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I’m thinking it’s to the point where they would let him go and take their chances on replacing him on the open market, since he indicated he’d be surprised if, consider Eduardo’s particular brand of being Eduardo since he’s been here, this front office were to throw extra years at him.

I hope it’s not that bad this time! If it is then that means no progress! We definitely have guys taking a step forward, and we should have a few more do so next year. I don’t think we’ll be able to plug in a free agent at the top of the market though, possibly excepting another pitcher, since the Tigers have been establishing a reputation for advancing careers on the mound. We’re probably looking at one-year guys once again, especially at the plate. FWIW, I talked to someone recently who’s regularly in the Tigers press box and he thinks the consensus there is that Eduardo will be allowed to walk.

Maybe this is semantics, but I think of Mookie as more of a unicorn than a utility player. Only a handful of guys in history that good at so many places. Craig Biggio was one. Ben Zobrist and Tony Phillips were a couple others. Heck, Mookie might be the greatest true multi-positional player of all time.

Weird, double post

I doubt any organization sets a strategic course to try to win pennants with a roster made up primarily of utility players, and I don’t think the Tigers or Scott Harris or even A.J. Hinch are any different. I don’t believe anyone in the game sees a team of utility players as a way to win by zagging while everyone else is zigging. We want everyday regulars to help us win pennants, same as everyone else wants, but we’re simply not in a position as an organization to effectively make that happen yet. The rot went very deep and it was always going to take more than a single season to fix it all and start winning rings. I think we can reasonably complain about still having to be in this boat seven years after starting a failed rebuild, and I think we can reasonably moan about having to have so many of those players on the roster at all, and groan at seeing them flail around and lose games more than we would like. I don’t think we can reasonably blame Harris and Hinch for torpedoing our chances to win a pennant this year by being too cute signing a roster of AAAA utility guys and playing million-billion-D chess moving them all over the field, instead of signing and trading for a roster full of All-Star bats. That’s just where the Tigers are in 2023, and it’s probably not going to be a lot a lot better next year. But I think it will get better after that, and if it doesn’t, then something else is going wrong.

I thought SGL (may I call him SGL?) did wonderfully yesterday, but he wasn’t exactly killing it in AAA, given up great gobs of homers combined with an elevated walk rate, and he will have rough days, and posters will call for his head. It’s all part of the plan. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride! 😄

FWIW, nobody thought it was a good decision at the time, and same page you called for Al to be replaced basically because of it.

Beautiful.

Makes me think how badly the Avila administration would probably have botched his developmentent. 😉

Fun Fact about Jose Urena, ex-Tiger who's today's starting pitcher for the White Sox: he has already been released this year by both the Rockies and the Nationals.

Tim Anderson making an out on the first pitch of the game.

I think .235/.327/.513 for a wRC+ of 127 is quite acceptable from my first baseman, although I would hope that’s not where a 1/1 tops out at for his career.

That would be worth $7 million.

It’s all performance art.

I remember them talking about that a few years ago, but if it's true, then the Yankees, Red Sox, and Blue Jays apparently have exceptions. I'm guessing that because they all are teams with national followings, they want to make sure they can be seen on TV.

Given where we are in the process, I don't think it's a case of either get good players to win or get good players to flip, choose only one or the other, as much as it's a case of Plan A/Plan B.

ah nm

This article is fairly instructive about the current state of the war for Russia: I find this part the most interesting, and it supports the meat grinder observation because if there’s no sharing of information or learning due to lack of trust, what other way is there for them to win besides attrition through advantage of sheer numbers? Despite the notable changes and improvements over the past year, there are still many areas in which Russia’s military continues to perform poorly or is failing altogether. The Russian armed forces still cannot horizontally integrate their command and control, nor can they communicate commanders’ decisions and share information across different units in real time. As a result, Russian units deployed in proximity cannot effectively communicate with one another if they belong to different formations. Often, they cannot support one another because they have separate chains of command. This is not a technical glitch or a bureaucratic barrier. Rather, it is a deep structural problem that is unlikely to be solved without a systemic overhaul of Russia’s military and perhaps even its political system. Military command-and-control culture boils down to trust, and the militaries of authoritarian regimes such as Russia’s frequently have rigid and fragmented command-and-control structures because the political leadership does not trust the military leadership, and the military brass does not trust the rank and file. Such systems fail to successfully share information, discourage initiative, and prevent battlefield lessons from informing strategy or being incorporated into future military doctrine. These structural deficiencies are part of the Russian military’s DNA. They help explain why some of the hardest lessons Russia learned in other conflicts—in Chechnya, for instance, about the difficulties of urban warfare, and in Syria about the benefits of flexible and responsive command and control—are being learned anew in Ukraine after staggering losses in personnel and equipment. The Russian military is learning and adapting in its own way, but it remains to be seen whether it is capable of real transformational change.

The rare Thursday night getaway game. We see that with nationally-popular teams like the Yankees and Red Sox and Blue Jays, I’m guessing to keep them available to more viewers on TV.

As long as there’s no repeat of the Dizzy Dean All-Star Game debacle, there’s reason to believe he could still come back from this. Hopefully he won’t let all this get into his head.

Speaking of Nick …

He never played so much third base as when he came to the big club. It was a need we had that we hoped he could fill. That’s tough to do at the big league level, and he got raked for it. I’d bet he’ll get some offseason work at third base for one more go at it, but I’d also bet we’ll take a long look at him for second or even short.

Hinch helped hire Harris. They are on the same side on things.

Did Chafin even want to come back? Do we know either way?

I think we’re gonna see Maton on the 26 at some point next year. He is not toast yet.