gehringer_2

After last season I wanted to see more of Vierling at 3rd to see how it went. It's been a mixed bag. He can make a lot of the plays and his arm is good, but over time we've seen what he can't do get a little exposed. Maybe with enough reps there he'd improve, but that's not likely to happen now. Bottom line - he may have been as good or better than anyone we played there last season but watching Gio you see that the position can be played better.

Gio has a terrible reverse home/away OPS split (780 away/576 home). So you know he's going to go to some other team for nothing and immediately be a 2+ WAR player.

I'll wager that pic has been retouched, but it still works.

I've spent the last dozen years with 19 yr olds, most of them listened to old music. Granted a narrow cohort, but the kind of cohort Jason would be in.

ETTD!!

I can see it just meaning "We are respecting Monroe's prerogative to say as much or little as he wants to" but yeah - oddly put. The IT age has meant that everything gets written quickly with little review, so having a 2nd person (like a secretary that types it out) review stuff for unrecognized tone issues is pretty much a thing of the past.

Adrian Beltre made 52 errors in his 1st two full seasons. If a guy has decent hands, decent reaction time and can throw accurately he's got a chance to become decent. If Keith was making bad throws or having balls clank off his glove with regularity I'd be more concerned, but unless they swap him back to third with Jace they should just let him work at 2b for a while. You don't want to throw in the towel and put anyone that young at 1st that still has any potential to hold some other spot since their bat will be a lot more valuable there.

Petry is definitely more the Jimmy Buffet type.

Had this been disclosed? https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/40401837/dylan-larkin-recovering-surgery-late-season-injury It's like a culture shock the way the NHL conceals/obfuscates injuries compared to other sports. I understand the reason but it's still weird.

Colt’s hanging in there so far. In this years environment a 230 BA and a reasonable K rate isn’t so bad for a rookie’s 1st couple hundred AB. I’m not going to sweat low power production at this point.

more glitter goes to dross.....

Maybe the worst thing that could have happened to Tork was to come up with Detroit at a time when they were desperate for the long ball, because he should have spent his time learning to be a better hitter, instead of spending all his effort trying to drive the ball into the seats. My guess is that the last 2 years actually set him back as a hitter, because now pitchers have figured out to just pitch him away and he had become stuck in a mode where he couldn't cope instead of having spent that time learning to actually "command" the zone.

Tigers will move a guy like McKinstry who isn't all that good anywhere all over the field, but I bet that having moved him, Keith won't get a shot at 3rd again even if his arm does get stronger.

yeah - I don't know if it would be completely accurate to say that Fenech got bounced because of critical reporting about the team per se, it seems it was more the interpersonal stuff and in general being an asshat to other people. I remember one spring training where he was trying to sneak around the fences and shoot video from his iphone when the team had closed the fields to recording. Juvenile stuff. If you take an interview where the question of being on the record was pretty much a last minute decision and the interview changes his mind within a couple hours and you stiff him, you may be within your rights but you aren't going to win many friends or hold anyone's trust.

Looking at the pitches in his gameday plots, he seems to be swinging at a lot of pitches he would normally take. One hopes that's a deliberate experiment to stretch out his plate coverage and not that he's completely befuddled. But only he and his coaches would know for sure.....

LOL. I'd let'em go. In 30 yrs FLA and NOLA will be under water and in half of Tx it will be fatal to be outside in the noonday sun. They'll all be liabilities. No one would notice missing NH, and CA may be on their list but is not going anywhere anyway.

has he re-surfaced anywhere? Very odd for a person in any kind of journalism to just give it up completely.

this also probably explains why they tend to move enmasse. There is cover in numbers. The team would find it al lot harder to cut off everyone at once.

have seen the Mudhens play under challenge but not full ABS. Seemed to work well. I didn't even notice the 1st one - thought they had just made a mistake on the scoreboard, then you start watching for the signal.

I can see some reasons, some better some worse. First - the ump is fast for most calls, second - a good umpire is mildly entertaining to watch, third - the guy still has things to do behind the plate so human factors engineering says keep him engaged, forth - you have tradition, fifth - you have the need to keep umpires training to do balls and strikes because there is still going to be baseball played in a lot of places where ABS won't be available, 6th - the ump is a good fallback when the SW inevitably crashes.

Maybe - or it's just the writers chasing audience because a higher level of 'burn it down' critique is what appeals to the audience about now. I wouldn't take too much out what the local writers say one way or the other. I might put some stock into any subtle attitude shifts in the TV booth because I think those are the guys that probably spend the most time with Hinch - but that's just a spitball as well.

Funny thing is that I thing defense is where a lot of people have to have a little more patience. Keith hasn't even played half a season at 2b. I player with some base skills probably has a decent chance at making himself into better a fielder with technique improvements. We gave up on Willi Castro's and Paredes' serviceability with the glove a bit too soon for example.

Desperation often produces questionable responses.

I will not like any challenge system where challenges don't renew if they are upheld but I can see that a fixed number of total challenges was probably a bone thrown to the umpires union.

Yup. In 1967 White Flight was just getting into high gear in Detroit. Plus that little altercation in July.