mtutiger

Marwin Gonzalez and Jake Marisnick are who I am thinking of. Particularly Gonzalez, who would get 400+ ABs a season while not being tethered to any one position.

I definitely think with the outfield in particular for next year's team, positions and traditional depth chart are out the window. Vierling would be considered a bench player by traditional standards, yet there's a pretty decent likelihood, if everything goes to plan, he's gonna get over 350 ABs for the 2023 Tigers. In part out of platooning in a heavy left-handed outfield, filling in for Meadows or possibly Carpenter who may get DH opportunities, opportunities to play at 3B, etc. So in reality, it's really not a bench role at all in terms of ABs, even though his position is less set in stone. Infield could potentially be more conventional, particularly if they add a 3B, but if they stick with what they have, not hard to see Maton and/or Kreidler in particular floating around and picking up a lot more ABs over the course of the year than traditional bench guys. It's pretty interesting... Hinch has always liked guys with a lot of versatility and utilized that approach with the Astros as well. He did so as much or more (out of necessity) with the Tigers with players who aren't well suited to it (Willi, Victor, Harold to a lesser extent bc defense). It seems that this is an area where he aligns with Harris and it's encouraging to see Harris get him players who may take to these roles better, for sure on defense and likely at the plate as well.

Honestly no clue... his tendency to want to stay in the Midwest close to his farm kinda makes him hard to suss out. I think he'd love it if Cleveland came calling.

Petzold mentioned Will Smith in his writeup today - another former Giant (though did not overlap with Harris) who could provide some possible trade upside if he pitches well this upcoming season.

If we are looking at past Giants track records, Alex Young may be a guy to look at as well as a possible LHRP that fits what Harris said yesterday. (Although they may desire someone who isn't another finesse guy with lower FB velocity, similar to Alexander)

AJ Pollock off the market, although the trade probably knocked out the need for an OF at this point.

Just to add, the other frustration is how Democrats are often treated as a monolithic entity that just decides which issues to address or not to address. When it reality, they too are also a political party who have a number of different members who dont necessarily see eye to eye on every political issue. The media seems to acknowledge that with the GOP, but when it comes to Silver's comment on the debt ceiling, he makes it sound like the Dems are a composed of five elders sitting in a smoke filled room deciding "nah, we don't need to deal with that" as opposed to being a party with its own ideological diversity. Which, when you only have 50 seats in the Senate are are relying on Kamala Harris to break ties, that can be a factor toward passing legislation.

In terms of culpability, I'm pretty confident that the GOP would be the ones hung with the blame if, God-forbid, they fail to raise it. But keeping it narrowly to Silver's comment, aside from the fact that it is divorced from political reality (ie. Manchin has stated over and over again he wouldn't do it without GOP votes and no amount of leaning on him would have changed that), it's yet another example of how the media has a double standard for the two parties. Where one party are treated like a bunch of toddlers who don't have agency while it is the responsibility of the other party to fix everything that the toddlers won't address. I've said it for a while now: we talk so much about "liberal" media bias, yet "the soft bigotry of low expectations" approach to the GOP is prevalent in the media as well and leads to an imbalance in expectations between the two parties. Which is kinda BS...

This seems about right... Vierling will be a nominal bench guy, but one imagines he will be used frequently and all over the outfield. Especially to allow Meadows or Carpenter DH opportunities I still would like them to go get Brian Anderson or someone like that as a true 3B and for them to use Maton as a true utility guy (similar to the Harold Castro role), but if he ends up as primary 3B with Nevin or Kreidler behind him, it wouldn't be the end of the world.

Just a tremendous amount of whiplash now that Keith Law seems to like all of the Tigers move under this new FO

I totally forgot about this, but Vierling followed Alec Bohm in blowing up Josh Hader's close to year long homer-less streak in June 2022

Reading Stavenhagen's article on the trade... he hasn't been talked about as much, but the more one reads about Sands the more one thinks that Rogers may have to earn his way onto the 26 man roster. Harris seems to think pretty highly of him

Half of the Tigers outfield pieces are CarShield veterans lol

I do think this trade shows the limits of their model tbh. Maybe the Tigers receive more trade valuevalue, they seem more priced in as role players versus Soto, who has a lot more utility to a contending ball club as a piece out of the pen (preferably not as a closer). Particularly a team that believes they can unlock his potential. Put another way, I understand the trade from the Phils perspective and there's a good chance it's a win-win for both clubs.

As expected, they probably still could add at 3b

So that would make the 40 man now 39, right?

Its done

https://www.mlive.com/tigers/2022/11/former-tigers-exec-has-new-job-with-phillies.html David Chadd works for the Phillies now, fwiw. Wonder if there was institutional interest just on account of that

Now the question is whether they are actually done or may look to add one or two more pieces? Wouldn't be surprised if they may shift to look to add a reliever along with another infielder still. Vierling should seal the deal for the OF

Vierling's Savant Page: A lotta red on there....

Deck chairs on the Titanic would have been trading Soto for pitching lol

For sure. And given some of the names that have been bandied about (ie. Wil Myers, Brandon Drury), there's an argument that it's more useful to give ABs to these guys who may still improve upon their initial MLB numbers and are controllable for a while longer versus those other guys who are here for 1-2 years tops and (if we are lucky) could be worth a lottery ticket in a trade down the road. Soto and Clemens seems like a fair price to pay on that... I take G2's point that he's a MLB player, but he's a reliever and his been inconsistent throughout his career, with not great peripherals either. Not sure they were gonna get more here.

Does this mean Zach Short is gonna be shipped out soon??? (Only somewhat joking)

Yes. But it's for Gregory Soto and Kody Clemens lol... for those two players, getting players who can be useful on the 2023 Detroit Tigers seems like a win. Even if they aren't necessarily longer term pieces.