Longgone

Upgrade at every opportunity, but don't make moves just to make moves, that's dumb.

What Harris has repeatedly stressed is that his focus will be on accumulating young talent and development. This wouldn't preclude prime contracts to aging players on the downside of their careers, but I doubt it. I think he will look for ascending players, player who could rebound from injury or poor performance, or players he could flip.

Isn't that what they just did this past year?

They did. He's a free agent.

Pitching IS volatile, on the other hand, you gotta have it and to have it, you have to gamble on it.

Sure there is! It's just called "Down River", or "Windsor".

Tigers have signed over 45 international players the last four years alone, per Baseball America, it's more, but for some reason they don't include signings later in each year, like Clayton Campbell from New Zealand.

The Spotrac info is "spotty" and in no way complete. Avila's draft record in the later rounds, by any objective measure, not including your smell test, is not at all bad. Your assertion that Avila's administration didn't try very hard has no substance. Not very successful, sure, but baseless speculation on effort is petty.

Couple of things, not to be one to defend Avila. First, where did you get the info that Avila signed less latin players than average? I don't think that is true. Also, where did you get the info that they made less waiver claims than average? Second, you place a lot of faith in what "someone reported". Avila's record in the later rounds of the draft is not abysmal, as you would imply, but rather averageish. Third, you missed the point, being in a rebuild, or not, is not decided by administrative competence, but rather by strategic circumstances.

If you think he's going to add big ticket free agents, I think you'll be disappointed. He said he was going to focus on adding young talent, and I believe that's what he will do.

Not sure why you are presenting low fly ball rate and low launch angle as positive traits. Yes, Tork's low hr total is statistically fluky given his baseline stats, but i think that's all it is, a fluke, and it will normalize given time.

That's an obscure way to try to justify a 100 point differential in babip, it's still based on a small sample too heavily influenced by chance. Again, there is not enough data yet to be casting these types of conclusions.

You're picking nits, now.

It's mostly luck

Barrels, hard hit rate, exit velo, walks, k's. It's very possible to envision a scenario where Greene has the .250 babip andTork a .355, with exactly the same underlying data, and then everyone would be bad mouthing Greene and be okay with Tork.

So we're down to this. Pitiful.

Those are both metrics based on results, which, in the short term is highly affected by chance. It will take a lot more data for these to normalize.

It's mostly luck, Greene will likely have a higher career babip than tork, but maybe 10 points higher, not 100. The overall point is that these samples are just too small to make any kind of valid judgements, and the casual observer just looks at batting average and is down on Tork and okay with Greene, when the actuality is they have been about equally effective by any measure not affected by chance.

Other than batting average Tork and Riley Greene's stats are eerily similar, but no one is screaming about Greene being a disappointment. Greene has a BABIP of .355, Tork .250.

Again, it's too soon to be writing anyone off.

You cant project much about Baddoo based on his limited stats this year. All we really know is that he has ability, is young and inexperienced for his age and has struggled a bit. If you wrote everyone off after a period of struggle, you'd have no one left.

Yes, the players that have long term success in the majors are not those who never fail, everyone goes through periods of failure and poor performance. Players who sustain success have the ability to make constant competitive adjustments, and the mental capacity to overcome adversity, two qualities that don't readily show up statistically.

Graham is more likely to stick in the middle infield than anyone else on this list, and he is a good fit at ss.

Hinch was an attraction for Harris to come to Detroit, not a liability.

Win