gehringer_2

And at some point Hinch and his staff have to take some heat. In 5 yrs Hinch has fielded a good offensive team for exactly a single 162 game span along with 4 yrs of futility. Is it time for him to re-examine *his* approaches? What he's asking his players to do?

This has bothered me also. I realize some in season adjustments are going to be hard to make, but NOBODY on the team was able to make an adjustment after mid season? It seems like as a team they are very rigid. Two examples in particular. McKinstry arrived here as a dead red FB hitter that couldn't handle spin at all. To his credit he's made great strides in that direction, but he's gone too far with it, he's now unable to handle velo. OK, you aren't asking him to do something new he's never done before, he use to be a good FB hitter. Same with Riley. All Riley needs to do is move back toward what he was doing as recently as LAST SEASON. He doesn't need to figure something out for the first time. And Tork's biggest problem IMO is that he is too passive on 1st pitches. That's all between the ears - he should be able to work on that literally in his sleep. Everyone always talks about how much baseball is a game of constant adjustment, but I'm not seeing much adjustment ever happening with Tiger hitters. So maybe they are all just losers. If so the FO didn't do much to rotate the stock.

When baseball went to 5 starters, 250 IP in a season was sort of the benchmark initially - and maybe a handful of complete games. Today 'aces' like Skubal and Woo are sitting around 190 IP and a full season without a CG is normal. So in the regular season the relative value of an Ace is down. But the counter to that is that playoff baseball can now be over twenty games long, and 'Ace' value in the playoff is highly amplified as their proportion of starts jumps from 20% to more like 33%. So bottom line is that good teams that expect to make the playoff probably still have plenty of incentive to pay Ace starting pitchers a ton.

I will certainly grant that the close playoff series was not something that demands a lot of hand wringing, but the 6 weeks leading up to it still should.

off topic but apropos of this and RFK's idee fixe, research is showing that the diagnoses lumped together as Autism are probably multiple genetically distinct disorders. https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/autism-not-one-disorder-new-data-show-2025a1000qmm?_gl=1*1y14c7k*_gcl_aw*R0NMLjE3NjAxOTY0MzMuQ2owS0NRandnS2pIQmhDaEFSSXNBUEpSM3hjcVo0N1JLdTZQR2MyTkhrUDZ0Y2xELXlGZnlmdVMxR0xyOUhCZU9NMGlRLTRIZGZGbEFwZ2FBcm5FRUFMd193Y0I.*_gcl_au*MTE1OTc1NzkxNC4xNzYwMTk2NDIx&form=fpf

It's also likely that this was McKinstry's career year and that he won't be challenging for much playing time next season so that's more PA available for someone else to earn.

Hypocrite in Chief.

Re: CF Looking at all his numbers, Parker looks like the guy there should be a decent chance to fix. His fall off is all about too many GBs. He hasn't fallen off on K rate or BB, or much of anything else except he hit too many grounders this season. I would guess that's related to the league pitching him down, but wouldn't you think a competent coaching staff could at least get him into the position he needs to be in to cover the low pitch better?

Now that they are no longer having to protect his shoulder I think he has to make it at 3rd. I'd rather have a 3b with less than stellar arm than a 2b with poor range.

well you can always pretend it didn't happen and you are still a year younger.

well that figures. Is it 'rea'l hernia or 'sports hernia' which is a different thing altogether (what JV had). Recovery from the former is easy, from the latter is a lot of work.

it will be a good test for the coaching/training staff this off season because there are guys with clearly identifiable weaknesses that need to fix them before next season. Riley has to fix his tilt, Tork has to get more aggressive on 1st pitch strikes, McKinstry has to work on hitting the FB again, Meadows can't Cover the lower third of the K zone. Every pitcher in the pen needs to throw more strikes. which maybe mean stepping back on the more extreme shape efforts to gain greater command.

that was such a bad move. Prince brought a bat but he cost a fortune in every other aspect of the game.

It is a little weird. The hitting has been a disaster for 2 months but you look into the horizon and long term it's still the pitching that's the bigger set of red flags.

yes - he is their only position player who has played at All-star level for his position.

As it stands, Meadows should not make the '26 team out of ST.

Somewhere along the line the team that Harris thought he wanted to build has turned into a team that doesn't do any of the things he thought he was building it to do. I wonder if Harris will roll some heads on the staff or just blame the players and stand pat organizationally.

Hinch's confidence in Kanhle and Holton down the stretch has been misplaced for some time now, but he decided they were his guys.

so what is the longest playoff game in the modern era?

I'm surprised Dingler can still lift his arm, let along gun a guy down.

4Hr 30min and counting

Parker K's. News at 11 /strike that, more like news at 1:30 Meanwhile Bazardo is at 39 pitches.

Seattle pitching staff very good at setting a guy up in one quadrant to get him out in another.

LOL! At least we all know exactly how all the Seattle fans are feeling about their team right now.