2025 Detroit Tigers General Discussion Thread

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, oblong said:

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.  

Bennetti is not what bothers me wrt losing the game flow, it's the remotes, and those are not his fault at all. If I never see another remote during a ballgame I'd die a lot happier. During a ball game I don't care about players' families, kids with sign art or fans doing bucket list stadium tours. All that stuff is exactly what pre-games should be there for.

(...and stay off my lawn!)

Edited Monday at 09:39 PM by gehringer_2

[sagnam]

14 hours ago, chasfh said:

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.”

Dickerson is my favorite announcer of all time in all sports. Absolutely amazing.

[monkeytargets39]

The people who whine about Benetti and Dirks should be forced to watch a sub-network of Shep and Morris instead.

 

My personal favorite was Lewin and Gibby.

[Tigeraholic1]

4 minutes ago, monkeytargets39 said:

The people who whine about Benetti and Dirks should be forced to watch a sub-network of Shep and Morris instead.

 

My personal favorite was Lewin and Gibby.

Give me Dickerson/Dirks or Benetti/ Dirks any day. 

[Edman85]

8 minutes ago, monkeytargets39 said:

The people who whine about Benetti and Dirks should be forced to watch a sub-network of Shep and Morris instead.

 

My personal favorite was Lewin and Gibby.

I could see Shep flooding the ballot box and running a shadow smear campaign, to be honest. 

[gehringer_2]

30 minutes ago, Edman85 said:

I could see Shep flooding the ballot box and running a shadow smear campaign, to be honest. 

LOL. The thing with Shepherd is that not only did he come into the broadcast with the wrong concept, he was there long enough to know the broadcast was losing ground with the viewers but never responded. Not much you can do with an employee like that.

Edited 16 hours ago by gehringer_2

[chasfh]

Shep—may I call him “Shep”?—was a weird detour in the history of Tigers broadcasting. Remember, Shep was not a baseball guy coming in. He’d done some replacement work on the Tigers’ broadcasts before 2019, but the sum total of his baseball experience was less than 25 games when he’d been handed the job. Shep was kind of the Xavier Nady of big league broadcasters.

I would probably like Bennett better if I didn’t have Dan available via audio overlay, because I’d be comparing Benetti to Shep and not to Dan. I would be more open to the non-baseball wisecracking—or more exactly, the whole truckload of it—during the broadcast were he my one and only choice to listen to.

A few scales have fallen from my eyes about Dan and I do recognize the egregious errors he makes in the moment—that sunshine “homer” last night being merely the latest—but man, does that guy know the analytical side of the game, and he is really good at translating it to layman terms for the broadcast. Plus, he is all business, and maybe you don’t care for that, but that’s perfect for me, and I’m gonna enjoy that as long as he can manage to stay on the air.

Edited 15 hours ago by chasfh

[lordstanley]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

Shep—may I call him “Shep”?—was a weird detour in the history of Tigers broadcasting. Remember, Shep was not a baseball guy coming in. He’d done some replacement work on the Tigers’ broadcasts before 2019, but the sum total of his baseball experience was less than 25 games when he’d been handed the job. Shep was kind of the Xavier Nady of big league broadcasters.

I would probably like Bennett better if I didn’t have Dan available via audio overlay, because I’d be comparing Benetti to Shep and not to Dan. I would be more open to the non-baseball wisecracking—or more exactly, the whole truckload of it—during the broadcast were he my one and only choice to listen to.

A few scales have fallen from my eyes about Dan and I do recognize the egregious errors he makes in the moment—that sunshine “homer” last night being merely the latest—but man, does that guy know the analytical side of the game, and he is really good at translating it to layman terms for the broadcast. Plus, he is all business, and maybe you don’t care for that, but that’s perfect for me, and I’m gonna enjoy that as long as he can manage to stay on the air.

Dan Dickerson is superb. I love his voice, tone, style and knowledge. I will give him a pass on missed calls like last night because he admitted it right away. He reads the ball off the bat well and rarely does an excited jump in his voice end up with a fly ball that doesn’t at least threaten the fence. I think my only complaint about Dan is that he tends to really react a lot now to whether a ball or strike was called correctly. Sometimes without first letting those following by radio only what the call was. Example:”ooooo, that seemed to JUST miss the bottom corner”.  Did he go “oooo” because the pitcher made a good pitch that was just a bit off, or did he go oooo because the pitch just missed the strike zone but was called a strike anyways. 

[romad1]

You know who might do a shadow smear campaign: Mario Impemba.  He seems salty as f. 

[chasfh]

Because I am retired and I have not only a lot of time on my hands but a ton of Excel skills I want to continue wielding, I put together a graphic representation of how the Tigers have scored runs and allowed runs in game streaks between two and 20 throughout the season.

Using Baseball Reference, I downloaded a list of all games played by all 30 teams through yesterday (August 19). Then I created two tables, one for runs scored (offense) and another for runs allowed (pitching and defense). I added columns in the middle of each table to reflect season win-loss record along the way, as well as records for streaks of 10, 20, and 30 games, pretty much as you see within standings tables on Reference itself.

Then I created additional streak columns at the end of each table for last two games through last 20 games, to reflect runs scored and runs allowed during those streaks. You can easily figure out what's what by looking at the column headers at the top.

Then, to make it easy to see whether the Tigers have scored/allowed a lot of runs versus a few runs in the last X games, I color-coded each box to show whether the Tigers did well in the past X games (the redder, the better) or did poorly in the last X games (the bluer, the worse). White boxes reflect average runs scored/allowed. The numbers in white means those streaks were at the extreme 1% percentile at either end of the spectrum, meaning the most (or fewest) runs of any team for that streak length throughout the season. 

I'm basing these colors on the average of runs scored/allowed in each set of X games throughout the season by all 30 teams. The analytical cognoscenti among you might notice that I am using standard Statcast colors on this table.

Hopefully, that's enough explanation for you to figure out what's what. 

So here they are, side by side, with the runs scored table on the left, and the runs allowed table on the right. Just remember that for each table, redder is better (more runs scored, fewer runs allowed), and bluer is worse (fewer runs scored, more runs allowed):

Yeah, it's really hard to read the numbers within the post, so if you want to see the actual numbers, my advice is to click on each table to see those tables expanded in your browser.

But even if you don't expand the tables, you can tell by the colors how well the Tigers did in streaks of anywhere from 2 to 20 games throughout the season.

You can see how the month of May was "peak Tiger" on both sides of the ball, but you might be surprised to see by the gaggle of white numbers showing that during early May, the Tigers had among the very best offenses of any team during the entire season for long stretches of games. Did you remember that during the 12 games between May 1 and May 13, we scored in double digits six times, and at least eight runs eight times? I didn't remember exactly that until I saw this!

Then you can see how the offense went colder than average from late May into mid-June, but our 30-game records were still in the .600 to .700 range because our pitching was redder than average during the same time.

But then it flipped around from Mid-June into early July, when our offense got redder while out pitching/defense got bluer, and yet, we still maintained close to a .600 winning percentage over a series of 30-prior-game chunks of season.

Then you can see where it really falls down in late July, which is a sea of blue on both tables. That's where all the losing really came from, and you won't be surprised to be reminded that it was the offense that really went splat, but the pitching/defense was also well below average, taken against all other teams for the entire season and their performance for streaks of similar length.

And the happy ending to this post is the red at the bottom that has crept back into both the run scoring and run prevention.

Well, this was fun way to kill a morning. 😃

[chasfh]

I can see after posting and then clicking on the combined two tables above that they do not expand enough for you to read those numbers, so here's another post showing each table separately, and you should be able to read the number better if you click on either of these.

Runs scored:

Runs allowed:

[chasfh]

Or maybe not. I don't know. Just look at the pretty colors, OK? 🤣

[romad1]

2 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Or maybe not. I don't know. Just look at the pretty colors, OK? 🤣

It was fantastic after I smoked that peyote with my lunch. 

[Dan Gilmore]

What about us colorblind folks, ahole?

 

 

jk Chas, thanks for the info. 

[chasfh]

20 minutes ago, Dan Gilmore said:

What about us colorblind folks, ahole?

jk 😉

[papalawrence]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

Or maybe not. I don't know. Just look at the pretty colors, OK? 🤣

Cool table..........but what is this retirement thing, of which you write?

[chasfh]

47 minutes ago, papalawrence said:

Cool table..........but what is this retirement thing, of which you write?

It's what happens when nobody wants you around them all day anymore, and you get paid a pittance to stay the hell away. 😁

[sagnam]

6 hours ago, chasfh said:

Because I am retired and I have not only a lot of time on my hands but a ton of Excel skills I want to continue wielding, I put together a graphic representation of how the Tigers have scored runs and allowed runs in game streaks between two and 20 throughout the season.

Using Baseball Reference, I downloaded a list of all games played by all 30 teams through yesterday (August 19). Then I created two tables, one for runs scored (offense) and another for runs allowed (pitching and defense). I added columns in the middle of each table to reflect season win-loss record along the way, as well as records for streaks of 10, 20, and 30 games, pretty much as you see within standings tables on Reference itself.

Then I created additional streak columns at the end of each table for last two games through last 20 games, to reflect runs scored and runs allowed during those streaks. You can easily figure out what's what by looking at the column headers at the top.

Then, to make it easy to see whether the Tigers have scored/allowed a lot of runs versus a few runs in the last X games, I color-coded each box to show whether the Tigers did well in the past X games (the redder, the better) or did poorly in the last X games (the bluer, the worse). White boxes reflect average runs scored/allowed. The numbers in white means those streaks were at the extreme 1% percentile at either end of the spectrum, meaning the most (or fewest) runs of any team for that streak length throughout the season. 

I'm basing these colors on the average of runs scored/allowed in each set of X games throughout the season by all 30 teams. The analytical cognoscenti among you might notice that I am using standard Statcast colors on this table.

Hopefully, that's enough explanation for you to figure out what's what. 

So here they are, side by side, with the runs scored table on the left, and the runs allowed table on the right. Just remember that for each table, redder is better (more runs scored, fewer runs allowed), and bluer is worse (fewer runs scored, more runs allowed):

Yeah, it's really hard to read the numbers within the post, so if you want to see the actual numbers, my advice is to click on each table to see those tables expanded in your browser.

But even if you don't expand the tables, you can tell by the colors how well the Tigers did in streaks of anywhere from 2 to 20 games throughout the season.

You can see how the month of May was "peak Tiger" on both sides of the ball, but you might be surprised to see by the gaggle of white numbers showing that during early May, the Tigers had among the very best offenses of any team during the entire season for long stretches of games. Did you remember that during the 12 games between May 1 and May 13, we scored in double digits six times, and at least eight runs eight times? I didn't remember exactly that until I saw this!

Then you can see how the offense went colder than average from late May into mid-June, but our 30-game records were still in the .600 to .700 range because our pitching was redder than average during the same time.

But then it flipped around from Mid-June into early July, when our offense got redder while out pitching/defense got bluer, and yet, we still maintained close to a .600 winning percentage over a series of 30-prior-game chunks of season.

Then you can see where it really falls down in late July, which is a sea of blue on both tables. That's where all the losing really came from, and you won't be surprised to be reminded that it was the offense that really went splat, but the pitching/defense was also well below average, taken against all other teams for the entire season and their performance for streaks of similar length.

And the happy ending to this post is the red at the bottom that has crept back into both the run scoring and run prevention.

Well, this was fun way to kill a morning. 😃

The side-by-side is cool because you can see how the reds on one side overlap white/blue on the other. Shows that’s they typically get hot on one side when the other cools off. Helps explain how they’ve keep the lead.

[tiger2022]

Looks like my latest bitcoin chart 

[Tiger337]

8 hours ago, chasfh said:

Because I am retired and I have not only a lot of time on my hands but a ton of Excel skills I want to continue wielding, I put together a graphic representation of how the Tigers have scored runs and allowed runs in game streaks between two and 20 throughout the season.

Using Baseball Reference, I downloaded a list of all games played by all 30 teams through yesterday (August 19). Then I created two tables, one for runs scored (offense) and another for runs allowed (pitching and defense). I added columns in the middle of each table to reflect season win-loss record along the way, as well as records for streaks of 10, 20, and 30 games, pretty much as you see within standings tables on Reference itself.

Then I created additional streak columns at the end of each table for last two games through last 20 games, to reflect runs scored and runs allowed during those streaks. You can easily figure out what's what by looking at the column headers at the top.

Then, to make it easy to see whether the Tigers have scored/allowed a lot of runs versus a few runs in the last X games, I color-coded each box to show whether the Tigers did well in the past X games (the redder, the better) or did poorly in the last X games (the bluer, the worse). White boxes reflect average runs scored/allowed. The numbers in white means those streaks were at the extreme 1% percentile at either end of the spectrum, meaning the most (or fewest) runs of any team for that streak length throughout the season. 

I'm basing these colors on the average of runs scored/allowed in each set of X games throughout the season by all 30 teams. The analytical cognoscenti among you might notice that I am using standard Statcast colors on this table.

Hopefully, that's enough explanation for you to figure out what's what. 

So here they are, side by side, with the runs scored table on the left, and the runs allowed table on the right. Just remember that for each table, redder is better (more runs scored, fewer runs allowed), and bluer is worse (fewer runs scored, more runs allowed):

Yeah, it's really hard to read the numbers within the post, so if you want to see the actual numbers, my advice is to click on each table to see those tables expanded in your browser.

But even if you don't expand the tables, you can tell by the colors how well the Tigers did in streaks of anywhere from 2 to 20 games throughout the season.

You can see how the month of May was "peak Tiger" on both sides of the ball, but you might be surprised to see by the gaggle of white numbers showing that during early May, the Tigers had among the very best offenses of any team during the entire season for long stretches of games. Did you remember that during the 12 games between May 1 and May 13, we scored in double digits six times, and at least eight runs eight times? I didn't remember exactly that until I saw this!

Then you can see how the offense went colder than average from late May into mid-June, but our 30-game records were still in the .600 to .700 range because our pitching was redder than average during the same time.

But then it flipped around from Mid-June into early July, when our offense got redder while out pitching/defense got bluer, and yet, we still maintained close to a .600 winning percentage over a series of 30-prior-game chunks of season.

Then you can see where it really falls down in late July, which is a sea of blue on both tables. That's where all the losing really came from, and you won't be surprised to be reminded that it was the offense that really went splat, but the pitching/defense was also well below average, taken against all other teams for the entire season and their performance for streaks of similar length.

And the happy ending to this post is the red at the bottom that has crept back into both the run scoring and run prevention.

Well, this was fun way to kill a morning. 😃

Can't read it, but definitely Appreciate the work! 😊

[chasfh]

Man, those are some sculpted eyebrows on Gleyber Torres!