Tiger337

Why are people talking about a lockout next year like it's a foregone conclusion?  Every time the labor contract ends, there is lots of negativity and acrimony, but there hasn't been a season destroying work stoppage in 32 years.  

11 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

If we dont walk it off, i agree. Cleveland can play small ball, Detroit can't. Whether you agree with bunting or not, sometimes it matters.

I thought home runs were what mattered.  

6 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

If your talking about LA, the fire and brimstone didn't work just because they were playing badly, it worked because it was a sloppy, undisciplined, and unserious clubhouse. If that were a problem here it would actually be easier. If anything, this team may to too serious and prone to pressing.

I don't even know if it did work, but I get why it might work for Gibson.  I agree with you about it probably not working for this team.  

8 minutes ago, monkeytargets39 said:

Workman stinks

He is better than Jung though.  

29 minutes ago, NorthWoods said:

Remind me how many titles Dirks won?

Yet he gives advice that fire and brimstone won't work.   Worked for Gibby.

It works in football and Gibson was a football player, so maybe it carried over.  I don't think it works so well in baseball for most players.  Baseball is game of skill and precision and it is played 6 time per week.  It seems like fire and brimstone would be unsustainable.  One example of a player it doesn't work for is Valdez.    

10 minutes ago, monkeytargets39 said:

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Sure—but when does the plan match the actions?  

 

I was mostly being sarcastic.  I think it's one of these lines that management teams like to repeat over and over.  I mean it's a line that sounds really good, but it's also pretty vague and probably not possible to have every player in the organization follow.  

 

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, monkeytargets39 said:

I think deep down that’s my problem with the organization.  We can never define what type of team we are supposed to be.  Are we going to win with pitching and defense, or are we going to win with offensive fire power?  
 

If we are going to win with pitching, are we going to do that by amassing guys with overpowering stuff/velocity, or by using control pitchers to hit spots and exploit weaknesses and let them hit into our advanced defensive positioning and abilities.

 

Regardless— why is our rotation loaded up on guys who overpower with one or two amazing pitches and high velocity who attack hitters and then our bullpen is always full of low velocity, matchup dependent guys who are more pitch to contact (Holton, Hanifee, Hurter, Finnegan, Kahnle, Foley, etc.)

 

Likewise, we’ve been saying for several years that we want to be a team that’s versatile and strong defensively, yet we have had all these guys like Keith, Jones, Carpenter, Jung, Workman, Perez, JHM, etc.) who are practically positionless because of their defensive deficiencies—on top of solidly below average regulars like Tork, Riley and Torres?  So then we overcorrect that by playing guys like McKinstry, Short, Ibanez, etc. who should be end of the bench guys getting 150-200 PAs a year?

 

If we are going to be a team that dominates the strike zone and waits for their pitches and drives it, then why do we continue to give ABs to guys that do the opposite?  Baez, Perez, Carpenter, Vierling, Rogers, Keith and Jones are all free swingers with poor walk rates.  Then there’s Torkelson who has already struck out 63 times this year and we aren’t even 1/3 the way through the season yet.

 

Define what parts of the game we both want to and have the ability to excel at and then start working to build a roster based off of that philosophy.  I don’t blame Hinch for all of the analytics and matchup moves because that’s the only real way to make the group as it is have any success.  Too many guys are proving to be only useful in one aspect of the game and he is constantly having to try and figure out which deficiencies need to have a bedsheet thrown over them to hide them from being exposed.

 

Obviously it’s not as simple as get rid of guys and replace them with better guys tomorrow, but it’s concerning that this is a problem top to bottom in the organization.  There’s way too many guys who are liabilities on defense whose offense doesn’t appropriately make up for it.   Likewise there’s guys that hit a ton but don’t walk, K a lot and play poor defense.

Harris has do done well identifying and drafting players for what his vision is, but if he cant make trades or get international talent in, then we will never have more than a few guys on the roster at any given time that fit the profile.  Especially if he’s just going to dumpster dive for pitching help.

Their plan is to "control the strike zone"

3 hours ago, RatkoVarda said:

it is going to take a while to die, but this country is done.

the abject, blatant corruption is breathtaking.

MAGA is the ultimate combination of grifters, racists, nihilist, useful idiots, and just plain weird and nasty trash.

a basket of deplorables.

So, what's it going to be - Dictatorship or Chinese colony? 

5 hours ago, Sports_Freak said:

OK...we have TBD as our SP. Jake? 😆

They are going to borrow a pitcher from the Tampa Bay Devil Rays

2 minutes ago, kdog said:

Or they needed certain pillar guys to stay healthy and it didn't happen.

They had the pitching.  The defense is lacking, healthy or not.  I do think their long-term plan is to get more complete ball players that can make contact and get on base and also play defense rather than one dimensional players.  

59 minutes ago, kdog said:

Cleveland plays their game(contact, defense, pitching) and they do not deviate from it. They will trade guys who get too expensive and stick to their budget.

That might cause them not to have top end potential to win 95 games, but they will always have a floor because everyone in the org knows and implements the same plan.

The Tigers roster is not in sync like that. They haven't moved on from guys who don't work and have some excess on the payroll(Flaherty,Torres) that are not produding.

OBP - defense - pitching.   I do think that is the long term Tigers plan, but they are obviously not there yet.  

3 minutes ago, monkeytargets39 said:

Even though the HRs haven’t shown up as much, he’s definitely seen a huge uptick in exit velocity, hard hit %, and Launch Angle sweet spot %.  In addition to still maintaining his barrel and sweet spot metrics, while also dramatically improving his chase rate.

 

Everything is there to suggest that he can wind up still hitting a bunch of HRs—it’s just a bit fluky that he hasn’t to this point.  Warmer weather will help.

His statcast chart this year is very similar to 2023-2024, so I think he'll slug similarly to those years.  If he can keep some of his batting average improvement, that will be a great year.  

4 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

I dont know. He's red hot right now but home runs aren't coming. Did he change that huge, long uppercut swing? Is that what sent the ball flying 450 feet? Cutting down on the strikeouts is huge. And yes, if the other guys were producing (or healthy), he would have better numbers. And to be honest, I really like the new and improved Riley. Home runs or not...

I don't envision him batting .335 all year, so I hope the power increases and I believe it will.  Everybody is going to hit more home runs in the summer.  Home runs always go up when the weather gets hot.  

2 hours ago, romad1 said:

We aren’t mad enough

The only thing that will make people mad is an economic crisis.  A third of the country doesn't even care.  They don't even vote.    

23 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

Is the batting average and cutting down on strikeouts by Greene acceptable if it takes away some of his HR total? The guy is red hot and I hope it continues but what about the tradeoff? Less power for less strikeouts? (NOT complaining)

Greene's slugging average is the same as last year and is OBP is 120 points higher.  I will take that trade off! I do think he'll end up somewhere in the middle with lower batting average and more power than he has right now.  

On 5/15/2026 at 10:00 PM, tiger2022 said:

Will anyone on the roster get to 20 HRs by the end of the season?  It seems like Dingler will 

I'm starting to think only Dingler, Carpenter, Torkelson, and Greene will even get to 10.

Greene and Torkelson will hit 20 home runs.  Carpeneter will make it if he is healthy.  Dingler will make it if he doesn't wear down.  

Just now, gehringer_2 said:

and nobody yet on rehab....

I am kind of tuning out at this point - just listening on the radio as I do other stuff.  

3 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Tigers sent the following OPS hitters to the plate tonight: 278, 470, 480, 577, 592

OPS of players who could be in line-up if not injured: .750 .716 .678 .641

6 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

So ignore the hitting problem because pitchers may get injured. Try to win low scoring games. In that case, we also had the problem with our defense. 

They didn't ignore the hitting problem.  They added McGonigle.    Their offense was not great, but it was fine in April.  Then the injuries started.  You still haven't said who else you think they should have added.  You could make a case that they should have added some hitting instead of Verlander and Anderson, but what great hitter would they get for that money?    

36 minutes ago, tiger2022 said:

Because a home run gives you instant scoring.  You don't need to rely on stringing two or three hits together by punch and judy hitters.  

I understand that but other teams are able to score runs without a high home run total.  Milwaukee, Tampa Bay and Miami have fewer homers than the Tigers, but they rank in the top half of MLB in runs scored.  The difference is the get on base more often than the Tigers.  

26 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

Ugh...first off, they signed Valdez BEFORE they had pitching injuries. Olson was still being counted on, so was an effective Flaherty. As well as Melton. So current injuries, while predictable, arent the reason they signed Valdez. But hitting WAS a known problem and that problem was ignored. You cant say McGonigle was their answer to our hitting because nobody knew he was even going to be on the team. Its like....one strawman argument after another.

So, they just should have assumed that there would be no pitching injuries?  Olson was not healthy at any point in the off-season and Melton was somewhat of an unknown.  You need at least 7 starters on your roster going into the season.  

5 minutes ago, tiger2022 said:

McGonigle is a nice little hitter but isn't going to provide any power.  He's on pace for 7 home runs.  He's not going to be a game changer, especially with a bunch of guys who can't hit around him.

The only reason I didn't like the Valdez signing is He's an average guy who relies on ground balls coming to a team with very limited range and defensive ability in the infield.

I don't understand the obsession with home runs.  I think he is a game changer...but he can't do it by himself.  Trout never could either and he hits plenty of home runs.  

Just now, Sports_Freak said:

Again, it's not the fact that they use advanced stats to help them make decisions. Its the incorrect use of them thats the problem. It was really, really obvious last season that our offense needed serious help. We had an off-season to sign or trade for needed help. We didn't sign or trade for anyone. That's a failure...whether they used some secret formula or whatever. Luckily, there's still plenty of season left. We need to get Javy and Carp back. Short and Perez are worse than black holes. They're hopeless.

They needed hitting, but they also needed pitching and they had a limited budget.  Maybe they did pursue a hitter and they couldn't find one that wanted to sign for what they were able to offer.  Or maybe they tried to get one in a trade, but teams did not have a reasonable asking price.  Or maybe they decided that Valdez and Jansen would improve their run prevention more than the best available hitter would improve their offense.  I was pretty happy with the team going into the season.  I was still happy after April, but then the injuries piled up.  

You should know that I am not a Harris slappy, and I was pretty unhappy with the off-season before they got Valdez.  I thought he would make a big difference and he still might.  I still don't know what hitter you think they could have gotten that would have changed everyting.  

2 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

I'm not a GM. I don't make trades. Same as Harris...he doesnt make trades. But yeah. You're right, everything is fine and wonderful because everyone uses analytics.

I didn't say everything was fine and wonderful.  What I am saying is that they would be a worse organization without analytics.  If other teams are using it better than them (I don't know if they are), that would be a problem though.  

11 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

this of course is the crux, it's not what you know, it's how you use it, and whether in the end you are better on the field. The Tigers' analytics dept may be every bit as good as Cleveland's, and Hinch may be a more analytically well versed manager than whoever has sat in that chair in Cleveland, but for some reason they keep having as much or more success rotating in effective players over time. Or TL,DR version - just because you use analytics is no guarantee you are going to make the most optimal choices. I think in the main the failure in this org is still its lack of success finding players in Latin America. Something like 30-40 of all MLB talent originates outside the US and the Tigers seem to still be missing the boat there completely.That means the development end is playing with one hand tied behind its back.

Yes, that is why I said I was happy that the Tigers had finally embraced analytics, but I wasn't sure whether or not Harris (and company) was a good GM compared to other analytic GMs.  

The lack of international talent is a problem.  I am not sure if that is left over from the previous administration or whether it's an ongoing problem.