Shelton

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.

Either way. I don’t have a strong opinion between the two. But we didn’t need Morton to use Melton as a RP. Acting like trading for Morton was the same as trading for a shutdown leverage arm was preposterous.

Yeah. I thought it was a bit condescending for Scott to suggest he needed to get Morton so that he could do that with melton. Melton as RP was always a thing. Just use Montero?

I think it’s close to 50/50 that they are an early out. If only they had made some other moves, they could be 50/50 to advance out of the first round.

I would love to know your current thoughts on tipping culture.

True, but this is backward looking and past performance is not indicative of future results. I read that on the last page.

That blurb suggests that Rainer would be ranked higher than where Rainer is currently. Not that Rainer would be ranked higher than #1 Konnor Griffin.

The MLB trade is an exciting time in the baseball world. Some teams will be buyers. Some teams will be sellers. Other teams may stand pat and bet on the guys they have! We are going to have to wait and find out who was right and who was wrong, and that’s what makes baseball great.

Ibanez?

No. Why?

I wonder what happened to that Greg Pappas guy. Has anyone gone over to Orioles hangout to troll them and offer up Jung and Malloy for Gunnar Henderson?

Yes, an Apple TV+ Skubal game against a blueblood. Suck it, boomers.

I’m not sure the extent that creating the “rivalry weekend” for marketing purposes increases attendance/viewership relative to the same series against the same team on a non-promoted weekend. That said, anecdotally speaking, weekend games against the Jays seem to have a lot of folks in blue hats walking around the stadium. So it seems appropriate to me. Division/competitive rivals are a different story and don’t really fit with the theme of the weekend.

American Pie Happy Gilmore Home Alone Office Space

I’m here for the Gage Workman analysis. When does Rogelio post his emergency podcast?

It was Ferndale

It’s funny. It wasn’t really that long ago. The way I remember going into the offseason was that guys like Tork and Baez were members of the team but in name only. They wanted to add a right handed bat and some pitching. They had holes basically at first and third, but also guys with positional flexibility so it wasn’t that rigid. We heard news that Keith, Malloy, and Vierling maybe were going to work on 1B over the winter and in the spring but “just for flexibility” as if this didn’t signal very clearly that Tork is dead to them. I don’t know if they were specifically looking for a 2B, but because they do have flexibility with their athletes it opened them up to considering those guys, in particular guys that are specifically looking for 2B opportunities for their own career. Torres at 1/15 is an incredibly good deal, especially for a team that wanted a right handed bat and had a potential opening at 2B. You cannot pass that up at that stage of the offseason.

Man, G2, I’m sorry. I thought when you said established hitter with a poor glove at 1B you were referring to Tork and that sent me spinning. I’m still not sure what’s real at the moment. I need a minute.

If the cost of getting gleybor means that they have to move Colt off 2B a year earlier than planned, so be it. I don’t really hold it against him for advocating for himself. It’s up to the teams to call him on it. My guess is he can still play 2B just fine. Honestly not sure why tigers fans dislike this guy so much, but will argue over Englert vs kreidler, or losing Faedo. .

Got it. You think Torres should play 1B and colt 2b. Well they will both be in the starting lineup every day so I guess we’ll see. Could always swap!