kdog

The Tigers road to mediocrity starts with pitching and run prevention. I don't see it happening, but that's how they get better. The offense will revert to the mean a bit but I don't see long term fixes.

Short is playing in the second game.

I'm invested in how the pitching staff evolves for next year. You will get Melton back tomorrow then Jobe in a few months. We need to see them prove that they are durable and can be counted out after the lockout. Once they get healthy on offense, they have to completely churn the middle and back end of the roster. That includes Tork, Perez, McKinstry, etc. It's time to punish people who are not performing to even their middling standard.

G We are going down with the ship.

They have a couple more weeks before you have to look at guys who will be here after the lockout. Even with the expectations, sometimes it doesn't work out. You need to be prepared to pivot.

In theory, a low talent offensive team could win on the margins. This team is pathetic and they lose every edge on the margins. Time to start throwing guys overboard just to change the vibes.

Meadows and Carpenter get hurt every year. You have to bake that in.

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

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.

That should be part of their calculus. You have to retrain him every year to get replacment level value.

https://www.audacy.com/971theticket/sports/detroit-tigers/detroit-tigers-offense-scott-harris

Absent without runs.

They staked this season on internal development...but it's not linear. Sometimes guys you think are good can't stack good seasons..and then you are stuck with just rolling them out there every night praying they can find their groove..And there are no answers coming from the minors. This is it.

The hitting chaos doens't work if you only have 3 reliable hitters. McKinstry has to be teetering.

Jung is closer to a DFA than a callup.

Rogers is essentially hitting like a pitcher. His offense is completely gone...at some point you can't live with that. Perez might not be good...McKinstry has always been a fringe/gritty major leaguer. Tork and Keith were relied on and can't consistently deliver floor-level production. That's the killer

There are no good choices here.