microline133

Regardless of the prospects involved, the Tigers gave the Braves cash to support getting rid of Jimenez...That speaks volumes. Good move and I say that without any care about the actual return.

Antwaan Randle El

They weren't close at all...I mean, at all. Only fickle fans that think prospect development is linear had given up on him.

You add a player like him even if there are issues with the hit tool because he goes plus on literally every other tool in the scouting report. The reward is too significant to ignore in this case, particularly when you can very easily create 40-man space to accommodate him.

Left field.

No discussion to date of bringing TigsTown back. Never say never, but I'm not sure either of us has the time in our day to day lives to make it work. It's a ton of effort. I've toyed with the idea of a new podcast the last year or so, but it'd have to be the perfect scenario.

Good catch. I hadn't been following that. Even with the loosening if restrictions, teams still have to weigh the AFL assignment of a foreign-born player against the fact that they are going to play winter ball, most likely. Does the team want them getting rest for a month or so, before winter ball, or is the AFL somehow more important than rest.

Sort of...mostly in cases where the player missed time that year. The sample of observation isn't significant enough in the AFL to outweigh the rest of the season, so it would be pretty limited circumstances where the AFL is influencing the decision making.

I wanted to circle back to this, not because of anything with Workman in particular, but the bolded part grazes the edges of something I think is important for fans to understand about the AFL. There's a lot that goes into AFL roster assignments, including a lot of restrictions, that drive the assignments and make reading into them nearly meaningless. For example, there are heavy restrictions on the assignment of foreign-born players, and even if they are assigned, their winter club (LIDOM, etc) often has the trump card to pull them from the AFL early. In addition, because of the typical level of play, you're not sending anyone at the lower levels....usually High-A is the lowest experience level you would send, and even that used to require a waiver (not sure if it still does). On top of that, your pitchers had their workload programs designed to get whatever innings/pitches/stress they wanted that year based on the regular season, not with something like the AFL in mind because it is too far out and things change. So, at the end of the day, by the time you remove Rookie-level, Low-A, and most High-A players, then remove most of the foreign-born players, and then remove the pitchers that have reached workload restrictions (and this can apply to players, particularly catchers, as well), then your prospective player pool is quite small. You're talking a portion of your Double-A and Triple-A players, and a smaller subset of High-A players. If you set out looking for six guys to send to the AFL, you're probably starting with guys that were injured this year (Wentz/Keith) and then moving onto guys that probably aren't high-end prospects.

Disclaimer...I am not a guitar guy. That said, I thought this was pretty cool. My daughter has been making noise about wanting a guitar for quite some time. Tonight we were over at a family friend's house and "Uncle" Adam is the owner of eight guitars and had been discussing his most recent purchase and his need to get rid of a couple older ones. My daughter randomly came upstairs and started talking about her desire to get a guitar....then "Uncle" Adam appears from the back room with a guitar and offers it to her as her first....it was his first that he bought when he was 15 years old. Such a cool, cool moment. My nine-year old daughter was speechless, sat down and started her best strumming, then hugged her "Uncle"....amazing.

That's what happens when the mobs descend upon you because THEY don't understand the data you presented and insist you were wrong.

Spent some time walking around that site when I was there a couple of weeks ago, then spent some time reading about the construction methodology and goals of the process....Lift Build. It's an interesting concept, particularly from an efficiency and safety perspective.

It's game day!!! Let's go....I don't care how hungover I am!

I fly into town Friday for this game....first Lions game ever, first NFL game in general!

One of the keys to reading national prospect lists is to understand where their information comes from. Both Bowden and BA are heavily reliant on internal org sources and org assessments (hint, orgs tend to pump their own players when they talk to the media), as opposed to external sources/assessments. I would wager they have Flores significantly higher than other outlets when off-season lists release, simply because of where the data is coming from....more observation heavy, broader sourced, or data heavy lists are unlikely to have him nearly as high. That doesn't mean one is right or wrong, just that these lists have bias and it helps to know where it is given the outlet.

I haven't found anyone that is terribly impressed by Perez. General consensus seems to be he probably reaches the big leagues eventually, but in a utility/bench role. Meadows has garnered a little more praise, but I still haven't found anyone that suddenly believes he's an above-average regular. Given his developmental arc and the swing and miss still present in his game, I think he's going to have to continue to perform to convert the scout types...had the arc been a little more positive from the start, there's a decent chance you may have seen some guys come around sooner this year.

Personally, I'd stay a bit tempered on both Flores and Madden. There's still a fair number of scouts I've talked to that have reliever projection on Madden, though he's converted a couple guys I know to thinking he can be a #4, and most also only see back-end ability for Flores due to c/c projection and less feel for the CH than you'd like at this stage.

I drove from Cornwall to Sarnia coming home from college one time. I think I stopped once for gas, never hit a lick of traffic. Got to the border in Sarnia and the guy pulls up my plate, starts to ask the typical questions about what I was doing in Canada, pauses as he does the math on how long it has been since I entered in Cornwall, laughed and said, "I'm not even going to bother. You didn't stop to do a damn thing. We don't need to worry about you today." Second best stop at customs in my life, next to the time my Grandfather never actually stopped on his way through.

They handle promotions similarly to the vast majority of orgs.

If this hasn't been obvious for years, I don't know where your head is at.

I honestly don't know. I have not been asked to retrieve official passports from employees leaving federal service, and I haven't even seen it on our out-processing checklist. It's possible security handles it and I'm oblivious, though.

Let me clarify because I totally botched the above.....Dingler either just stays in Erie for the playoffs or if he's promoted, he ultimately goes back to Erie for the playoffs.

I have two current passports, one an "Official" passport and one my personal. Both are current and wholly my responsibility.

I've not paid too much attention to standings, but I believe Erie is likely playoff bound. If that's the case, Dingler stays in Toledo, or at least goes back down and plays for them.