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No wonder people get so mad at MS”DNC”!

I don’t think Al Avila was the Michael Scott of GMs, a guy who doesn’t know anything about literally anything. Avila comes from scouting, so I’m sure his strength is in that area. And just because I’m not hammering Scott Harris for Eduardo backing out of the deal that based on reports was done to his specifications doesn’t mean I’m deifying Harris, either. I think I’ve been pretty circumspect in my assessment of his tenure so far, saying repeatedly that the jury is still out on him and it’s going to be a couple years before we can really assess him, because he needs that time to remake the organization from Avila’s image to his. To the degree that Avila gets credit for getting players in house that the new management team figures out how to get acceptable performance out of, he deserves it.

We’re still a few years away from this being Harris’s organization and not Avila’s leftovers. That doesn’t get all solved in a year. Big ships take a long long time to turn around. I wouldn’t doubt that it was someone else’s decision to let Candelario go. I don’t think anyone looking at Jeimer’s numbers, and I think that includes Scott Harris, could have concluded that Jeimer was done done, but fans were screaming for his head since the middle of last season, and there may be other people in the organization far more sensitive to that kind of fan feedback than the new guy would be. I think we’ll be able to do more decent transactions this winter, but I also believe that we are still at the point where the Tigers are neither an organization on par with others in the bid for impact free agents, nor in a position to unlock impact major leaguers in trades with the assets we have at our disposal to offer—unless we’re willing offer up Parker Meadows, Colt Keith, Tarik Skubal, Matt Manning, guys like that, which, who knows, we might be, we’ll see. But I’m guessing we’ll see more Lorenzen/Boyd-style free agents signings and more Soto/Jimenez-level trades during the 2023-24 offseason.

All of these guys could still stall and get (more) injured and end up going nowhere—some of them aren’t even in the majors yet! Then we can all say Avila was right the whole time and it was Harris who screwed the pooch! 😉😅 I’m not so sure Rogers has all that much future left.

The other thing is that Avila did have some fundamental differences in the type of players he wanted to acquire, which is why we ended up with a bunch of players like Niko Goodrum and the Castros and Isaac Pacheco and Daniel Cabrera during his tenure. Sure, he picked Tork and Riley, but they were no-brainers. And he picked Kerry Carpenter, too, but he also picked 18 guys ahead of him, and it’s pretty well known that Carpenter fixed himself rather than Avila’s team fixing him.

Harris is rescuing guys, and we had to let a bunch of guys go, and a bunch more will go this winter.

I don’t think Avila had as good of a plan as he did giving lip service to having a plan.

His grade is mostly incomplete because many of the moves he has made have longer term payoffs than just now. The cleaning house is probably the most substantial thing he has done, plus the rescuing of former prospects who were in danger of no longer being considered prospects but who are now once again considered prospects. Those are probably his most impressive concrete accomplishments so far. I believe the decision-sciences aspect of running a team, the part which made Avila go “huh?!”, is part and parcel of the cleaning house because this is where that aspect would have had any real impact by this time. We will get more insights into how analytics impacts trades, free agent signings, etc., but that’s really incomplete as of now. I don’t think he has gotten any real chance to make an impactful free agent pickup because last winter Detroit was not in a position of being a desirable location with a team built to win now, and we almost certainly won’t be that this winter, either. So the idea of picking up a Matt Chapman-level guy—which a lot of fans are demanding to see even with a substantial overpay—isn’t on the table yet. The trades he has made so far have shown some promise, but it’s still too early to call, even with Maton, who everyone here is writing off but actually who had better numbers in the second half than Vierling (and who is killing it at Toledo now). The waiver wire pickups have already skunked Avila’s record with his pickup of Tyler Holton alone, and even Andy Ibanez has given us some positive results at times. But teams don’t build winning rosters with only waiver wire picks and minor league free agents—those more like round roaters out that way. I think Harris has potential on this front in the future. The draft looked pretty good but again, the grade on that is also incomplete. I’m with Oblong, the hiring of a GM is pretty more cosmetic than people would think. It’s not as though Harris will kick himself upstairs completely when he does so. Two things mentioned here, failing to keep Jeimer and to trade Rodriguez, are things he has to take responsibility for because of his position, but I think both of them might have been more out of his control than people believe. Overall, the report card is still incomplete, but I do think that he is trending strongly toward getting a solid A. I think we probably should have the ability to give him a solid grade a couple of years from now.

Ok, last pic from the ride. This is Damen crossing the Stevenson. We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

I like the old days as much as the next guy, but I’m glad they don’t do the silent treatment for rookie homers anymore. That was nonsense.

Lost it last night when they found it in my belly fat coming into the park. Still got my knucks and my blackjack though!

Riding by the ballpark just a minute ago. Not inside tonight. Go Tigers!

Well, what can you say? People gonna people.

I don’t know either. It wasn’t a done deal it would have been approved because there was opposition from other owners, in part because of the travel issues. But had it been approved, it would have been a bear to manage, I imagine.

They never got to the logistics stage that I saw, but I believe the general idea was that teams would fly STL to LA and back, and take the train otherwise. The flight would take ten or so hours and there would have been multiple stops along the way, and any team going to LA would have to play in STL on the way there and/or back. It would have been a complete mess to both figure out and execute.

The St Louis Browns were getting set to move to Los Angeles for the 1942 season, and a league vote for it was scheduled for December 8, 1941. It was tabled. I’m not sure how they would have managed the travel without jets, but moving there was the plan. Throughout the fifties and sixties, ten different teams were rumored to be moving to the west coast at various points. There were seven separate rumors involving just the Kansas City A’s.

As long as no other options are definitely better, Javy is staying with the team.

With two outs in the ninth, somebody on the third base side unfurled a sign that said, “42 years of ownership, six playoff appearances, Jerry Reinsdorf must go“. I tried to get a picture of it, but ushers quickly came and snatched the sign away. Not before big cheers from the fans, though. As far as I’m concerned, Jerry Reinsdorf can stick around for another couple of decades. 😁

Wrong thread

As I watch Jake Rogers at the plate, I find it incredible that he’s been with the organization for six years already.

Hope that’s not the season for him.

I only heard the ump mention the one. Acoustics aren’t great here.

The kid Andre Lipcius’s first MLB pitch faced.

The Tigers challenged the wrong thing. They challenged the blocking of the plate. They should have challenged the out call.