Thoughts about rebuilding

[Edman85]

He was handling third until the top 5 outfielders got hurt. That seems to be a plus to me...

[gehringer_2]

10 minutes ago, Edman85 said:

He was handling third until the top 5 outfielders got hurt. That seems to be a plus to me...

TBH I wasn't real impressed with his play there. Nice arm, couldn't seem to go to his right. But nobody who's played 3rd this season can go to his right (Edit: as Maton just demonstrated) - maybe Kreidler if you didn't blink during his time there.

Edited June 10, 2023 by gehringer_2

[Toddwert]

13 minutes ago, Edman85 said:

He was handling third until the top 5 outfielders got hurt. That seems to be a plus to me...

Maton was the 3rd baseman coming out of spring training… Mckinstry has been the utility guy bouncing around

[gehringer_2]

5 minutes ago, Toddwert said:

Maton was the 3rd baseman coming out of spring training…

and he's at a -16 rds/yr pace there.

[Sports_Freak]

4 hours ago, casimir said:

The lack of rotation depth was staring the team in the face from the beginning.  I don't think it was quite obvious to a lot of folks.

Put the BP out there for too many innings and it will expose them. But not scoring any runs and terrible pitching makes for a really bad team.

[Sports_Freak]

1 hour ago, SoCalTiger said:

1 Continue to play Tork, Verling , Rogers and Maton at the MLB level in hopes of gaining two or three starters for 2024. 
2. Continue to play Keith, Mallory, Meadows in the minors. Don’t rush or panic. 
3 Draft well

4. Trade all possible assets at deadline should good deals present themselves. Lange Foley Erod Lorenzen Boyd. Haase McKinstry all available. Don’t be shy. 

5. Sign multiple short term free agents in the off season and one solid long term play. 
6. Take that calculated risk this off season Be bold. Baez for Tatis ? Take on salary if player solid. 
7. Trade in off season. 
8 Add rule 5 player

9 Keep working waiver wire. 
 

 

In the past, with many franchises, a new GM comes in and isn't loyal to players he didn't draft. Tork has been given 1 1/2 years to show what he can do. Unless he gets hot for an extended period in the 2nd half, I could see Harris moving on from him. He didn't draft Tork...

[mtutiger]

1 hour ago, Toddwert said:

Atleast my view isn’t put your head in the sand and have a no one will play with us view point…. Why bother? You point out two players there were tens of players available this off season…. He got rid of a every day MLBer at 3rd and didn’t replace him with anything 

Have you considered the possibility that they did, in fact, extend offers to players and they elected not to sign here?

That's the thing... I'm not against them signing free agents, but realistically, there are no guarantees that free agents will sign if you extend them an offer... even if it's an overpay. And as far as I can tell, there's a ton of inference and little actual evidence one way or another about how they pursued last offseason.

Put another way, the fact that they didn't sign many players is generally used as proof that they didn't actually try to sign anyone. I dont know that is the case.

[Dtrain72]

[mtutiger]

Regarding the Rangers, given that Ratko brought them up as an example of building through free agency, the impact of their young core on their record today cannot be overstated. Josh Jung, Zeke Duran, Leody Tavares, Nathaniel Lowe, etc. And of course Adolis Garcia, who was a cast-off from another org. 

It's not to say the free agents haven't helped, they have despite injuries to some of their signings (De Grom has been a non-entity; they have been without Corey Seager much of the year), but simply put, they made a bet on their young core with the free agent signings and, to date, it has worked out.

So, where's the analog to their young core with this Tigers team? Riley Greene started to come on before his injury, but Tork has been underwhelming. And past them what is there... Parker Meadows and Justyn Malloy are probably the next guys up, but idk how confident we are there. Colt Keith looks good, but despite the "call him up!" cries, is it really wise to bring him up at this point? 

They theoretically could do some stuff around the edges with free agency to pick up 5-10 more wins, sure, but at this point, until the they have a young core that is producing, it's seems to me that all of these debates are over the difference between 65-70 wins and 70-75 wins. 

I just don't see the way around that... they have to acquire more talent and better talent through the draft and other means. 

Edited June 10, 2023 by mtutiger

[buddha]

2 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

Wentz needs more change in velo. He can certainly work on pitch repertoire at AAA more reasonably than Detroit. It's true guys can get stuck were they don't work on what they need to in the minor because they're having success there, but if your MiLB coaches can't get them past that you need new coaches.

In Faedo's case he needs to pitch more - period.  That can happen wherever it's appropriate. But he's only thrown something like 100 ip over the 4 previous yrs. When guys are out that much that long 100 IP is not unusual to get command/consistency back, then see what you may have.  He's a little over 40 for this season to far. 

Not to mention that Toledo needs some guys who can be successful there right now!

wrntz needs more velo?  sure.  he needs to be a better pitcher with a stronger arm.  he is not that pitcher.

faedo can get injured in triple a as well as he can in mlb, i suppose.

[gehringer_2]

43 minutes ago, buddha said:

wrntz needs more velo?

delta velo. Change and slider are the same pitch speed and neither is different enough from the FB (10mph is the usual the minimum to effectively mess up a hitter's timing). He has a slower curve but doesn't use it enough to matter. So that is the kind thing he could work on at pressure lower than MLB. Of course he might not be able to do it, but I think you do your org a disservice if you don't get guys to try things before giving up. I mean - Bonderman did *try* to throw a change, he couldn't master it. 

The particular thing with Wentz (I posted about this after a previous start) is that he made a change since last season that made this issue worse. He added some velo to his FB but the velo of his other pitches came up MORE, so the difference this season is less. OK - so maybe the brain trust has to go back and revisit it? That how the process goes - sometimes not everything you do works out the way it was expected. Maybe they understood all this in March and planned to figure it out over time in Toledo - after-all,  he wasn't supposed to be in Det in the first half of this season.

In Detroit if we know anything by now is that players are too hard to find. Sure you can beat a dead horse too long, like in the case of Christin Stewart maybe, but generally it costs you less to be patient and exhaust the possibilities than give up on guys who go succeed somewhere else. Even if a Wentz ends up as reliever you still want him throwing the best stuff he can.

 

Edited June 10, 2023 by gehringer_2

[Tiger337]

2 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

except he's not holding down the hot corner in RF. Credit where credit is due, McKinstrey looks like a nice player. Jury definitely still out of Maton, Malloy, Vierling and Nevin.

McKinstry hasn't hit this month. Just a slump or have they caught up to him?  Maybe Maton or Vierling is the next one to get hot for a month.  

[Tenacious D]

4 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

McKinstry hasn't hit this month. Just a slump or have they caught up to him?  Maybe Maton or Vierling is the next one to get hot for a month.  

McKinstry being McKinstry

[mtutiger]

On another note, how bout dem Mets and Padres?

[buddha]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

delta velo. Change and slider are the same pitch speed and neither is different enough from the FB (10mph is the usual the minimum to effectively mess up a hitter's timing). He has a slower curve but doesn't use it enough to matter. So that is the kind thing he could work on at pressure lower than MLB. Of course he might not be able to do it, but I think you do your org a disservice if you don't get guys to try things before giving up. I mean - Bonderman did *try* to throw a change, he couldn't master it. 

The particular thing with Wentz (I posted about this after a previous start) is that he made a change since last season that made this issue worse. He added some velo to his FB but the velo of his other pitches came up MORE, so the difference this season is less. OK - so maybe the brain trust has to go back and revisit it? That how the process goes - sometimes not everything you do works out the way it was expected. Maybe they understood all this in March and planned to figure it out over time in Toledo - after-all,  he wasn't supposed to be in Det in the first half of this season.

In Detroit if we know anything by now is that players are too hard to find. Sure you can beat a dead horse too long, like in the case of Christin Stewart maybe, but generally it costs you less to be patient and exhaust the possibilities than give up on guys who go succeed somewhere else. Even if a Wentz ends up as reliever you still want him throwing the best stuff he can.

 

ok.  wentz will never be anything more than a lefty reliever.  

book it.

[gehringer_2]

9 minutes ago, buddha said:

ok.  wentz will never be anything more than a lefty reliever.  

book it.

FOr this team - even if he gets there that's something. 

[buddha]

2 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

FOr this team - even if he gets there that's something. 

i dont think they should cut the guy, but just put him in the pen where he belongs.  right next to all their other failed starting pitcher draft picks and trade acquisitions, lol.

[1984Echoes]

10 hours ago, Toddwert said:

Your the same guy who thought these guys would bounce back and be awesome lol

The most apt statement I made this past offseason was that the Tigers mission statement for the 2023 season was to fix all their broken players.

That statement is still 100% correct and hasn't changed one iota.

[Scottwood]

The Tigers were probably the worst organization in MLB when Harris took over.  It is going to take some time to turn it around.  This draft and offseason will be a bit more telling about Harris and the front office's process and strategy.

There is substantially less incentive to tank anymore under the new CBA, so I don't expect that to actually be Harris' plan in the years to come.  It doesn't make much sense with the flat lottery odds and the inability to pick in the top 6 more than 2 years in a row.

Edited June 11, 2023 by Scottwood

[Toddwert]

7 hours ago, 1984Echoes said:

The most apt statement I made this past offseason was that the Tigers mission statement for the 2023 season was to fix all their broken players.

That statement is still 100% correct and hasn't changed one iota.

How’s that working out for them? Still the same weak hitting team they were last year 

[casimir]

14 hours ago, mtutiger said:

On another note, how bout dem Mets and Padres?

And on a related tangent, wasn't the Texas shopping spree during the offseason before the 2022 season when the went 68-94?

[mtutiger]

1 hour ago, casimir said:

And on a related tangent, wasn't the Texas shopping spree during the offseason before the 2022 season when the went 68-94?

I wrote a longer post about the Rangers above, but last year's club that went 68-94 didn't have the contributions from quite a few homegrown players that it does right now.

Their investment in free agency was a bet on their young core... it was risky, there were a lot of reasons to be skeptical, but there was a logic to it...  And it is working for them right now. Mea culpa. 

Bringing it back to the Tigers, would anybody here bet in that kind of way on the Tigers young core? Especially after seeing how the first year and a half of Tork and Greene have gone?

I would also add, living in the area and listening to Dallas sports radio frequently, prior to the 2022 offseason, Ranger fans directed the same level of ire toward Ray Davis as Tiger fans do toward Chris I... because they went through a few seasons without spending money as well. It stands to reason the investment happened because the org was in a position where the investment felt justified. And that requires real belief that you have players that are gonna come up and be worth building around... which, again, goes to the question of what the Tigers young core is at the moment. And as far as I can tell, very few are confident on that front.

Edited June 11, 2023 by mtutiger

[casimir]

46 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

I wrote a longer post about the Rangers above, but last year's club that went 68-94 didn't have the contributions from quite a few homegrown players that it does right now.

Their investment in free agency was a bet on their young core... it was risky, there were a lot of reasons to be skeptical, but there was a logic to it...  And it is working for them right now. Mea culpa. 

Bringing it back to the Tigers, would anybody here bet in that kind of way on the Tigers young core? Especially after seeing how the first year and a half of Tork and Greene have gone?

I would also add, living in the area and listening to Dallas sports radio frequently, prior to the 2022 offseason, Ranger fans directed the same level of ire toward Ray Davis as Tiger fans do toward Chris I... because they went through a few seasons without spending money as well. It stands to reason the investment happened because the org was in a position where the investment felt justified. And that requires real belief that you have players that are gonna come up and be worth building around... which, again, goes to the question of what the Tigers young core is at the moment. And as far as I can tell, very few are confident on that front.

I don’t know if Harris is trying the same methodology sort of in a different bit of timing.  Do the Tigers feel that they have the young core close enough to add free agents this upcoming offseason and they’re just sorting through some pieces right now?  I don’t know if that’s the case.  The upcoming free agent class certainly doesn’t have the cache that the 2021-2022 off-season did.

My guess is he’s just trying to figure what the Tigers have going forward.  Add in some other players just to make a roster without having to prematurely call up prospects, and maybe they uncover an overlooked ball player along the way.  Finding themselves with a few games of “first” as late as May (wow, what an unimpressive sentence that actually is if you think about it) was fun for a week or two.

As far as the young core is concerned, Greene is leading the pack, sure.  I wonder whether Torkleson needs to go back down to Toledo.  I wonder how confidence in being in a MLB roster vs confidence in results (which should happen in AAA) vs he’s mechanically/skillfully/technically where he should be and just not that far off works.  I think that’s where Hinch and his psychology background comes in, so we’ve got to trust him being there everyday and dealing with Torkleson as opposed to us schlubs on the outside watching games and reading box scores.  The pitching is impossible to read because of how the should be rotation has been decimated.

Good times.

[mtutiger]

13 minutes ago, casimir said:

I don’t know if Harris is trying the same methodology sort of in a different bit of timing.  Do the Tigers feel that they have the young core close enough to add free agents this upcoming offseason and they’re just sorting through some pieces right now?  I don’t know if that’s the case.  The upcoming free agent class certainly doesn’t have the cache that the 2021-2022 off-season did.

My guess is he’s just trying to figure what the Tigers have going forward.  Add in some other players just to make a roster without having to prematurely call up prospects, and maybe they uncover an overlooked ball player along the way.  Finding themselves with a few games of “first” as late as May (wow, what an unimpressive sentence that actually is if you think about it) was fun for a week or two.

 

If I had to guess, to the extent that he has evaluated, Harris views this org overall as not being where it needs to be to make that kind of investment. 

And it makes sense... I have seen a lot of complaints on this board, including from people who decry the lack of free agent signings, about how long it will take for this team to compete. I've seen 2026/2027 suggested at times (that's a bit pessimistic, at least in terms of the division they play in imo). And then same people will turn around and question why they didn't go out and sign Carlos Correa, who likely will regress to being a worse player by the time the org is actually positioned to compete in their view, particularly in light of the injury concerns 

Like, at a macro level, it just doesn't compute to me.

[SoCalTiger]

7 hours ago, Scottwood said:

The Tigers were probably the worst organization in MLB when Harris took over.  It is going to take some time to turn it around.  This draft and offseason will be a bit more telling about Harris and the front office's process and strategy.

There is substantially less incentive to tank anymore under the new CBA, so I don't expect that to actually be Harris' plan in the years to come.  It doesn't make much sense with the flat lottery odds and the inability to pick in the top 6 more than 2 years in a row.

True but losing this year would be year 2 selecting top six and give Harris two years of low drafts which may play in to keeping players in the minors and unloading at the trade deadline.   
 

This is Harris mulligan year and he will use it as such.