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FWIW, I thought you were serious when you posted that, too. Not saying this is you, but there are a lot of guys, particularly those of a certain age, or at least those a few generations removed from current players’ ages, who insist that for players it’s all about the money (or the “Benjamins”, as the kids of the 1990s would say), and once players make the money they don’t care about winning or even about playing anymore, so they laze about and phone it in because who cares anymore—as if their teammates, managers, coaches, and the front office wouldn’t notice, or wouldn’t care even if they did notice. But as Tiger337 basically says, players are hard-wired to be ultra-competitive, or else they would have crapped out of baseball a long time before they got to the majors, because it’s goddamn hard to slog through the years making all the incremental improvements you need to get over that hump. I’m sure there are more than a few players who don’t love love love baseball and see the game as merely their job, which is a different kettle. I’ve always thought Derek Jeter might be that guy. But again, to get to the pinnacle of the major leagues, you have to have a great deal of pride and professionalism to thrive enough to get good and paid in the first place. Because there are no 100% absolutes even in this, if I had to pick one guy I think actually does phone it in because he’s got his money and he doesn’t like baseball, it would be Anthony Rendon, who basically said as much this spring, and he has gotten raked but good for that very thing. Lucky for him he tore a hamstring in April so he can keep checking big bank while sitting on his fattening ass popping bonbons in his mouth, or so I would assume … 😁

You misspelled “coaching”. 😉 I wonder whether there might be a perception-is-reality thing going on,

As for what's going on in Detroit—I'm not sure any hitter would want to come here anytime soon. Notable exceptions notwithstanding, the Tigers have looked like the team where hitters go to die for a few years now.

Candelario had shown that he could be a very good hitter across multiple seasons so I thought he deserved another look. Willi was actually better under the hood in 2022 than his surface stats were and, despite the anecdotal rage regularly expressed here, was showing proficiency at multiple positions. Ultimately neither would make us playoff team now, but both would be useful pieces if for no other reason than they could be trade chips now.

Willi was one of those guys I thought Harris might hang onto, same with Candelario, but as it turns out, I believe it was the noise from the media and fans about them being way too much to ignore. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Ilitch urged Harris to push them out the door, although I don't think we ever will. But all the numbers indicated that they were worth keeping around for a couple more years, anyway. Is it a shame? Probably not.

I do know they had been trying Vierling over at third, but he's been more in center lately, probably because Urshela is now fully back. But you're right, he's a minus defender at third this year so he's probably off the list. He's probably not an everyday CF, either, although he has improved this season over previous seasons.

It does, in fact, look like AI.

Ah, Melissa. Perfect, perfect Melissa. I’m wondering whether her public career has taken a downturn. Even her French Wikipedia page has almost nothing about her since 2018.

The team doesn’t want to keep fielding questions about him, although he wasn’t a particularly high-profile part of the team. I did post way back in March that I thought Craig was big-timing Benetti in the booth that first broadcast, stepping all over Benetti and hogging the mike and using what I thought was an alpha-jock-talking-to-nerd tone, and I do wonder whether that had any lingering effect on their working relationship.

The thing about Keith is not that he’s a failure because he can’t play second base—which I know you’re not saying here—but that we are in the beginning of an actual rebuild and we don’t have a complete team around him. He’s playing at second base because we already have long-term guys we are trying to figure out at first base (Tork) and third base (Jung, Vierling). Plus, he wasn’t particularly good at third, anyway. We wanted to see whether he could hack second, which was a long shot going in, and we know for sure now he won’t. I think if we were to start playing Keith at first, that would tell us a lot about Tork’s future with the team.

Super weird because Come Sail Away came out when Petry was 19, and Benetti was not even close to being born. It would be like me making a joke about Kitty Kallen and “Little Things Mean a Lot”, and **** Tracewski draws a blank.

If you believe Baseball Reference, Canha is sub-1 WAR player, and Urshela is literally at reaplcement value. Neither one starts on a playoff team, so we’ll get very little of value for either, if we can move them at all. Jack Flaherty is the prize.

Reverse projection, or whatever they call when you claim something positive the other guy does that you didn’t do, such as taking credit to lowering insulin prices.

Yeah, I was fine with the deal when it happened and I still am. It’s low risk for an amount of money that’s not going to cripple us if it goes upside down, like, for instance, 8/248.

But we already know voters are not going to do anything that deviates from the path of least resistance, so, then what?

Yes, I admit it’s not something you see very often.

Um … wow, Craig. you gotta hope he’s ok, but I’m not sure anyone is exactly rooting for a quick return to the booth.

You mean a rookie struggling three months into an eight-year deal? Sure, I guess.

Way beyond MAGA. This guy doesn’t use a dog whistles. He stands next to you and shouts the words right into your ear.

Do you think Colt Keith is done done already?

Maybe … maybe not. I am willing to give some credence to G2’s theory about swinging and missing at pitches he would have taken before as a sign he’s working on stuff, for at least a little while. But it would not shock me to learn that once he got picked 1/1 and cashed an $8 million check, he thought he wouldn’t have to listen to any coaching anymore. I’m not I saying I definitely think this happened, only that it wouldn’t shock me to learn that it had.

All correct, but if the Tigers trade Skubal this year, it would be saying a lot to fans, mainly, that winning soon is nowhere on the docket. And it might not be anyway, but management wants to be really careful about what their actions say. The only way he could get away with it is to get a current big league stick that has All-Star potential if not at actual All-Star level. They can’t just liquidate him for the 2024 equivalent of Jake Rogers and whoever that pitcher was.

I was just making a joke on the word “associates”.

I am shocked that you of all people brought this up but I’ve been hypothesizing this since at least last season.

This. Right here. Unfortunately. The Skubal thing, I don’t know how they let him go anytime soon, unless he becomes just too hot to handle in the clubhouse.