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Fangraphs has Tucker at 1.1 WAR in 2017. Shows how, to your point, catcher defensive stats are so nascent that two of the top stats site would come out so different on their numbers. FWIW, Statcast is far more down on Tucker’s catching abilities in 2017, especially in pitch framing, than either B-Ref or Fangraphs. As far as I’m concerned, it’s neither here nor there anyway, because 31-year-old Tucker was probably never going to be as good for the Tigers as 26-year-old Tucker was for the Reds.

I stand corrected.

Nobody may have expected Barnhart to be at -0.3 fWAR right now, but last year was his career year as a 30-year-old catcher: 1.2 fWAR. Various projection models had him coming in at 0.6 and 0.8 this year. YMMV, but I don’t necessarily believe that’s worth seven and a half bills. The wild card here, of course, is whether Barnhart is earning his keep through superior “handling of the pitching staff”. The aggregation of the various defensive stats aren’t all that kind to him, but as for whether he is spurring better incremental performance by his pitchers when he’s behind the plate versus Haase or Garneau is hard to either prove or disprove. FWIW, his CERA and Haase’s are practically identical, and both are half a run worse than Garneau, although small sample size applies there. Bottom line: unless Barnhart has some kind of second half surge, this is going to go down as a failed sign.

Well, if you’re going to fold in the ninth to lose the game, you might as well do it quickly, I guess.

I believe the first two words I posted here about Tucker Barnhart was “hard pass”. And my first post after we signed him was, well, he’s ours now, so I’m rooting for him. Sucks to be disappointed on both ends like that.

I saw plenty of him at Wrigley Field.

You were warned.

This is the second straight game Javy alligator-armed a very catchable ball hit to him, costing us an out. That has got to be an error since it was a very ordinary play for a big leaguer.

That said, Javy was still the brightest star in that Cubs constellation.

We're just coming out of two-plus years of socially-imposed isolation and were basically discouraged from traveling. The last few months is the first time in two years people feel free to move about and enjoy traveling and vacationing without COVID restrictions. People have been denying themselves since the winter of 2020. No way are people going to deny themselves the opportunity to hit the open road for the first summer in three years so they can feel free once more. This is one part of the perfect storm that has led to $6 gas.

I hate to say it, but goddammit, they’re right on this one.

He was at age 31 already the one of the worst-hitting catchers in the game, and coming off successive 75 wRC+ seasons and moving into a stronger league? I don't think it's out of the blue. If anyone would have predicted to me that he would get off to a 50 wRC+ start after 50 games, I would've said yup, that sounds like it's within the range of outcomes. I would agree that it's at the low end of that range. But I would not agree that it's completely uncharacteristic and wholly unfathomable or unexplainable.

It was a trade? Who did we get in trade?

"No way"? Really?

If you like that story, you'll love this: Trayce Thompson was slashing .299/.352/.639 in Toledo, good for a .416 wOBA and 153 wRC+ with eight home runs and seven doubles in just 97 at bats. We just sold him to the Dodgers for "cash considerations". Just like Lavarnway. Anyone still think "the rebuild is over" and that we are trying to stockpile talent?

The guy was always a freak show, and I don't necessarily mean physically.

While I wouldn't say the Comerica skyline is the equal of the PNC Park skyline in Pittsburgh, or even the Truist Field skyline in Charlotte, I do think the DAC provides one of the premier distinctive looks to an outfield skyline of any ballpark.

I don’t think Candy was the block, so much. Schoop has no future with this team beyond next year. He’s a definite short-timer. (Or at least he had better be!) As silly as it sounds right now given how bad he has done this year so far, Candy is (or has been) considered a potential contributor to the next playoff team. There would have been more of a future to a 3B-2B combo of Candy and Paredes with Schoop leaving, than of Paredes and Schoop with Candy leaving. That’s why I believe it was Schoop blocking Paredes. Either way, it seemed that even though Paredes was always considered to have sleeper star potential in the return from that Alex Avila-Justin Wilson trade, he was never going to get the chance to make it happen here. His fate was sealed when the Tigers signed Schoop to the 2/15 (or, more exactly, a 1/7.5 with a player option!) on the strength of a middling 2-win performance last year (and at first base!) It’s making me wonder whether there was something non-baseball happening behind the scenes that the Tigers front office or coaching didn’t like, and didn’t want to keep around. Attitude? Work ethic? Cultural mismatch? It certainly wasn’t lack of talent or potential.

Wow, look at Miggy busting it down the line after that weak pulled grounder. At least that part was entertaining. Ah, well ... Small moral victories suck.

Maybe we're finally starting to see the light switched.

Call me stupid if you want, but I like Baez coming up this inning. Let's se how this one ages!

Schoop Schoop ba-doop Schoop ba-doop Schoop ba-doop ba-doop ba-doop

Alex Lange for closer. Who's with me?

You don't say. 😁😉😅

That's true at the moment.