gehringer_2

So I didn't hear it, but got the recap from the afternoon crew - Yzerman gave an interview and said he did think the playoff experience would be good for his team, and that he could be a buyer at the deadline but was not interested in any rentals.

Elon probably put this one out this morning just for MB.

assuming he was ever 'on' it, which we don't know either.

The one thing you can always rely on.

Doug Fister claimed he could throw from the other side just as well, but he never tried in competition - at least not with the Tigers. The strength of 'handedness' does vary in the population. We all know people who are useless with their off hand, and some people who are nearly perfectly ambidextrous, but I'd guess there are not many of the latter.

I think the idea that Yzerman is going to be swayed from "the plan" by two weeks of play or making one wild card berth is over estimated. That is fan sentimentality, not that of a GM trying to build a champion. He is either going to trade Bert or sign him. I absoutely don't see him letting him walk just to make a playoff series they're going to be elimated from anyway. But it's the likelihood of signing him for the $ they want, not making the WC that's going to drive it. Guys pushing the other narrative like WoJo haven't watched SY very closely.

From some of what is coming out now you have to wonder if the Tigers had gotten *too* aggressive about trying to change a few guys. Baseball players operate so near the bleeding edge of their body's and brain's limits that I think that sometimes even if a guy in theory *should* be doing something differently, it may not work for him in practice. It's a fine line coaching staffs have to walk between helping guys and screwing them up and no staff is going to get it right every time, you just hope you can put a staff in place that gets it right more often. For the Tigers, it appears they were on the wrong side of the line for Faedo and I'm guessing Torkelson as well (and possibly Coolbaugh at the parent club in general) but OTOH, to be fair, they also had several guys like Lipcius, Perez, Brieske, Wentz, and Meadows make a lot of progress last season.

when a switch pitcher faces a switch hitter, who gets the last switch? (the hitter) And where do you get a custom reversable baseball mitt?

It's easy rhetoric to do what Reagan did and make rhetorical hay out of when the government screws up, and then. conclude the answer is to kill the gov completely. Easy to do and easy to get funded by the commercial interests who want nothing more than to get that government along with that pesky 'public' out of the way of their profits. However the real answer to when the gov screws up is to go back, roll up your sleeves and try to make it work better. You will always fail, but the process of continuing to try is the only thing that allows successful countries to muddle through to any kind of long term success. In the end the gov is us, and if succeed in killing the gov, we will wake up to find we have killed ourselves as well.

the thing about spin rates is it depends on the pitch. Great spin rate on your FB and you are Justin Verlander. Great spin rate on your slider at 18 and you're probably on the surgical table by 21. 😱🤔

Interesting interview - doesn't seem to be paywalled https://wartranslated.com/forbes-ua-interview-gurs-chief-kyrylo-budanov-interview/

I think LBJ also consciously cultivated an 'old guy' look. If you got him out of those glasses he doesn't actually look too bad there for a guy from a sunny climate. The other thing is the big ears. Ears grow throughout your life so if you are born with large ones to begin with, you automatically look older than average.

There is probably something to be said for stockpiling high upside HS'ers - That's where a lot of the star players should emerge because a good professional minor league experience should drive their development further, faster than college ball. The emphasis there on the word *should*. The thing is, when you're as far behind as the Tigers are, doing that is a luxury compared to picking somewhat more predictable college players with higher proven floors.

I have to guess the assumption neither could stay at short is what led Al to look elsewhere, but that still doesn't explain how you get to a HS pitcher from there.

Power starting to go out in SE Ann Arbor. Oddly here on the north side of town not much ice......yet.

I guess Lalonde wasn't here when they traded for Vrana so maybe it figures, but his comments on Vrana have been pretty cold. His comment to the effect that Vrana 'has always had trouble playing in a system' seemed like kind of a gratuitous dig at what a guy did before either you or he was with your current team. It may be true but its not the kind of place coaches usually go tallking about players.... Maybe he just likes Zadina and is a bit put out at being told to play a player he's not sold on?

Caps with too many good chances in the 2nd half of the game. Husso huge again.

A hockey stick is completely wasted in Veleno's hands......

Seider with another erasure of a Cap.

The right knee is the primary issue - it's probably why he can't do aerobic work either other than maybe swimming. One the rare occasions last season when he could drive off it, he could still hit some. The rest of the time he's hitting purely from the waist up.

Of course if a guy is not a great blocker, he has less credibility to burn to start out as a blocker and then slip into a pattern uncovered.

LOL - actually LG, you are completely right, I meant to quote RedR's post there and accidentally got yours instead. It was his speculation that maybe the other guys looked better because they weren't being paid attention to, which conversely means that if true teams were 'paying attention to' i.e. doing some kind of scheming for Hock

IDK, Zadina and Veleno both appear to be pretty much lost causes. Zadina seems a little more of a presence on the ice, but he is an even worse finisher than Veleno, if that's even possible.

you are assuming Hock was good enough that other teams schemed against him. I could be persuaded of that but I would want to see some evidence.

It depends on how the team does - I see 3 outcomes: If some of these lottery tickets hit and they are competitive, and he ends up at 500 OPS again, he's going to need to take a 60day DL and give the team a chance to do something. If, as is more likely, the team is non-competitive, then if he gets 250-300 poor AB it won't be the end of the world. And of course even more remotely possible than the 1st outcome is that he stays healthy, in which case he could possibly be productive playing around half-time.