chasfh

I feel like avoiding the sweep in MInnesota is a moral victory all in itself.

And there's Tork getting the final out on the same kind of play he was spinning around and dropping balls on the first couple weeks of the season! Ballgame!

And ANOTHER big strikeout, this one by Chafin! Just one more ... come on, buddy ...

BIG strikeout of Carlos Correa for the first out. And here comes A.J. to go get Fulmer. That's fine—he's probably a little wilder today than we need to finish and win the game.

Disagree. A "ghost runner" is already a designation in the game of baseball. It refers to a phantom runner that is assumed to be on a base when a team does not have enough players to have a runner available. You've probably played in games with a ghost runner when you were a kid. The runner can only move as many bases as the batter and runners behind them: if you have a ghost runner on first and the batter gets a double, the ghost runner is assumed to go only to third base. Point being, the "ghost runner" term already existed and referred to something different from this when the rule was implemented. "Zombie runner" is right because the runner placed on second to start the inning was the last out of the prior inning. He basically died to end the inning, and then he was resurrected from the dead to come back and be a baserunner in the following inning. As far as I can tell, that's the perfect situation to apply the word "zombie", and not the word "ghost". That said, who gives a shit.

Zombie runner is the right term. Ghost runner is not.

JEEEEIIIII-MERRRRRR!

Harold was slashing .400/.455/.700 in 11 trips to the plate this year and already had a three-hit day with two homers. I think he deserved the benefit of the doubt to take that at bat.

lol c-mo saying he would totally give the .172-hitting Eric Haase the green light on a 3-0 pitch in a ninth-inning tie game.

By the way, guys, I know it's a little late for this, but if click on settings for the game and choose Audio track (3)/Away, you get the Dan Dickerson call. And, regrettably, Craig Monroe.

Funny, I was going to name Starlin Castro as a potential free agent we could sign in that other thread, but I was afraid some of you older posters would have a heart attack at the thought of yet another Castro on the team.

Someone else needs to buy this team from the Ilitches so Joel Zumaya can be invited to future old-timers days.

I'm not sure where you're getting 100 AB at .250 OBP. Grossman has a .294 OBP in his last 100 or so at bats (i.e., since April 22), which is better than everyone on the team not named Castro or Miggy. That said, Robbie's performance has been nothing short of horrific the last two weeks—like, nearly major league-worst horrific (arguably better than only ... wait for it ... Nick Castellanos!). So sure, let's move Robbie out of the top of the order and put someone else there. I'm fine with that. Please tell me who you think should be top of the order instead. No matter whom you pick, you do know that Robbie can't come out of the lineup, right? Because of the why this team has been rostered, there is literally no one who can replace him outside of Eric Haase or Harold Castro—and either way, you still have Willi in left. But yeah, let's blame Hinch for us being 14-28.

What batting order you want to see? Please list it out.

OK, if everyone were healthy, and if numerous starters were meeting or exceeding their projections and their peripherals, and the team was Pythagorean-positive—as with last year—yes, I agree given the same this year, they could be .500 or better.

Five to fifteen, according to the uncited meta-conclusion in the article you share. I believe the conclusions of such analyses are predicated on comparing the most optimized batting order with the most backwards, upside-down batting order imaginable, no? The latter of which is obviously never even in consideration. So I'd guess that when we're talking about changing one batting order position, like swapping Grossman and Schoop in the order, we're probably not even talking about as many as five runs during a season.

Exactly. Imagine how good this team would be if everything was going exactly right. They might be within shouting distance of .500.

I don't know where you get this out of my post, but no. In no universe do they qualify as established major leaguers. Guess again. Willi is playing left field because it's either him, who is hitting a little but is out of position there, or Eric Haase, who is not hitting at all and would be out of position there. Take your pick. I suppose we could move Grossman off the top of the order and replace him with ... I don't know ... Schoop, maybe? Candelario? Hill? Javy? Tucker? Tork or Miggy? I know you don't want Willi there. Anyway, batting orders don't actually mean all that much in the big scheme of things, maybe five or so runs over the course of a season, but sure, I'm game. Let's try someone else there. I'm not sure I take your unspoken point on Brieske. My point is that Hinch was handed a roster of shit and I'm not sure what more he or anyone else, including Ron Gardenhire, could do with it. Like I said, it's not as though he is running a contender into the ground.

This all probably should have been expected, or at least not unexpected. For years the rebuild put its eggs primarily in the right-handed starting pitching basket, because after all, we built a pennant winner primarily on right-handed pitching a decade ago, so heck, let’s try it again. We’re confident the fans will be on board and wait for as long as it’ll take. In the meantime, the organization fell way behind the curve on the technologies the better organizations use, always a step or two behind playing catch-up, which affected their scouting, drafting, signing, trading and development (and perhaps training and medical). The result is this gimpy collection of ragtag has-beens, never-wases, not-ready-yets, and AAAA lifers. There are two, maybe three, players on this team who, if fully healthy and on their established game, could start for a legitimate playoff-level team right now. But even when they’re hitting on all their cylinders, vast majority of these guys here are basically good enough to play on one of the worst teams in the majors, and not much more. I’d be willing to put the lion’s share of the blame on Hinch if he were losing with a team that was seriously expected to contend. But outside of some slappy fans and media people who have to work in that city, most people had the team picked for fourth or fifth place, and well under .500. So if it feels good, we can run Hinch out of town on a rail, bring Ron Gardenhire back, start shopping the veterans around for pennies on the dollar, take a flyer on free agents like Brett Gardner or Julio Teheran, and/or turn over the roster between Detroit and Toledo. Things may not get any better and they may well get worse, since we’d be relying on a group of mainly untried players to be at the top of their game to play up to a .333 level in the majors, instead of major league regulars slumping down to that level. But hey, at least something would be happening, right?

Jesus, Willi, you sure are making it hard to justify my love.

Tigers are kicking up their heels here! Cme on, Willi, the one thing you can do is get the occasional hit.

Holy shit, Miggy singling off 102. He’s the best hitter on the team. Are hamburgers eating people now?

Drew Carlton. Damn. Can you imagine how bad it would be if this bullpen was like, pick any bullpen of the last ten years? These guys came into the game 2nd in ERA, 10th in FIP. Sure, they’re. Like 21st in xFIP, but that’s actually improved in the past few weeks or so. Dramatically-improved bullpen performance is one of the few genuine pleasures I derive from this team.

Fulmer is back to killing it, at least.