2023 MLB (non-Tigers) catch all thread

[casimir]

Paredes is still only 24 years old, too.

I still think the trade made sense at the time.  It just isn't working out well for the Tigers.

[mtutiger]

Thought the trade made sense at the time, so no point in creating an alternate history where that wasn't the case.

Either way, as Randy suggests, I have zero confidence that he'd be doing this well if he were still a Tiger. So to the extent that I care, I'm glad he ended up somewhere where he could succeed 

[Tigeraholic1]

8 hours ago, lordstanley said:

Verlander knocked around in his home debut in a Mets uniform. 
 

 

Starting to look like a 40 year old pitcher.

[chasfh]

2 hours ago, RandyMarsh said:

I'm still not sure Parades wouldve ended up the same way here as he did with TB, after all he's not the first and certainly won't be the last player to play way better for them than they ever did or do elsewhere but assuming that's not the case then yeah his bat sure would look nice on this team right now. 

There’s no way to actually know, maybe unless you could somehow OOTP it out, but I feel that Paredes would have done better under Hinch/Harris than under Grifol/Avila.

I didn’t love the trade at the time because I thought Paredes was better than Meadows straight up so it was a lot to give up, but I also thought it was defensible based on where we were and what we were trying to do coming into the 2022 season. We all thought we were on the brink of contending, and it seemed like we needed Meadows more in left than we needed Paredes at third. But now it’s been almost a year and a half and with Paredes getting comfortable and heating up for Tampa whereas Meadows may literally never play again, we are already losing the trade by a substantial margin, and I can’t envision any scenario in which that flips around and we end up winning or even tying it. I wonder if Tampa locks up Paredes for cheap at some point, like a 7/70 deal or something.

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

Starting to look like a 40 year old pitcher.

Speaking of 40 yr old pitchers, Anibal announced his retirement. He pitched 19 years with an arm that should have fallen off before he even got to the Tigers.

[gehringer_2]

9 minutes ago, chasfh said:

There’s no way to actually know, maybe unless you could somehow OOTP it out, but I feel that Paredes would have done better under Hinch/Harris than under Grifol/Avila.

I didn’t love the trade at the time because I thought Paredes was better than Meadows straight up so it was a lot to give up, but I also thought it was defensible based on where we were and what we were trying to do coming into the 2022 season. We all thought we were on the brink of contending, and it seemed like we needed Meadows more in left than we needed Paredes at third. But now it’s been almost a year and a half and with Paredes getting comfortable and heating up for Tampa whereas Meadows may literally never play again, we are already losing the trade by a substantial margin, and I can’t envision any scenario in which that flips around and we end up winning or even tying it. I wonder if Tampa locks up Paredes for cheap at some point, like a 7/70 deal or something.

Certainly the surprise it not what Paredes' value is - I don't think too many people doubted there was a decent hit tool there, the questions for Paredes had been whether he was going to outgrow the quickness he needed as an IF and whether his power would develop but there was always a decent probability for him. The crazy thing that has come out of the blue is Meadows. Unless Tampa was hiding something how could anybody have predicted what has happened to him when deciding to trade for him? It's just one of those weird outliers - basically our guy got run over by the beer truck. Where we are now doesn't really have much to do with the trade.

[RandyMarsh]

I wonder if Riley doesnt break his foot do we still trade for Meadows? I think the team felt that our margin for error was very small when it came to making the playoffs so even though Riley was only going to be out a couple months max they had a sense of urgency to try compensate for that loss even if it wasn't going to be a major deal.

I guess either way though Paredes was likely the odd man out in the orgs eyes and prob wouldve been traded at some point.

[oblong]

21 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Speaking of 40 yr old pitchers, Anibal announced his retirement. He pitched 19 years with an arm that should have fallen off before he even got to the Tigers.

Two of my best non playoff game highlights were the games 2 weeks apart in May 2013 where he struck out 17 and then took a no hitter to 1 out in the ninth.

Seems like a good guy and I also recall one very good game near the end of his Tigers career.  Glad he got a ring. 

 

[gehringer_2]

14 minutes ago, RandyMarsh said:

I wonder if Riley doesnt break his foot do we still trade for Meadows? I think the team felt that our margin for error was very small when it came to making the playoffs so even though Riley was only going to be out a couple months max they had a sense of urgency to try compensate for that loss even if it wasn't going to be a major deal.

I guess either way though Paredes was likely the odd man out in the orgs eyes and prob wouldve been traded at some point.

Agree 100% -  I don't think they make the trade if Riley is healthy. Of course looking back we can say with some evidence that Riley wasn't going to do much in his first few hundred AB so that pinning hopes on him last year would have been a mistake anyway and could have led to some worse decision later in the season if the pressure had not been removed by them falling completely out of contention. Oddly - in the long run it looks like it's going to turn out better that they were able to give a not very productive Riley (and probably Torkelson as well) full time AB in the 2nd half last yr.

[chasfh]

11 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Certainly the surprise it not what Paredes' value is - I don't think too many people doubted there was a decent hit tool there, the questions for Paredes had been whether he was going to outgrow the quickness he needed as an IF and whether his power would develop but there was always a decent probability for him. The crazy thing that has come out of the blue is Meadows. Unless Tampa was hiding something how could anybody have predicted what has happened to him when deciding to trade for him? It's just one of those weird outliers - basically our guy got run over by the beer truck. Where we are now doesn't really have much to do with the trade.

The way I remember it, it wasn't whether Paredes could stick in the infield at all—it was whether he could make it as a middle infielder, which I don't think anyone outside the Avila brain trust thought was a real possibility. Everyone else thought Paredes was always going to be tracked into being a third baseman. As for where we are now, not sure what that means exactly since we are in a much better spot overall than last year, but that rarely turns on one player alone in any event. I think with 20/20 hindsight we can safely conclude we would be far better off today with Paredes at third than with parade of quad-A players there.

On your other point—did Tampa know something about Meadows? I've wondered that as well. I haven't found anything prior to last year that reported that Meadows was dealing with mental health issues, but then, nobody in sports ever talked about that before literally last year, so that doesn't mean nothing was happening. And even though Avila was anything but the king of due diligence, I'm not sure how that could come up even for the most diligent trader. Unlike physical health, you can't see mental health. And Meadows did play most of 2019 and 2021 with decent production. So we can probably chalk this up to weird luck, although there may always be something in the back of my mind about that.

 

[gehringer_2]

6 minutes ago, chasfh said:

On your other point—did Tampa know something about Meadows? I've wondered that as well. I haven't found anything prior to last year that reported that Meadows was dealing with mental health issues, but then, nobody in sports ever talked about that before literally last year, so that doesn't mean nothing was happening. And even though Avila was anything but the king of due diligence, I'm not sure how that could come up even for the most diligent trader. Unlike physical health, you can't see mental health. And Meadows did play most of 2019 and 2021 with decent production. So we can probably chalk this up to weird luck, although there may always be something in the back of my mind about that.

and the other possibility - which would 'absolve' Tampa, and Avila too for that matter, would be if what has happened to Ausin is COVID related. Again - we don't know the details of his life history, but if this is something that he had no previous history with, some form of long COVID is as reasonable a speculative trigger as anything. IIRC he did have a pretty bad case didn't he?

[chasfh]

9 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

and the other possibility - which would 'absolve' Tampa, and Avila too for that matter, would be if what has happened to Ausin is COVID related. Again - we don't know the details of his life history, but if this is something that he had no previous history with, some form of long COVID is as reasonable a speculative trigger as anything. IIRC he did have a pretty bad case didn't he?

Yes, in 2022, although that was after the vertigo and the ear infection, and before the Achilles problems and the mental health issues.

[CMRivdogs]

41 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

and the other possibility - which would 'absolve' Tampa, and Avila too for that matter, would be if what has happened to Ausin is COVID related. Again - we don't know the details of his life history, but if this is something that he had no previous history with, some form of long COVID is as reasonable a speculative trigger as anything. IIRC he did have a pretty bad case didn't he?

It seems Meadows had a case of COVID in 2020 as well. A bit of digging found this article. 
https://www.tampabay.com/sports/rays/2021/03/02/rays-austin-meadows-looks-to-bounce-back-after-being-set-back-by-coronavirus/

Considering, the injuries after the trade as well as a second round of COVID, not to mention whatever upheaval the trade to Detroit may have caused late in Spring training.

Hopefully he can recover, it seems like a lot of stress in a fairly short amount of time.

[RandyMarsh]

Considering the Tigers drafted his brother high and gave him a big bonus a few years prior Id imagine they have some type of relationship with the family I wonder if they asked them at the time of the trade any info about him mentally.  Like how they felt he would handle the move here, how he has been feeling since the bout of covid and things of that nature.

Or none of that was on their radar and they just checked him physically and that was that. 

Edited May 17, 2023 by RandyMarsh

[SoCalTiger]

The Parades trade was questionable at the time and I was very uncomfortable when it went down. My comments on this board stated as such. Tampa rarely makes bad trades and Al often did. It was mismatch and panic move by Al because Riley broke his foot that we had no business making because the rebuild was not over. Meadows defense and power were clearly in decline and his salary was rising. Moving him was rule one in Tampa's playbook. Parades had great plate awareness in the minors and the build for power at some point. PLUS we gave up a high draft pick. Another typically poor decision by Al and one Harris would NEVER make. Old school fleeced by new school. I also hold Hinch partly accountable because he chose to give prolonged playing time to Castro-Castro- Reyes- Goodrum etc and not Parades despite the minor league OBP that was strong. We lost our young third baseman whose current line .289 - .368 - .492   6 HR 28 RBI and .860 OPS would lead us in all categories. He's better than Enrique Suarez. 

It's a shame what happened to Meadows and who knows what was known at the time but even healthy he would have been a poor fielder/DH with declining power and value. At least Al will be welcome in all corners of his home state of Florida. Santa Avila. 

[SoCalTiger]

22 minutes ago, RandyMarsh said:

Considering the Tigers drafted his brother high and gave him a big bonus a few years prior Id imagine they have some type of relationship with the family I wonder if they asked them at the time of the trade any info about him mentally.  Like how they felt he would handle the move here, how he has been feeling since the bout of covid and things of that nature.

Or none of that was on their radar and they just checked him physically and that was that. 

Al looked at the back of his baseball card and saw many home runs and thats all it took. That and his boss said publicly "the rebuild was over" and Al need to cover his butt with no concern of the next day.

[mtutiger]

2 hours ago, RandyMarsh said:

I guess either way though Paredes was likely the odd man out in the orgs eyes and prob wouldve been traded at some point.

The other figure that looms large with that trade is Jeimer Candelario - the org clearly didn't prioritize Paredes, but also Candelario had a great 2021 playing 3B (same primary position as Paredes) and was seen as an extension candidate going into 2022. And the org essentially voted for Candelario with that trade over Paredes imo.

And we've seen how all that has turned out.

Edited May 17, 2023 by mtutiger

[Jim Cowan]

4 hours ago, mtutiger said:

Thought the trade made sense at the time, so no point in creating an alternate history where that wasn't the case.

Either way, as Randy suggests, I have zero confidence that he'd be doing this well if he were still a Tiger. So to the extent that I care, I'm glad he ended up somewhere where he could succeed 

Or maybe he's evolved into a better player at 24 than he was at 22?  I would still wait until October to see if he can have a good season, it would be his first.  Then he would be in a position to make some money.

[CMRivdogs]

Is Andy Dirks in the radio booth today? Still trying to get used to the new voices.

[KL2]

1 hour ago, SoCalTiger said:

The Parades trade was questionable at the time and I was very uncomfortable when it went down. My comments on this board stated as such. Tampa rarely makes bad trades and Al often did. It was mismatch and panic move by Al because Riley broke his foot that we had no business making because the rebuild was not over. Meadows defense and power were clearly in decline and his salary was rising. Moving him was rule one in Tampa's playbook. Parades had great plate awareness in the minors and the build for power at some point. PLUS we gave up a high draft pick. Another typically poor decision by Al and one Harris would NEVER make. Old school fleeced by new school. I also hold Hinch partly accountable because he chose to give prolonged playing time to Castro-Castro- Reyes- Goodrum etc and not Parades despite the minor league OBP that was strong. We lost our young third baseman whose current line .289 - .368 - .492   6 HR 28 RBI and .860 OPS would lead us in all categories. He's better than Enrique Suarez. 

It's a shame what happened to Meadows and who knows what was known at the time but even healthy he would have been a poor fielder/DH with declining power and value. At least Al will be welcome in all corners of his home state of Florida. Santa Avila. 

Lots of Monday morning QBing here 

I don't recall many posts of that. Most were OK trading for an all-star and didn't think it was just a panic move cause Riley got hurt. He had under a .600 OPS for us and most believed the trade was OK because we had Tork and Candy set to play the corners. 

[SoCalTiger]

2 minutes ago, KL2 said:

Lots of Monday morning QBing here 

I don't recall many posts of that. Most were OK trading for an all-star and didn't think it was just a panic move cause Riley got hurt. He had under a .600 OPS for us and most believed the trade was OK because we had Tork and Candy set to play the corners. 

Yes it's Monday morning QB but true all the same. It's a big fail.

[Jim Cowan]

1 hour ago, KL2 said:

Lots of Monday morning QBing here 

I don't recall many posts of that. Most were OK trading for an all-star and didn't think it was just a panic move cause Riley got hurt. He had under a .600 OPS for us and most believed the trade was OK because we had Tork and Candy set to play the corners. 

Count your blessings, at least no one posted that hilarious photo of smiling Al Avila.  It never gets old.

[Shinzaki]

I've known a person or two that has suffered emotional/mental issues post COVID.  It made them sadder...and a touch slower.  But they were older than Meadows  (50's and 60's)

[gehringer_2]

51 minutes ago, Shinzaki said:

I've known a person or two that has suffered emotional/mental issues post COVID.  It made them sadder...and a touch slower.  But they were older than Meadows  (50's and 60's)

Of course for a ML baseball player, you could be slowed by an amount that was imperceptible to you or anyone else in 100% of ordinary life and it could still destroy you as an MLB hitter.

[Tiger337]

5 hours ago, SoCalTiger said:

The Parades trade was questionable at the time and I was very uncomfortable when it went down. My comments on this board stated as such. Tampa rarely makes bad trades and Al often did. It was mismatch and panic move by Al because Riley broke his foot that we had no business making because the rebuild was not over.

It may have been a misreading of Paredes' talent, but I don't think it was a panic move  I get the feeling the Tigers didn't regard Paredes highly for whatever reason.  He seemed ready to be given a major league opportunity and they seemed reluctant to give it to him.  I don't think Meadows power was clearly on the decline since he hit for pretty good power in 2021.  I would have been very happy with 27 home runs from him again in 2022