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This is my hack at creating my first-ever map over at MapChart.net. This is a map of the most-named counties in the US and where they all are. You probably could have guess that Washington is the most common county name, with 32 different counties named that. There's a whole bunch of them centered around the states that came into the union in basically the 1800 to 1830 range, my guess being that the Revolution was still in living memory and honoring its heroes through naming rights was a top priority. As the nation pushed west, county naming imperatives apparently changed. California has only one county among the most common names, and Arizona and western Texas have none, probably because original Spanish geographical names survived. Anyhow, it was really fun to put together and took me only about an hour to learn how to do it and then create the map.

Tex Avery foresaw the 21st-Century media landscape a half a century before anyone else did. 😉

Tigers will be 84-78.

To me, the most interesting thing to watch will be how Baseball wiggles out of this scandal of their own making unscathed and without punishing Shohei Ohtani, the golden goose on which the entire future of the game resides; and whether they can sell the sacrifice of one Ippei Mizuhara, a complete nobody, as the only remedy necessary to completely cleanse the game of any perceived stench arising from dirty gambling, while maintaining the sweet aroma of clean gaming. I would not … ahem … bet against Baseball on pulling this off.

He can expect his arm to fall off by August.

I guess this is the kind of thing being a terrible team for so many years can result in. Maybe once we start winning, we can stop hearing the breathlessly-tweeted exploits of subreplacement ex-Tigers.

Park factors are based on Tigers and opponents at home, versus Tiger and opponents on the road. Park factors have little if anything to do with how good or bad the players on our particular team are. In 2012, Miggy’s Triple Crown year, Comerica’s HR park factor was 95 for just that year, and 96 on a rolling 3-year. In 2007, the HR park factor was 112 for that year, but 96 on a rolling 3-year. So there are spikes here and there on a season-to-season basis, which is why they do a rolling 3-year park factor to smooth out the spikes. On the whole, throughout history, Comerica has suppressed homers, and it has been well-known to do so. It’ll be interesting to see whether that changes in the next couple years with the asjustments to the fences last year, and I hope it does, because when it’s time for us to go after a difference-maker, I want great hitters to want to sign up and hit here.

I'm not sure I've ever seen a beat writer crush on former Tigers nearly as much as McCoskey does. It practically makes me blush every time I see it.

Fair point. Here is the 2023 data only: So instead of Comerica being dead last for home runs over a three-year period, they were 24th just for last year; and instead of Comerica launching home runs at -21% below league average from 2021-23, it launched home runs at -10% below league average in 2023. Where does that leave us?

Al Avila did try to build a team he thought would slap the ball all over the field. How did that work out for us?

This isn't the first article from seven years ago that doesn't agree with my current way of thinking!

Nobody is lining up to go to loser franchises, which is what the Tigers are and will continue to be regarded as until they start winning. Then let's talk.

Perhaps you read that from a beat writer? According to the same table above, Comerica's park factor for runs scored is 94. Just eyeballing it, that looks like it places them sixth from the bottom.

Oh ha ha, it was Wentz that was mentioned. I read it as Vest. I always mix up those two on paper. Yeah, Wentz has been ****ing terrible during his career here. No way we get anything for him unless he can pitch more like Vest.

On personal makeup, versus on-field performance? Yeah, I could see it.

Home runs is the most efficient way to score runs in bunches, since relying on stringing together three singles as an ongoing strategy is fraught with points-of-failure along the way. The correlation between runs scored and home runs for the perios 2014-2023 (excl. 2020) is +0.78, whereas that between runs scored and single-base events (i.e., 1B+BB+HBP) is +0.57—not nothing, but definitely not as good for as home runs. Anyhow, people can go ahead and place prop bets on homers at Comerica Park based on whatever the hell Oddsshark is and what they put on their website, but based on Statcast, Comerica is hands down the worst home run park in baseball: Beyond team run-scoring strategies, the real point is that big hitters, meaning those for whom home runs is a part of their game, are not going to consider the team with the worst home-run ballpark in baseball as a top destination, unless they have already made their hundred million and now prioritize winning over getting good and paid, so that they don't mind suppressing their stats to do so. I don't have anyone in mind who would be up for that even this year.

Easiest thing in the world to predict. He's going to eventually get away with all of it. Even if he loses the election.

I like America. YMMV.

I think Hinch might start him up the order in hopes that he finds himself, but if he struggles like he did last year, I don’t think it will take until August to move him to the bottom third.

That’s what I think, and it shouldn’t take four years to do it. Might take a couple, though.

As long as Comerica plays as a pitchers' park where it's hard to jack bombs, the Tigers are always going to be challenged to put together a top offense.

If the Tigers can't find a better shortstop than Vintage 2023 Javier Baez within the next four years, I might actually start losing faith in the Harris administration.

Case in point:

Wait a minute—I thought America was God's chosen people? You know, God bless America and all that? I thought he favored us over all other countries because ... I don't know ... because we have the most money? Because he likes our national anthem? Maybe it's because we have 18 delicious flavors of Classic Rice-A-Roni? I forget why. The point is Israel doesn't have any of that and we do, so I thought we were his favorite? I get so confused ...

Agree. I do think this season is a little unusual in that before May 17, more than a quarter into the season, the Tigers play exclusively outdoors in cold weather cities, except for one series in Tampa. That's 40 of the first 43 games. I think in most seasons we play more games in domes or warm weather towns during the first quarter of the season. It might be more of a challenge than normal although, to your point, professionals know how to play in cold weather. Agree, and you're not in the minority on that here. This team is both not in a position where a big-money signing means the difference between playing baseball and playing golf on October 25th; and we're not a top destination for top talent just yet. We have probably the deepest starting pitching this season than arguably any time since I have been alive, even if the rotation itself is not so close to the best we've ever had. By which I mean, it's not as big a drop from #5 to #6, or #5 to #7, or #5 to #8, than has typically been the case for us. BP is short for batting practice. Also, preëmptively, DH is short for designated hitter. 😉 Not only may Hinch never be fired by the Tigers, I think there's a very good chance he moves from the field to our front office when it's time.