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I'm not giving up on Harris yet, and I'm not even willing to admit that he is a failure this year. Thee reasons: (1) it's still only June 20, for cry eye; (2) he's been on the job basically less than a season and a half so I don't believe he can be judged and dismissed on that basis; and (3) The rot was deep and it was always going to take a long time to clean it out, and I too thought we were closer than we are even with Avila's guys on the team, but now realize just how bad it all was and how behind the eight ball we were put. That said, politically speaking, they might have to address the terrible offense perhaps even before the All-Star break, if for no other reason than to keep the torches and pitchforks at bay.

It’s a week until the day of the schedule debate and I still don’t believe Trump is going to show up. The question I have is, how does he pulls out of it? They might complain that the basic rules are unfair to them despite having agreed to them before; or that the debates being moderated by CNN unfairly prejudices voters; or they might demand that Biden agree to two more debates under Trump rules or else. I’m sure there are other possibilities I haven’t thought of. But I would still be surprised to see the debate go on as scheduled, because unless Biden has a stroke or an otherwise cognitive episode onstage, I don’t see how Trump benefits from it.

No official insider trading yet …

Great point on the nationalization of issues due to the collapse of local media. I hadn’t contemplated that before, but it makes total sense. And that provides them a nifty license to steal, too, because they are not running or being elected on any state-level issue, so they don’t have to address them as state elected officials. All their constituency requires is that the elected officials publicly breathe fire on nationalized cultural issues, which will make everyone’s endorphins rush, while the politicians fix public policy and raid the state treasuries to directly feather their own nests, which their constituency will ignore because policy stuff makes their eyes glaze over.

I have my money on punt.

The only two outcomes I can envision are (1) punt the decision to after the election; or (2) write a super narrow decision that can apply only to Trump in this specific situation, while urging Congress to write legislation to deal with future cases. Which way they end up going will come down not to established precedent, or constitutional interpretation, or anything stupid like that, but a calculation of which one will provide maximum benefit to their patron while minimizing public blowback on themselves so they can maintain whatever veneer they have remaining.

The picture might reflect the most IDGAF face I have ever seen.

I think the thing teams look for more than someone to help them get to October is someone to help them get to November. That’s why I think the most likely trading partners for Flaherty, assuming continued health and dominance, would be the Dodgers, Braves, Yankees, and Phillies.

Here’s how you know things are officially bad and in dire need of change: the beat media are aboard now:

This is fair as far as it goes, although the problem with making determinations about disqualifying “steroid guys” is that we don’t definitively know who was and who was not on steroids. We only know what the media try to convince us about that.

I would think a team would have to have a more than 50% chance of making the playoffs before they seriously consider selling off the top of the system to make the playoffs. I don’t think 12% or 7% is gonna cut it.

Don’t look now, but Tigers not the only AL Central team turning into a pumpkin lately …

I think Baby Doc has proven that he is willing to spend to win, and that he is hands off on the business side, which is almost the perfect combination for an owner. I am born again on him as an owner who will release the resources the front office needs to win, and a lot of that spending in the first year-plus of Harris's tenure is in fixing the rotted system of scouting, development, analytics and the like. We needed that. So if you don't believe that Harris is incompetent, and that Baby Doc has established himself as willing to spend to win, then really, then I believe there's no cause to hammer them on today's roster construction, roster deployment, positional flexibility, etc., because it's not putting us in a position to win a ring right now. They are still trying to figure out who they have and who they can take forward with them, and if so, where they are best utilized. We are working toward the future, so making the playoffs is a nice-to-have in that situation, not a do-or-die goal, which is why we are not liquidating the top of our farm system to trade for rentals to make the third playoff spot, and also why we didn't offer dramatic overpays just to what they could out of this past winter's poor free agent market. This organization is simply not ready to do that yet. I can't imagine how pissed off fans would be if we had committed to five years and $100+ million to aging Matt Chapman, which is what I think it would have taken at minimum to get him to agree to Detroit, only to surround him with the rest of the team as currently constructed and we're still under .500. As for Hinch: I think he was caught in the middle on the trashcan deal and became the fall guy for the players and the ownership, who were the engineers behind the thing and who Baseball had zero interest in punishing.

I don't see them keeping Kelly and Rogers and Dingler on the major league roster at the same time. Kelly is out of options; Rogers gets arb next year and I don't us signing and then optioning a $2-ish million catcher; and it would be unethical to basically scuttle Dingler's career by keeping him permanently in AAA just in case. One of them is going to go, and I'm wondering whether going to be Rogers instead of Kelly, because they are both 29, and Rogers is as good now as he's ever going to get. Absent reading anything about this, seems to me it could go either way.

Do you think the Tigers are at the endpoint of their roster construction, meaning, this is the roster they expect to compete with now and in the future? Do you believe if this roster doesn't succeed they will blow it all up and start over? Do you think the front office and ownership are incompetent, or even uncaring, and that there's no hope for a winning franchise as long as they're around? I'm just trying to get a feel for whether you think we're in a temporary growing-pains situation moving toward a more permanent competitive situation, or whether you think this is as good as it's gonna get and that there's no hope as long as this crew in charge?

I wonder how many other neighborhood names did they botch besides Lakeview?

“Disband” as in the Tigers go out of business and get replaced in the league by, I don’t know, the Savannah Bananas or something? Is that what you mean by disband?

I don’t know whether we can get anything for Carson Kelly, but if we end up keeping him and Dingler comes up and shows us something, I think it’s just as likely we keep Kelly as keep Rogers, Dingler plays caddy for a year and takes over in 2026. That’s a fingers-crossed plan if I ever heard one.

I saw Daniel Norris get that home run live at Wrigley Field! I don’t remember whether I contemplated that might be the only time I would ever see a Tigers pitcher hit a home run live.

“Cynical” is the right word to use here. The 1980s Tigers had the feeling of being a homegrown unit who hung around for a few years, and they felt like they were part of the community (and Kirk Gibson as the face of the team actually being from here). The 2010s Tigers just felt like hired guns, even Miggy, who was locked up for life here. I mean, just look around: Gibson and Dan Petry are still working for the team as a primary gig 40 years later, but only Andy Dirks is still hanging around the organization, and even that is on strictly a part-time basis. I bet you Miggy will never step foot in this town again unless he’s coming in for a sweet paycheck.

It’s been a well-reported story the last few years that teams are hanging onto the very top of their systems and trying to deal from the middle instead. Back in Dombrowski’s heyday nobody cared about prospects, which were considered little more than just unproven players. That’s why we cheerfully dealt guys like Eugenio Suarez for basically nothing and Willy Adames for what turned out to be a true rental (flipped for “prospects” the following season during a Cy-level season).

I see them more as a team with a combination of inexperienced guys with good hitting potential plus major league veterans who can hit a little bit, both types of which are more uneven than just flat out poor. They’re not simply a terrible offense up and down the lineup like the White Sox or Marlins.

It is a really good-looking building. Rancic did a good job on it. I miss having the Sun-Times in that spot, though. It was, like, seven stories and looked like it had been transplanted there lock stock and barrel from a nearby suburb. It looked so out of place against the backdrop of super skyscrapers and iconic buildings. I loved it.

Maybe he already has. Not every impact move hits as fast as lightning. Sometimes it hits as fast as thunder.

Trump has a Tower in Chicago.