chasfh

Hope he saved up some money. He's gonna need it.

Sop making sense, you're ruining the piling on. 😁 I don't believe many position players were convinced the Tigers are a franchise on a serious comeback earlier this offseason, not would they believe we would spend the money when it comes time to. (Heck, most posters here didn't believe Chris Ilitch/Scott Harris would ever spend any money.) Players are probably more open to the idea of coming here now after our having signed Valdez and Verlander. I think it's going to take at least another year of proving it, and moving on to at least the ALCS, before the best of them seriously consider agreeing to commit their remaining prime production years here. As for the city itself, anyone without interest in winning an argument would agree that it's clear that as a destination place to live, Detroit is nowhere on a par with New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, or Boston. We can probably add to that Miami (especially for Latin players), Anaheim (proximity to LA, mainstream cultural center), Seattle (team history, coolness factor), or Phoenix or Atlanta (close to home). Vegas will be up there, too, once they have their team. Other things like years and money being equal, a young player with lots of money, especially if he's single, would simply not choose Detroit as a place to live over any of these other cities. I have no evidence to present the court on this. I'm just leaning on my experience having lived a life in the United States.

You posted "'ever' was the wrong word" as I was crafting the follow-on response, which is why I didn't see that before posting. Also, to be clear, we had been talking largely about position players like Bregman and Bichette and, in prior years, Soto (!) and Ohtani (!!), which I thought at the time to be true, and still believe it would have been true had Harris pursued any of those top position player free agents, which I believe he did not do. I have said it's always going to be more challenging to sign top position players than top pitchers, partially because we have a known, proven pitcher whisperer heading up that staff, and also because of the perception that Comerica is harder on hitters, particularly RHH, than most parks. I still believe this to be true. Yes, dramatically overpaying players like Victor and Prince and Justin Upton may get certain of them to want to come to Detroit or stay in Detroit (Miggy). Dombrowski /Mike Ilitch did that, with mixed success and a negative impact on the franchise's fortunes over the following decade. But you know what else will get players to want to come here? Being a proven, consistent playoff team, winning a pennant, winning a ring. Once we establish ourselves as that team, then the Tigers will become a destination more top free agent hitters will consider on a par with other elite teams.

No, I'm being serious: who said no one who's any good would ever want to sign with the Tigers ever again? Because that wasn't me. I made a qualified statement that no one want to sign with a team with a recent-memory history of blowing it up and tanking, which is definitely true, and which applied to us. We did break a seal with Valdez, but he was also a distressed asset who, apparently, had to make a choice between us and the Pirates, which is a no-brainer for roughly ten out of ten players. However, breaking that seal, and then signing Verlander, was pretty important and, assuming we make the playoffs again and perhaps go even deeper, should help during the next normal offseason.

Who said that?

So to be clear, Trump is raking Thomas Massie for "fighting ... against a hopeless agenda of Hate and Stupidity ..." Got it.

We already had fascism in America: the Jim Crow South.

Their Orange Jesus telling them "don't worry about it" is all a third of the population needs to hear to be comfortable with it.

It occurs to me that if, miracle of miracles, Perot had become President, we'd've seen a similar kind of pro-oligarchy, anti-labor, deregulating regime we are seeing now.

I can see why people were so doom and gloom about the franchise, given the decade that preceded the 2024 playoffs, which they seemed to treat as a one-off (and maybe still do, who knows). Some people are simply the type who like to say they're just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I think part of it is, nobody wants to be disappointed, so they prevent themselves from developing expectations, or even from hoping. What I hope is that we're past all that and we can see the Tigers for what they are: a franchise on the rise, with a chance to step in among the elite of teams for a little while, rather than a team that simply got lucky with a bunch of nobodies for a couple of years and is destined to go splat any day now due to operator error.

We were ranked 7th in runs scored before stumbling down the stretch. I don't think the problem was that the offense sucked. I think the problem was that a good offense stumbled down the stretch. I am not tearing my hair out over lack of All-Star bat added the offense. To all appearances, Harris is counting on improvement from hitters we already have on board. He's got us to within one game of the ALCS two years in a row. I know I'm on an island here, but if he does not add an All-Star bat to the offense, then I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Interesting how he said when he went to Houston in 2017 he had his "mind blown" by the analytics.

Alternate take: They want to assure that independents can feel good about voting Republican again.

Dream on, Eddie. They'd never sell alternates at the Pro Shop on game day that way.

I have been repeatedly assured told that you can never have too much starting pitching. I can only assume they mean that "literally" in a literal sense, and not "literally" in a figurative sense.

That's how it usually happens, all right.

I'm thinking more in the eyes of a reasonable voting person, someone in between, say, first and fifth quintile extremes, if you can imagine such a thing as being measurable, which I grant it's not.

I think we are seeing that with this president and this Court, the Constitution is negotiable.

Notable that this ran in the Murdoch Post. On the one hand, you could argue that it's very unusual for them to run a story that makes MAGA and red hats look as bad as this. On the other hand, it could be argued that running this story on a website beloved by red hats is that it's giving them all but explicit permission to murder people who don't like Trump, even family members who know how to get all dolled up, because, as you can see, they're going to get away with it as long as they do it in the right place.

Harris fail. 😁

Well, the motives here aren't suspicious at all ...

Yeaaaaah, it's gonna happen, god damn it ... Although if I am reading the "leak" tweet from the Tigers right, there are going to be two colors, including navy blue. Well, the traditional look was nice while it lasted, but I guess the kids were always gonna end up winning that battle.

S***! Please tell me these are new City Connects and not standard colored alternates they will be wearing throughout the week at home and on the road. Oh, who am I kidding? That ship was always going to sail at some point. It's just a bummer that I had to live to see it.

My post contemplates only the thinness of the case for Mize deserving his 2025 All-Star bid. I contend that even though Mize was on the All-Star team, his season fell short of being what is reasonably considered All-Star level.

Honest question: is there a historical case that winning parties ended up changing their policies in the wake of a significant third party vote tally? I don't know either way.