Shelton

yeah, you are right I forgot that they increased the supply of interleague games so much that they do average about 3 per day over the course of the season, so early on you could have more days with 5 (or 7, 9, etc) for sure. Opening weekend there are five interleague matchups the next set of series has seven The third set of series has seven The fourth set has five The fifth set has seven So, I think it’s safe to say the interleague series distribution is definitely front loaded. It could be for various reasons, but if I had to guess it would be for money reasons. They probably prefer increased division matchups down the stretch to maximize drama. And to the extent these odd matchups provide a level of novelty, maybe it helps get people to the park early in the year when attendance and interest tends to lag. Ability to make up a rainout could definitely be a factor, although teams had the same issue with non-division league matchups because the teams don’t make more than one trip to any team outside of their division. That does sometimes lead to the weird late season situation where a make-up from earlier in the season is played at the opponent’s stadium with home/road flipped, which is not an option for the interleague. Anyway, it sure seems like the league is blowing through the interleague games early. Nice catch.

Next year you will complain that the tigers have too many interleague games late in the season during the pennant race, and they wasted divisional matchups early in the year when no one was paying attention.

No matter what there is an interleague series every day due to 15 teams in each league. You can’t really front load them because everyone plays the same number per season.

Thanks, Dan.

I actually think McKinstry could be the one on the outside looking in. With McGonigle on the team he really doesn’t have a role. His value has been in his flexibility and ability to play short and 3B, but times change and Keith and Kevin look set to cover those spots, with Vierling and Javy in reserve (and trei Cruz in Toledo, too). McKinstry’s lefty bat also doesn’t really play as part of any platoon. He also stands to make 4MM in a season where they have very little wiggle room below the tax threshold, which they cannot afford to exceed. I know the instant reaction to this is “what if Kevin needs to be sent down?” To that I would say “Shut your mouth.” But also, McKinstry really isn’t good. And his spot as insurance seems redundant when you can always go to Javy (or Cruz, or Sweeney if he heals) in such an emergency. And it does feel like the last bench spot would better served by these other guys that we talking about being in competition for the final spot (Meadows, Wenceel, Vierling, Jones).

Everyone seems to be forgetting this in the rush to replace meadows in CF with Wenceel and/or Javy. Personally, I hope they stick with meadows in CF for the defense he provides, and if they are compelled to make decisions based on spring performance, just bat him 9th instead of leadoff. If it’s the end of April and Meadows is still lost at the plate, it’s a short drive to/from Toledo for the CF shuttle.

I’m talking about everyone knowing the costs/benefits of doing so, and the real cost to the team of signing a potential star player and ROY candidate with PPI potential before they debut. I’m not talking about the value and benefits to getting such a deal done (after the player debuts). Like you said the cost certainty can be very nice to have. I don’t really understand why the PPI rules are such that you can’t do these deals in advance, but it’s what it is. The tigers current potential tax issues are the cherry on top in this case for reasons to wait to get a deal like this done. Anyway, we all know why these can be good deals for both in the right situation. But I don’t think teams are going to throw away PPI chances and do these deals in the offseason anymore.

Sound like something to discuss with your therapist.

Yeah, but it feels like the benefit of these pre-debut deals is gone now. Not sure why they did it with Keith. Anyway, you can’t do it before the debut anymore and I doubt we ever see it again as long as the rules remain the at they are. Roman Anthony’s deal is a fair comp, and as long as they give Kevin a similar deal a day or later after his debut they will be just fine. I haven’t heard anyone discussing a pre-debut deal for Kevin.

It’s viewable via the mlb app, which as far as I know is currently available on every smart tv/streaming box.

You live out of market. Fanduel was never even an option to be that 100th problem.

This is where I come out, too. The optimism is basically gone. If the two of them basically combine to cover CF and bat ninth, that’s acceptable if they are catching all of the fly balls. I think Javy (not unlike Parker) is getting a lot of hype from folks that want to believe. So Javy becomes more tha jst a bench bat, and Parker becomes less than a true starter. Seems like a good compromise to me. Vierling and Perez don’t feel like real options for CF, so I think you need to keep both Parker and Javy and let them share the spot. It makes sense from a L/R standpoint. I think Vierling is the choice over Wenceel because I don’t think wenceel’s switch hitting is enough of a factor. Hinch was very complimentary of Vierling the other day, and our issue last year felt like a lack of right handed bats. He can play all three outfield positions and a bit of third base (although I recall that they had him working on first base recently, which makes sense because we don’t really have a true backup there). Anyway, I know people will disagree, but it seems like you gotta cut one of Vierling, meadows, or Perez, and Perez to me feels the most useless all things considered.

Javy is ass, dude.

I think any solution that includes Javy as a regular is a bad one. It feels to me like a Parker and Javy platoon or time share in CF is a reasonable outcome. And Jones is a lock for platoon DH. I think Vierling is also a lock especially given Hinch’s comments and Matt’s veteran status. Is Wenceel still passable in CF? If you can share CF among Wenceel, Javy, and Vierling, I could see Parker going to Toledo. But ultimately I think they defer to Meadows and his defense, and we are looking at Wenceel as Toledo bound and the first guy up when there is an injury.

This is an interesting perspective, and to be clear I understand the point you are making. However, I think it’s missing the way prices are set. It’s similar to how folks will say that ticket prices will rise if the team signs an expensive free agent. That’s not how the economy works. Tickets, beer, streaming services, etc are priced at a level that will maximize revenue, and I think you know that. So I don’t really get why anyone would expect the tigers/mlb/anyone to provide a product at an economically inefficient price. Folks are going to charge the price that maximizes their profit. They have to compete with other entertainment choices in setting that price, as well as general consumer demand for the product in particular, so it’s not unlimited. If Netflix and other similar services cost 50 dollars a month and enough people would pay that, then Netflix would cost 50 dollars per month. The same goes for baseball, and it has little to do with what the cost of production is. That said, we can go back to your apple pie analogy. Bally and its successors charged 20 dollars a month for its direct to consumer subscription, and because they were spilling apples everywhere that wasn’t enough to keep the business from failing. They were able to sell the pies for less than that when they had thousands of people buying the pies that didn’t know they were buying the pies and didn’t even like pies, and those extra pies cost the producer nothing to make. Once they could start selling pies directly they screwed it up, thinking they could charge more and still get the people that hate pie to keep buying it as part of their grocery bundle. Anyway, I would pay more than 20 bucks a month to watch the tigers so this is great for me. You can always vote with your wallet and just listen on the radio if it isn’t worth it, but I’m guessing you won’t. So that should tell you everything you need to know about whether the price is correct. The next time a seller sets their price at a level to simply cover cost will be the first.

I saw recently that his buyout remains the same. His new contract is a result of him making the playoff semifinal, which was part of the contract he signed earlier. Anyway, the buyout remains laughably low, but at least the increased commitment and guarantee makes it harder for other schools to offer a raise. But if they wanted to, it would cost them hardly anything. I’ll be honest, I had to pause for a second to remember whether they actually ended up winning it all.

I’m not sure why I’m responding to you, but I’m seeing these types of comments a lot and I don’t get it. Anyway, Fanduel Detroit was a great value. It was almost peerless, but it’s dead. The fact that baseball and the tigers are in position to so quickly provide a replacement that is likely a better product is incredibly impressive. Like you said, during the summer months, it’s a one for one replacement. What the pistons manage to do will be a different story and we’ll see. But that’s not the tigers, red wings, or MLB’s fault. Other teams providing baseball only for 100 bucks over six months is nice, sure. But that’s not what our network has. If things were the same they wouldn’t be different. If you got the tigers before without paying Fanduel directly, you will get them the same way (Comcast, directv, etc). The current situation should not prompt a single “greedy bastards” comment beyond what could have been said six months ago.

I like that the new service is offered for subscription via mlb and available in the same app that I have for mlb.tv. It was annoying to go into the mlb app to watch other games but having our local game blacked out and hai g to switch to the other app to get our game. I presume these games will be integrated into the espn/disney app like the rest of the mlb app offerings.

I know a lot of people are frustrated with how these various offerings are being split up, but I kind of like it. Fubo to me was an espn, cbs, Fox, nbc/usa, and Fanduel delivery system (put another way, just for sports). But then they dropped nbc/usa and the nfl season ended so I had reduced need for Fox. I realized I can get almost of these on an ad hoc basis and/or it’s already included in the other services I had. I assume fubo hasn’t brought back nbc/usa. Anyway, I don’t miss it, and I didn’t need to switch to YouTube/hulu to get the stuff.

Only 7 dollars a month if you go month to month! It’s fascinating that he settled on this particular price point for what is basically a hobby for the man in his retirement. What’s going to happen when the tigers leave Lakeland? Is he going to travel with the team? Of course not. What kind of analysis is he going to provide that you can’t get from Chris McCosky or your drunk uncle that you see on Memorial Day? “JV happy to be back. A man with a family now. He’s older and wiser. Time marches on and death comes for us all. I love red wine from Costco.”

Once the city connects happened, it was already over. We can hope these are limited to west coast road game that start at 10pm eastern.

I think I saw the deferral schedule for both reported somewhere yesterday. Valdez had a relative low salary this year, higher next year, the signing bonus was being paid starting a few years from now. And verlander’s deferral was also reported as 2 million this year and 11 million starting in 2030. That’s just from memory but there is at least some detail out there. How MLB is going to value each of these is a different story, but there might be enough information out there to at least estimate. I am pretty confident that whatever it is, the team is well aware of the limit, and will stay under.

Speak for yourself, hater.

Yes, that is what I was saying was nice. Over the course of the year for 20 bucks per month you would get all three teams. Seems like you won’t be able to manage that now that the tigers will likely be offered directly for that same rate. If they can manage to provide the wings and pistons in the winter months for a total of 20 dollars, then whatever April overlap occurs won’t be all that noticeable. But I bet both wings and pistons packages, however they are provided, will cost more than 20 total when you combine them.

I will never understand the idea that a ball in play is required to qualify as action. Who doesn’t love the art of pitching?