4 or 5 years to provide better than average performance (2.5+ WAR). They need to draft, develop, sign intl players, make good trades....and absolutely, sign several good free agents.

Very encouraging presser. Liked what I heard from Chris, esp. about giving Harris the authority to hire a GM. Harris needs to figure out how to stay in Chris' orbit and how to get him engaged, at least to the point where an average payroll is committed and profits are still reasonably assured.

Nice pull by Tork

Yeah, the deep game needs to be there and/or mobility...if there's a better QB out there that they can acquire and plug in then great. I hope they can do that.

Seems like the right pedigree for anyone not named Theo Epstein.

Yeah even 1 or 2 of the half dozen injuries that they've suffered would have been used in the past as an excuse for 6, 12, or 18 point games..... And we would have also heard "well just wait till Williams gets here". Instead they're banged up and at half strength with some players not performing well, and they're still putting up 35 plus points. And a running game that would be the envy of the University of Michigan going up against 2nd rate team. Hell I haven't even seen an average running game for Detroit since Barry left. I am ***super*** impressed by this offense so far. I realized they've had some bad stretches and could do better but they have far exceeded my so so expectations.

ok

what is "defender by sacks"?

Another great O Line performance despite injuries.

The offense was dominating. Awesome performance. The D faded in the 2nd half, and may have been hampered by Hutch's bad ankle in the 2nd half...hopefully the ankle is OK.

Bwahahahaaa!!!! The Commandos are so Lionesque

FIFY 😀

Thanks

Has he played in the 2nd half?

What is the deal with Hutch? I am in a conference session and have limited info

With all that muscle you go for the 18 year old pitcher. Hopefully the new GM isnt as enamored with 18 year old pitchers as Avila seemed to be.

That is a great point.

Maybe he feels that Hinchs involvement gives him the cover that a consultant would provide, and scapegoat should the new GM not work out. Look how he recently handled the question about JVs firesale trade. It was like he didnt even care that a generational player was pissed away. His response was basically to blame Avila and let it stand at that.

Yeah, this is my sense of his approach WRT the Tigers.

Put another way at this point you're probably not going to find a better fan of Hinch... But I'm not going to have good feelings about the new GM just because hes somebody that Hinch is comfortable with. A preexistent good relationship with Hinch might be a plus, and it might be a minus. I've seen plenty of cases in life where a symbiotic relationship works best, and some cases where a more dynamic relationship works best.

I can't speak to the particulars because I'm doing this while I'm driving and cannot research at this moment. For what it's worth I didn't post this column because I thought it was a scoop. I posted it because the guy's thinking about the publicly speculated candidates aligned with my own thinking. I'll quickly compare my sense of this search at this moment to the most recent executive search, being the Lions. My sense throughout in terms of how the Lions handled their last search was that they were engaged with the media and worked to align public expectations. At the time I had a sense of who was involved in what each person was contributing and it made sense to me. I also had a good sense that they were looking to establish a new management team that would be forward looking and not simply a retread or some other lazy approach. I surely had my doubts because of the inexperience of the owner, but it seemed like a sound process with a good and viable goal. If we really don't know anything about this, and they're doing something good behind the scenes, OK fine. I think it would be better for them to establish and align the public's expectations so that they can build support for the outcome. My intuition tells me that's a list that has been put out there is probably pretty close to the mark. If thats wrong and they hire somebody better great.

https://motorcitybengals.com/2022/09/14/the-detroit-tigers-gm-search-wreaks-of-incompetence/amp/ Seems accurate and predictable. The same owner that gave you the last 5 years of Al Avila will now give you another uninspired hire. I think whoever they hire will be more talented than Avila but that's a pretty low bar.