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What an emotional final game! After an 0-for-3 start and a BS four-pitch walk in his last trip to the plate, Miggy surprises us all with one final appearance at first base, and two pitches in gets the 3-unassisted, and walks off on top. What a beautiful ending to an inner-circle Hall of Fame career that will culminate in another Olde English D enshrined in Cooperstown. Tigers finish the season 78-84, and in full possession of second place, capped off by a nice little 18-10 run. I think they did better this season than the vast majority of people thought they might. They certainly beat my own preseason prediction of 75 wins pretty nicely. I would say that, despite the complaints and objections voiced throughout the season, Scott Harris's first season was a pretty solid success. Let's spend the next six months posting endlessly about what he must, I mean absolutely must, do this offseason to win this division next year and then every year after that for the rest of all of our lives.

Damn, he looks lost today. If he struck out three times and went out on a bomb, I'd be perfectly OK with that.

That’s OK, Miggy should be getting at least three more shots today.

Meanwhile, please pray for the continuing health of Eduardo Rodriguez today.

Depends on who the Commander in Chief is.

Nah, they don’t want the 1860s. April 1954 will suffice.

I agree on Mize and Manning. I can envision Skubal becoming deGrom lite, complete with injury proclivity.

Marlins are one of those franchises with a notorious history of letting go of future Hall of Famers in trade for cheap.

Maybe, although eight years is long enough for a new generation of ignorant people with votes to come of age.

Not just to keep the undocs from coming in, but also to keep Texas girls seeking abortions from going out.

Umpires rotate clockwise, so third base, where he can’t ring up Miggy on a half swing.

The men’s amateur hockey team he’s on has regular practice on Saturday afternoons.

Seems like Harris’s deal with the Braves is working out pretty nicely so far, and everyone seems to like it. So I can see us doing as a centerpiece deal a Foley-plus for a J-Hen-type plus, a guy who plays a position of near-term need, controls the strike zone, and is pretty close. Someone like Justin Foscue from the Rangers, or maybe even Jett Williams from the Mets.

Don’t forget Gaspar, Drumright and Greisinger …

Sounds like middle of the rotation to me. Not sure what we’re gainsaying, then.

I wouldn’t agree with trading a picther at the level of the ace of a world champion.

I agree with you. We should keep him.

I know we see him that way. I don’t know that other GMs will. If Skubal is at the level of ace of a world champion then I think we should not put him on the block.

I think they are, at least as far as those on the left edge of the Democratic Party are concerned. The main concern I have is that Kennedy siphons off enough of those hard lefties that it makes the difference in the election.

If the government does not come down on Trump soon and start treating him like the criminal defendant that he is, without the special favor they appear to have been showing him so far, then maybe we truly are doomed as a functioning rule-of-law democracy. Only they can prevent forest fires here, and Trump has been flicking matches with impunity so far.

Not a prediction, but I can envision Kapler coming into the Tigers organization in a coaching capacity, at least for a year, to help him get back on his feet to interview for open managing gigs.

They may or may not say it flat out, but our military is a huge jobs boondoggle for the (mostly non-union) laborers in MAGAland who work in that industry. That’s why you can’t tell them trickle-down doesn’t work, because when they look anecdotally at how the humongous government spending on the military leads directly to those jobs, they think it works great.

I know what you mean. When you and I were kids right around the same time coming into baseball fandom, Kaline was at the end of his run and being overshadowed in our eyes at the plate by Horton, Freehan, Cash, Northrup, McAuliffe and maybe a couple others. Maybe kids today, middle and high school age, who came into their fandom at about the same age think of Miggy the same way—although I don’t know who overshadows Miggy in the same way those guys did Kaline. It almost makes me wonder what there’s been on the team the past seven or so years that would even draw in a 10-year-old to become a Tiger fan.

I see, OK. When you said “they” need quantity I thought you meant Oakland, which I think might be true of them as well. I would guess Skubal would be a more interesting mid- or back of rotation pickup for a contender next year, teams who could let a bunch of guys down their system go and not miss them. I would love to hang on to Skubal because he’s showing the potential of being something really special, albeit a late starter not unlike deGrom. But I wouldn’t freak out if they did trade him this winter because I am also pretty confident that this coaching staff can continue to develop useful pitchers out of even unremarkable guys. This group may have found the secret sauce the Avila regime hoped to when they overdrafted moundsmen all those years.