mtutiger

Oh I know, it would just be clarifying to hear him say it. I carry an Eastern European last name. The Russians played a big part in the fact that somewhere around half of my people came here in the early 20th Century. Vladimir embarked on this conquest to go back those days. It was a conquest of his choosing, and nobody should cheer that on or want that to happen.

Do you think Ukraine should be subjugated by Russia?

The thing about The Beatles, and it's often misconstrued as criticism and it really isn't, is that they were really good at doing a lot of different things. Being the first to try them even. But they really weren't the best in any of them, at least in terms of genre. The Stones may have been technically sloppy in a lot of ways, but if I want a bluesy sounding rock tune, I'm choosing them over "Yer Blues" or whatever The Beatles put out. The Beatles were greatest on breadth, but they never mastered anything that they did the way those came after them did.

One way to look at Feliciano is that at catcher depth, we went from Ali Sanchez to Michael Papierski to Feliciano, a guy who used to be a pretty high prospect in the Brewers system who is only 24 in about three transactions. While retaining Papierski after his DFA. It isn't sexy, but it's how you build depth in an organization. Avila never did that kinda stuff.

Maybe reading too much into things here, but with the DFA of Madris, the Tigers are now down to only four non-utility outfielders on the 40 man roster (Baddoo, Greene, Meadows x2). Guessing it won't remain that way.

I get that, but again, if you sign him, you still have an issue where every outfielder on your 40 man roster bats left handed. Which means signing him likely necessitates another move. Also not clear on why age matters if both guys are being signed to short term deals (Conforto and Pollock are both looking like 1-2 year guys tops)... maybe you get better production out of Conforto, but neither guy is a long term solution under those circumstances.

This is a good post. The glass is half full take is that, pitching wise, they are in a better position depth wise, even with injuries, than they were at the end of last offseason, which at least likely means that the focus on the front office until the end of the offseason will be on improving the offense. And there is still time to accomplish that... if today were Jan 20 and not Dec 20, it might be different, but there is still time to improve offensively.

No argument here in terms of Conforto being an upgrade over Carpenter or Baddoo, but in general having an all lefty outfield is a legitimate problem (ie. one fans that should be concerned about) that would likely still need to be addressed with a hypothetical Conforto signing. In that respect, though he's not as good as Conforto, AJ Pollock may still be the better signing because he fills that need for a RH bat and adds versatility to the roster.

100%, Mitch made a lot of sense IMO if it was ever a possibility.

Chris isn't innocent and made a multitude of mistakes that led us to this point in terms of extending Avila and keeping him around as long as he did before actually pulling the trigger and removing him. The dude is also a PR nightmare and can't give a good press conference to save his life... and that sets aside all the off the field/District Detroit stuff that people don't like the guy for. There's just a lot of inherent things about the guy that make him an unlikable figure. But one can acknowledge the flaws while acknowledging some of the successes. That his team managed to outkick the coverage in terms of PBO hire; they basically exceeded expectations in hiring a guy that most didn't even think was an option, which is a pretty big success considering how disastrous 2022 was and the mess that Avila left behind. And, prior to 2022 when it looked like this team could theoretically have a chance to compete, he went out and spent a bunch of money. We can argue whether the guys were the right guys, but contracts were in fact issued. I don't like Chris, but our fanbase treats the guy like he is Bob Nutting, and the evidence doesn't really suggest that is accurate.

Spot on. I would argue that all the angst about the offense crowds out how the injuries to the young pitchers, particularly Skubal, impacts their outlook for next year. And why, despite the precieved strength of the group over the offense, they needed to add a couple of starters on short term deals.

I dont know if it's a lost season or not.... they play in the worst division in the sport after all, so may be there is a tail risk they can win it if a lot of things go right. The point I'm continually trying to make here is that if it doesn't end up a lost season and they start to progress toward or even past .500, it's largely gonna be because of improvements on the roster as it already exists. It wouldn't because of individual free agent signings, and certainly not someone on the level of Brandon Drury

I watched almost every game last year. I dont know if they will be better or worse next year. Probably better if I had to guess, because (a) the offseason isn't over yet and (b) I expect some mix of improvement from younger players and underperforming players to progress closer to their career means.

Baseball is my sport and the Tigers are my team. And I'm not quitting them and jumping on someone else's bandwagon. Beside that, I am interested in longer term progression of this team and it's young players. And I am interested to see what impact the new PBO has on the team going forward. I understand the angst that everyone has about where they are at and frankly share it. But the new PBO deserves more than three months before throwing him to the wolves.

Why would I voice concern over not signing players I never expected them to sign?

It really should go without saying that everyone who is a Tigers fan hates the situation they are in and wants to be out of it. But for whatever reason, not flying off the handle every time a free agent is signed by a team not named the Detroit Tigers gets perceived as not caring. The reality is that people can want the situation to end while disagreeing with the best way for it to end.

LOL, there's a hive mind going on here, but it ain't coming from me.

What does signing Brandon Drury, in MCS' words a band aid, do to "get the car out of the ditch"? Second, it's December 21. Can we at least get into January until we determine what is or isn't actually happening behind the scenes?

There isn't a single person on this board who isn't tired of the rebuild.

You realize it's only December 21, right?

I get it, this team was run into the ditch by the previous General Manager. We literally all know this, most of us anyway seemed to acknowledge that this thing wasn't going to be fixed overnight after he was ****canned. So we all know this, and yet we somehow expect the new General Manager to be the next coming of Jesus Christ and turn this team from a 96 loss ballclub into bon-a-fide contender. The situation absolutely blows. But signing Brandon Drury isn't going to change the trajectory of this team by more than 2-3 games over the course of a season. Carlos Correa? Probably not more than 4-5 games of the course of a season. Simply put, if you want this team to succeed faster, the fastest way to get there is for guys who are already here, including some guys that didn't play much last year (Meadows, Turnbull), guys who underperformed (Schoop, Baez, ERod if he isn't traded), and younger guys (Greene, Tork, various young starters) to put up solid years and play to their potential. That's gonna make up a lot more ground than Brandon freaking Drury ever would.

Even setting aside the NBA, the EPL, which has been discussed at length (and whose system of relegation has been held up by some) has had 7 Champions since it's inception 30 years ago... three of those teams (Man City, Man U and Chelsea) own 24 of those titles.

Honest question: can you express in detail who you would have signed that has gone off the board thus far, and at what price/years. Thanks.

I've also been seeing a lot of Texas politicians using a bullhorn to talk openly how are borders are open, yet wondering why so many migrants might attempt to come here. Strange.

Profar is interesting, I honestly don't know what the market is for the guy at this point.