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sabretooth

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Everything posted by sabretooth

  1. sabretooth
    Yeah, we disagree on some things but on this we are 100% in agreement. I root for him when he's playing because I am a Tiger fan, but his time is past here. I am not interested in seeing someone at DH everyday whose only skill is hitting soft singles to right field at a somewhat better than average clip, but not enough to make up for his utter lack of skills at everything else. I am not saying that he's holding another DH back, but we have got to move on.
  2. sabretooth
    Better management will get you so far, but if better management isn't going to be backed with sufficient resources to win, then better management isn't going to build winner by itself. If you subtract Miggy's contract, they are currently below $100 million dollars of team salary with a league average up over $140 million. Even a top flight GM would be hard pressed to put a winning team on the field with meager resources like that.
  3. sabretooth
    You are right, thats about the only way through this mess. Honestly, though, I think it takes more than keeping the owner out of the way. Even a great GM needs the owner to be engaged enough so that the owner will be willing to put heavy resources behind good players and ideas whenever its needed and beneficial, even and especially early on in the new GMs tenure. The most rock headed thing about Chris and AAs plan, other than the tanking itself, is that the plan seems to have been utterly and mercilessly sequential. FIRST you get rid of all of your good players. Whoops, we recieved absolutely NOTHING of lasting value in return...Candy being the closest thing. SECOND, you tank for years. Success! After a couple of years of that.... THIRD you build a sustainable farm system with up to date technology (years after everyone else of course). Utterly failed at this, unfortunately. FOURTH, you hire a proven manager, provided hes damaged goods and you can get him cheap. Success! FIFTH, you spend a little bit and see if that makes things a little better. Success in 2021! SIXTH, if that improves things you spend more, but still keep the payroll well below average. FAIL in 2022. FOLLOW THE PLAN. If you paint all of the designated spaces in the right sequence, you will complete a lovely velvet Elvis, suitable for your collection. They may yet succeed at this. Contrast Chris and AAs paint by numbers failure, which took forever to unfold with what Theo did in Chicago. Contrary to some reports, Theo pushed all of the buttons (Draft, Develop, Trade, FAs) more or less at the same time after a brief 2 season retooling. Theo did not lead them through a long tanking for picks process. If Chris had the brains and the guts to hire Theo, that would be amazing. His dad would have considered it, and might have done it too in the same situation. I cant imagine that with Chris.
  4. sabretooth
    100 correct. its the owner....and by virtue of his incompetence and prioritizing risk free profits rather than prioritizing on field success, his GM will always be hamstrung, even if Chris somehow lucks into hiring a superior GM talent-wise.
  5. sabretooth
    I actually think they have overperformed as a team despite a ton of injuries and extremely poor hitting from a number of guys. That is a credit to the miracle that AJ and Fetters have created with the bullpen. We have always wanted a top-line bullpen, and now we have it. We are overperforming our pythag by 4 games, which I credit to extremely deft handling of the bullpen.
  6. sabretooth
    Yes....they have been playing around .500 ball since the 9/23 start (May 12th), even though their hitting has only been average-ish for the last month.
  7. sabretooth
    The really distressing part is that now they have nothing but ashes in terms of starting pitching. Eduardo has to be gone. They will hopefully spend some $$ from the savings of a settlement to replace him with a clearly above-average/top-line pitcher. Healthy: - Average or above average: Skubal, who could be above average, or even better, but seems more like Matt Boyd. - Averages or below average: Garcia, Brieske, Pineda, Hutchison, Alexander (Pineda will be gone after this year, maybe 2 or 3 of them are effective as spot-starters/relievers. Injured temporarily and potentially effective: - Manning, Wentz, Faedo (I'm guessing maybe 1 or 2 of them wind up being decent or better) TJ Surgery and previously average/above average: - Turnbull and Mize (hopefully one comes back and is effective) At least 3-4 years away from being effective at the ML level: - Jobe (roll of the dice, maybe a 50-50 shot, but down the road) So basically, if everything works out nominally, we could have the following rotation by 2023: - Eduardo's replacement - Skubal - Manning, Wentz or Faedo (maybe 2?) That still leaves 1 or 2 holes. By 2024 maybe Turnbull or Mize fills one of them. By 2025 maybe Jobe is breaking in. Blech. 2025 would mark the 10 year anniversary of Avila's ascension to GM, and right now we would be lucky to have had one or two average or better years of overall starting pitching for that whole period, unless Chris authorizes a big signing, or possibly two.
  8. sabretooth
    Strangely enough, the offense has been about average for the last month, since June 18th, they have had a wRC+ of 97. That's not good enough, but it's not as bad as it had been before. It's been carried by about half of the offense: - Haase has been Ruthian over that period (177 wRC+) - Baez has been very good (126) - Grossman (111) and Greene (107) have been above average. - Harold C has been at 103, and - Victor has been at 89....below average, but not bad. Sadly, the rest of the lineup has been a drag. Candy, Schoop, Tork, Willi and Miggy have been between 71 - 84 for that period of time. All of their OBP and SLG have been around or below 300, except for Willi and Schoop's SLG at 340. I don't think firing Coolbaugh will actually resolve the performance problems, but I certainly would not be opposed to it.
  9. sabretooth
    Oh my word.
  10. sabretooth
    I agree. For me its both bad luck thus year, and the backdrop of a failed strategy since 2015 re: the farm system and 2017 re: tanking. But let's be realistic, even if Chris suddenly grows a brain and fires AA, he's not going to want to or be able to hire some elite GM like Theo, and he would probably settle for the most available internal option like Menzin. I have nothing against Menzin, but as a would-be rookie GM he would be a crapshoot, and I think the main problem is Chrissl' apparent low risk profit philosophy. There are articles out there calling for Chris to hire Theo, but lets also recall that Chris has never shown the slightest indication that he gives much of a damn about what the fans or writers or anybody thinks about the Tigers. He seems to care most about safe profits, and getting a top flight GM and placing a premium on winning is not the ultra-safe profits-first mode that Chris seems to prefer.
  11. sabretooth
    I agree. They have been unlucky this year, but they have also used a completely failed strategy re: tanking since 2017, and another failed strategy in building the farm system since 2015 under AA. And while I like AAs recent trades and acquisitions, and I still love the AJ hire, AA has never been elite at player acquistion, I dont really trust his skills, and Chris I has been very hesitating to provide the push and the resources behind his GM to create timely success.
  12. sabretooth
    That *should* be the case.
  13. sabretooth
    Yeah, I remained skeptical of AAs skills, but the Meadows trade seemed to be the indication that this FO was serious and capable enough of putting an interesting and winning product on the field, esp with AJ and Fetters' added value. Heaven knows I don't like Avila at all, but I think he has been a victim of some extremely bad luck this year.
  14. sabretooth
    If Tork is going to succeed in the MLB, and I have every expectation that he will, he should be doing productive things by 2023. Maybe Greene can be at least average or maybe above avg as well in 2023. If so, they would rightfully become the face of the franchise.
  15. sabretooth
    I keep hearing a lot of fans outside of MTS say that Cabrera is their best hitter this year and where would they be without him and so on and so forth. And when I go to the park even after his milestones have been reached, his is the most popular jersey and his arrival at the plate garners the biggest cheers by far. Cabrera unfortunately is their only seriously marketable player at this point. Hopefully sentimentality is spent in 2022/2023 and his resources are allocated elsewhere in 2024.
  16. sabretooth
    Sorry, mistype, I meant 2024. Hopefully there are rocking chairs being brought out in his honor throughout 2023.
  17. sabretooth
    My recent pissy post and my testy text arguments with other fans has proven to me that this ^#^&%* team has gotten way too far under my skin. I love what Fetters has done to make a great BP, Greene has been a sparkplug of sorts, and I am amazed that they have played near .500 ball since the dismal 9-23 start, despite losing their entire starting rotation, and despite the continued failure of half of their lineup. Regardless, this is just not a fun team to watch, other than Greene, and hes barely OPSing 700. Moreover, Chris is "very happy" with this team, seemingly no matter whether they succeed or suck. I am convinced that this team will not achieve anything better than mediocrity for the foreseeable future, as a result of the owners personal myopic focus on "safe" low risk profits. The last straw will be if they take the option on Cabrera. Keeping him around for that kind of money in 2023 would be a stupid PR move with zero upside on the field. A smart GM could do a lot with $30 million. But Alas we don't have a smart GM, nor a wins-oriented owner to help drive the GM to build the roster for success on the field.
  18. sabretooth
    Apologies to Jason, Lee, and others who were offended by my latest post. It was wrong of me. I asked motownwebguy to remove my post and he kindly obliged.
  19. sabretooth
    This is starting to feel like the Lions' forum....blech
  20. sabretooth
    It excelled at truthiness
  21. sabretooth
    My comment about you turning my respectful question inside-out was completely respectful on my part. If you are suggesting that I was commenting about the above in an insincere fashion in order to distract from the point (the definition of a red herring), then all I can say is (a) PHHHBBBBTT!!, (b) you're wrong and (c) maybe you should consider engaging in some pasttime that doesn't involve you questioning the basic motives of people you don't even know, as an argumentative tactic. If you instigate and keep returning to snarky and personal comments, I don't think it's the least bit hypocritical for me to respond with targeted sharp comments and sarcasm; and my original point remains completely intact even if I do so -- i.e., that you had no reason to take the conversation there in the first place. I also don't agree at all with your final point.....nobody suggested that Ilitch should have "turn Lalonde’s press conference into a news event about Avila’s job status." Just that if Chris was willing to talk about the Tigers, he shouldn't have sounded like an idiot.
  22. sabretooth
    https://www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/mlb/tigers/2022/07/06/detroit-tigers-gm-al-avila/7822762001/ Avila addresses the media after Chris' lolarious fail. Avila makes balanced and realistic-sounding statements expressing his disappointment **and anger** at the performance of the team, and the media treats it with reasonable-sounding headlines and balanced articles. Well whaddya know. The headline could also have been: "Avila passes basic intelligence test."
  23. sabretooth
    Yes, exactly. And for the record, I have **no problem with Chris publicly expressing optimism for the future**, including the near future. Nobody **expected** this team to compete this year. Everybody **hoped** that it **might** be possible. The Fangraphs Depth Charts projection system had them at 80 wins after they acquired Meadows and ERod and Chafin. That's good enough to sniff the playoffs with some good luck and a good mid-season pickup or two. The good luck turned to very very very bad luck and the above hopes have turned to dreams. To hear the owner declare that the rebuild is on schedule at the moment the team was playing worse than they were in 2017, 2018, and 2019 was absurd and added insult to injury. It was an unforced error, period. All anybody here is saying is that when Chris opens his mouth about the team, it should **at least** not sound ridiculous and out of touch with reality. He failed that test miserably in this case, and no amount of hypothesizing about how the Detroit media might spin/twist it if Chris said something more reasonable changes how stupid Chris sounded.
  24. sabretooth
    Oh, I agree. I think Skubal's good stretch elevated people's expectations of him, fairly or not, and those very high expectations are what is causing people to go ape-sheet over a string of bad starts. He has never possessed elite stuff. All three pitches (4S, Slider, Change) have to be working way above his career norms in order for him to pitch well, which is above his projections and established performance level. It seems far more likely to me that he will be a Matt Boyd type, and there's nothing wrong that. The fact that this team **needs** him to be better than Matt Boyd was is a function of how badly this team has performed at acquiring/drafting/developing talent.
  25. sabretooth
    You made the point that Chris shouldn't/couldn't say anything that might reflect even reasonable disappointment aobut the team's bad start because the headlines would twist it into "Ilitch slams Tigers!!". When I asked you for an example of where the Detroit media has twisted a sports owner's reasonable expression of disappointment into a "owner slams team!" headline, you presented the headline from the article, where Chris praised the progress of team, which you originally defended as an example of a job well done by Chris. Disapointing to see such a lack of self-awareness and contradictory statements from a self-proclaimed communications expert LOL Hey I hear your strawman is buying a round of drinks at Elwood's, hurry on down.
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