gehringer_2

Damn. We might actually have to start worrying about them again soon.

LOL, should have know that - I was just a Hen's game and watched them making challenges. Makes me wonder then - when games get out of hand do human umps eventually start subconsciously widening the zone to slow things down?

Hard to figure what to make of Olsen. Looked great for three innings, then bam. I thought a part of it was bad sequencing though - too many sliders. I think teams/pitchers can get too hung up on spin rate. Spin is good because it make one pitch act differently than another, but it doesn't matter how good the break on your breaking ball is if you throw it so much the hitter can ignore the FB and sit on it - no matter how you spin it he will figure out where it is going to go if you give him enough chance to.

Years ago the Sox had about the most famous organist in the country - a guy named Shay Torrent (I think he might have played for the Black Hawks also). He left them to go to Anaheim. I guess loyalty is in short supply everywhere....🤷‍♂️

8 base runners in 11 outs does not exactly scream "Call me up - I'm ready" OTOH, I think it might be safe to assume that in a game where 34 runs were scored, the K zone could have been the size of a postage stamp.

Prepping for Football season.

He'll join the starting rotation in '24 and should be ready for the HOF in about '45

Too many Tiger pitchers fall too much in love with their sliders.

TB: In Chrome, when you hit "embed post", manually copy the link it puts on the top of the page labeled "What would you like to embed" and paste that into here as plain test, and voila!

Interestingly enough, Torkelson has hit 20 in *his* last 82 games. (Spencer's AB early this season were forgettable.) But nice to be throwing around positive data for a change!

What MAGA really means is "Memory Always Goes Away. Their world is like one big Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

LOL - I have to agree with LLM that you're a tough audience for Skubal - his stuff is pretty good, but one can't argue (as per Edman) that the health risk will be high for him - esp in the the next year or two. But as a general proposition, the pitching is a really big question Mark. The high optimism of 2-4 yrs ago has largely evaporated. Mize had not been dominant before the surgery, Skubal is a health risk, Manning is plateauing at a level still too inconsistent, Turnbull is....who knows? Faedo may stick but he's going to be a middling kind of guy. Wentz similar but even less. Olsen might turn into something. And the guy I'd try as a starter next Spring is Tyler Holton. In any case - too many question marks.

Yeah - JD is still a terrible defensive OF but that hasn't stopped the keening for him ever since he was traded. Moving Tork for magic beans because we think we need a defensive upgrade anyway? For me that is too much in the direction of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

The hopeful part is that they did a good job of finding undervalued pitchers in ERod and Lorenzen. If we can assume that was at least part skill and not 100% luck, and they can reproduce that accomplishment again at least in part, then that alone is a big piece.

gee, "only" 2.36? We knew this one would be bad. The eye test is substantiated.

yeah - we are still waiting this FO to come up with their Hershell Walker trade. 🔥

I go back to what I always maintain, you can't really rely on increasing you roster value in trades. Trades are only really useful when you have guys that are blocked whose value you can't utilize, otherwise you will on average give up as much as you get. The idea that you trade yourself into being better is an arm-chair GM fantasy for a team like the Tigers that is resource poor to begin with. You can only do what Dombrowski did, which was keep adding $$ in your trades - buying roster value in each trade. That can certainly work...for a while.

You have those two issues with a 1b though. One is plays on batted balls, one is fielding throws. In his current state Tork is much better at the latter than the former but you *have* to have the latter if Baez remains your shortstop. Put an Alan Trammell over there and it's absolutely a different overall defensive calculation. Javy is terribly undisciplined in his throws and he gets a pass because he is otherworldly with the glove, but it all relates; you can't get the value of Javy's glove without a 1B who is above average at managing his throws.

and you can see how Harbaugh was the perfect foil for this. While he's not full out delusional, Harbaugh is definitely a guy that entertains a skewed perspective of many things. He's exactly the kind of person that would really believe he was right about something most other people would look at, shake their heads and say "Jim, I think you're wrong"

OTOH, they could fall back if they don't come up with equal or greater pitching replacements for ERod and Lorenzen and doing that is not a sure thing. Right now too much the in house pitching depth is trending toward back of the rotation - Faedo, Olsen, Wentz, Manning and I'm also getting the feeling Turnbull is damaged goods.

Weird to be talking about 6 more weeks of AAA in late August.

Can I give all my likes to one post?

The roller under the glove was a bad play - just lack of concentration making sure his glove was all the way down. The dropped throw was at least a much Baez. Lesson one for MIFs should be "don't throw the ball at the 1B's feet. I'm beginning to understand why Tony Rizzo won 4 gold gloves and why Baez would have been moved to 2b a long time ago if he hadn't had the good fortune to play with such a superlative 1b. Also why Hinch never gives Torkelson a day off. Playing a part time 1B opposite javy would be cruel and unusual punishment. Look up "loose cannon" in the dictionary and you're going to see Javy's right arm. I'm not sure I've ever seen a SS who can NEVER just make a decent chest high throw. He's like Brandon Inge x 10. At least Inge usually only made a tough throw after making a tough catch like a hard dive. Javy actually throws better after the tough plays, it's his routine catches theat generate so many of his tough dig outs at 1B.

/..Checks calendar -- says Tuesday../ You nailed it

Michigan is pleading guilty to a cheeseburger and daring the NCAA to actually prove anything more. It's a strategy that could work.