gehringer_2

Verlander's K rate after 180 IP was 6.0. Not to compare the two in any sense but just to point out that pitchers can learn how to get more K's with experience. I'm not predicting that for B. Garcia, but he is a guy I'd like to see him get more run somewhere because there are hints of potential upside - and as a starter he really doesn't even have anything like 90 IP yet.

This is true. If you had told me the day they fired Quinn & Patricia that the new regime would have even one side of ball in pretty good shape going into their second year, I might have said that sounded pretty good.

IDK, what do you get back? Does Yzerman think there is more rebuilding to do and he wants more picks? Not sure you want to make an offense for defense trade when the team is already offensively challenged and there are promising Dmen already in the pipeline. Forward for forward - what's the point? I suppose you can get younger and cheaper, but I don't think the Wings feel particular pressure to save $$$ instead of signing Larkin to his next deal.

I know there isn't much love for B. Garcia, but his pitches have big time movement. I think he has more MLB potential that he gets credit for.

Daz has been dead man walking in terms of MLB. Though like C. Stewart, Daz is not a bad fit for a career AAA profile.

I'll grant I tend to be in this camp. As I think about it, part it may be that AJ talks ups his bad players a lot, and maybe that is pure psychological tactic and doesn't reflect his true evaluation of those players. If that is true, and I can only hope it is - it certainly may be, then I think it validates this view.

Didn't hurt Adley that he is two years older than Torkelson.

last thing to say about the ball park it that it has hosted a HR champ, three batting titles and 2 Cy Youngs. That's pretty good evidence it's a fair balance between pitchers and hitters.

I do think that if the Tigers preach 'gap hitting' to the team because of the park - the error is theirs and not the ball park. You want to hit the gaps at a park like Kaufmann where the mid-line distances are long. But there are NOT at CoPa. The HR distances mid-field to the lines at CoPa are completely average, you don't want to give up pulling the ball at CoPa for the benefit of a few XBH into the CF gaps because hitting to CF *is* death for flyballs. Now I would think with all the supposed stat nerds on the staff they would understand that, but I still hear them talking about the need for 'gap' hitters and I really don't think it makes any sense when 360 in the air is HR anywhere near either line. It's a pull hitter's ballpark all the way.

If you're going to designate him as your long reliever/emergency starter, maybe, but Hinch's love affair with him as starter does have to end.

park factors should not be affected by bad or good team playing in the park, but my casual observation over the years is that they tend to be anyway. I have no explanation for that though. Well, while baseball teams are happy enough to put up huge scores on one another, maybe the opposition does plays down to the level of a bad offensive home team just enough that it does show up in the park factors.

I don't really care that much if they were to bring in the CF corners, but to me it's wasted energy worrying about someting that doesn't matter. It's a pet peeve of Lynn Hennings and won't change their path to the playoffs, so any mental, physical or financial resource the team puts in that direction is resource not spent in a direction that matters.

Guys smash the ball hard and get robbed all-the-time, everytime an IF snags a liner at 110 mph. Getting 'robbed', by a fielder, the wind, a seagull that flies by, an architectural detail - all sort of intrinsic to the game to me. If baseball didn't have such a huge input of randomizing variables that suppressed how good the good teams are and how bad the bad teams are, it would look too much like the NBA with the good teams winning at an 800 clip and the bad ones at 200. 162 game losing season is bad enough when your bad team is at 400.

I've seen him listed anywhere between 7'2" and 7'4". That would be my biggest worry - guys above 7' 1, 7'2" haven't had great history of holding together physically in the NBA.

right. If Harris actually gets into numbers they will tell him the park is not the problem. Tiger team was was above average in HR as recently as 2017. I could only see them doing something if they propose it as part of a general rehab of the facility because otherwise it would be a lot of money spend on something that is very unlikely to add a single win to any season total.

Yeah - it is totally against the norm for a guy to have his bat - esp his power, just dissolve in his 28th yr when he should be still be in his peak strength years.

My 'sad and dissappointed' will be to see Willi Castro back.

too bad the FBI's scruples don't run to 'dead or alive' on the bounty. I guess we only do that for black flaggers. 🤷‍♀️

Attitude and perspective aside, I just don't think Shep is that good from a technical standpoint. Collisions of parts of speech, tenses, mangled words, sentences that just get lost in verbal bogs. I thought after all the years on the radio he'd be better at the nuts and bolts of speaking on air.

of course the Russians also seem to have a way with the bad guys rising to power behind guys that look much more promising who are then shunted aside once the stake is well driven through the old regime's heart. Kerensky - Yelstin paved the way for Lenin and Putin......

Sure, although the counter to the 'you'll have clubhouse strife if a guy is demoted' arg is that these guys also all want to win, and most of them are not really going to cry too much when someone who may be standing in the way of them winning more gets moved. Plus I suppose I'd argue that you are paying a manager 7 plus figures to make sure you manage the clubhouse so that winning stays everyone's #1 priority. And of course Soto hadn't blown that many opportunities. It's been pretty clear the ice under his cleats kept getting thinner, but he he hadn't crashed through completely either. The stronger part of the arg for me is about it not mattering because they weren't going anywhere and maybe you straighten Soto out and then his value goes up so you are willing to ride it out. That's fair. Then it comes down to more nebulous questions about when and what kind of culture and how much 'edge' you need to encourage......

Maybe if people start lining up on at least two sides that's progress. There has to be some orgainzing principle for the pushers before anybody can get pushed over. I suppose we might say - well, what if someone even more right wing gets control? - but I would bet even if they do come at Putin from the right, if one or group does win through, their first priority will still have to be to pivot to restablize the Russian state and it will be obvious to anyone who wasn't Putin that they can't do that while bleeding out in Ukraine.

Shep's the only one who ever worked in sports talk radio - he knows where the audience is by now.

👍

It's sort of another example of what I haven't liked about Tigers' management this season. Soto should have lost the his closer's gig when he lost his slider. There were other guys in this BP who could have been doing a better job - but the Tigers just stayed stuck in their rut with a Soto who has pretty much been a recipe for trouble for at least half the season. I guess it's like Jack apparently said last night (when there was no-one to hear him...!), the Tigers over value their own guys. Despite what Hinch says, throwing 100 mph is not 'electric' stuff if you can't control it and have no secondary pitches. Guy who can hit triple digits and not get guys out are garden variety in today's game.