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GO FISH!

I think Blewett was tipping.

Wow, Marlins got two outs on the first pitch of the 12th! When else you gonna see that! And they got the third out in a hurry, too. Hope that’s momentum for them.

Whoa what a pick by the catcher to save the run at the plate!

Wow what a game in Minneapolis

Maybe Derek Hill helps us after all!

HUGE POP OUT!

Wow, plate umpire ****ing Petersen.

Derek Hill still not helping the Tigers. Some things never change.

Cole Sands is 9-1 as a reliever. Hope that’s not any kind of sign.

Just got the third out on an 18-inch grounder.

Imagine what A.J. could do with a very talented roster.

I love how they love each other as brothers in arms. I really admire these guys right now.

I was there today, as projected: The interesting thing about the 7-0 win by the White Sox was at all seven runs were scored in the fifth inning, and no other runs were scored in any other half inning. I wonder what the record is for most runs scored in a game where all of them were scored in a single half inning. I’d be surprised if it were seven. I think it might be something like nine or 10.

I definitely would not have thought the teams would have been flipped. I probably would have thought someone was on at least 10 mgs of THC.

I got my 84 wins! Not satisfied. Greedy for more.

Without knowing for sure either way, i would hope Harris-Walz never lets their foot up off the gas even a touch.

My wife and I set up a driving trip around Lake Michigan to watch the leaves change from October 8 through October 11. We were to go clockwise around and stop in Menominee (du dooooo, du-dudu), Mackinaw City, and Manistee. We were talking on the way back to the car after the White Sox winner last night, and we decided if the Tigers make the LDS, we would start on October 9 and go to Detroit for the game; then drive up the east side of Michigan to Alpena on the 10th; go across the top of the mitten, swing through the TC area, and end up in Mackinaw the night of the 11th; swing around to Menominee (du dudu du) on the 12th, and then home. I’m rooting for the second itinerary. Du dooooo, du dudu, du dudu, du dudu, du dudu dudu du du dudu du.

The problem with Shep is that he was not a baseball guy coming in. He’d done some replacement work on the Tigers’ broadcasts before 2019, but the sum total of his baseball experience was less than 25 games when he’d been handed the job. Shep was kind of the Xavier Nady of biography league broadcasters.

I think there’s not not half bad chance that we see Benetti and Alex Avila as next year’s combo.

I was at Cellphone Park last night. It was a really nice night and the crowd was festive, although about half the people wearing White Sox gear cheered when the Angels scored and a real fan wouldn’t do that, because a real fan wouldn’t want their franchise saddled with such an ignominious record, and I speak from experience. I will be going against this afternoon rooting for loss #121, and if they don’t get it, I will probably be in Detroit tomorrow night rooting for the same thing, and then some.

I think we have seen from 2016 that the Trump campaign has some kind of stealth voter turnout capability.

Try telling Tony Paul this, I guess. In any event, to the degree that drafting is a crapshoot but development is less so, I have some level of confidence that the Harris team knows better than most what high school players they select will develop into with the next three to five years.

Avila is responsible for employing the team of scouts who gave him the advice on whom to draft, so he takes full responsibility for the advice they give him, and that goes double if he actually followed it. Yes, Jake Rogers is left from sending the Astros Justin Verlander, who could still pitch at the top of his game for anyone who could unlock it, plus $40 million. And Olson is the one trade piece Harris inherited whom he could save and get value out of.

Exactly this. So Al Avila drafted and signed some young ballplayers. You could have done that. Maybe I could have done that. Acquiring the ballplayers is, relatively speaking, the easy part. Developing them into contributing big leaguers is the hard part, and as a wise man once said, Al Avila couldn't develop film. Half of this lazy article was naming all these guys on the team who were first acquired by Avila. The list included first-rounders Tork, Mize, Manning, Faedo. These are success stories? With periodic exceptions, they've ranged from flashes of slightly above average to awful. Tony Paul also named Jackson Jobe, who has even stepped on the field during a game yet. Of all the first rounders, Riley Greene was the one nut the squirrel found, and he was a consensus pick at #5 overall everyone would have taken—as with Tork and Mize. Then there are the second rounders: Parker Meadows, who took six years to become a contributor here. Kind of a long time for a second rounder, but that's how long it took to iron out the funk in his game. Dingler took four to get his shot. That's pretty normal. But between them? Daniel Cabrera, stuck in neutral and serving as org depth, and Nick Quintana, now floundering in the Reds' system. Al's last two second-rounders, Izaac Pacheco (2021) and Peyron Graham (2022), are still dog-paddling their way through A-ball (although Graham did find his way to Erie for the last game of the season). Third-rounders? Kody Clemens (nepo pick). Andre Lipicius. Trei Cruz. Either gone, done, or out of the Top 30. In the meantime, who have been the most impactful picks for us? Tarik Skubal (9th round). Colt Keith (5th). Kerry Carpenter (19th). Will Vest (12th). Basically lotto ticket rounds, even Colt Keith, the only fifth-rounder from that draft worth a damn. How about undrafted free agent signings? Tony Paul names Jason Foley, Wenceel Perez, and Keider Montero. All from 2016. Foley started seeing trigger time in 2021 and did OK, but didn't really turn it on until last year, the first season of the Harris administration. The other two took eight years—or well clear of the Avila misdevelopment curse—to even start contributing at the big league level. But here's the main takeaway, in case you're missing it: not one of these guys was a success during the Avila years. Not one. They didn't succeed until Scott Harris came onboard and remade the entire scouting and development function. Even Riley Greene, the one success story Al Avila could have fairly claimed, didn't start revving it up until Harris came aboard. The reason any of Avila's guys are even in the organization is because Harris did a deep dive into everyone in the system, keeping those he and his team thought they could save, and getting rid of the rest. In any large group of players there will always be a few who can be saved. That's what's happening here, not Al Avila with some genius nine-year plan in which he cleverly plans to fail spectacularly for seven years then succeeds only after he's been gone for two. And don't get me started on the part about analytics. We're supposed to believe that Al Avila is basically the godfather of Tigers analytics, and Harris's contribution was merely to expand on its usage? I mean, really. Come on.