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There is nothing short of a miraculous transformation in style and approach that would make me want to listen to Shep call a game. But at least he showed me that he's not always a complete stiff.

Makes sense on paper, although I wonder how that relates to a team that knows it's circling the drain pretty early? Practically no one on the team could have reasonably expected at any point past early May that this team was ever going to win enough to contend. I'm sure a lot of those guys are hard-wired to be super-competitive at all times, and I'm just as sure that many of them were simply marking time waiting out the inevitable disastrous final result. How does any leader inculcate a unified pennant-winning mindset within a clubhouse so divided in its outlook in such a circumstance?

Got any relatives in Mexico?

Man, Shep getting hot on the postgame! Where has that guy been for the past three years?

I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that there is some people-based reason he didn’t make the move. Besides the fact that it wouldn’t have mattered either way, because the stakes have been so low all year, it might be harder to justify a move like this on a personal level to the players involved as well as his teammates. I would bet with better players in house, and with more on the line, A.J. would be more likely to make the ruthless move. Am I making sense?

In Taiwan.

Well, that sucked for the most part, although it did get a little better toward the end there. There’s gonna be a lot going on this winter, so might as well start talking about it now.

I was smirking, but I wasn’t kidding …

AJ pitching all guys who are gonna get released. 😏

This game has been Sotoed.

I think there will be dozens, maybe even over 100, elections at the federal level that will get held up for days or weeks while the Republicans who lose reject the results. There will be hundreds more at state and local levels in just about every state in the country. It's going to be madness.

If it's a nobody singing that, you're probably right. If it's the famous writer Ring Lardner singing that ... well ...

Schalk was considered THE top catcher of his time, which meant defensive and not hitting, for what that's worth ...

That's the way such time-based constructs go. Ultimately, they are all arbitrary. People like to refer the Jack Morris as the winningest pitcher of the 80s, but change that ten-year time construct from 1980-89 to 1977-86, or to 1984-93—or better yet, just shorten it to 1984-89—and all of a sudden, he's not so winningest is he? 😅 In any event, all I was trying to show is that as far of Hall of Famers go, Miggy's is experiencing a protracted end-of-career slide that will end up being the worst among those players inducted for their bat. If someone wanted to look at just the final three years, or five years, or lengthen it out to the final ten years, they're free to make that point.

I don’t think Bryan Garcia comes back. He doesn’t control the strike zone well enough, he’s already losing ticks on his velocity, and he’s going on 28.

For the same six seasons preceding his last one, Pujols stood at -0.1 oWAR. He will go into the Hall with +2.0 oWAR for his final seven seasons.

High BABIP would be very lucky for any guy with a 64% GB rate. Indeed, on the 46 ground balls Riley has hit since September 1, he has a batting average of .326 against an xBA (which takes into account quality of contact) of .254. Also, his ground ball SLG was .348 against an xSLG of .275. Source. Take out ground balls—look just at the other three hit types—and Riley's result is an unlucky .435 BA vs an xBA of .494. Source. But that's OK, because since he pounds grounders two out of every three times he puts the ball into play, when he's lucky on those, he's lucky overall. I think Riley has to change his hit type profile to more line drives and fly balls, and I do believe the new coaches will be working with him on that. I understand that you and I are talking about different stats across different periods of time, and I can't speak to yours from my own standpoint, but I did want to defend my statement that Riley has been lucky since September 1, because he has.

So, I took a look at all the Hall of Famers who went in as hitters, not pitchers, and I wanted to know who had the worst final seven years of their career going in. Since these guys went in for hitting, instead of using WAR, which includes defense, I am going to use offensive WAR (oWAR), since it contemplates only the offense part. Here are the ten worst seven-year offensive swan songs by a hitter before going into the Hall: Ray Schalk is the worst with a mere 1.7 oWAR for his entire final seven years, but he was definitely not known for his hitting, so really, no surprise. Al Simmons did go in for his hitting, but it was definitely for his first eleven seasons, and oh, what a stretch that was. He'd had almost 2,200 hits already, 240 of which were home runs, but his batting average is what really stood out: after his eleventh season, he was standing at .354 lifetime. He was considered to have had a puncher's chance at Ty Cobb's lifetime mark. But then, starting with his 14th season, he was getting old, and he started getting hurt a lot, and he limped through that final seven-year period with a .278/.328/.431 line across 1,600 PA, resulting in an oWAR of 3.0. I bring this up because for the past six seasons, Miggy, in a little more than 2,400 plate appearances, has slashed .262/.329/.386, which results in an oWAR of -0.2. So, unless he has a Pujols-like renaissance next season, Miggy is certain to walk backwards into the Hall with the worst final seven years of any Hall of Fame hitter ever—worse even than non-hitter Ray Schalk.

Yeah, it's gonna happen ... 2. 🏈 Scoop: Trump lawyer to represent Favre Photo illustration: Allie Carl/Axios. Photo: Hannah Foslien/Getty Images Eric Herschmann, a top White House lawyer to President Trump, confirms to Axios he is now lead counsel to Brett Favre, who's at the center of Mississippi's biggest-ever public corruption case. What he's saying: "I only agreed to represent Brett Favre after I did my independent due diligence and was convinced that he did nothing wrong," Herschmann told Axios' Mike Allen. "Brett enthusiastically tried to help his alma mater, a public university, that needed and wanted his help," Herschmann added. "Brett had no idea that welfare funds were being used or that others were involved in illegal conduct." Context: Favre, 52, endorsed Trump in 2020 with a tweet that said in part: "My Vote is for what makes this country great." Herschmann, 60, was one of Trump's most trusted aides, and represented him at his first impeachment trial. He's been subpoenaed by the federal grand jury investigating the Jan. 6 attack.

We should stipulate here that Riley Greene has been "decent" only in Tigers terms. He is .242/.333/.297 with zero homers in 105 PA, good for an 88 wRC+ in the last 30 days, during which time he has been a groundball machine (64%), with an average launch angle of -2.4 degrees. Yes, that's a minus two-point-four. And that production includes a well-above-average .344 BABIP. All that said, he's still a 21-year-old kid with a long, long way to go. There's a good chance he becomes the face of the franchise within the next three or four years.

Baddoo is an interesting case because he seems to have really benefited from whatever changes in coaching may have happened since Adam Melheuse came up from Toledo. His line drive percentage is up, and he is talking more walks. On the other hand, Baddoo's success this month seems to have come mainly from seeing-eye grounders: his BABIP on grounders since 9/1 is .429, double the average BABIP during that period, so there's a lot of luck involved. I wouldn't declare Baddoo a solution, but between that and how much Fangraphs loves his left field D (more than Statcast does, and despite his wet noodle arm), it's worth giving him a shot at the Opening Day roster next spring. But I also wouldn't be surprised if he crapped out, or even if Scott Harris threw him in on a multiplayer trade. I agree we won't DFA him, but even if he comes back in February, he's not necessarily a 50-50 shot to make it. We think Baddoo is good because we're Tigers fans, but Tigers good is not the same as big league good, at least not at this moment. As for TORK!: well, he looks like he has all but given up on the season and is flailing away in frustration to mark time until Wednesday evening comes along. His last two weeks is as bad as any two-week stretch he's had this season—.132/.175/.211 slash, 6 (that's six) wRC+, and his WAR has dropped by almost half a win just since mid-September. He's not drawing walks and is striking out too much, because he's taking too many pitches down the pipe. This, despite that his hard hit rate is just about as good as anyone's in the game. But as much as Baddoo been the beneficiary of good luck, TORK! has suffered from his share of bad luck: since September 1, his BABIP on fly balls and line drives is .308, which sounds about normal until we learn that MLB average for BABIP on line drives and fly balls since 9/1 is .393. TORK! can be fixed, and that's got to be development job #1 this offseason. The Tigers must bank on the idea that he will be a productive mainstay for at least the next five years. Then we can't, then this rebuild is truly off the rails, because he was the centerpiece of the plate side of that. OTOH, Baddoo will be what he will be, and whatever we can get from him after today will be a bonus.

I would not have guessed this. I would have thought this score had surely happened before.

Well, it wasn’t boring.

Well, he didn’t miss it! 😁

Touchdown. Bonkers.