chasfh

Maybe, but I don’t think we miss 33-year-old Buck Farmer all that much.

He had given up only a single run when taken out, but relievers walked in two inherited runners with the bases loaded. He also got a ****-ton of swing and miss and threw something like 17 pitches at 100+.

If you would have asked me that in 2019, I might have said yes, I’d be disappointed. I would have wanted more out of a 1/1, after all the losing done specifically to pick him, and despite whatever the averages say for 1/1s, I would have wanted something more than 13 wins out of Spork. Ask me that now, though, and I’m probably less disappointed, because if he ends up with 12.2 WAR when he leaves after the 2028 season, that would mean gets almost 14 WAR between now and then, in just short of five full seasons, which is pushing 3 per season, which would probably include a 4 or a 5 in there somewhere, which might entail an All-Star selection, and at that point, I’d have to say I’d be happy with that, just in time for him to leave us and go kill it in a DH-only role for somebody else. Which does bring up a question: if he were taken off the field completely, would his mind be freed up enough f-r-o-m the stress of worrying about his defense that he would become the hitter everyone assumed he would be? That would surely be the best outcome for him personally, and as things stand now that’s the kind of player we have no room for on this team.

There was no one else. Spork was the consensus #1 pick, and no one would have not picked him, including me. And the Orioles did have better luck picking during the drafts they did instead of during ours. I will still be disappointed if he ends up around replacement level for his career with the Tigers, because it’s disappointing versus the expectation we had. To Tiger337’s point, if the benchmark is that Spork ends up with a 13 win career, I would want those 13 wins to come with us, and not after he leaves, which would be a double disappointment. I think you know me well enough to know I had no expectations of a Hall of Fame career from the guy, given his already-well-known defensive liabilities, as well as the positional WAR ceiling first baseman already have. But he was considered practically a fully-formed hitter when we got him, and I did have a reasonable expectation that he would anchor our lineup at some point, and I would have expected him to at least start doing so by the early months of his third season. So maybe the disappointment at his inability to do even that is driving my fear that he will have thrown up a goose egg by the time Scott Boras takes him on the road.

That’s gonna put the hurt on the Pale Hosers’ chances of losing 120.

Canha Slamha Flhy!

Jason Benetti belongs to the world.

Who’s still complaining about Mark Canha!

I like Benetti all right, and I’ll tune in regardless of who he has with him, but Dickerson with his all-business approach is the only guy who can make Craig Monroe listenable.

I disagree that a 1/1 draft pick is no better than a lottery ticket. There have been disappointing and even spectacular failures at 1/1 for a lot of teams, not just the Tigers (Matt Anderson, anyone?), as at any other pick. But the hit rate on 1/1 picks is good enough that I think it’s reasonable to be disappointed if Tork craps out with a 0.0 WAR career—meaning, for the part of his career he spends with the Tigers. Now, the 9th pick in the 2018 draft? Definitely a lottery ticket that came through.

Almost certainly.

What’s Benetti doing today? Calling an Iowa State women’s spring volleyball game?

Red hats truly, honestly believe that The Trump administration will work for them and elevate them above their enemies, but it didn’t happen last time because the commie Democrat party thwarted them at every turn. This time it’ll be different, and that’s why they are jacked about Project 2025. The red hat rank-and-file doesn’t care about democracy because democracy is how black and brown (and red and yellow) people achieve equality with them. Red hats don’t want equality, whether under the law or in any other way—they want supremacy, like their grandaddies and great-grandaddies had when, you know, America was Great. And that’s why they are badmouthing democracy as a concept more and more. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/08/trump-maga-democracy-fraud.html

Players win games. A.J. Hinch loses them. 😏

I would be more than mildly disappointed because Tork was a consensus 1/1, and we all expected better, much better, than a coin flip career from him. I’m coming around to the idea that Tork may not amount to anything after all, and by now I won’t be surprised if that’s the outcome. But I would still be sorely disappointed because, after all, we tanked like a mother****ing anchor to get the guy in the first place.

I definitely remember Deano. Met him during Tigers Fantasy Camp in 2007. Great guy, salt of the earth. You can talk to him about anything, and we basically did.

Not uncommon in baseball. Despite the myth among some fans that players start slacking off or malingering once they start making any money, almost all players are hardwired to be warrior competitors who are driven to excel on nothing more than its own terms. That competitiveness and drive were how players were able to rise through the ranks to the majors over lesser players in the first place. So playing through injury with an eye toward prevailing over adversity is a pretty common thing in the game, particularly among players who are one bad streak from seeing their careers end, which, if you think about it, is most players at any given moment. It may be worth noting that Foley was an undrafted free agent who bloomed after college, so I hypothesize he might be more susceptible to simply losing it than those who had elite skills since childhood. Remember, too, that he is already 28 years old and that’s about when baseball aging starts calling for many.

I agree, and you may not be saying this, but just because he’s not the permanent solution to help us contend for the next half decade doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have brought him on board to help us be more competitive right now.

And yet you continue to make whoever the **** this Crump is the point.

US and Israel against the world!

Does it make any difference that he's dot and not feather? 😉

Especially when DeSantis weighs in on it, thus giving state approval to the shooting.

I like complaining better. 😁

I've dealt with the Mouse in my job as media buyer, giving them money on behalf of clients, so I'm hoping I have some juice left to save me. 😁

I got a sawbuck saying otherwise. Fun fact: McKinstry has never had better than 79 OPS+ in any season, and his number is at its worst this year; plus, he has played only 15% of his total defensive innings at shortstop, the equivalent of thirty big league games, at sub-DRS levels. Have we already forgotten how he's butchered third base and second base already this year? I get that people are frustrated and want Javy Baez out of there RIGHT ****ING NOW!, but I promise you that you will be just as unhappy with McKinstry playing shortstop even most days. Same with Urshela: hitting poorly this year, fewer than 10% of his big league innings at shortstop, also sub-DRS, older than Javy and playing hurt. You would hate seeing him there game after game. Seems as though fans might have reached the fling-it-against-the-wall-and-see-whether-it-sticks stage. Next up: the fire-Harris-now-because-he-can't-find-shortstops stage.