gehringer_2

41 minutes ago, IdahoBert said:

Hinch headed to Red Sox! Not. He has already lost his soul once I can’t imagine him wanting to lose it again.

trick question: If you had to offer Hinch Harris' job to keep him, would you?

3 minutes ago, chasfh said:

That’s true, but also, and I know this is an unpopular opinion, but this is only his first abjectly awful start. He’s been below average within an acceptable range when bad, and fairly decent when good. This one start will not cost him his slot in the rotation.

The big issue is BB. nobody stays in the majors long at a rate of 22 BB in 25 IP. He either gets that under control quickly or the Tigers have a very expensive water boy on the staff - or of course more likely on some excuse to the DL.

yeah - he misses too much, but he still has a beautiful classic swing.

And he swung at the 1st pitch - which I've always though he should do more of.

8 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Bet he’s not. 

Not a lot of options are there? if they don't come back today they will have lost 4 of Jack's 6 starts.

so jack was giving up too many walks but not so much hard contact, now he's still at 1BB/IP and 3 long balls in 2 IP. So for his next start we get what?: walks, HRs and maybe wild pitches too? 🤷‍♂️

12 hours ago, SoCalTiger said:

Hinch please straighten out your ship. Sloppy. Errors....

someone up thread said they miss Meadows - but they played most of last season without him - maybe they are missing McKinstry as much as anyone.

Of course pitchers' errors are another problem. Hinch's rep is that they work this stuff hard, but I guess it's not taking.

11 hours ago, JackMorrisStache said:

DFA Jansen

I always hate to see my team sign old pitchers. The probability of fall off or injury is always higher. We've already had one and can only hope last night is not a sign of the other.

4 hours ago, Sports_Freak said:

The Tigers pitchers inability to throw strikes was the biggest issue. Hitting 4 home runs while scoring 8 runs and losing? That's on the pitching.

don't underestimate the smaller K zone. Walks are up all across the league, and the Tiger pitchers are actually about average overall. Of course given that Skubal is WAY below average that means everyone else is a bit above, but as a team they are not an outlier (yet?). These guys all need to pitch to the smaller zone - and I don't think anybody should expect to see last yrs ERAs. That said, the converse is that the offense has to better than last year as well because everyone else's will be.

1 hour ago, Tenacious D said:

I’m not counting on Melton or Jobe this season.  Anything we get is a plus.

Unfortunately, if looks as if this team is not going to do anything this season unless a couple of pluses do appear.

42 minutes ago, buddha said:

he was written in as the second line center at the beginning of the campaign, a position he clearly wasn’t ready for full time (despite rather positive underlying numbers for the first month). The subsequent loss of confidence and line juggling that he dealt with throughout the 2025-2026 season cannot have helped."

the natural consequence of the overall lack of talent on the team.

26 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

But the ball getting trapped in a uniform has been ruled to be a deadball

right - that sort of has to be the case for the rule to work, but you can ask why that should be true when a ball that hits but bounces off a uni is not a dead ball - in that case the uni is considered completely in play. I suppose you can get to the rule by making the logical distinction that the outside surface of uni is in play and the inside surface is not!  🤔

1 hour ago, RedRamage said:

Because I feel personally attacked by this post, I'm gonna defend myself (even though I know this was mostly just meant as humor).

The reality is that ALL GMs have ALWAYS mixed need and BPA. It's never a question of all NEED or all BPA, but rather how much does one vs. the other impact the decision. And even that's way to simple of a question. How big is the need? Like does a team literally have no one on the staff who could be expected to be an adequate starter or do they have someone who would be okay, but they'd really prefer to upgrade?

Saying Holmes is a BPA guy isn't saying that he only drafts the BPA and never the need, just that the slider between NEED and BPA is well past half-way towards the BPA side. I consider BPA to be more important in Holmes determination than it likely is for most NFL GMs.

 

 

If you look at what Holmes does in FA, he tries to patch at least enough so his needs don't totally dictate his draft. He tries to keep open the option for taking a player that is really high on his board if he falls to them even if it's not his *number one* need, because he tries not to have a desperate *number one* need by the time FA signings are done. That doesn't mean he's not going to draft for need, just that if there is a BPA head and shoulders above a higher need position, he wants to give himself the option of taking a great talent. That's what signing Borom was - it gave him the option of not taking an OT if it meant passing a player way higher on his board than the best remaining OT. In this case, he didn't need/want to use the option.

43 minutes ago, romad1 said:

Oh look DOJ is dropping their investigation of Powell.  I guess our markets are free of government influence now.  

good for Tom Tillis

The other question is how long does Ausar's extreme athleticism last? Rodman's did for a long time, but it's never a given that a player won't grow or be injured out that athleticism sooner rather than later, and if there is no corresponding increase in skill level to compensate, you have a declining asset. No choices are risk free.

3 hours ago, romad1 said:

I saw the Live Draft thread in the Lions forum and wondered for a second if it meant they had to start the AI draft to fill the military for the invasion of Iran. 

Also, 

 

So he had to fire one of his idiots because he couldn't do something even more idiotic. Perfect symmetry.

20 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

According to rule 5.09(a):

"A catch is the act of a fielder in getting secure possession in his hand or glove of a ball in flight and firmly holding it in his possession; providing he does not use his cap, protector, pocket or any part of his uniform in getting possesion."

It doesn't say he gets a single, but it is not an out.

A related rule:

"When a pitched ball becomes stuck in a catcher’s mask or gear, it is an immediate dead ball. According to MLB Rule 5.06(c)(7), runners are awarded one base, and the batter is awarded first base if it was ball four or strike three. It is not considered a catch if the ball lodges in the mask on a foul tip."

The catcher is not the pitcher, but seems to be very similar to what happened with Gilbert.  

 

I would assume that rule assumes  the catcher is out of play when the ball gets stuck in his apparatus? 

There had to be rule of course, but that doesn't mean I have to think it's a good one. It's a much simpler rule book if the batter is just out if the ball hasn't touched the ground. The problem with that is you know it would get abused and pretty soon guys would show up in the field with big bags of fabric around their arms or the like.

1 hour ago, Shinzaki said:

Duren is an elite rebounder and scorer in the paint and has shown a decent jumper from the line, be great if he shot it more...but he doesn't need to particularly often.   I'm intrigued by the ability to pass out of the high post that he displayed when Cade was injured, I think he averaged around 4 assists in the last half dozen games or so and picked up 4 the other night.

Ausar is a great defender and is fun to watch...but I'm not paying him max. He lacks discipline and control and has no real offensive game

Duren is 22 which is still young for a big -  has improved his defensive and offensive stats every season he has played so far. Have we seen peak Duren yet? You can make the same argument for Thompson based on his age with the caveat that Thompson's problem is shooting and the odds of a guy who can't even make a decent % of FT improving his shooting much don't excite me. OTOH, Duren can still become better by becoming a better defender. Which do you want to project?

15 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Torkelson's got to be better, .....

ask and ye shall receive!

2 hours ago, CMRivdogs said:

I agree, reform is needed from the Constitution on down. We're not in the 18th century anymore. Jefferson said something close to the Constitution needed to be rewritten every generation. I don't think we need to go that far, but we need something that returns us back to the values set up by Madison and Company then go from there.

But humans being human.....

 

This. We've gone way overboard with a kind of theological reverence that seems to taken even the idea of amendment off the table. The amendment process was a pretty regular thing right up through the middle of the 20th century. Our refusal to keep up with the times legally/consitutionally is big part of our gridlock. 

5 minutes ago, UCFKNIGHT said:

The Tigers are just not a good ball club. They need hitters to replace Verling and Torkelson. I know replacing Verling and Torkelson is easier said than done.

Torkelson's got to be better, the BP needs to be better, Flaherty needs to be better. 2 out of 3 might be enough.

17 minutes ago, UCFKNIGHT said:

Should we question Skubal's off-season conditioning? That guy wants $450 million and can't go more than six innings. The Brewers also use bunt plays to perfection. I wish AJ Hinch would work on fundamentals with this Tigers club.

Skubal's average start ends somewhere in the 6th - past that with Tarik is bonus - he's a guy with 1 CG in 139 career starts. The difference is the BP isn't shutting anything down.

Quote

Well, the BP was pretty heavily used last night.

You won't win anything in today's game without the BP depth to deal with that.

This team has no hope if it can't win Skubal starts. 

Hinch in the classic dilemma of a manager with a bullpen he doesn't trust. Left his starter in longer than the might have and then had the BP fail to perform when he did bring it in.

15 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

The best hitter on a team is the one who contributes the most to team runs scored.  It could be wOBA or OPS+ or something similar.  If you wanted a cumulative stat for the entire season, maybe wRC.  If someone is an average fan who doesn't care about analyzing, that is fine.  But if someone tells me that the best hitter should bat third, or primarily uses batting average to judge a hitter, then they will get an argument.  

Really it all comes down to not making outs. If enough guys don't make outs, or you get an XBH,  a run is going to score before 3 outs are made. You can add a lot of complexity getting to the second decimal point effects but the basic logic isn't that complicated - High on base, high XBH up front is what gets you there. And also obvious that if more your productive players get more AB, you get more production, so you start with them.

Have had to listen to this week's game on radio - have to say I'm pretty much completely off Bobby Scales by now.

1 hour ago, Sports_Freak said:

The ball never touched the ground. I don't understand/agree with that rule.

Yup - The pitcher's uni is not the ground and it's out of play, the batter should be out.