mtutiger

I wish every ex-Tiger the best. But I mostly don't care about their outcomes.... and would expect that people paid to cover the Detroit Tigers spend their time covering the actual Detroit Tigers.

The two biggest offenders link up here lol

Or even results.... like, I don't think it's an accident that when he actually swung at a first pitch fastball against Mikolas in yesterday's game, he ended up getting a sharp single out of it. It's easy for me to say as an observer of this, and obviously it's situation dependent, but if you identify a pitch as hittable, you should swing at it more often than not. Whether it's Pitch #1 or Pitch #6 of the AB.

DD also mentioned AJ discussing the need for Tork to (paraphrasing) "sell out for the approach on any given day" during that conversation yesterday. I take that as a sign that the Tigers are fully aware and are probably working on it with him. Although it remains to be seen if it goes anywhere.

Possible it's been mentioned already in the thread, but Dirks made the point that players can go an entire game without seeing a good pitch to hit... and while organizational strategy may be playing a factor (the Tigers are swinging at far fewer first pitches than in years past in 2024), with Torkelson, he absolutely needs to swing at a few of them, if for nothing else, to keep pitchers honest. Or else he may not get much of anything worth hitting It's a big reason he ends up down in counts so often.... pitchers don't have any fear and just know he'll take the "get me over" fastball early in the count. And by the time he shows interest in taking the bat off of his shoulders, he's at a point where he's unlikely to get much to hit. That's at least my amateur observation.... I still think he's a talented hitter, hitting 30 homers last year established that in my mind. But something needs to change with approach if he wants to stay there for sure.

I did the Ohio Turnpike for the first time in years back in January.... most of it is as boring as I remember, but while I struggle to compliment anything in Ohio *too* much, the trip through the Cuyahoga valley is actually fairly pretty, better than I remember it being.

Really, any of us would have been happy with a DH split and that's what happened. The lackluster offense in Game 1 cost them though.... we can split hairs about how AJ used Miller and Foley all we want, but you cannot stake your pitching staff to 1-0 leads and expect them to win all the time.

And you cannot ignore the context that the Tigers have turned into a really good organization at developing pitching.... even if Soto were performing better than his numbers show this year, the overall results of the pen this year have been stellar. There's not a single person, Joey Wentz included, that would be easy to switch out for Soto at this point. Vierling is a really useful player who has a lot of potential, particularly when you look at Statcast metrics.... he may or may not put it all together or be an everyday player material, but he adds a lot of value to this roster with his versatility and his speed. And his ability to make hard contact at the plate. Overall, the trade tends to get put down upon because people overvalued Gregory Soto IMO....

They are 5-0 when he starts! Consistently gives the team the chance to win. You'd like to see a little more in the K department (along with swing and miss), but on balance he's pitched well. And yeah, he deserves better than the kind of defense he got while he was in the game. Just not acceptable, and AJ said as much in his press conference tonight.

Vierling gets a lot of flack (particularly from certain podcast hosts), but even with Maton and Sands out of the organization, I'd rather have Vierling than Gregory Soto. And it's not even close

4 errors...

That Vierling homer was wild... such a low launch angle!

Wow

Agreed... almost the polar opposite of their pitching group, everything they touch turns to ****

Extra pitches and, to an extent, probably a win or two mixed in. The hitting woes aren't going to resolve themselves overnight, but FFS, at least go out and field your position better than a little leaguer

Can the pitching staff file a class action lawsuit against the hitters / fielders?

Exactly. I'm also old enough to remember when Tyler Nevin was raking against AAA pitching, only to get the call to Detroit and become a punchline with the fanbase. People are badly underestimating that possibility with Huira... we've seen this movie before. It's an unsatisfying answer to the impulses of the fanbase, who apparently would love nothing more than the DFA the guy apparently, but the best version of the 2024 Detroit Tigers (and future Detroit Tigers teams) is one where Spencer Torkelson is meeting or exceeding expectations. We can all be frustrated and disappointed with his start thus far while recognizing this fact.

Jobe seems like a key factor to me on that front.... if he moves quickly and were to manage to start to knock on the door of the big leagues (not completely out of the question), it opens up some possibilities IMO

I wouldn't be surprised if they shopped some pitchers for bats, quite honestly. Especially if they remain relatively close in the division.

When the situation changes to the point where the opportunity cost of giving up on the 1-1 player is lower than it is to roll with another option. Keston Huira, who tbf may or may not still have something to prove in the big leagues, just isn't gonna move the needle on that front. Not even close. It's going to take some combination of time and lack of improvement along with another legit option opening up (either internally, through trade or in a future offseason)... until that changes, they are going to see what they have. And are right to do so.

I would add that there was a lot of teeth gnashing by folks last season complaining about Colt Keith not getting called up.... now that he's here, he's not only bad, but he's worse at the dish than Torkelson is (ie. the guy everyone wants to apparently send to Toledo and/or DFA). It's not a defense of Tork, he has to be much better. His piss poor defense the last couple of weeks was sort of a breaking point for me. Having said that, like Mike McMahon during the Joey Harrington era, the next hot thing down in Toledo isn't always the answer.

Not on the 40 man.... who gets DFA'd?

No argument there...

For sure, the bullpen was due for one of these....

Correct. Although he's going to need to improve his defense over what we've seen so far, because if his ceiling is lower offensively, he's a lot more expendable if he cannot play the field.