Longgone

He has very good, if somewhat inconsistent stuff. He has spotty command. There’s enough to dream on and he’s been progressing.

I just don’t understand why the fanbase of every team rags on their manager as if they just know baseball better.

The point is the Lions are not going to spend high draft picks or major free agent dollars on a de who can rush the passer but can’t really man up in the run game, so they might as well stop projecting them to the lions.

It’s interesting that people are always trying to mock smaller speed rushers like Chop Robinson to the lions as a complement to Hutch. That just isn’t their style, they want a big, strong presence at de to set the edge and control a gap first, and rush the qb second. They do incorporate a pure speed rusher, but it’s a part time position on passing downs, and they are not going to commit premium resources for that.

Purportedly, Boyd wants to go where he’ll have a large role in the offense, that ain’t Detroit.

Chong, definitely Chong

Obviously, the lions had him graded much higher than that, or they wouldn’t have made the deal. The reason for his low rankings in the media was lack of knowledge, not lack of promise.

He’ll finally be more than a year beyond the significant surgery, so like Latu, he may really come on now that he can properly train. Or he may not, we’ll see.

Sorsdal was a developmental pick; small school guy, switching positions, training at several spots, I think he probably exceeded expectations for his rookie year.

Actually saved on cap space

Appears to be negligible.

Hard to say. What are the guarantees? How much is the bonus? What are the cap hits?

What makes you think it was the stats, because that's all you see as a fan? Maybe it was his stuff, command, poise, etc. Maybe his ability fit the role they wanted to fill better than the competition. Stats may reflect that, sure, but they also may not.

If the organization deems that Brieske has the greater ability and the better capability of getting major league hitters out, he gets the job, even if his era is 28 and his competition era is zero. They will weigh all factors of his spring and past performance, not simply his spring training stats.

What if a couple of big leaguers had run into a couple of Zumayas fastballs with men on instead of missing them? It’s baseball, could easily happen. That drastically changes his stats. Does that change his capabilities or projection? Does it alter the team’s perception of him? Not at all.

Ability matters, performance matters. Stats may or may not reflect those two, so by themselves, stats don’t really matter in the spring environment and with such small samples.

Their strong spring had everything to do with the level of ability they had attained, and nothing to do with their spring stats.

Here's why spring training stats mean nothing; first, small samples, you could take a random 40 ab sample from throughout the regular season, and the same player could look like a hall of famer or the biggest piece of crap, neither of which is indicative of his true ability. Secondly, you are dealing with players not yet in shape, don't yet have their timing, may be out of sync implementing mechanical changes, may be dealing with an injury, and they may be facing major leaguers not game ready, or minor leaguers far from the bigs, etc. etc. Spring stats mean nothing.

It's everything they do in games, on the back fields, in practice sessions. It's the mechanical changes and adjustments they have made, overall health and conditioning, mental stamina, everything. It's not results at all, but the estimation of capabilities vs. the competition in providing team needs.

And they are evaluating the progression of abilities throughout the fall and spring, not just games.

If we’ve learned any one thing over the years, it’s that spring training means nothing.

No need to option or outright him, he's not on the 40.

Who cares? It's spring training.

Says the perp.

You guys are connecting imaginary dots.