Shelton

100% Thankfully our quant GM understands the reality.

The tigers may decide to trade Skubal. They might not. That isn’t the point of this particular post. What bothers me most in the Skubal trade discourse is the nonsense of “the tigers cannot let Skubal walk away and only get a compensatory pick.” It’s nonsense because it applies equally to any other team that would trade for him. It’s offensive and completely dismisses the contender status of the tigers. If the Mets trade for him tomorrow, will we suddenly see articles about how the Mets can’t let him walk? About how the tigers have great prospects like Jonah Tong to tempt the Mets in a trade? Of course not. And spare me the idea that the Mets are in better position to extend him. We’ve also got articles pumping up the ****ing mariners as being in on him. Every one of these potential trade partners is going to hypothetically give up a lot of player capital to get him, and then be in exactly the position the tigers are in now that is apparently untenable. **** that.

Correa a couple years ago with both the giants and the Mets.

Fubo is great. It has the local tigers/wings/pistons network and almost all of the various sports and entertainment networks. It also just works. Interface is straightforward. One downside is that it doesn’t have tnt/tbs. But because I have those through hbo/amazon I don’t sweat it. I’m surprised at how widespread YouTube tv has become, that when it loses channels folks act there are no options and it’s the end of the world. It’s never been easier to cancel/switch. Just hit the bricks. Regardless, I’m still surprised that YouTube tv is the monocultural streaming cable bundle, especially when it doesn’t have the local sports.

I don’t think roster crunch will be an issue, unless there is another MLB caliber catcher on the 40 man that I am forgetting. Point being, there is a fixed roster spot for a backup catcher and it will rogers or someone else not in the org. With Nido already secured via minor league deal, we have the depth needed. Jake will be back. Harris doesn’t worry about a few million over a single year, especially when there isn’t a reasonable replacement available at a lower cost.

All of this talk about what was offered in the past isn’t remotely relevant. Wake me when someone reports what the tigers are currently offering, and then we can start talking about how far apart they actually are and how much of a gap there is to bridge. I hate this part of the offseason. Go jays. Just get it over with.

Of course not. But it’s still a good faith offer to guarantee 60 (with another 20 million parachute) when the tigers were still only on the hook for 10 heading into last year. Of course it sounds silly now, a year after he was excellent again and remained healthy. I think people severely underestimate the value to a team being able to go year to year with a SP. But Heyman and others like Evan P can’t help but go hur-Dee-hur look how cheap the tigers are, when IMO the reality is that a true long term deal was never going to be on the table and this particular offer was probably more of a formality than something either side believed would be accepted given the circumstances.

I think you’d have to really parse out what the actual “offer” was, but my guess is that it was basically a throw away offer or discussion brought about during the arbitration negotiations. It probably included various options or opt-outs. But he ended up making 10MM in arb in 2025. He’s probably in line for 20 in 2026. Not all “offers” are the same and I’m pretty sure both sides knew an actual long term contract was never going to be hammered out last offseason when the tigers still had two more arb years left and Skubal had half a billion waiting for him after 2026. maybe it was something like “we’ll guarantee you 60 over the next three years and player option for 20 in year four that we know you won’t take if you are healthy. It gets us one extra year, protects you in the case of another injury, and pays you more right now than you would get in arb, and you are still on track to his FA at 30”

I suppose we could quibble over how high the ceilings for Anderson and Lee truly are. But your questions are indeed valid. I don’t know what’s better. If you have faith in your internal evaluations, then I think the best approach is cash in the guys you don’t believe in, before they prove to others that they are nothing more than potential. in the case of those two, I would be surprised if they fetched much of anything at this stage. I’m not highly interested in making sure every last decent AAA prospect has a corresponding slot to provide themself. That doesn’t seem to work very often. It’s been two years now and Colt Keith is just now feeling like an asset. That’s a long way of saying I’d prefer they address the acute need that they have right now, and worry about being forced to trade guys that have value later once there is a true logjam. We often talk about that “good problem to have” in a hypothetical sense, but it’s been a while since I can remember ever actually having that good problem. Short answer to your question is that I think I’d rather gamble on them being good and underutilized, rather than trade them, but that’s mostly because I don’t think the bottom two have that much value in trade, and the top three can slot very easily into our future plans.

A five person infield/DH arrangement of Bichette (or Bregman), Rainer, Kevin, Colt, and Anderson/Lee seems fine to me. Plus the system assets you got in return for an actually good version of Anderson/Lee? Sign me up!

RIP SpartanValor, lionsandtigersand…, and sportz4life

They should go to work with their name spelled clearly on the back of their shirt. Then we would know.

On the contrary, I think the fanbase only had to put up with that coming from outsiders. Folks engaged enough to do the equivalent of posting on a message board wouldn’t make the mistake of misspelling an important player’s name. But for some reason “Olsen” perseveres. That said, I would not get bent out of shape for forgetting if it’s Reese or Reece, or Zach or Zack, or Kriedler or Kreidler. I’m confident my position on this topic is perfectly balanced. It’s just like the speed you drive on the highway, though. Faster drivers are maniacs, and slower drivers are buffoons.

It happened with the tigers and Sheffield, too.

Looking forward to a rotation of Skubel, Fleherty, Jebe, Olsen, and Melten.

Only quoting you because this is the most recent, but what is it with the folks on this board that keep spelling it “Olsen”?

We scored basically the runs as Seattle this year. They had about 100 stolen bases more, and maybe 30 home runs more? Our 5 man rotation includes 2 Skubals this series. Feels like a coin flip at worst.

Are there restrictions on the number of hitters and pitchers you can carry?

Is this the thread where you postseason rosterbate?

It is bracketed. They do not re-seed.

I’m on this island with you, brother. I think it sucks that he chooses to do ****ty college football games and whatnot during the September overlap period. These football guys are mostly independent contractors from what I understand so he doesn’t have to do it. I like him as an announcer and I’m happy to have him calling our games, and I’m also happy that we get Dan on the days Jason is off calling a game that appeals to alumni only. But I don’t think any other relevant team has a main announcer that isn’t around for games during a playoff push. I do remember last year for the clinch he found a replacement for the ****ty college game he was calling so that he could be on the mic for the tigers that weekend. It was understandable that he didn’t think there would be meaningful baseball played by the tigers in September 2024. No excuse for this year, though.

Feels like the median scenario is having a magic number of 3 heading into the third game after splitting the first two.

My guess is Sunday is Urquidy. Then Mize and Jack on Tuesday and Wednesday. Then a tbd (SGL or Melton) Thursday and skub next Friday against the Braves.

It’s going to be near impossible for another team out there to offer a return that is more valuable to the 2026 tigers than one year of Skubal plus a high comp pick. When I say 2026 tigers, I am not referring to the 2026 season, but rather the state of the organization in winter 2026 (which of course includes the 2026 season and beyond, with the immediate 2026 season expected to be postseason competitive). As for comps, the two deals you could look are the Burnes deal (ace-level pitcher but not as good as Skubal) and the last Soto deal (elite MVP caliber player, but not a SP). The brewers were competitive in 2024. But I’m not sure the brewers are popping champagne today based on the dudes they got in return for Burnes. Joey Ortiz was good last year, but not great. I don’t know enough about how the return for Soto is working out for SD, but Michael King is pretty nice to have, I guess. I don’t think any of the other guys are any more than fungible dudes. SD was competitive in 2024. King was very good last year and has been just as good when healthy this year. SD was in a unique situation last year with a crowded outfield that included Soto and they really needed pitching. This might be a deal that the Yankees regret, and the padres might also wish they had done better for Soto. So, it’s really hard to make these deals. No one wants to end up like Baltimore and the Yankees with nothing to show for giving up their assets, and in some cases being substantially worse off. But from SD and Milwaukee perspective, SD is probably wishing they got more than one player of actual value in return for Juan Soto. Milwaukee likely wishes they had done better than Joey Ortiz.

I don’t disagree that it will help to have depth at SP. But they should just say that.