gehringer_2

You are right - Parker is above average walk rate for the TIgers (they were 8.3% as a team last season) - he's keep around 12% even so far this season - but it is his BaBIP that's killing him - 132 for the season so far! Last season his FB rate was 42%, it's a whopping 75% so far this year and it's coming at the expense of his LD%, which is terrible (2.5%). To me this is exactly the kind of situation where you hope a guy can step back and reconstruct himself a little at AAA, whereas in contrast I think Tork's problems are all between his ears. Maybe facing easier pitchers would help him, but I don't think it improves the odds of him straightening out the way it could with Parker who may need more room to fail with a swing adjustment.

10 walks is optimistic for a guy with a 40% k rate, but sure, it just about doable, but sadly Parker’s other problem is a very high pop-up rate, which depresses his BaBIP! I’d picked Parker as the most likely demotion just because he needs a mechanical adjustment to get the ball down and that’s a good MiLB project.

It's a three step tie in. A is the need to show that what Daniel's says damages Trump as a candidate, B) establishing A provides the motivation that the payoff is a campaign necessity. C) In denying the payoff was a campaign expense in legally required financial disclosures a felony was committed. A->B->C = felony. Judge has to let prosecution follow A at least up to where the point Is made.

I think too many baseball observers, and maybe even people on the inside who should know better, can get hung up on individual pitch type outcomes. The outcome is always the result of the sum of everything the batter sees. There is a always a limit to how much you can isolate the value of the properties of any given pitch from its fit in the the pitcher's repertoire and sequencing. Change-ups are maybe the most obvious case. If any pitcher just stood on the mound and threw his change 100% of the time his OPS against would soon be about 1200. All changeups are easy to hit pitches if taken in isolation. But depending on how it plays against the spreed and break of the fastball or breaking balls before it, the exact same pitch can become unhittable (e.g. Skubal). The pitch didn't change, only the context.

There will probably still end up being some good players there.

Agree 100% 84, I have always believed good hitters 'earn' the good pitches they get to hit by still being a tough out on the pitches they don't like so much. If this team needs any more obvious example they just need to look at their best hitter. Riley will put a ball in play that was pitched pretty much anywhere.

Wentz tends to be as good as his FB, which has ticked up more than 2 mph across the last two seasons.

well, I think it's a little more than that. I'll give you the example my fellow Ann Arborites. Ask any mother in Ann Arbor if she has taken her kids to the zoo, and she will say - "of course!." Ask which zoo, it will invariably be Toledo, not Detroit, even though the former is about 25% further away and the two zoos are generally rated closely.

But harder to get to even 200 if you can't get the ball in play in 40% of your AB!

So I think I've made this post before, sometime during the Dombrowski era, but the Tigers have been a pitching first team ever since DD and even if Harris has a mind to change that, he hasn't done much to do it yet - and here is the problem: If your minor leagues are full of young almost ready hitters, you can bring them up, move them in and out of the lineup, play them part time while retaining a veteran, and build their trade appeal - which you can then use to go get the pitching prospects you may lack. But if you are building a huge stable of starting pitchers, which is certainly a great thing to do, you still have the problem that all but 5 of them are stuck in the minors. You really can't bring guys up to validate their big league potential without creating rotation havoc, so they don't build the kind of trade value you need to get the top hitting prospects you lack. I think once way back in the day I heard DD say he liked drafting pitchers because the metrics were more reliable-projectable, and I think that is certainly true. Spin, velo and strike rates are what they are on any diamond at any level. Of course that is only putting aside the greater injury risk for pitchers which probably negates most/all of that advantage, but one can still see the logic. But the problem remains that it's still not easy to leverage excess MiLB pitching into MLB hitting, so if you can't draft hitters, you are still up the creek - like the Tigers.

We do have a lot of guys hanging around the margins of make it/break it. The Covid year was obviously a factor, but lack of break through picks like Riley is also too much of the problem.

The K's have been Parker's problem all through his career. He seemed to have turned a corner on that last season which is what got him called-up. Regression strikes again.

and to be honest, I can't even agree with Ted here anymore. MLB pitching has reached a point where you don't always get a good pitch to hit in an AB anymore. You better be ready to hang in there against spin and good location or you're just going to give away too many ABs.

If that's still so it really is all in their heads because it just isn't that big anymore. We have had an unusual amount of east wind this spring though - which means in from left instead of the more normal summer west wind out to left. That could a factor this year, but the crappy offense out the gate is now in it's 3rd yr. If I had one wish for a change in the Tiger hitting approach it would be to change the mantra from 'control the strike zone' to 'defend the strike zone'

Admittedly hard to evaluate a guy on a terrible team, but league ranks by the numbers: Assists: 8th Scoring: 21 FTA: 33 TRB: 101 EFG: 126 TOV: 5

With the old regime, a guy who was ~26 might get the 'last chance' call because it was time to put up or move on. Vilade is still maybe year short of being there but in any case I don't have much sense yet on Harris' thinking about cutting bait on older AAA players.

Under the radar guy. Definitely on a hot streak. Also not on the 40 - so the plot thickens.

1st Domino Baddoo, Kennedy, or Malloy Hiura = dark horse - to see him before the mobility thing kicks in

I have a hard time believe Cade is here after '25 short of total FO teardown NOW. I don't get the impression he is anyone's fool, let alone Gores's, who will be reduced to searching for players able to pick up Cade's contributions to building the community after he takes the QO

It's not as glamorous and he's already past it but it strikes me that Hinch is really cut out to be a pitching coach. You listen to him talk baseball and he lights up talking about pitching and pitchers, both his own and the other guy - but it's like hitting is terra incognita to him.

well, another evening's dental work is done.

It is the PCL, but Andre had some good stretches in the minors with the Tigers, he just didn't sustain them. If he turned the corner - good for him.

Last ups..

another of my AATs. It's the kiss of death.

Because the Tigers are in fail mode.