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Did you know we had a .300 hitter on the team last year? The Athletic reminds us it's true. 😏

Neither do I. Making it through a whole season of one-game-a-series might even be optimistic. I think there's at least a 50-50 chance he finds his way to the 60-day injured list at some point during the season.

When I was at Ferris State in the mid 80s WJR could hardly reach up there, either, and they had no nearby Tigers affiliates. WBRN, the one and only reliable radio station we could get, certainly wasn't one. The closest one, I think, might have been Cadillac and that couldn't reach, either. WKZO also didn't make it up there. I spent two years there hardly hearing any games during spring or September. In this pre-cable time, it was also weird that I could get no ABC TV stations. Channel 13 out of GR was buried in snow, and don't even think about channel 29 out of TC, even though Mecosta County was in the Traverse City-Cadillac ADI. And once I'd moved on to Michigan State, I couldn't get any ABC station there, either. Channel 13 was the same snow situation, channel 41 out of Battle Creek pretty much stopped at the Charlotte city limit, and forget about channel 7 out of Detroit. That was another two years of no ABC TV. I spent a lot of time in some very weird media deserts when I was young.

I think JR might have been strongest directionally going out west. I remember as a kid going up north to just outside Traverse City with my family and not knowing whether I could pull it on any given night so I could listen to the Tigers game. The local Tigers station (TCM?) went low power at night and we couldn’t pick it up quite so well through the hills. On the other hand, WBZ, 1030, out of Boston? Clear as a bell every night in Warren, Michigan. Too bad they didn’t have Red Sox games. I did get KMOX and Cardinals games out of STL pretty reliably, though. Same with 3WE and Indians games.

If everything goes right, I see Cabrera as a one game per series guy, which would put him right around 50 games and perhaps 200 plate trips. If he gets substantially more than that, something has gone horribly wrong.

Apropos of not much, the Royals also have a sort of traditional sabermetric cred as quite a few of the early guys were Royals fans: Bill James, Rob Neyer, Rany Jazayleri, I think maybe one or two others.

The other thing buddha got right is suggesting how impossible it is for national guys to pay to all 30 teams in depth, for obvious reasons. They also pay far more attention to what they see in front of the curtain, not what's behind it. Sure, we made a bunch of changes behind the scenes—what does that mean to Keith Law or Dan Szymborski or Jay Jaffe or Mike Petriello or anyone else who has to report on baseball to a national audience? Very little, if it's not one of the Big Six franchises, plus whatever team is a hot commodity at the moment. Any changes there, they are going to take deep dives into. But changes like here in Detroit, or places like Pittsburgh or Cincinnati or Kansas City ... ah, wake me up when they're relevant. It's why when these guys review or project anything about the Tigers, it reads as though nothing has changed here.

Given how badly the ultra-red hat wing of the GOP lost in Michigan, resulting in a Democratic government trifecta, I can imagine only that their plan is to take over the state by force, in part by deputizing militias and, who knows, maybe even local police, by overthrowing the duly elected government and then imposing their will on the unarmed majority. Because I don't know how else they think they can seize power, since I can't see what it would take for ordinary reasonable people to conclude that these MAGA wackjobs are the preferable choice in a free and fair election.

“Now pitching … for the Detroit Tigers … number 3.14 … Bleep … Blorp …”

OK, I wondered whether you were being serious here, but not completely sure either way. I do fear that with the coming rise in offensive numbers, especially if the ball is re-juiced, pitchers and their coaches are going to try harder than ever to come up twisty, turny, ever-faster magic pitches to try to miss bats, resulting in even more season- and career-ending injuries than we see even today. Bseballl has simply got to deaden that ball to instill confidence in pitchers generally that if the bat lands on the pitch, there’s still a very good chance it stays in the park and has a chance of turning into an out. To do that, they’d probably have to cut the home run rate down to something under 1.00 per game and have it persist for a few seasons. Otherwise, as long as that homer rate is floating around 1.25 or even higher, I think we’re just going to keep seeing endless pitcher injuries ad infinitum.

Another ex-Tiger on yet another minor league deal.

I don’t know—Russia is the country that still celebrates as a badge of national honor the losing of tens of millions of people, soldiers and civilians, in the service of winning a world war. Whether true or not, if Putin leadership believes they can tap into that kind of heroic resolve here, they will gladly send millions to their demise in Ukraine before they seriously consider pulling the plug.

“Imp[ortant]” info?” Wow! OK, now I want to know exactly what Maria Bartiromo said right there. Did she say “impertinent info”? “Impotent info”? “Impudent”? “Imprudent”? “Impromptu”? I gotta know now!

Tree of liberty …

“And you know something, they’ll get it… they’ll get it ALL from you sooner or later… because they own this fucking place! It’s a BIG CLUB…and YOU AIN’T IN IT! You and I are NOT in the BIG CLUB! By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe.”

Pointedly, this chart has nothing to do with corporate tax rates.

I see one line item on the left that could be restructured to make up that deficit in a hurry.

This guy looks like the last thing you see before you die an ugly, violent death.

No. Studious. Anyone can study facts or processes and regurgitate them, like a Sidney Powell does. But just because she studied enough to become a lawyer does not make her de facto intelligent. Common sense is a non-sequitur in this instance.

That will be especially true if they juice the ball as I suspect they will. There's an outside chance this will be 1930 NL all over again, albeit with leagues hitting .270 versus .300 because of all the strikeouts.

That works if nobody gets shelled.

You just barely missed the "1" key.

I think what happens is that teams will keep more pitchers on their 40-man roster (maybe up to 25); they will trot out as many pitchers in a game as they can; they will max out the five-time option limits on their optional pitchers; and they will churn the waiver wire to get a consistent stream of fresh arms to throw at hitters. I also think we'll see an increase in mid-inning pitching changes and more three-and-done outings. Teams have been average around 3.3 to 3.4 relievers a game for the last five seasons. That might go up to four per game or even more. I think what we won't see is very much of leaving a quickly-tiring pitcher in there to get shelled, at least not until late.

Yachts for the rich. Yacht rock for the rest of us.