Scottwood

It's time to fire Avila at this point. He tried to create a modern MLB organization, but it took him so long to make obvious moves (Littlefield never should have been in charge of player development), that the Tigers are constantly playing catch up. They really need someone from one of these modern MLB orgs that actually knows what they are doing and is innovative. The Tigers under Avila mostly just copy whatever other orgs do but years after those other orgs have figured something out. Its way too early to evaluate the 2021 draft, but part of my concern with that draft was the Tigers seemed like they just took pitchers with high spin rates because that became the "it" thing that organizations looked at. But, teams like Houston and TB were on to that in 2016 and are beyond that now and that is just one piece of the puzzle.

They aren't going to make the playoffs and Tork has really struggled. They should do what the Padres just did to top prospect CJ Abrams and send Tork down. I don't see why we'd waste a year of service time at this point given how much he's struggling. He never dominated AAA or anything either. He should go down for at least a month or two and try to get right in Toledo.

Detroit punches above its weight as a sports town. Very loyal fanbases and they always get good TV ratings relative to market size. The Tigers or any other major Detroit sports franchise isn't going to leave.

I have to think that Tork might go to Toledo soon.

Jobe got rocked. 9 K's, 5 BB's, 6.14 ERA in 7.1 innings so far this year. It's crazy to see what fellow HS RHP Andrew Painter has been doing- 40 K's, 7 BB, 0.00 ERA in 20 innings in A ball.

Meadows is arguably better against LHP than Cabrera is, so I was a little surprised by that walk.

Jobe has a very long way to go. But, if he was in the majors, the spin rates on his four seam fastball and curveball would both be #1 in MLB among starters. It is encouraging that his raw stuff is as advertised. By the looks of it, I'd guess he doesn't a high active spin % on his fastball, so a lot of it is wasted. It's also probably easy to spot the curveball out of his hand at this point so batters can just lay off it. You can tell he's very raw. It's just that his upside, if he hits it, is to be the best pitcher in baseball. Someone like Casey Mize never had that ceiling. Of course, odds are Jobe doesn't get close to that ceiling. There's going to be lots of pressure on him because there are several hitters taken after him that could reasonably have been taken at #3 that look really good so far and are also higher than him on prospect lists.

I thought going into the year, that the Tigers are two years away. For them to exceed expectations this season, though, it's really going to come down to Mize, Skubal and Manning significantly outperforming what is expected. Not a great start so far, but it's still very early. The Meadows acquisition, along with Greene hopefully coming back, does make the lineup better than I thought it would be.

Both those last two called strikes to Tork could have been called balls.

That's tough. The Tigers will eventually need to stop batting one of their worst hitters in the 5th spot in the batting order.

Lakeland released their roster. Notable names missing include Jackson Jobe, Tanner Kohlhepp, Cristian Santana and Adinso Reyes. Campos, Pacheco, Sequera and a lot of names from last year's draft are on it. I know Jobe is on an innings limit so they might wait until a bit later to get him game action. Reyes has struggled a lot ever since coming over to the US and Santana is still only 18. I'm not sure what happened with Kohlhepp (5th round pick last year). Youngest member is pitcher Carlos Marcano- he doesn't turn 19 until July. https://www.milb.com/lakeland/roster

If I had to guess from the Rays standpoint... Paredes has always been an analytical darling and he's still very young. They probably view Meadows as a DH, particularly with their options in the OF. He'll also be getting more expensive the next few years and they have a tight budget. It is a relatively valuable pick, too.

Great trade. I do expect Paredes will do well with TB, but it looked like it just wasn't going to work with him here in this specific situation with our org for one reason or another. This makes me more confident in the future- these are the types of deals (acquiring league average players on cheap deals) that we'll need to do more of a few seasons from now when Mize, Skubal, Tork, Greene, etc. start getting much more expensive. An underrated aspect of this is that it opens the door to turn Cabrera into a platoon DH who only hits vs LHP a few months from now when Greene returns.

Sounds like maybe 6 to 8 weeks recovery and then they'll probably have him in Toledo for a bit on a rehab assignment. It's pretty cruel for Greene because it extends his time by an extra year until he is eligible for FA. Against RHP, I wouldn't be surprised if Harold Castro got more time in the OF than Reyes. It seemed like Chafin came in pretty unprepared for the season. Hopefully, he's not out long and can get right during his DL stint. Both he and Fulmer had large drops in the quality of their stuff in ST.

Greene's batted ball data, even ignoring the outcomes, is elite. It's better than Tork's, actually. Hopefully he can keep it up.

Kreidler, at minimum, is going to be a multi-year backup utility infielder for the Tigers. I'd think he'll be up full time by next season. Not sure if he'll hit enough for anything beyond that, but it would be surprising if he didn't carve out a role at this point in MLB. Barring injury, of course.

Only bad part of spring training has been seeing Fulmer and Chafin lose 3+ MPHs on their pitches and a decline in their stuff. Otherwise, things have gone well for everyone else.

How long until Cabrera drops to 8th in the lineup?

Mize's splitter had a lot less spin today (which is good for that pitch). So, he's definitely tweaked it from last year and it drops a lot more. If that is sustainable, that would be huge for his development. The biggest thing he's lacked is a put away pitch. He had that once with his splitter, which used to get 70 grades on the scouting scale. So, hopefully he can get that back.

I completely forgot that Del Pozo was on the 40 man roster. He'd be my bet for the first DFA whenever that time comes.

I think the Tigers are an average to slightly above average team if Mize, Skubal and Manning have quality years. Otherwise, with a more median outcome, they could finish with around the 10th worst record again. I think catcher is a weak spot, the bullpen is potentially as well, and Cabrera is a huge anchor on the lineup that is hard to overcome on a team without the resources of the Dodgers, Yankees, etc. to hide his $30 million contract. If you look at the Zips 2024 projections, the Tigers would be projected to make the playoffs that year (granted, that is a crazy long way away). The additional playoff team helps too. Plus, Cabrera will be gone that year and they'll be able to gain 3 or 4 wins or so just by replacing him in the lineup with a good bat in FA. So, that's kind of my timeline. 2024-2026 should be really fun barring injuries and poor player development wrecking everything.

I think Wentz, Faedo, Olson and Rodriguez likely all end up as relievers at some point. Brieske probably has the best shot of the starters in AA ball or higher to stick as a starter.

Baddoo actually is in the best shape of his life. He's built like a safety in the NFL.

Fulmer looked awful. Velocity was way down. He maxed out at 92 MPH; or about 3 MPH down from his typical fastball. Soto's velocity was down too. Until then, there hadn't really been anything alarming from our pitchers in terms of noticeable declines in velocity or stuff. Chafin's velocity is also way down. He only got into the upper 80's and spin rates were down too. Not sure if that was intentional due to the long layoff he had or if it actually is concerning.

Rodriguez has really high spin rates. I can see why they added him to the 40 man roster. He has a lot of potential as a reliever if he doesn't make it as a starter.