2025 Detroit Tigers General Discussion Thread

[Tiger337]

The top 20 list according to perplexity is below.  I asked them why Fryman was not on the list and it said he was solid but did not have the same elite status as players on the list.  I stopped there.  

Trammell

Whitaker

Verlander

Morris

Parrish

Fidrych

Smoltz

Granderson

Porcello

Castellanos

Avila

Maybin

Manning

Mize

Greene

Kapler

Zumaya

Higginson

Max Clark

Rainer

[oblong]

I stand by Biggs old statement that Tony Clark is the line on a good draft. If you can get him or better then you win.  
 

it’s not drafting. It’s development.   Those two things are mutually exclusive.  Players aren’t finished products.  Good orgs can make good players.  And not every good player needs to play for your org for 10 years. “Know when to fold ‘em”.   I want a history of this team where in 5 years we are talking about players doing well who is not in anybody’s radar now.  

[Tigermojo]

8 minutes ago, oblong said:

I stand by Biggs old statement that Tony Clark is the line on a good draft. If you can get him or better then you win.  
 

it’s not drafting. It’s development.   Those two things are mutually exclusive.  Players aren’t finished products.  Good orgs can make good players.  And not every good player needs to play for your org for 10 years. “Know when to fold ‘em”.   I want a history of this team where in 5 years we are talking about players doing well who is not in anybody’s radar now.  

Seems like a player's ability to adapt to the next level is very important to evaluate. It's also extremely difficult because they probably never had to adapt, they were always the best player around.

[Graterol]

3 hours ago, KL2 said:

It’s not the nfl or nfl where you have good players on free agency. In mlb now, it’s basically a couple top end guys, and then a bunch of 33 year olds that are just a shuffle the chair situation. Remember most mlb player don’t hit free agency until 30 at the earliest cause of how the system is set up (drafted at 21, few minor league seasons and then six years of team control)

most are old or broken or both, so when critiquing we also have to look at what was available. Wasn’t like he signed these guys with with some 27 year old there willing to take a 1/13

I won’t necessarily blame Harris for bregman not coming here, but there were also a few others (like Kim, or taking on Correa contract). If we didn’t have $35 million or whatever in Cobb, Maeda, Brebbia, Kahnle maybe one of those could have worked (acknowledging it takes two sides). I think maybe my broader point is he is the anti DD—focused on winning a signing or trade but sometimes you have to pay going prices. And my number one point is Trey Sweeney is the worse starting shortstop in mlb by far and nothing has been done to address it.

[Tiger337]

3 hours ago, oblong said:

I stand by Biggs old statement that Tony Clark is the line on a good draft. If you can get him or better then you win.  
 

it’s not drafting. It’s development.   Those two things are mutually exclusive.  Players aren’t finished products.  Good orgs can make good players.  And not every good player needs to play for your org for 10 years. “Know when to fold ‘em”.   I want a history of this team where in 5 years we are talking about players doing well who is not in anybody’s radar now.  

I agree, but don't you also have to draft guys that can be developed?  It is my understanding that there is more focus on learning about player personality traits (work ethic, motivation, etc) than there used to be.    

[TigerNation]

8 hours ago, Edman85 said:

Sorry, a bit more. Only sharing because it is so hilarious.

 

The apology got me.

[Tiger337]

8 hours ago, chasfh said:

 

Just like every other 19th pick by any GM.  However, I think a retro list like that would be not be about evaluating GMS, but just looking at the result.  Certainly, getting Carpenter in 19th round has yielded sn unusually good result

[gehringer_2]

5 hours ago, oblong said:

I stand by Biggs old statement that Tony Clark is the line on a good draft. If you can get him or better then you win.  
 

it’s not drafting. It’s development.   

I don't think I can agree with this, To hit major league hitting or command a major league breaking ball, you have be blessed with a set of genes that you aren't going to find in any Joe on the street. You can master all the developing capability you can and I still don't think you would ever make a major leaguer out more than a tiny subset of the population. Who you pick matters. You have to discern and draft a player that has the potential, then you have to make sure he reaches that potential.

Edited August 17 by gehringer_2

[Tiger337]

7 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

I don't think I can agree with this, To hit major league hitting or command a major league breaking ball, you have be blessed with a set of genes that you aren't going to find in any Joe on the street. You can master all the developing capability you can and I still don't think you would ever make a major leaguer out more than a tiny subset of the population. Who you pick matters. You have to discern and draft a player that has the potential, then you have to make sure he reaches that potential.

But it's only a tiny subset which is drafted and they presumably have the talent.  It may be easier to identify talent than to get the most out of it.  I'm not really sure.    

[oblong]

7 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

I don't think I can agree with this, To hit major league hitting or command a major league breaking ball, you have be blessed with a set of genes that you aren't going to find in any Joe on the street. You can master all the developing capability you can and I still don't think you would ever make a major leaguer out more than a tiny subset of the population. Who you pick matters. You have to discern and draft a player that has the potential, then you have to make sure he reaches that potential.

I think anybody on the lists for the first 15 rounds have mastered that to a certain degree. The point I was trying to make is I don’t see it as a drafting skill if you got an MLB guy in round 7 because if the team before you picked him I don’t see it as a guarante he makes it.   I’m not saying its all random but outside of the top 5 picks and the can’t miss players that fall thru the cracks, like a piazza, it’s your dev ops that will sustain you. 

[Edman85]

13 hours ago, oblong said:

I stand by Biggs old statement that Tony Clark is the line on a good draft. If you can get him or better then you win.  
 

it’s not drafting. It’s development.   Those two things are mutually exclusive.  Players aren’t finished products.  Good orgs can make good players.  And not every good player needs to play for your org for 10 years. “Know when to fold ‘em”.   I want a history of this team where in 5 years we are talking about players doing well who is not in anybody’s radar now.  

Ehhhh... They are more intertwined than you lead on here. For example, if a team knows the strengths of its development staff, or the development staff is able to tell the scouting department what works better, there is going to be some interplay there. At least in the modern day, the players aren't just thrown over the fence.

[chasfh]

14 hours ago, oblong said:

I stand by Biggs old statement that Tony Clark is the line on a good draft. If you can get him or better then you win.  
 

it’s not drafting. It’s development.   Those two things are mutually exclusive.  Players aren’t finished products.  Good orgs can make good players.  And not every good player needs to play for your org for 10 years. “Know when to fold ‘em”.   I want a history of this team where in 5 years we are talking about players doing well who is not in anybody’s radar now.  

This is in large part why I don’t give Al Avila nearly as much credit for our current state of success as I do Scott Harris.

[chasfh]

14 hours ago, Graterol said:

I won’t necessarily blame Harris for bregman not coming here, but there were also a few others (like Kim, or taking on Correa contract). If we didn’t have $35 million or whatever in Cobb, Maeda, Brebbia, Kahnle maybe one of those could have worked (acknowledging it takes two sides). I think maybe my broader point is he is the anti DD—focused on winning a signing or trade but sometimes you have to pay going prices. And my number one point is Trey Sweeney is the worse starting shortstop in mlb by far and nothing has been done to address it.

Sweeney was sent down to Toledo precisely because he wasn’t delivering to the capability of an adequate major league shortstop. That’s doing something, not nothing.

Or perhaps you mean ****canning Sweeney? Harris hasn’t ****canned Sweeney yet so Harris hasn’t done anything about him? Personally, I think that is too high a standard for doing “anything”. Sweeney is only 25, he has a first-round pedigree, he has shown occasional flashes of hitting prowess, and he is still glove-positive. That’s still worthy of our time to try to develop, especially since Bryce Rainer is won’t be ready to step in anytime before late 2027, at least. In the meantime, we need to have someone we can hope to put there for a couple more years, unless you want us to subsist on a diet of part-time Baez and part-time McKinstry, with a dash of Ibanez at short, the whole time. Or are you talking about signing a high-priced shortstop long-term, or trading from the top of the farm system for one, and then figure out the good problem of what to do with Bryce Rainer when he gets here? Because I think that’s too high a bar for doing ”anything” as well.

We are still running away with our division even with Sweeney at short part of the time. I think we have a bit more time to figure out whether we can still get a couple years of adequacy from him before we have to cut bait on him.

[chasfh]

10 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

Just like every other 19th pick by any GM.  However, I think a retro list like that would be not be about evaluating GMS, but just looking at the result.  Certainly, getting Carpenter in 19th round has yielded sn unusually good result

Totally agree. Drafting an All-Star in the 19th round is not a genius drafting jiu-jitsu move. It’s luck when an organization gets a guy who slipped through five hundred and fifty-some draft picks and who showed way more during the development process not only than the guys chose above him did, but also, more than literally any of the 30 major league organizations, including your own, did. 

[gehringer_2]

11 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

But it's only a tiny subset which is drafted and they presumably have the talent.  It may be easier to identify talent than to get the most out of it.  I'm not really sure.    

so I think what makes it  difficult looking at young players is that there is an interplay between their ceiling and their 'history' that combine to create their current performance level. A guy with a sub MLB ceiling may look great at a low level because he has worked hard and had good coaching and thus is already near his ceiling. How do you distinguish that guy from the one with the much high potential who just hasn't made as much progress along his own development curve?  Or maybe will never have the drive to? I doubt it will ever get to be a simple 'plug and play' process.

I think the best thing for any org is to do all the player research they can and stay a little humble about what they think they know and be prepared for guys to surprise in both directions - since they will. And of course, "luck" usually favors the prepared!

[tiger2022]

On 8/16/2025 at 12:06 PM, Tiger337 said:

What are the odds that all four of them reach their potential?  I think they'll do well if two of them become above average players.  I am not being negative here.  I think their system is in good hands now and they'll be competitive for several years.  I just don't think we can point to any set of future players and say that's when they'll be read to spend.  It might be many years before they are 7 1/2 games in first place on August 16 again.  

I'm guessing 2 will be busts, 1 will be a starter and one will be an above average player

 

[tiger2022]

Drafting Skubal in the 9th round was a great pick.  Arm surgery and coming off a so so college career.  

And Verlander has to be the best Tigers pick ever, just imagine the idiot GM that picked future convict Matt Bush 1st ahead of Verlander that year just because he was a local guy?

[gehringer_2]

6 hours ago, tiger2022 said:

Drafting Skubal in the 9th round was a great pick.  Arm surgery and coming off a so so college career.  

And Verlander has to be the best Tigers pick ever, just imagine the idiot GM that picked future convict Matt Bush 1st ahead of Verlander that year just because he was a local guy?

Verlander's camp had made it clear he was going to be a difficult signing and IIRC it did go down to the wire getting the deal done. Give the Tigers credit for the choice and the perseverance to bring it home.

[holygoat]

If I recall correctly, wasn't it Verlander's father who pushed Justin to come to terms with the Tigers?

[tiger2022]

Why would he want to go back to Old Dominion and risk an arm injury when he could be making millions?

He had to have known he would be in the majors like super duper quickly.  He pitched 20 games before being called up to the Tigers.  He was basically Paul Skenes in the fast track to stardom.

[oblong]

12 hours ago, holygoat said:

If I recall correctly, wasn't it Verlander's father who pushed Justin to come to terms with the Tigers?

Yes.  His dad was a union official so he knew how the game was played.

 

[Edman85]

5 hours ago, tiger2022 said:

Why would he want to go back to Old Dominion and risk an arm injury when he could be making millions?

He had to have known he would be in the majors like super duper quickly.  He pitched 20 games before being called up to the Tigers.  He was basically Paul Skenes in the fast track to stardom.

He also got a guaranteed major league deal, which were allowed back then. Porcello and Turner got one too, IIRC.

[chasfh]

TV booth rankings over at Awful Announcing. Tigers rank 8th this year, up from 10th—but there is a bit of polarization in the rankings, which we have discussed here plenty.

8. Detroit Tigers (Jason Benetti, Andy Dirks; also Dan Dickerson on play-by-play and Dan Petry, Carlos Peña, and Todd Jones on analysis): 2.74

Most common grade: A (45.6%)
Percentage of A/B/C grades: 79.2%

The Tigers saw one of the most significant year-over-year changes from 2023 to 2024, going from dead last with a 1.55 to 10th with a 2.71. A large part of that was about bringing in Benetti from the White Sox. Dirks started with the team on the radio side in a substitute role in 2023, worked more games there last year, and then shifted to TV ahead of this season, splitting duty with Petry as the main analyst.

The overall response here saw the Tigers move even higher in the Top 10. However, that came with some intense polarization. They received the fourth-most As (620 of 1,362), but also the fourth-most Fs (230). 

That polarization was reflected in the comments as well, especially when it came to the discussion of the broadcast’s increased tangents away from the field in the Benetti era. That included “Not sure when a baseball broadcast became a standup comedy act, but that’s what we have every night,” “Wish more people would see through the Benetti schtick,” “Too many jokes, not enough baseball,” and “Ugh, I wish they would just talk about the game.”But there was a huge amount of praise for Benetti and this approach too, such as “Benetti is one of the top PxP commentators in the sport,” “Benetti is a treasure,” and “Jason and Andy are the ultimate duo, providing humor and insight to each broadcast.”

On the analyst side, Dirks drew particular praise. That included “Benetti and Dirks work really well together. This is a top-of-the-line broadcast,” and “Benetti and Dirks have incredible chemistry.” Another viewer said, “Dirks is one of the most beloved glue guys the team has seen in years and is an absolute joy to listen to as a color guy.” And Dickerson (who mostly works on the radio side, but fills in for Benetti during Benetti’s breaks for nationals work) drew significant plaudits too, including “a breath of fresh air” and “the best in the business.”

[oblong]

Some peoole just hate being exposed to things.  It’s TV. Why do you need “more baseball” when you can see what happens.  It’s not like Bennetti ignores the plays. He just interjects an anecdote here and there.  He’s not sacrificing anything by referencing pop culture or making a joke.  
 

Venn diagram please of people who hate Benetti and also coincidentally female broadcasters.  

[CMRivdogs]

I read most of the report. There is a major divide between those that want just straight play by play and those who can’t stand some of personality. 

Not being a Detroit native, my initial baseball listening was to Bob Prince. Somewhere between the jabber there was a ballgame. I loved it. TV was relegated to the Game of the Week which was great to nap to when I got older.

Guys like Prince, Ralph Kiner, Harry Carey and the like were always a bit controversial to some fans.

The national games on Fox or ESPN or Apple are just background noise. Much like the old beautiful music format on radio stations