chasfh

My wife's nephew's daughter had her first day of school today. She is starting first grade. Today is July 31st. 😶

Not to go all thread cop on everyone here but I dislike the idea of having an offseason thread active when the actual season still has two months left in it. See you then, I guess.

Pretty ****ty of the GM.

He is completely disintegrating, and the more he does, the more dangerous he and his followers could become.

I’m sorry, I misunderstood you. I thought you were saying something along the lines of a successful GM would bring in established players and increase payroll and, if it were trades, empty out our minor league system.

If this guy is writing that he’s been saying the Tigers have been close to having a breakout season for years, including last year and the final few Avila years, then I have my doubts about his analysis chops.

Take a look at our Fangraphs Scouting + STATS! prospect ratings look now. https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/the-board/2024-in-season-prospect-list?org=det Honest question for the pessimists: does this serve only to demonstrate that our system is not as strong as we all thought it was yesterday morning?

That's fine. That's the trade you would make for them.

I don't know either way. I'm hypothesizing on possible reasons "progressives"—whoever these are, I'd love to see some names—might be a little nervous with a Jewish (or gay or black or woman) VP candidate. I certainly wouldn't not vote for any candidate for that reason. But then, I'm in Illinois and my vote practically means nothing here.

Because of course.

And for his next act, Musk will ban all mentions of the phrase "Project 2025" as being harassment of Trump supporters. You watch.

I think this might be more about concern than hate, meaning, it's less about "progressives" hate Jews, and more about concerns of a black Asian woman/Jew ticket being maybe a little too exotic for certain blue-dog marginal voters, which might make a difference in battleground states.

I'm starting to hypothesize tha this happens when you are on iOS and you try to submit a reply or post to the server at the same time it is still processing someone else's post, and if it's not finished with that post, yours comes right after it but your UI doesn't reflect that.

**** that ****. I'm over tiptoeing around these assholes worried about hurting the fee-fees.

OK, good example. Do the Orioles make that trade?

So wait a minute: are you saying a successful GM would trade Jobe and Clark and Jung and McGonigle to get an established player we need to pay a big salary to? Do I have that straight?

Do you mean to say you think Liranzo is not producing? Because he is slashing .220/.344/.356, good for a wRC+ of 105, in his age 20 season in a Midwest League he is young for by -2.3 years. If this is what you mean by "not producing", then, man, tough crowd here.

Well, "Tork insurance" wasn't me, but I did say I thought this puts Tork on notice, and that maybe a trade to a more less forward-thinking organization might be good for him. But I am taking the scouting at face value has below-average catcher tools but has shown good glove and soft hands at first. To your point, if his hitting is already a finished product, then yeah, he doesn't rank highly at first. But if what I suspect is true—if Harris sees an opportunity to substantially improve his too—then he might end up being a plus all-around first baseman after all.

Can you give me an example of a trade we could make right now that would yield impact talent that would help us win right now?

It was reported that Harris had a very high ask on Flaherty, even with the Dodgers, and settled for Lirzano and Sweeney. But I'm still not quite following your objection to this. Does this mean he should simply have asked for Lirzano and Sweeney last week so he could be done with it? As for the wait-for-development approach: I'm not sure what else our options are. We can't trade our way to an immediate winner because we don't have the prospect capital to liquidate for that. We can't free agent our way to an immediate winner until players actively want to play for and in Detroit. We can't waiver wire or MiLB free agent our way to a winner because there's not enough talent to be gleaned from those wires. That leaves the development process to build a winner. Unless I'm missing something here that you're seeing?

They happen to have one of those at 35th and S. Ashland, just a couple miles from that ballpark. That's pretty local.

One thing I'd like to see Harris do in the next 12 months is secure at least one fire-breathing back-of-the-bullpen guy, whether via trade, waivers, Rule 5 pickup, MiLB contract, or development. That is one component without which you cannot win the 2025 game.

How would you approach team-building differently than you suspect Harris is doing?

If I had to bet a dollar on this proposition, I would take the over on Harris sees something in the kid that suggests his hit tool can be improved.

This is totally fair and we all do the same thing: make devastating judgments about the performance of high-level strategic baseball professional based on incomplete and imperfect information. What could be more fun as an engaged, analytical fan? 😁 But I want to ask you about the bold-faced part. You say Harris has a strategy of overasking and waiting until the end of the deadline to make moves that you don't like. This almost suggests that you would prefer he take lesser deals earlier in the deadline period. I'm not sure that's what you're trying to put across, so can you spool out for me what you mean by this to help me understand your thinking here?