mtutiger

Kerry C and Wolfie Maton... aka the offense

It must be nice to make six figures to tweet about this crap all day

Unless they plan on reoptioning Nevin back to Toledo whenever Lorenzen is activated, Johnny has another move to sweat out one would think. Although idk if they'd do it this quickly.

Let the palace intrigue begin

Would love to understand why they keep hitting one of their better hitters so far in the 6 hole

If they felt like the guy currently in Tampa was something they could have, I doubt that they would struggled so much with "the last step." Or have done the trade

Exactly. This is the underdiscussed part of that trade to me... sure, the trade makes Al look like a dingus because of the production differential between the two players, but what does it say about the org at that time that they couldn't unlock anything remotely looking like the player Tampa got during his time there? Or that they maybe even didn't give him the opportunities to show it at the MLB level? To me, the Rays bear some responsibility for that, and that is to their credit. One hopes this org can start emulating their success in getting the most out of players.

And they resigned Jonathan Schoop... Fully prepared to eat crow on that one, but that helped box out Paredes quite a bit as well.

It's probably important to consider that Avila was treating 2022 as if it would be a competitive ballclub. In that context, the trade probably made sense strictly from a stat sheet perspective. It's possible if Harris became GM in 2022, he would have a much different evaluation regarding the ceiling of that ballclub and would have opted to give Paredes ABs in Detroit. Whether that means we would have gotten this version of Paredes is an open question IMO... all the complaints about the trade never seem to take into account the possibility that Tampa unlocked something the Tigers didn't or couldn't in the previous years.

To add, I would imagine a handful of guys will or could remain from the last rebuild longer term, Tork and Greene obviously chief among them. Maybe they salvage some production out of Meadows or Perez or Colt Keith as well. Overall, I think best case scenario is that Tork and Greene both show themselves to be long term pieces over the next year or so and then get them signed to an extension so that they hit their prime in a realistic time frame for Harris to rebuild this thing. They may be positively awful this year, but that, along with maybe seeing Tarik back and producing later on this year, would help in at least showing a glimmer of hope.

Interesting question, I don't think he does. Regarding the bolded, that's really the question. The trade happened, it's over, the guy who executed the trade was fired. It's understandable why fans will ruminate, but it's over now and it's all about where they go from here.

Trust me, I get it.... To the extent that the losses bother me, it would just be nice to know whether the pain and suffering leads somewhere.... in the case of the Houston Astros and Chicago Cubs during the last decade, it did. More recently, in the case of the Baltimore Orioles, it appears to be happening as well. But in the Tigers case, Al Avila wasn't the guy to get the job done, he wound down the last iteration of good Tiger teams and basically failed at his job. Chris Ilitch's greatest sin is holding on far too long to Avila. And I get the cynicism about anything Tiger related in the wake of that. But there really isn't an alternative.... they had to hire someone else, who then brought in other people from other orgs, and we have to see whether they can get the job done. It's out of our control; we just have to watch and see what happens.

Given that the vast majority of the fanbase likely fell in line with this line of thinking, I recall a lot more ridicule toward those who weren't worked up over free agent signings.

Wait, are you suggesting that they aren't, in fact, going to lose 130 games this year?

I guess my question is what exactly is the alternative? We all knew and acknowledged that Al Avila left this franchise in the ditch when he was fired last year, so it shouldn't exactly be a revelation that they would struggle this year. And certainly we have seen enough to learn that, maybe outside of bullpen, free agents probably weren't going to make a huge impact either. I don't believe the players like losing, obviously, and perhaps it has an impact on player development, but they also have made a bunch of new hires to player development and their coaching staff as well and it will take time for the impact of that to fully manifest itself. And I don't know that a team that could potentially lose 100 losses is a terrible place for guys to get opportunities to play given that the environment is probably lower stakes than if they were in a more competitive spot... although for someone like Jarvy, it's likely more of an issue. That doesn't mean we should be happy that this is where they find themselves, obviously, but it's going to take time with this team.... even Saint Theo, Scott Harris' former boss and who everyone wanted after Avila's firing, would have had issues fixing this in one season.

I only say "didn't have to be Fulmer or Chafin" because there's a tendency to want to bring back retreads when other options were available as well.... it didn't have to be those guys, just anyone worthy of a major league contract would have been better. It's crazy considering how poorly he played last year and how angry the fanbase got toward him, but Tork is probably one of the only bright spots we've seen so far. He's on track to have a pretty good year so far.

Generally they didn't really surprise me much with the offseason they had, but to the extent they did, it wasn't bringing in a couple of established relievers. Didn't have to be Fulmer or Chafin, but major league contract guys like a Will Smith (who was still out there late in the game) would have made sense, even as an overpay. I do think they get this stabilized some from what it is at the moment, the bus will come and go from Toledo. But that looks like a mistake at the moment, although it's not clear if that's on Harris or ownership or both. Tork got a two bagger in the 8th iirc. Their offense is weird... they seem to be generally more effective in some respects compared to 2022, they do work counts a bit better and a couple of key players are performing (Tork and Greene). OTOH, when it comes to leverage situations, they generally have fallen flat this season. When they batted around in the 2nd, they couldn't get the big hit to cash in the runs they needed to in that situation.

I dont generally open up about personal things, but within a two day span we had to say goodbye to both of our Basset Hounds. Almost 13 and 12 respectively. Nothing really prepares you for losing both that quickly, though they were both close in age and close generally. :(

Leaving way too much on the plate with Manoah right now

For sure... they drafted and developed Castellonos, so he counts in my book. But others MMV

His post was not that specific

Right ulnar nerve entrapment.... that's a new one lol

The first three are pretty iffy, Grandy man was pretty damn good tho

The points here are good in the macro, but given the problems the Tigers face in the bullpen, at the micro level, they are going to need to try some different things in order to bring stability to that group regardless of whatever strategy they use in terms of how they use their pitching staff. I guess that's more what I was thinking. To be clear, some of the parts in the pen have shown flashes and that gets lost in the performance of the whole (Wingenter, Shreve, Englert have all been decent given the circumstances, Foley looked good in last outing), but largely they just haven't gotten the job done. And a couple of them (Cisnero probably highest among them) should probably be concerned about their role.

To the extent that this season is evaluating assets they have, from a starting pitching standpoint (and that includes when, presumably, Tarik Skubal comes back as well), definitely the question we should all have is whether any of the guys they have as a long term piece (Manning and Wentz, primarily) can develop into that consistent 6-7 IP starter. They badly need Manning to make that leap, but he's given plenty of reason for skepticism with his inconsistency.