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What else are you talking about? What level of 2 or 3 position players and a couple of very good arms for the bullpen do you think we could get for $40 million? You don't really think we could get four or five All Stars for that spend, do you? Talk about party like it's 1999 ... 😉 Also, I would be shocked if Harris signed Suarez whether any of us like it or not. This sounds like preemptive resignation on your part.

Related to this, when I ride on the Bloomingdale trail here, people frequently go three or four abreast, which they have a right to. But I really dislike how some of them bleed over into the other way lane, the directions being clearly marked with yellow stripe down the middle. I also dislike single walkers/runners who walk smack down the middle of the lane, right on the yellow dividing line. I tend to pass them on the right, staying in my way lane, which feels wrong, but keeps me from veering way over into the other lane.

lol the idea any of those charlatans ever actually read the Bible

Again, why are you making this about me and continuing to avoid the topic of the meaning of Matthew 24:24? You’re avoiding it for a reason.

I also don’t see Bichette taking just a little more money to leave the defending American League champs. That’s the only home he’s ever known, and they are on the championship upswing, so it would have to be more years than anyone else plus the most money by a fair amount to get him to leave.

It would surprise me, a lot, and disappoint me, a lot, to see Harris make us purposely worse this year by trading away Skubal just so we can, maybe, get back to the same position in three years.

I will bet that’s will Harris will do, and I will double bet that you will whine about how Harris cheaped out on free agents yet again. 😉

Are we seriously still debating the value of pitchers because they don't pitch every game? Pitchers don't have to play every game like position players have to because a pitcher has five times the impact on winning or losing a game as a position player does. That's why a pitcher can be just as valuable starting 30 games in a season as a position player is starting 150 games. Top-of-the-line pitchers are worth every penny that top-of-the-line position players are. I would like to sign Skubal to a number of years, although preferably not ten, and if it takes $40 million a year to do that, it's worth it. I mean, it's worth it just for the idea that if Skubal commits to Detroit long-term, that's going to signal to the rest of the market that Detroit is committing to winning, and that's going to make us a lot more attractive a destination than we are now.

I will be mad at Scott Harris after he fails to retain Tarik Skubal without putting an acceptable replacement rotation in place, and not before.

Oh, they’ll get pitching all right. There are several top quality candidates out there, although the $64 question is, would any of them commit to Detroit—a team with a recent history of blowing it up and starting it all over—for the next four or five or six years?

They didn’t give him a day off there because who else were they going to put there? Tork was their guy there, especially after his first half. But his second half was very meh—107 wRC+ with a 0.6 WAR in 64 games. That’s not close to first overall pick quality. That’s why I say: first base could be considered a hole, depending on which Tork shows up.

I don’t care as much about the money as I do the years. They can pay him $30 or $40 or $50 million for all I care as long as they don’t go on the hook for him for the next nine or more years. I have no interest in how black their 2026 profit statement is.

I still don’t see Harris forcing the team to take a step back from contending for a pennant by trading their two-time-defending Cy Young pitcher for the possibility that they might be this good again three years from now.

Oh, are we talking about me now? Am I the topic of conversation now? Are we no longer talking about what Matthew 24:24 says about false Christs? Just want to make sure before I answer the same question you just asked that I answered when you asked it just a few weeks ago.

It may be starting to dawn on people that spending 10/700 on Shohei may not have been the galactically stupid overpay practically everybody at the time thought it was.

I don't know where you're getting this, but it is demonstratively untrue that Chris Ilitch has never and would never spend any real money on payroll.

Tigers have the financial resources, so that's not the issue. Right player being available is legitimately an issue. Even if we're among their top targets, which seems unlikely to me, maybe Kyle Tucker or Bo Bichette or Alex Bregman are not the answer for this team. Maybe Ha-Seong Kim or Jorge Polanco are better fits. I'm not inside the organization, so I can't know for sure. I can only speculate on what they might be thinking, which is the main thing I like to do (rather than projecting my own desires on whatever I might declare the Tigers are most definitely thinking). But from the outside, I see a bunch of possible holes they would need to fill to put a championship-level team on the diamond, mainly, right field, center field, third base, shortstop, and maybe even first base depending on which Tork shows up next year. (Even the good Tork was worth barely two wins in 155 games last year, and that's the best one we have seen so far.) We also have the larger part of an effective bullpen to construct. We wouldn't be solving all those problems by signing a single top free agent, after which there would be multiple other holes. Of course, the front office may be seeing things very differently from how I see them even as a relatively informed outsider. Heck, it is almost certain that they see things differently than I do. That's why I am wrong nearly all the time! 😁 All this said, I am not against signing Kyle Tucker or Bo Bichette or Alex Bregman. If we were to sign any of them, I'll be happy to trust that the Harris front office knows what they are doing, until they demonstrate to me that they do not.

Right, the glove certainly helps. Also, liability issues are more pressing for minors than for adults.

What’s with the hat? “America is Back”? Is that the new one? America is back to what? Back to killing foreign people indiscriminately? Back to rounding up colored folks on the street and disappearing them? Back to destroying government records and refusing to release reports on the economy? Back to the halcyon days before the terror of germ theory and internal medicine? Back to limiting government help to encouraging well-fed people to pray for others? Back to presidents threatening their political enemies with arrest and execution? Am I close?

It would seem weird to me for Ilitch to spend the millions he did on infrastructure to become one of the most modern and forward-thinking franchises in preparation for building a perennial winner, and then stop short of spending on players when the time is right so we can put a perennial winner on the field. I think it’s a combination of several things: we’re not at the point where a top-tier free agent or blockbuster trade ices the cake to make us a World Series favorite; we are still not considered a destination for top-tier free agents; other teams are demanding the very top of our prospects in return for short-term fixes because they don’t trust that anyone below McGonigle/Clark are going to be any good; or maybe they still think they can hold out and get an Avila-level lopsided trade out of this franchise.

You know, I’ve been wondering lately how Doug’s been doing.

Technical geography notwithstanding, Toronto qualifies.

I highly doubt the Tigers were hoping Torres would turn down the qualifying offer we made him. Also, that a reliable starting pitching exercised his option to stay here.

Toronto qualifies as an eastern team.

It’s going to be so entertaining seeing people roast Scott Harris any time any free agent signs with any other team. Also, any time any trade involving a major league player not coming to the Tigers occurs.