gehringer_2

serious question or am I missing something obvious?

To much offense by the bad guys when Erne and Sundvquist are out there.

the conventional wisdom used to be that to compensate for vision and obstacles, shorter guys had more success if they rolled out a lot, but that's tougher to do in todays game with so many edge guys that can run a QB down if comes in their direction - also means a short QB better be fast as well. Size also helps guys fight off sacks or get the ball off before they can be pulled down. In general, there is probably good reason so many QBs look like Brady.

I thought Elmer was making a contribution with his puck possession skills. While Rassmussen has been fine with other mates, I don't think Sundqvuist has found a fit as well was when he was with Ras and Soderblom. He seems to me to be floating around aimlessly too much of the time recently.

Isn't that sort of like saying, "It only takes one earthquake to level the town" Doesn't mean it's particular fun to sit up on the hill and watch the city all day long waiting for it.....

Catcher is asolutely weak, but that's true for almost everyone other than KC (and even Sal is getting old) so that would be the place you might just have to live with being bad because there just are no options.

You look at what Yzerman has done finding guys like Kubalik and you hope that kind of model would be viable in baseball but I have my doubts. In hockey a pretty decent player can get sort of buried with poor line-mates or a coach/system that's bad fit for his style of play. For a ballplayer, it's such an individual performance that it's pretty hard for good players to go unrecognized regardless of their team or teammates. And the likelihood of finding another unrecognized metric like OBP was to the money ball revolution shrinks every year.

so putting Chris Ilitch aside, about whom none of us really know jack squat, now that the cuts have been made what are we left with:? Starting Pitching: ERod, Manning, Turnbull, Wentz, Faedo, Brieske, Alexander, possible Skubal post ASB Relief Pitching: Soto, Cisnero, Jimenez, Roni Garcia, Lange, Alexander, Foley, Hill After one or two are inevetably lost to the DL that should make 13 or so. With Skubal and Mize both likely to be back in '24 any kind of long term starting pitching signing seems a lower priority than other holes but at least one 'prove it in ST" tryout signing also seems inevitable.... Position Players: C : Haase, Roger - (Seems like a signing is in order here) 1B: Torkelson - (either has to hit or be replaced - can K. Carpenter learn 1st?) 2b: Schoop - (do we trust him to have a comeback yr?) SS: Baez 3B: Kreidler/Short/Clemens/Ibanez/TBA (Help us Obi-Wan Kanobi, you're our only hope!) RF: Austin Meadows/TBA CF: Greene LF: Baddoo/Haase/Meadows DH: Cabrera, Carpenter, Haase So where does it hurt the most? I know most of the focus has been 2B/3B and OF, but I think the power vaccuum at 1B/DH is just as bad. As of now there this no fallback if Torkelson doesn't come around, and enough has been said about Cabrera. It would be a huge help if Carpenter is more than one month flash in the pan.

the standard Trump "I have no idea who that is" defense. Pretty stale at this point.

doesn't seem likely you would have a future in the NBA with a low release point shot.

this x 1000. Hitting is a skill so detached from other conventional athletic characteristics that that approach is doomed to failure. You have to identify hitters *as hitters* and then hope their athleticism is at least good enough you don't end up with 9 DHs. But the cruel truth is that as much as I love to see great defense being played, you are still better off in the MLB with 9 DHs than 9 Andreton Simmonses. You. Have. to. Hit. Now TBF, the tigers haven't been wrong in every case recently. But not right anywhere near enough. So e.g. -Remember when we drafted Greene, there was enough skepticism about his fielding that there was even talk about him being destined for 1b. But he could hit. So he has 'surprised' in terms of turning into a pretty decent OF. That's a way better bet than that NIko Goodrum or Willi Castro was ever going to become a hitter. Ironically, under Avila the Tigers do seem to have learned how to identify arms with MLB potential with some success, but I've always held that pitching is far more amenable to analysis via the advanced measurement tools currently available than hitting is. Avila's regime got some handle on the former, but not much on the latter. And of course they were done in as much as anything by not understanding how to keep those arms healthy. If finding hitters is job one, pitching health is job one 'b'.

about time

Hear, hear!

OTOH, just to be clear, Armenia isn't likely throwing a hissy fit because they have some scruples about what Russia is doing in Ukraine per se, it's only about Ukraine diverting Russian resouces that Armenia wants deployed in their battles with Azerbijan and Pashinyan angling to pressure Putin to maintain higher priority for supporting Armenia.

FYI - Umich alcohol expense account policy is $20/person/event including all tips and taxes and has to be charged to accounts excluded from the totals that go toward the U's overhead as used to claim G&A costs on external (Gov, NSF, NEA, NIH, DOD etc) grant dollars. The events also have to be related to fund-raising or specific documented business purpose beyond normal operations. I would guess rules at MSU are probably pretty much the same.

Two or three more games and Tyler will no longer have the excuse of not having his legs back - we'll see.

It would be nice if Bertuzzi would start to break out of it. He's yet to show the disruptive harassing/forecheck/stick in the lane presence that has been his forte.

absolutely. He stole this one. Should have been about 5-2 Preds - way too many defensive breakdowns by forwards- many while Copp/Bert/Sundqvuist were on the ice.

Wings up 2 -0 going into the third but the Copp line still playing some terrible D.

I think this is part of the difficulty with moving hitters through the minors. I think brain research argues that the windows on adaptability progressively close off every year older we get. That argues that there is biological pressure to move guys as quickly *as possible*. The trick is that for every player there is a fast which is too fast.

Caputo is a sad case. Could be it's my expectations that have elevated in recent years, but at least as I remember it, Caputo was once very good on baseball.

I will grant him the one point that for the group charged with only misdemeanor's, they probably would only have serverd a one or two game team suspension as a result, so frustration at the slow turn around at DPSS and WashCo DA office that has meanst at least a 4 game suspension, is not unreasonable. Still, I'm going to guess probably not a lot that could have been done to make it quicker. I would guess that DPSS had to have their every step micro-vetted by both the legal and equity offices at UM, and maybe at MSU as well.

I think oddly enough there is something to that. DD brought in players almost exclusively based on ability to hit the FB and the Tigers were uniquely vulnerable to junk ball pitchers to the point it was a running joke here. Like in a lot of areas, it seems Al Avila reacted too far in the opposite direction with his preferences. I would think the most reliable team is the one with at least some hitters that are going to be successful against whatever pitcher you have to face. Obviously you want the best hitters in general, but in the real world where you can't have that, I still wouldn't want a team where all the players profile with the same weakness whether it be the FB or off-speed.

I guess that's just part of the contradiction of China. They are reaching the point where trying to have it both ways is stressing the system. That and the increasing rigidity that Xi has brought into play. China's continuing political imperative over science approach to COVID is such a total repudiation of 40 yrs of work to become a techological, scientific power. It reminds me of nothing so much as Stalin's suppression of modern genetics and geneticists because Lamarkism was a better fit with his political ideology.

curious they would bother puttting Parker on the 40 if he can't hit the FB. Have to assume they think they can shorten him to the ball enough to change that. Good luck if that's the case.