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StatikIEV

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Everything posted by StatikIEV

  1. If I could make a humble suggestion, leave the timing of pulling our starter pitcher (and the choice of who replaces him) to anyone other than Hinch/Fetter....they are a clean 0 for the season now. (Mostly kidding...but it has been bad) We have 3 starters with WHIPs of .9 to 1.1, and ERAs around 5 thanks to whoever replaces them at the wrong time (the other starter was a TJ recovery/1st game back guy... that was allowed to go out for the 3rd after allowing 7 baserunning the first 2 innings and being at 50 pitches...leading to a 7 spot in the 3rd). Our 4 starters got the 'benefit' of the relievers going 5 for 5 on their inherited runners scored...and then adding on another almost half dozen on top. I think Hinch and Fetters are a pretty good tandem, but if coaches got WAR states, they would probably be last on the team right now. Sidenote: After a couple years of watching the decisions, it is also a little tiring how Hinch always manages our pitching and lineup in the game(s) ahead of a Houston series such that the best version of us plays in these games...we have 1 win in a game before a Houston series to date and always seem to be in a mess after. I mean is TJ Turnbull really our #2 guy/home-opener choice? Or is he just the guy plunked there so that Boyd-Manning-ERod can be the Houston threesome for the series before the home opener? ...or perhaps I'm just seeing things (but mostly I saw Schoop, Kreidler, Cabrera all together on the bench to start a game for the first time this year)
  2. Seems low, but they may be playing the numbers, Haase was .576 OPS against RH starters last year, .580 for his career. Seems to be his main career Achilles problem offensively. (I'd still prefer him a hit s bit higher myself regardless)
  3. Lots of good news this off season for Mud Hen fans! Go Toledo!
  4. Given our location, outlook and fence situation...perhaps the opposite is also true, lol.
  5. You didn't answer the question. You are trading Madden for 5 Englerts? My statement was Madden is/was 5x better. "Fortunately" we have them both now, and your horse is front of the line to MLB...and everything in baseball is measurable. WAR isn't perfect here, but an easy comp...I will go on record saying Madden logs 5x the WAR of Englert in his career. Or better yet, let's tell the league we are looking to move Englert and Madden...$10 says the haul for Madden is at least 5x better.
  6. That would be great, lol. All I am saying, is I'd just rather not give them their shots in reverse order of talent/deservidness. Ok I will just leave it at that...we are definitely chasing our own tails and I don't want to turn this into a thing. I'm now excited to see the great Mason Englert pitching this April...future main cog in the rotation for the World Series champion Tigers.
  7. I do get and appreciate what you are saying here. I belive he is actually blocking people, but that really is a debatable point between us. However, let's not get confused here. What he is really taking the place of (along with all the other 'great' talents we have rule 5 drafted and 'traded' other MLB players for) ...is the club spending any money.
  8. So you would trade Ty Madden for 5 Mason Englerts? 15% better peripherals is the difference between an all-star and lineup filler.
  9. Yes. So for him to get a shot..it has to be at the MLB level over our guys that are more ready...and a guy with 3 AA starts, and another team's 29th best prospect. On our depth chart for SP he would slot around 17th?
  10. The cliche implies 'good' pitching...in this case, the talent is sub par to his peers...but he is to be tolerated on the major league roster all year in order to build depth and/or have a lottery ticket. If a move ever screamed "lost year upcoming" this is it. Make the case Ty Madden shouldn't be on the active roster as a starter over Mason Englert if he is such a future MLBer. Same age, Madden is a round 1 that has 5x better results to date...and more experience above A ball (albeit marginally). Don't like Madden as an example? We have 10 other SP names that have yet to get flushed out we already have...when will we be getting them their full season shot? 2024...year 8 of the rebuild? 2025? Can you guarantee they will all have decent sample size starting opportunities between Mize, Skubal, Manning, Turnbull, Jobe, Boyd, Manning after next year? I've been a defender of the club for the first years of this rebuild...but the moves so far scream "We are waiting out Cabrera's contract while all our 'tank picks' hopefully get healthy and play to their slot"
  11. My annoyance isn't so much with Justyn-Henry Malloy or his prospect status...its the fact we are clearly now in rebuild year 7. Yippee we are getting some teams #11, #25th, 38th best prospects and we are bottom feeding the rule 5. Harris says on day 1 we need to fill holes at catcher, 3rd, OF. Now a couple months later, its 'lets go with haase/rogers at C, an unproven AA prospect at 3rd, and a still nothing I'in the OF'...while at the same time it's 'maybe Cabrera will take the field again' and we are too cheap to hold onto 40% of our bullpen (that was our only decent thing last year finishing 8th in the league). I mean...yay Tigers baseball 2023?
  12. For us, yes, we have a zillion guys with a ceiling of 'mid rotation guy' (thinking he can be a 3 is a bit generous...maybe 4 if you squint hard enough IMO). The risk is he eats up a live roster spot all year...and better players don't get their shot.
  13. I understand the line of thought, but we would be putting a guy who has a total of 3 games at AA on the Major League roster all year...so we can stash him in AAA and he can be like 15th on the depth chart? What us the risk vs reward matrix here?
  14. ...for nothing of immediate (or likely future) value /nice job
  15. Never stick. I know they say you can't have enough pitching...but relative to this guy's skill level, relative prospect status, starting pitcher status and necessity to keep on the roster....we have enough pitching. I mean where does he fit in our existing and future stable of SPs? After Mize, Skubal, Manning, Turnbull, E-Rod, Boyd, Brieske, Jobe, Madden, Flores, Alexander, Faedo, Wentz, Olson, Bergner, Smith, etc. (assuming I misses a couple as I am just haphazardly firing off names).
  16. This is just a quick observation, but I don't it is significant who Harris is, or what he's skills are at the moment, same for Hinch..and our other (now endless) coaches. It's 2023 now, the team needs money. We have a payroll of ~75 million for MLB-level players (Cabrera is, and has been dead money going on 6 years..so I dont count his ~32+8 tap this year). Top ten is 160 million. There is no amount of genius to make that up shortfall...this isn't 1995. I can bump into a stranger near the stadium and have a 60 minute conversation about a player's wRC+, BABIP or xwOBA, or the the fact Riley Greene can't hit above average curve if his life depended on it (thankfully not many pitchers can throw it), or that Lange can't have Haase receive for him. ..so to suggest Harris, Hinch, or a zillion new faces can make a difference of more than a 2 or 3 extra wins in a year is, to me, a non-starter when 'Joe Fan' can easily understand deep fundamental truths, so front offices are all surely much further still. Sure, there is still that fraction of special knowledge out there that can eek out a little something extra (like acquiring players best suited to the new rules), but the days of the front office being worth big bucks are over IMO. Look at the top nine payrolls for next year...basically the list of the top 9 clubs, with a couple just outside the list. We had a few decades of throwing out the bathwater of old-timey thinking, so lower payroll clubs could compete every other year as an outlier...but that's gone. We are back to big payrolls = results. Nutshell: Tigers success hinges solely on the Pizza Guy spending ~90 million more. (Possibly 70 million if one of our hard-tanked for #1s turns into a #1) IMO
  17. Expected homeruns in Comerica last year for Judge: 51 (that is good for last place ...by SEVEN HRs) ...unless you are giving him 10 years to guaranteed the end of his baseball career, he ain't coming. Even if he gets an offer for way more money from the Tigers...the implied future cost to take that deal for him is off the chart. /move wall in dummies
  18. Sorry, I didn't answer your second question. Hard to assess the thoughts of another person. I will say actions (and reactions) are the most important things...being aware is only half the battle. Not acting/adjusting to things like seeing that the combo of Haase and Lange is carcinogenic, makes it a sin of either ignorance or stupidity. So who cares if Hinch/Fetter/old GM (and literally every other person on the Tigers coaching payroll) was aware or not, the result is the same. There is no skill in coaching baseball, there are a zillion guys that can teach fundamentals and hold a stop watch. Baseball 'intelligence' is measured by the observational awareness of talent and one's knowledge of a player's situational abilities... and the quicker you are to see it, understand it, and exploit/excise it to your advantage...the better built and run your team will be. It is why some teams always seem to draft better, trade better and get more out of players. I don't know this for sure...but my hunch is that it is often just one person in an organization with the ability to filter knowledge and that the person has to also have a receptive ear to speak to. Harris could be that guy. I will say, it will take no time to find out his Baseball IQ and what he will do with it, as we have a situation no less aggregious than Haase-Lange still presenting itself. Namely, Cabrera is an active player...and he bats 4th. One can understand/allow Cabrera's existence in 2022...up to a point, it wasn't a baseball thing, it was a fan expectation/revenue thing; a 'we can make a million bucks in extra revenue for every milestone hit, and then a subsequent cash grab, er ceremony, after each milestone'. No issues there, the largest factor in success at the major league level for a club is still disposable money to spend in the bank on players. HOWEVER, fans would have still came if he batted 7th or 8th; and once he had hit 3000, then homerun 500, there is no excuse for not bringing out the 'Victor Martinez retirement chair' 2.0 and letting him choose to sit on it at home...or the end of the dugout for the rest of 2022 and 2023. Every ab after 500 hr was functionally useless...every AB from the 4/5 hole was to spit in the face of the other players and the organization. How can you build a culture of winning, motivate it to play hard regardless of the situation...when you have no bat, no leg, no put down the sandwich guy penciled in at 4 whenever he feels up to playing? Hey, Willie Horton only needs 7 hits to 2000...why don't we keep playing him until he hits it, and let's leave him at the top of the lineup because he is an all-time Tiger great and the fans love him. Harris is more than aware of this for sure, and the recent news that 'Cabrera will be back' is disconcerting...but we haven't necessarily heard the final details or what the fineprint looks like. His job is to get Cabrera and his agent in a room, and explain to them that Cabrera is done (in a nice way) and that he also is really bad at life/managing his money, and convince him it would be smart to take his remaining 40 million (32+8) over the next 8 years (+ interest...~5.5/year) so that the club can better manage payroll immediately ie) 30 million+ more to spend immediately should opportunity present. It's easy to deal with 5 million sunk in a year...not so much with 40. The sell is that 'Mr. Financial mismanagement' Cabrera gets more money...and a solid paycheck for the next 8 years, and in return for doing this, he gets to 'stay on the team,' as a 'player coach' ..maybe take a few swings here and there for the fans. Win-win all around. If he doesn't take it...that's it, you have played your last game. If the Harris/Hinch tandem puts out the lineup card and Cabrera is DHing 4th in 2023...it means they don't care about anything or anyone, other than a paycheck for themselves over credibility (which is why I have developed a cynical eye for Hinch and his value over his tenure so far). It tells everyone on the team that skill and work ethic doesn't matter. And it tells us, the fans of Tiger's baseball, to not watch/buy a ticket...and go find another organization/sport to root for until the house is cleared out, starting from the top...could be a long wait. ...but as all that has yet to happen, let's hope it doesn't, and the 'new fish' brings the necessary change (and backbone) the team deserves.
  19. Thanks...I was afraid the formatting might be abit off if I tried, heeh.
  20. Not sure how to link off my phone, but if you break out seasonal pitching splits you can then sub filter by positional selection (sudenoye: there is an adjustment one should make as there is interference in the numbers via IR, but in this case, doing/allowing for that fractional adjustment is jejeune).
  21. Well, I did say 'if': "We need to find another role for Haase if we want to keep his bat...." The if/why would be if we still suck. My point is Haase isn't a championship calibre catcher, or even a middle of the road calibre catcher...because he doesn't have the ability to catch extraordinary stuff, and it is unacceptable to have pitchers have to alter their pitch selection in order to compensate for his shortcomings...and that is what is happening. It is uncommonly bad/well illustrated when it comes to Lange...who has exceptional raw talent. Put a man on 3rd with Haase behind the plate and his BA against/ERA goes to the moon. Here are Lange's stats with Barnhardt and Haase catching...I will let the community guess which stat line is with Barnhardt and which with Haase. Lange had an all-timey great season with one guy...and a one way ticket to the minors type season with the other guy. 30.1 ip 0.00 era .104/.146/.350 31.2 ip 6.82 era .285/.446/.829 Unacceptable...not just in the catching performance, but moreso in the lack of fundamental understanding of baseball and analytics. Haase friggin caught Lange 36 times. There are so many of these types of obvious errors of ignorance (whether intentional or not) in our baseball decision/management hierachy....but let's have the axe fall on Santiago and the last standing back-up to the back-up coach that wasn't hired by the current regime. At least the new balanced schedule should fix the 'who could have known that having 19 of 20 starters in our division being righties was going to make Baez not worth his contract in a new league' problem. HuZZah for fortunate accidents! ...not that I feel strongly about it
  22. The problem with Lange is Haase. Lange can't be our closer if Haase is our catcher. Lange's stuff (noteably the curve metrics and frequency) and propensity to work effectively low exposes Haase as not a major league quality catcher when receiving outlier pitches. One of the shortcomings still in defensive ratings for catching is the evaluation metrics on specific pitch receiving and subsequent frequency modulation on pitch calling/results. As an example, Lange unbelievably lead the league in WP with 15...and in limited duty, 10 of those came via Haase. It is/was so bad that in high leverage situations, pitch calling/location result (whether that be from Haase/bench or simply Lange not trusting Haase's receiving) changed to compensate for his shortcomings. If you watch back the games, there is also an inordinate number of complete whiffs on catching pitches that should be caught when bases are empty. So IMO, Lange actually has much higher value than his metrics show, and he probably should be seriously considered as our closer, but you can't pull our catcher everytime he comes in late in the game. Lange can never close if Haase is behind the plate. The two really should never be our battery at any point. TL:DR We need to find another role for Haase if we want to keep his bat....he can't catch more than a handful of games a year as a back-up option He is like the Baddoo of catchers...his stats look OK, as long as we squint at them, and situationally coddle his playing opportunities.
  23. OP made a spelling error...we clearly have unretired Boston/Cub pitching great Jon Lester to give us some starting pitching depth. 😀
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