Scottwood

Woj was on ESPN a few weeks ago and said NBA execs put Victor as a top 3 prospect ever with LeBron and Kareem. So, they haven't changed their views of him at all. It does seem like Scoot is not as hyped as he once was. He's still considered a great prospect, but at one point he was being talked about as a #1 pick in most drafts and I don't get the sense that NBA execs feel that way anymore. I think the only thing that will stop Vic is injuries.

It doesn't happen often in the draft due to a lack of information, but the Jobe pick was an instance where it would have been better if the Tigers fanbase chose the #3 pick instead of the Tigers GM and amateur scouts. It was an obviously wrong pick at the time and it has gotten even worse since then.

The Tigers system is awful. Pretty much every system has depth that could break through if things break right and the Tigers are no different in that regard. As of now, the Tigers don't really have any top 50 or higher talent and so they will do poorly on any ranking. That will change a bit at the end of the year with the addition of the #3 draft pick, but still a long way to go. I think the international system's lack of success is mostly tied to the Illitch family, though. I don't think any organization invests less in player development for international prospects than the Tigers have done. Their facilities are a total joke and they don't even own them. I'm hoping Harris can get Illitch to change on that front. It is about 28% of the player pool and the Tigers have been playing with one arm behind their back for a long time. In terms of Avila, I had disliked him for a long time, but the day they chose Jobe over Mayer and Lawlar broke me. Jobe is a decent prospect too and could pan out, but it is still an indefensible pick. They didn't even save money on the pick as Jobe signed for almost full slot value and for more than Mayer and Lawlar signed for with their respective clubs. In happier news, at least Jack Morris doesn't get paid anymore to announce for the team.

On paper, it is a great hire. The Tigers might finally have a modern baseball organization.

I don't really understand calling it the Inflation Reduction Act when it likely will have no impact on inflation either positively or negatively. I would have signed the bill since I don't think it will make inflation worse and the R & D investments on climate tech are better than the status quo, but it could have used a different name. I think the most disappointing part of Biden's presidency has been a lack of progress on immigration. But, that also seems like an area he hasn't evolved enough on, so maybe it is to be expected. As one example, the CHIPS + science bill is probably one of the better standalone bipartisan bills passed by Congress in awhile, but it won't mean as much if the US doesn't start taking in a lot more high skilled immigrants; particularly those in STEM fields.

I think the new GM will build out a biomechanics department since the Tigers are very light there. I'd suspect that Chadd and Pleis could be fired and additional scouting and player development support will be added to the international operation. Maybe they won't fire anyone in the analytics department, but I could see more of an emphasis on adding people with pure quant backgrounds and around machine learning. They are kind of light there, as well. The Tigers just overhauled their player development system in the minors so they might let that play out more before making drastic moves. But, overall, yeah probably more tweaks than anything. The biomechanics department is the most obvious overhaul and 1 or 2 of the top scouts are scapegoat candidates. Chadd has been here so long, he seems like an obvious one. I'd expect Hinch to fire Coolbaugh and Hessman and maybe they'll hire hitting coaches who were/are affiliated with Driveline to be with them now at the MLB level.

If Hinch is going to be heavily involved, then maybe it will be Pete Putila from the Astros.

Carpenter would project as a 2 WAR DH if he hits his projected batting numbers on Fangraphs. Unlikely, but here's hoping. He crushed AA and AAA pitching so much this year that the data models like him a lot now. A prospect list that only looked at numbers and nothing else would probably have Carpenter as a top 100 prospect (but the back end of said list).

They'll probably just put Cabrera on the 60 day DL next year and pay him that way. It would be similar to what the Wings did with Zetterberg at the end of his career. I'd guess the Tigers would then get some money relief through insurance this way? Either way, I kind of doubt Illitch is going to open up the pocket book this offseason given what happened this past offseason with the Baez and Rodriguez deals. Any improvement will have to be internal or through trades or small FA signings. I've talked myself into thinking the Tigers are going to "promote" Avila to some figure head position and then recruit Will Rhymes to be the new GM and overhaul player development throughout the organization and also better intertwine the scouting department with player development. That has been his main task with the Dodgers. He has a lot of connections with the Tigers, and he's kind of stuck with where he is with the Dodgers with no chance of advancement given the ages of the execs ahead of him. It's also a big leap to go from a director of player development to running an organization, but that's probably the best case scenario of someone the Tigers would be able to recruit here at this point.

I think the game has passed by Avila and he hasn't caught up and he needs to be fired. Even just the entire stated strategy of first getting the pitching right and devoting tons of resources the first few drafts of Avila's tenure to pitching and then adding position players later makes no sense. Pitchers break and are unreliable. I do think the current front office would probably not have drafted Mize or Manning or Faedo as they are going after pitchers now with better raw stuff to build off of. Seeing that the past two drafts has been a positive if nothing else. But it is too little too late now. I also think Illitch has been a really bad owner and the thing where the Tigers would add a few things to modernize the org each offseason (this year was new heads of player development, in 2021 they added new additional coaches to the minor leagues, in other years they added more technology, etc.) is probably more an Illitch thing rather than Avila. I'm guessing Avila or any baseball exec would have wanted a total overhaul 5 or 6 years ago as opposed to a little here and there since it still leaves you behind other organizations. In a recent podcast, Cody Stavenhagen from The Athletic mentioned that the Tigers have now realized that they are behind other orgs in injury prevention. So, they will probably add to their biomechanics department this coming off season now. But, it is just more of the same. They constantly play catch up. I think maybe every MLB org has their own facility in the Dominican Republic now, or at least are in the process of building their own. So, I'd guess the Tigers will eventually do that too and announce that one off season. Then, once they do that, they'll have to add actual resources there and try to catch up there. The Dodgers and other organizations have an entire research department in addition to an analytics department. So, the Tigers will probably add a small version of that a different offseason. But, I'd guess that is more of an Illitch thing than Avila. Either way, the Tigers are arguably the worst organization in MLB all things considered and requires a change in how ownership invests in the organization and in the way it is actually run from the GM and other baseball front office execs.

My worry is it's going to be difficult to get a top flight up and coming GM to come to Detroit with the longstanding indifference the Illitch family has had to International scouting and player development. They don't even own the facility in the Dominican Republic and have arguably committed the least amount of resources of any MLB organization to its international operations. It is hard to win as a small or medium market if you basically ignore 30% of the player pool. If you model the organization after the Rays or a team like that, but with a little more expensive big league payroll, then you have to commit to gaining every advantage you can. It will be hard to recruit anyone good if they don't think that ownership is willing to invest to try to win. In addition to that, hiring a quant GM and completely overhauling player development in the minors and majors to a more new age hitting approach are the other main things I'd like to see change. I had mentioned this on the other site when Hinch's hires were first announced and he hired a lot of really good assistants or well thought of people in player development (like Fetter), but then went totally old school with a failed hitting coach. It's still an odd decision. The swing path of basically every Tigers hitter has been markedly worse this year and Tork's was seemingly changed right after he entered the minors. Another benefit of a quality GM who is up and coming is they would also likely be able to recruit other up and coming staff (due to their connections) to head up player development, beef up the biomechanics department and analytics department, etc. Avila is far removed from that world so anyone he brings in, like a Ryan Garko, is going to be uninspiring.

The Tigers have a bottom 10 farm system now on Fangraphs with Riley Greene graduating from prospect status.

It's amazing that Fulmer realistically could have been moved a couple seasons ago for at least one top 100 prospect and then is finally moved for a random AA starter after Fulmer had a number of injuries and had to shift to the bullpen. That was underwhelming. But, par for the course for Avila and his general asset management. So, not surprising that nothing happened with Skubal, Soto, Lange, etc.

The Tigers should trade Chafin to a contender just so he gets the vaccine. Either way, I think it is highly likely that he is traded. He almost assuredly will opt out in the off season since he's probably going to at worst match his salary in 2023 and get more guaranteed money for future seasons.

Shopping Skubal is smart. Pitchers break. I don't really trust Avila to get a good return, but that's more of a problem with the current GM rather than the general strategy.

Johnson and Pridgen are interesting. Pridgen is usually the type of guy the Dodgers would target in later rounds so that was nice to see. Pridgen had one of the highest K/9 rates in college and gets lots of swing and misses.

Kind of a meh second day, which is to be expected with their limited draft pool money. Michael in the 10th round is at least an interesting pick for a guy who is probably going under slot. The Tigers still skew more traditional rather than data focused in the draft. But, walking out of the draft with Jung and Graham was much better than I expected going in so it's been a good draft overall.

Shop all the relievers and hope for the best.

Jung and Graham are probably better thought of combined than Jobe and Pacheco were last year. Madden was an extra pick last year that we don't have this year and while the mainstream sites liked him, the more analytical boards were fairly sour on him. Madden's ERA looks good, but his peripheral stats this year are pedestrian. Assuming Avila is replaced, whoever they get to replace him should at least be happy with these 2 picks this year as a building block. The Tigers basically got two 1st round picks from a value standpoint.

There's a good analytical breakdown of Jung here based off Trackman data. He was #11 on this person's board. https://medium.com/@tieranbaseball/mlb-draft-top-500-prospects-fba9fe7fceaf

A good DH still has a lot of value, particularly with both leagues having a DH now. As long as he hits well, Jung will be a good pick. He has a really good hitter profile. Of course, it is still on the Tigers to develop him.

Sounds like Jung. That's a good pick. Him or Collier was kind of a tough call, but Jung is more of a sure thing. The draft fell their way.

Gosh, the Tigers could get either Jung, Collier, Parada, Susac or Neto.

It seems like Tork should have been optioned down 150 PAs ago, but good to see nonetheless.

Only 29 innings, but Jobe has had about a poor start to his minor league career (with the exception of a bad injury) as one could have thought for low A ball. Andrew Painter, a fellow RHP from HS in the same class and 8 months younger, dominated A ball and was already promoted to high A ball. Mayer and Lawlar, the two more realistic guys they could have taken at # 3, have also been as good as advertised so far. Still time to turn it around this season, though.