Shelton

I think schools at the “top” of their conferences aren’t actually under the illusion that they are a contender just because they are at the top though. I think we might be surprised what fans/schools will tolerate. But I think it’s incredibly hard to know for sure unless you do it. Speaking only for myself, but I have become incredibly disinterested in college football. I don’t think it’s because of NIL or greed or whatever. I just find the games so boring now, and I think it’s mostly because there only a couple per year worth caring about for your team. Since when did it become necessary to pay 12 games and judge success by only losing once? It’s not fun or interesting to have close to 10 games already decided before the season even starts. I think the big matchups interest people because the teams are both good, not because they both happen to have gone 8-0 or 7-1 against scrubs. I would love to see them try to create a 14 team super league and play a 13 week round robin and then have a small playoff at the end. Maybe we would even get an interesting matchup that kicks off before the sun goes down.

The team cannot trade him until June 15 without his consent, which is the standard for all free agents. The QO is not like an extension, which wouldn’t necessarily include that protection.

I don’t think we need everyone to get it, but I think if you pay enough attention to baseball stats and have heard of WAR, and care enough about it to pay a modicum of attention to it and discuss it, you aren’t the person making that claim at the end of your post. That person should be left alone, and possibly shunned.

Yeah, that’s fair. It’s such a mushy stat that I feel like getting down to tenths (or runs) it actually too many significant digits! Give me the integers for this type of thing. There is enough noise in performance anyway, it’s just fine. It doesn’t matter if Skubal is 7.2 war or 6.7 war. We get it.

Sure, but you could also just multiply by 10 if you want runs. Wins feels more user friendly and tells a better story for what is already a shorthand stat. It’s easy to point to McKinstry and his 1 war and Bregman and his 4 war and consider the value of adding three wins all things being equal. Wins may be a team stat at the end of the year but it’s a team made up of interchangeable pieces, and we don’t care too much what a team’s run difference is at the end of the the year if the team has the necessary number of wins (even if they are intertwined).

So, I couldn’t help but dig around a bit last night following the earlier discussion, and I saw something that said basically “we have to assign something” so they kind of settled on a poor 1B. The actual number is scaled to the number of games spent at DH (possibly even down to innings), so playing 130 games gives a reduced negative value relative to guy that played 150.

Park factors?

I could definitely be wrong. Going off memory and what I’m remembering could be related to something else entirely.

It’s been a long time since I dug into the background of how these adjustments came to be, and that’s probably because it makes enough intuitive sense regarding giving more value to the guys that play the tougher positions, that I stopped caring about the nitty gritty. BUT, I seem to recall that the positional adjustment run value isn’t actually about fielding at all, but about the average/typical/replacement (whatever) “offensive” performance that comes from each position. It is assumed you put your players into the defensive positions to optimize your offensive/defensive lineup. So, over time, we know what an average person playing shortstop can produce offensively. And we know what an average first baseman can produce offensively. Etc. So, it isn’t a defensive performance adjustment in the form of plays made or runs saved. It is a “positional” adjustment based on the expected offense you get from the different positions.

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”?