mtutiger

Skeptical as I've been at the idea of him getting a call up, at the rate the offense is going, he might make it to the bigs too fast to have that chance anyway.

Kreidler is on rehab in West Michigan at the moment

Some apologies from various media figures are in order as well...

Wait, does Fox really expect Congressman Foghorn Leghorn here to actually, you know, do actual work?

Who you gonna believe? Janet Yellin or this lunatic? I swear, the House Freedom Caucus are the 2008 Detroit Lions of political caucuses.... probably doesn't help to extract concessions when you repeatedly signal over and over again that you'll never vote for any alternative no matter what.

He probably already knew what it was like to be close to home having played in Chicago, fwiw. Nonetheless, there are a multitude of reasons he may not have come back. And despite it being the default assumption, it may not be all about the Tigers or their effort to bring him back.

Maybe, but the morgue likely requires more money (sometimes a lot more) than someplace that is ultimately more desirable. Just ask the KC Royals, who gave an outgeous contract to Jordan Lyles this past offseason.

Money and family are huge considerations, but workplace environment can matter as well. Tork's comments recently about how this year has been much different in the clubhouse than last year and how the clubhouse felt like "a morgue" in 2022 speaks to that. Chafin was a part of that clubhouse last year, on the inside... maybe that left an impression. Just as the vibes around the 2022 team could have left an impression on other free agents as well.

I dont know if it is or isn't. But when I listened to Cody Stavenhagen and his buddy or Evan Petzold and Mark Gorosh bring this up when the bullpen was struggling early on, the default position was that he was there for the taking and the Tigers just didn't do it. And the fanbase largely adopted that line. They don't know that and we don't know that. The tell is that Cody and Evan (who I both respect) all (not entirely unjustified, fwiw) complain about their access to info from the org... and that they don't get much for better or for worse. The absence of access leaves a vacuum which gets filled with these sorts of assertions. But there just isn't anything hard to go off of as far as I can tell.

What on earth does Marcelo Mayer have to do with Andrew Chafin or his agency on the market?

Very possible. But again, the default position of much of the fan base seems to be that Chafin was available to come back. And I'm not sure that is actually the case.

Most comments about free agency lament the Tigers not going and bringing Chafin back. Which assumes he wanted to in the first place. So why assume something we don't know?

So we just default to assuming Chafin wanted to come back?

Totally... it's easy for us to sit on the sidelines and act like it's simply a out the will of the owner and/or GM, but for 763rd time, the word "agency" is in "free agency" for a reason. Really, in terms of the waters the Tigers were swimming in this offseason, the one cheaper option that would have been nice to have would be Brian Anderson... no idea if they tried or not, but I thought he would have made sense. He's put up a nice season for the Brewers and his production at third would have been a nice value add. But again, it's a competitive process involving humans. There are no guarantees

Also note how "shoulda kept Chafin and Fulmer" has now been trimmed down to just Chafin, since Fulmer now sucks? We really don't know the degree to which Chafin was open to coming back here... for some reason, people act as if this is the same as rolling down to Meijer and buying a rump roast - maaaaybe free agency a little more complicated than that.

OMG Andy Dirks called it!

That's a good point... really it's McCarthy plane to land. Does that make Joe the Leslie Nielsen and Kevin the Robert Hays of this situation?

Looks like Biden, somehow, landed the plane (pending the actual vote)... Not a perfect deal, but exceeds the insanely low expectations

He's from Toledo, so he's an All Star by default haha

To be honest, not really.... maybe some of the hardliners in the House will vote against articles of impeachment. But again, it's no coincidence that this is happening as Paxton has gotten to a point where he's more of a liability to other elected GOP pols than an asset at this point. And no, I don't think Trump will be a knight in shining armor for Paxton... if the winds are blowing toward impeachment, he's not going to expend political capital to save him.

Sure.They are probably gonna have to ride Wentz... Which, it is what it is. We know the stuff is there, obviously it'd be better if they could drop him to Toledo to find it, just have to see if he can bounce back next time. As far as Tyler Alexander goes, increasingly unclear as to his point on this team... Seems like every outing is 2IP, 3R lol

Setting aside his lack of morals, decency and honesty both personally and professionally, the big problem with Trump for me isn't so much that he's (now) a Republican. It's that he's a populist... and populism is a pretty big turnoff for a lot of voters because it tends to be long on griping, complaining and exploiting outgroups (ie. all the culture war BS) and short on actual policy solutions. And unfortunately, he has remade the entire party in his image... even in who the establishment Rs have elevated (ie. DeSantis), they are signaling that they think the problems that voters have with Trump are more style over substance... just repackage the Trumpism without Trump. And it's very much not clear that is the case... If the Democratic Party ran a candidate who positioned himself like the above, they wouldn't make it to Super Tuesday, let alone win the whole thing because the largest constituencies in the party (ie. black voters, college whites, etc.) are more policy driven than grievance driven voters.

Yet one assumes that you had no issue with members of his administration or inner circle defying Congressional subpoenas. Am I wrong?

As far as Chas' second point goes, though I understand the skepticism, I do think he stands a good chance at conviction here. In particular, his whistleblower lawsuit has brought other members of the House and Senate to the brink of legal liability (ie. Paxton making asks of them that would lead to the FBI knocking on their doors) and they aren't interested in that. Either way, in any one party state, whether it be a GOP one like Texas or a Dem one like Illinois, you are gonna have factions within the party and they aren't always gonna align. Which means that just because Ken P wears the "R" after his name doesn't mean he's universally loved or doesn't have enemies within his party. Particularly given all the criming he has done over the years. The combination of these factors just means it's his chickens coming home to roost imo.

Olson has pitched better for sure, but he usually struggles adjusting to a new level... So probably not a savior.