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 17 hours ago 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 2 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 1 hour ago by chasfh