Tiger337

55 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I don’t know, I’m having a little trouble taking seriously an ex-NBA writer who would bat Parker at the top of the order and Colt #9.

I wouldn't take the opinion of any writer seriously for something like this.  

I have long believed that professional sports is filled with narcissistic "alpha males" and that I wouldn't enjoying hanging out with most of them on a regular basis.  They are not my friends though, so it doesn't matter.  They are great entertainers.

1 hour ago, Tigerbomb13 said:

The de-humanization of undocumented people is just gross. These are people just like you and me - these are people who have fled their own country for reasons such as political/gang violence or extreme poverty. 

About 40% of undocumented immigrants came here legally, but their work or student visa expired.  I understand the overstay is still illegal, but these aren't rapists and drug dealers.  In fact, only a small percentage of undocumented immigrants are serious criminals.  I don't think many would protest if they quietly removed that small percentage.  That does not require invading cities and disrupting and endangering the lives of everbody in the city

51 minutes ago, Hongbit said:

Honestly, what purpose did this post serve.  He doesn’t want to debate or discuss with you.

Nothing you say will resonate with him.  He wants exactly the response that you just gave him.  He loves that he’s bothered you to the extent that you took the time to reply.

He will continue to post incendiary tweets and his own hateful ideas as long as people engage with him.    

If nobody responds to it then he will eventually get bored and move on to troll libs somewhere else.  

Yes, people accused marothformvp and Stan and Archie of being trolls in the past, but I don't think they were capable of being better.  MAGAholic has always been prickly in this forum, but he was once a reasonable poster.  Now, he has made a a conscious effort to agitate people with every post he makes and is deliberately just being a trouble maker. That is why he is the first person I put on ignore in a couple of years.  

One of the students in the program in whch I work wrote a good article at WBUR about the dangers of AI potentially taking away our civil liberties: https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2026/02/25/ice-ai-surveillance-cell-phone-video-license-plate-readers-sarah-young-goldberg

3 hours ago, chasfh said:

For as much as fans wanted Harris’s priority to be supercharging the offense by acquiring proven major leaguers, it’s worth remembering that last season, with essentially this same team, the Tigers’ offense finished 12th in wOBA, above the midpoint, but also, 7th in wOBAcon, 9th in xwOBA, and 5th in xwOBAcon. Not for nothing, they also finished 11th in runs, and were 8th before they slid. And they did this with one of the youngest offenses in baseball. This means they are doing the right things to score, and there’s still room for growth.

Harris will get raked if the offense goes splat this year, and he’ll have earned that as the guy responsible for it. But the way things looked after their performance last year, standing pat on the core position players, if that’s what we end up doing, will have been a reasonable decision to make.

Of course, there’s a lot of time between now and March 26—one month from tomorrow!—to make a move and finalize the roster. But I won’t be disappointed on that day if we don’t.

FanGraphs projects them to finish 16th in the league in runs scored.  There were more gains to made on the pitching side and I am not upset that they didn't acquire a hitter, but I am not going to pretend that they don't have potential weaknesses in their line-up.  On the positive side, FanGraphs projects them to finish second in run prevention.  Great pitching and average offense is typically a successful mix.  

17 minutes ago, chasfh said:

They are taking the stereotype to new heights previously unimaginable.

Sure, they never expected us to descend towards authoritarianism and to turn on our allies, but as far as personal behavior goes, they were right on target.   Amereicans are loud, arrogant, self-absorbed, shallow, ignorant and unserious people.  In that respect, we got exactly what we deserved.  

8 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Unfortunately childish simplicity is what American Voters vote for. In America, serious people need not apply, or at least have to hide themselves behind a faux persona.

I joke about it, but I guarantee you Newsom will gain or lose more votes over his hair than he will over his positions on how zoning rules and building codes affect housing affordability.

We are living up to the ugly American stereotype for sure.  

21 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

I told you, guys with perfect hair are always suspect!

Newsom seems childish to me.  I am really hoping somebody more serious emerges.  I'm not going to hold my breath.  

12 minutes ago, Tenacious D said:

Offense will be fine.

It will mostly likely be ok.  What is certain is that nothing that happens in the first week of spring training has any bearing on the season at all, unless someone gets hurt.  

25 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

I don't care they they are losing with players that aren't going to make the team, as longs as they don't get so obsessed with seeing every joe blow prospect in the system in a Spring game that the regulars don't get in enough competitive work and we end up behind the 8-ball before the team hits stride around Mid May. It's still plenty early though....

They have the WBC tournament this year, so we might see more minor leaguers playing in spring training than usual.  

16 minutes ago, Edman85 said:

I predict no less than 50 times the same redundant Harris/Avila argument comes up randomly in threads from now through the end of September. Please don't take this as an invitation to repeat the same banal arguments from other threads.

not bold enough.  

6 hours ago, tiger2022 said:

The credit goes to the players first and foremost.  

 

yes

2 minutes ago, casimir said:

I'm not sure I understand you.

They are just as capable of keeping up with the demands of playing every day as they have ever been.  They have more off days now and no scheduled double headers for other reasons other than capability.  One of them is having a strong union. 

The reason for bigger pitching staffs is that teams have figured out that having more fresh pitchers allows their best pitchers to throw at maximum effort and get maximum results.  Then when they get tired, they have plenty of fresh arms to fill in the innings at the end of the game.  Pitchers could pitch just as many innings as they use to, if they were not pitching at maximum effort on every pitch.  

1 hour ago, casimir said:

I find it odd given advantages these days with respect to training and nutrition and general health and wellbeing that players aren’t able to keep up with the physical demands of the game now vs the past.

I suspect pitchers are putting too much on their arms and throwing maximum pitches rather than pitching a longer game is a strategy and health issue.  Throw it on a spectrum between the two, I’m not sure where it resides.  I grew up with shorter pitching staffs.  I think the 1984 Tigers had all of 13 or 14 different pitchers used that season.  There’s now 13 pitchers on the roster at any given time and a few of those are shuffled from majors to minors during the season.

The players have more leverage now.  

40 minutes ago, casimir said:

This is silly.  Who is claiming Avila deserves more credit than Harris?

Some have said that.  I wouldn't make that claim but I don't think it's outrageous to say that Avila deserves a good deal credit for the roster and I don't think there is an accurate way to say how much  

2 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I don't hate Avila, either. What I do hate is when people insist that Avila deserves as much as or more credit than Harris for the recent run of Tigers' success, and there were plenty of people here insisting as much.

I think it's impossible to measure how much each one deserves for 2024-2025.  You seemed to want to give Harris 100% credit which I don't agree with.  For 2026, His impact is going up substantially in my mind.  

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

For any lingering thoughts of wanting to see Harris get replaced, this pretty much puts the nail on the coffin of that thought. Are we beyond all that now, for certain? Is everyone on board with Scott Harris now? Am I no longer uniquely the board's Harris slappy?

I don't remember anyone saying they wanted him to be replaced.  Most people believed all along that he was a good GM for the long-term, but many wanted him to show more urgency to win now while they still have Skubal.  Now, that he's doing that, people feel better about both the present and future Tigers.   

On 2/20/2026 at 12:11 PM, romad1 said:

Feels like a part of the fever swamps have latched onto using a line item veto feature for the Constitution. 

 

 

 

only if they are part of a well-regulated militia.  

It's been years since I have blocked anyone, but the new blocking function works well.  You don't even know when they posted.  

4 hours ago, oblong said:

What at I missing that some would not like it?

I had the same thought.  

16 minutes ago, Screwball said:

That's pretty cool. You never know who you might get in your class.

 

I got lots of Divsion I hockey players in my classes at UMass Lowell.  Most of them weren't there to be students.  It was interesting experience!

2 minutes ago, Screwball said:

46 years to the day the USA Men's Hockey Team wins the Gold Metal. Congrats to them.

The 1980 story has to be one of the best sports stories in history. If you were alive at that time, it was one of those "I remember exactly where I was" kind of things. A truly magical and incredible story.

I thought the movie was really good, and there is a Netflix documentary that is excellent as well.  

I wasn't even a hockey fan, but it was still one of the best stories ever.  

Jim Craig's brother was a student in my class several years later.  

This is the annual bold predictions thread.  This is not a thread for projections or maybes or ifs or buts.  Say what you think will happen definitively from your gut.    

I'll start.  Kevin McGonigle will head north with the team as the starting shortstop, start off a little slow and then everything will click and he will be Rookie Of The Year.  

19 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Not only does ZIPS not agree (Bregman 10, McKinstry 42, Colt 73), they also have our two guys behind Jace Jung (20) and Hao Yu-Lee (21). 

Every site I looked at has Bregman in the top 10 and McKinstry and Keith outside the top 20.