2025 Detroit Tigers General Discussion Thread

[Tiger337]

I think managers are overrated, but Hinch's teams seem to get more out of their talent than those of any other Tigers manager in my lifetime.  

[monkeytargets39]

After this Cobb situation, I hope Harris is done with the “finding damaged goods” strategy for the pitching staff.  We’ve got part of the core entering their prime years—go out this offseason and get some legitimate pitching.

[gehringer_2]

14 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I think managers are overrated, but Hinch's teams seem to get more out of their talent than those of any other Tigers manager in my lifetime.  

I would have liked to see Leyland manage with some halfway decent arms in his BP. You just can't do much when your GM gets you one 38 yr old guy that used to be good and calls it a day.

Edited Saturday at 11:33 PM by gehringer_2

[Tiger337]

33 minutes ago, monkeytargets39 said:

After this Cobb situation, I hope Harris is done with the “finding damaged goods” strategy for the pitching staff.  We’ve got part of the core entering their prime years—go out this offseason and get some legitimate pitching.

It's an OK strategy as long as you don't rely on it.  

[tiger2022]

In 2014, I was in Cincinnati and caught a Reds game.  The Rays were in town and Cobb pitched 7 or 8 shutout innings against the Reds.  1-0 game.  I was impressed with him.

[Tenacious D]

28 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

It's an OK strategy as long as you don't rely on it.  

Urquidy has looked OK in Toledo.  I don’t think it would be shocking to see him on the playoffs roster, maybe even getting a start.

[romad1]

2 minutes ago, tiger2022 said:

In 2014, I was in Cincinnati and caught a Reds game.  The Rays were in town and Cobb pitched 7 or 8 shutout innings against the Reds.  1-0 game.  I was impressed with him.

11 years ago I was 11 years younger. 

[VegasTiger]

1 hour ago, romad1 said:

11 years ago I was 11 years younger. 

What a coincidence. Me too!

[oblong]

Tigers have clinched back to back winning seasons for the first time since 2013-2014. 

[monkeytargets39]

3 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

It's an OK strategy as long as you don't rely on it.  

Yeah I can see grabbing someone as a bounceback and stashing them like what we’ve done with Uriquidy.  But Maeda, Cobb, Brebbia, Shelby Miller, Shreve, Wingenter, Hernandez, Jackson, etc….. all the roster moves and options used and all the money spent on those guys would probably end up being about the same as getting one proven and reliable pitcher.

[papalawrence]

Well it's official. Cobb is opting for surgery on his hip. Time in Detroit is fin.

 

Alex Cobb (right hip surgery) won't pitch for Detroit Tigers https://share.google/1m4te8hwwdtODXgTx

[chasfh]

15 hours ago, tiger2022 said:

It's a bad look.  He lied about it and was really only sorry because he got caught.  And if he wasn't behind it, it says the players didn't really consider him important enough to matter.  I think managers really can only lose games and not win them, and are more or less interchangeable.  

Most do the same move in most situations.  I think Hinch is a pretentious d-bag, but he is really no better or worse than most of the managers of the last 15 years.  But, I thought Ausmus was basically a cookie cutter manager too.  A manager's primary responsibility is to manage the bullpen and give guys a day off when they need them.  His bullpen sucks, so most of the time it is just a roll of the dice.  My biggest complaint is the way he manages the lefty vs lefty match up.  

The thing that irked me about Gardenhire was the lineup was different everyday and players were always in different defensive positions.  

If you have ever been in a situation where someone who reports to you goes around you to your boss directly on some project and cuts you out of the process entirely, you would understand what happened to Hinch in Houston.

I also think Hinch is the best actual Tigers manager of my lifetime, and he got totally hosed out of last year’s Manager of the Year award.

[gehringer_2]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

If you have ever been in a situation where someone who reports to you goes around you to your boss directly on some project and cuts you out of the process entirely, you would understand what happened to Hinch in Houston.

I also think Hinch is the best actual Tigers manager of my lifetime, and he got totally hosed out of last year’s Manager of the Year award.

Bottom line is all he could have done is quit, and if he had done that unexpectedly, it very likely would have produced enough scrutiny on the team that someone probably would have gotten the story and the result is he would have thrown all the players on his team under the bus. So sure he could have, but not exactly a decision that's in the same ball park as rocky road or rainbow sherbet. 

[oblong]

Much of the criticism of him is by people who don’t understand the current role of managers within the organization. It’s not like before. 

[gehringer_2]

3 hours ago, chasfh said:

I also think Hinch is the best actual Tigers manager of my lifetime,

thinking back on the comparison with Leyland, one comparitive weakness in Leyland's teams is that they weren't drilled on the little stuff the way the Tigers are now. I don't think we would have seen the total PFP failure we had in the WS from a Hinch team. 

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

Bottom line is all he could have done is quit, and if he had done that unexpectedly, it very likely would have produced enough scrutiny on the team that someone probably would have gotten the story and the result is he would have thrown all the players on his team under the bus. So sure he could have, but not exactly a decision that's in the same ball park as rocky road or rainbow sherbet. 

Would it have been reasonable for Hinch to have quit and effectively end his major league career over it, versus riding it out and hoping he comes out the other end OK?

[chasfh]

6 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

thinking back on the comparison with Leyland, one comparitive weakness in Leyland's teams is that they weren't drilled on the little stuff the way the Tigers are now. I don't think we would have seen the total PFP failure we had in the WS from a Hinch team. 

I think a key difference between the two might be that Hinch is a teacher comfortable working with young raw talent to mold them, make them better, and teach them to win; while Leyland was a field general comfortable with leading a battalion of grown-ass men responsible for their own damn selves into battle.

[gehringer_2]

Good column about baseball and gambling by JR Moehringer in the NYT. (NYT supposedly still allows non-subscribers to view some variable number of stories per month)

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/06/opinion/gambling-baseball-ohtani-pete-rose-fanduel.html?searchResultPosition=1

Quote

The scene: A playoff game between the Yankees and Astros. Late innings, score tied. The Yankees have two pitchers warming up — a righty and a lefty. Since the batter for the Astros is left-handed, surely the Yankees will bring on the lefty …

But wait! What’s this? Inside a special box on the scoreboard we see that the lefty in the Yankees bullpen has 10 grand riding on the Astros. Maybe he’s not the best option after all.

Uh-oh — now we see that the Yankees manager also has serious coin on the Astros. Fifty racks! Maybe we are going to see that righty.

Win probability starts to fluctuate, the scoreboard flashes like the Fourth of July, the crowd oohs and aahs as fans in the stadium and across the country load up on the Astros. But the batter has eyes, too. And a FanDuel account. Peering at the scoreboard, he steps out of the box and signals to the ump that he’s putting $100,000 on the Yanks.

 

[gehringer_2]

39 minutes ago, chasfh said:

would it have been reasonable

LOL - I suppose one man's reason can be another's foolishness, and a third might argue that reasonableness is never the correct measure of moral imperatives.

But whatever -- whether the Astros won or lost those games had no real impact on me, or the price of tea in China, so I'm not a person to whom he has anything to answer. Thus my forgiveness, freely given, is both cheap and easy. 

[chasfh]

12 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

LOL - I supp

Imagine you have 20+ years remaining in your dream career and you have a golden opportunity to blow the whistle, in a very public and news-making manner, on a criminal conspiracy in the department you work in. It is a conspiracy that made your company billions and with which you could be reasonably associated by innuendo. The likely end result of your quitting and blowing the whistle is that your career in that and related industries is effectively terminated, with you yourself potentially facing sanctions for that. The alternative is ride it out, hope that it comes to light through other means, you get cleared in the investigation, and you get to continue your career—although, also, it may never get exposed as long as you're there, and you may end your career with no one the wiser and your cushy retirement assured.

[Tiger337]

7 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Imagine you have 20+ years remaining in your dream career and you have a golden opportunity to blow the whistle, in a very public and news-making manner, on a criminal conspiracy in the department you work in. It is a conspiracy that made your company billions and with which you could be reasonably associated by innuendo. The likely end result of your quitting and blowing the whistle is that your career in that and related industries is effectively terminated, with you yourself potentially facing sanctions for that. The alternative is ride it out, hope that it comes to light through other means, you get cleared in the investigation, and you get to continue your career—although, also, it may never get exposed as long as you're there, and you may end your career with no one the wiser and your cushy retirement assured.

Apropos of nothing (stolen from you), but I think his dream career already ended.  

[chasfh]

2 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

Apropos of nothing (stolen from you), but I think his dream career already ended.  

Which is why I asked him to imagine.

And yes, I do use ****ty phrases, don't I

[Tiger337]

1 minute ago, chasfh said:

Which is why I asked him to imagine.

And yes, I do use ****ty phrases, don't I

Peter Gammons used to use that phrase a lot too, so you are in good company.

I was actually referring to Hinch.  I assumed that being a MLB player was Hinch's dream career whereas being a manager (and potentially a front office person later) is probably the next best career. 

[chasfh]

18 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I was actually referring to Hinch.  I assumed that being a MLB player was Hinch's dream career whereas being a manager (and potentially a front office person later) is probably the next best career. 

lol

[kdog]

Here is some cope/hope if you are looking for it..via ESPN

 

Quote

But how necessary is it to have a strong No. 2 starter? Here are the pitchers who started the second playoff game for the past eight champions:

2024 Dodgers: Jack Flaherty (6-2, 3.58 ERA)
2023 Rangers: Nathan Eovaldi (12-5. 3.63 ERA)
2022 Astros: Framber Valdez (17-6, 2.82 ERA)
2021 Braves: Max Fried (14-7, 3.04 ERA)
2020 Dodgers: Clayton Kershaw (6-2, 2.16 ERA)
2019 Nationals: Patrick Corbin (14-7, 3.25 ERA)*
2018 Red Sox: David Price (16-7, 3.58 ERA)
2017 Astros: Dallas Keuchel (14-5, 2.90 ERA)

(*Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg both pitched in the wild-card game, so Corbin started Game 1 of the NLDS.)

All these pitchers had a lower ERA than Detroit's No. 2 options. Several of them had big postseasons: Eovaldi went 5-0 in six starts; Valdez went 3-0 with a 1.44 ERA; Fried went 2-2, but the two wins were scoreless outings, including the World Series clincher; even Kershaw broke his postseason jinx in 2020 and went 4-1 in five starts.

Verdict: NOT REAL. Based on this list, it does appear that the Tigers could use a better second guy behind Skubal. On the other hand, over the past four postseasons, starters have pitched only 50% of all innings. You can sort of fake your way through the playoffs with your rotation like the Dodgers did last year or the Braves did in 2021. If Skubal dominates and the bullpen can withstand a lot of innings, the Tigers can still pull off their first title since 1984.