Edman85

Mitch Garver is a catcher I stumbled across who could be a good buy low. Had an injury plagued year, was Wally Pipped by Heim. Seems likely to be non-tendered.

The Athletic ads are brutal. Not just the gambling, but the ever-changing supplements they push. It's what I imagine Alex Jones podcast ads sound like. Mushroom coffee, gluten free this, vegan that...

Conan's banter is at least funny. His is on my feed because he is funny, so I don't mind funny banter.

And the last 10 to a strip club story. Easy to skip over.

It amazes me how so many people don't know this. My understanding is I am still not allowed to use Tik Tok because of my job. I suspect you are the same.

The Padres made a lot of panic moves last year when they fell apart. I don't know where this fits into the scope, but they clearly wanted somebody else running their draft. I'm guessing Conner was under contract so he got reassigned. The fact that he left when offered an Amateur Scouting Director job tells me he viewed it as a demotion.

Yes. College drunk stories aren't interesting, at all, bar none. Stavenhagen is good for a tidbit or two every month or so, but the other guy contributes nothing and is random Twitter fanboy. The random links of players to past Tigers via teammates last year was kinda dumb when you can just do Miggy to Inge to Higginson to Tram/Whataker to Mickey Stanley to Kaline for anybody in the last 70 years.

The one I am thinking of that fits this description added a third.

They kept their international scouting in place, so the ties are still there. Moore and Garcia are still employed. Metzler is just overseeing them. The contracts are just agreed to years ahead of time, so unless Metzler comes in and pulls the rug on some of those agreements, it's just too late for him to do anything. And it isn't like the Venezuelan pipeline has been overly strong for the Tigers lately. Who's the last player they signed from Venezuela who made the majors? Harold Castro?

Regarding podcasts, I've thought about doing one, but several things stand in the way. I don't think I would stick to it. Who the hell am I? Seriously, so many of my gripes with Tigers pods i tried out and unsubscribed is it is people without any more knowledge than me. I don't want to be that person who isn't enlightening others. The bar for the podcast space should be pretty high. This is a big reason why I stopped blogging 10+ years ago. If all I am doing is regurgitating stuff from behind paywalls, that's not only theft but it is just not adding anything from me. I get perturbed by people flooding the zone, because that tends to be misinformation central. I don't want to contribute misinformation. The areas of baseball I do have more knowledge than others tend to be the mundane areas, which are unknown to many for a reason: because they are boring and mundane. The audio format isn't the best for that. Not sure any format is the best for that. I'll get cancelled fast.

Not sure, but I'll say this. The Harris/Metzler regime likely won't have many if any fingerprints on this class.

Highest draft signing bonus on the roster: Spencer Torkelson Lowest draft signing bonus on the roster: Beau Brieske ($75,000) Highest international free agent signing bonus on the roster: Luis Garcia ($2,500,000) Lowest known international free agent signing bonus on the roster: Harold Castro ($29,000) Unknown undrafted free agent bonuses: Luis Castillo, Jose Cisnero, Angel De Jesus, Jason Foley, Rony Garcia, Elvin Rodriguez, Jonathan Schoop, Gregory Soto

Welp, I calculated the median initial signing bonus of all the players on the Tigers 40 man roster (49 total, 60 day IL included)... A lot of the lower profile Latin American UDFA's don't have bonus info available, but safe to assume it is below the median, so I marked them as zero, same effect. It came out to a nice round number: $500,000

10th round picks rarely get slot, too. The newest CBA curtailed some of the really low senior sign deals, but under the slotting system, it's not uncommon to see some seniors popped in rounds 7-10 and getting a 4 digit bonus.

Most players who make the show? No. Turner got a 4.7M bonus and (now not allowed) a major league deal with some guarantees. A very small fraction of draftees get that kind of bonus.

The Tigers signed Miguel Del Pozo, their first free agent signing of the offseason. He hit HA early as a twice outrighted guy.

Yes. That is what I read between the lines when Harris said he hasn't started interviewing candidates.

I also suspect teams like to hide players they want to try to slip through the Rule 5.

FYI, a lot of those restrictions are no longer in place as of 2019. See here https://www.thecubreporter.com/arizona-fall-league-az-instructional-league

David Stearns stepping down in Milwaukee and James Click's contract expiring in Houston. Reading between the lines, I wouldn't be stunned if Click was brought in as GM.

Development is less assigning players to levels, more teaching them the right things. Avila/Littlefield/Chadd appeared to be stuck in their ways. I recommend reading the MVP Machine. Ironically, I believe there was a picture of that book in Avila's office, but it shows what teams like the Dodgers and Astros were doing way before the Tigers played catch-up.

A few things: I haven't had the time to go through and evaluate the Rays drafts 2016-Pres as I would like to (apportioning value to traded draft picks, etc.). The Tigers have been drafting high since 2016, so they should have gotten more in that time. The Rays have, however, been getting competitive balance picks, that the Tigers didn't start getting until 2020. The rule of thumb I've observed looking at drafts is it takes 7 or so years to judge them, unless the players have flamed out. Most of Metzler's Rays drafts are before that threshold. Compare with caution, especially with the Rays "low and slow" development philosophy. Yes, there is some player development failure to blame for the drafts not pumping out much talent. Putting Dave Littlefield in charge of that was Al Avila's greatest failure.

Not sure Metzler would have been involved on that one at all, unless he was pushing for the extra pick.

Well then it must be true... 😃

Yes. This is a Chadd backfill. Teams average about 5 AGM's.