Will Tigers Pony up for Skubal

[Tiger337]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

Leave it to me to accidentally resurrect Al Avila’s reputation and elevate him to an esteemed pedestal! 😂

OK, Avila fans, have it your way. You think your thing, I’ll think mine. Maybe you’ll get your wish, Scott Harris will crash the organization back into the rocks and get fired just like another guy did, and then Daddy will come back from his trip to Philadelphia for a pack of cigarettes and fix everything back the way you like it. 😉

I am pretty sure there are no Avila fans here.  I think if we had a vote on who was the better GM, it would be at least 95% Harris.  The only reason I won't say 100% is because I'm a statistician.  I believe Harris would also win a vote over Dombrowski.  What some people would like is a GM with Harris's brain and long-term commitment but with Dombrowki's boldness.     

[Edman85]

Lee coming at this like a data scientist, and it is interesting to read through that lens. 

I just think the "who acquired the player" criterion ignores a big part of the equation, but that other part is a little less objective so I can see null hypotheses not being disproven...

[papalawrence]

Yesterday Bowden said he spoke with Friedman, Harris and Boras and all three said the Skubal to LA rumor is bogus. Friedman and Harris said they haven't spoken and Boras said he expects Detroit to keep Skubal and only trade him in July if they are out of contention. "Ping" should stick to racket sports

 

[Tigermojo]

Avila had seven years. Let's see if Harris makes it to seven.  It will be easier to compare then. So far, it's zero post seasons for Avila and two for Harris.

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, papalawrence said:

Yesterday Bowden said he spoke with Friedman, Harris and Boras and all three said the Skubal to LA rumor is bogus. Friedman and Harris said they haven't spoken and Boras said he expects Detroit to keep Skubal and only trade him in July if they are out of contention. "Ping" should stick to racket sports

 

But now we know who he is, so, mission accomplished. 🤡

[chasfh]

2 hours ago, Edman85 said:

Chris Shelton was not a Randy Smith acquisition.

Yes, I misread as much on his card. I also was misled by another web page that Randy Smith and Al Avila were GM and assistant, with Dave Dombrowski not yet in the picture, and my own memory failed to evaluate and dismiss that.

A couple big swings and misses on my part. Time to go back to the cages. 😁

[chasfh]

2 hours ago, Sports_Freak said:

I dont think there's too many Avila fans on this board. But there are some Harris slappies. 😆😆

You mean me, don’t you? Go on, admit it. 😉😝

You and others will roll your eyes at this, but I don’t think I qualify as a Harris slappy. A slappy is not just someone who offers much more praise than criticism of a person, but one who actively ignores or disregards the failures by the person, casting such as being untrue or even non-existent. That’s not me, with anyone. That’s what uncritical people do, and anyone who’s paid even a little attention over the years would never characterize me as uncritical.

You may be thinking of Harris’s not signing huge free agents, not making trades for established All-Stars, and not winning trade deadlines, as being abject failures. Free agents have agency, and many of the best free agents simply don’t want to come to Detroit if they have better options. Established All-Stars require top prospects or even established big leaguers in trade, and even you have said you would not to want to lose our best prospects in trade. And lack of high-impact deadline trades might mean he was offered jack**** in exchange for numbered prospects. 

With a nod to Edman, trying to prove incompetence because of lack of activity is akin to trying to disprove a null hypothesis. There are a lot of variables at play that we’re not privy to, and I don’t think it makes anyone a slappy to say that Harris deserves the benefit of the doubt that he knows what he’s doing until it’s clear that he doesn’t, versus the out-of-the-box assumption that every move that doesn’t go his way merely highlights his incompetence. And that’s doubly true since he’s led the team from the dregs of baseball to two playoff series wins in just his first three years.

When Harris starts making **** trades and free agent signings that blow up in his face and losing 95+ games a season with no end in sight—yes, like Avila did—then I’ll jump on your bandwagon. Not before.

[1984Echoes]

2 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

I am pretty sure there are no Avila fans here.  I think if we had a vote on who was the better GM, it would be at least 95% Harris...

I would go with 99.9%.

Maybe there's 1 or 2 holdouts.

And I'm not one of them.

I was probably his biggest supporter and last holdout... But I was also ready to dump him, just as much as everyone else, when he got the ax.

I just think it's so ridiculous to go through all the pretzel logic and gymnastics trying to discredit him for anything and everything.

No one wants Avila back. We're all glad he's gone. And I think mostly happy with Harris. Harris may need a couple more years to re-fashion this team into the exact mold that he wants. So give him his chance.

I think most people are thinking along this vein, except a few who are a little more demanding of Harris, at this point in time.

But it's still asinine all the pretzel logic trying to discredit Avila (Avila hired Hinch and Fetter... "NO he didn't, pretzel logic pretzel logic pretzel logic...", These are mostly Avila players "THEN 2006 WAS ALL Randy Smith!!! Pretzel logic pretzel logic pretzel logic...").

[1984Echoes]

1 hour ago, Tigermojo said:

Avila had seven years. Let's see if Harris makes it to seven.  It will be easier to compare then. So far, it's zero post seasons for Avila and two for Harris.

I have a specific metric for Harris and it's not the last two post seasons, which were GREAT!!!

No...

The metric (gotta make this the short version as I am headed to Sarasota for a few days vacation...) I want to assign the highest value to Harris is:

Sustainable Competitiveness. 

So... draft and develop, ability to get major leaguers in multiple rounds per draft (1st, 2nd, plus a few more_), and always in a pennant race, every year. Also a part of this is for Harris to never leave a stone unturned. I think he's already demonstrated that. Also is the ability to make key trades as needed, or sign key free agents as needed to plug any holes or add depth. I think this is undetermined at the moment... And the last component, to me... is the ability to identify WHICH players to offer second contracts to and which ones should be moved on from. If Harris offers second contracts to McGonigle, Clark, and Jobe (just for example) I would get it, and understand why. If he decides to NOT offer second contracts to Skubal, Carpenter and Tork... I would UNDERSTAND why, and not complain.

Make good decisions on second contracts, in order to maintain Playoff Sustainability.

The sustainability, to me, overrides ALL ELSE.

And I'm glad we have Harris because I think he's the right guy for that.

My 2 cents.

[Sports_Freak]

32 minutes ago, chasfh said:

You mean me, don’t you? Go on, admit it. 😉😝

You and others will roll your eyes at this, but I don’t think I qualify as a Harris slappy. A slappy is not just someone who offers much more praise than criticism of a person, but one who actively ignores or disregards the failures by the person, casting such as being untrue or even non-existent. That’s not me, with anyone. That’s what uncritical people do, and anyone who’s paid even a little attention over the years would never characterize me as uncritical.

You may be thinking of Harris’s not signing huge free agents, not making trades for established All-Stars, and not winning trade deadlines, as being abject failures. Free agents have agency, and many of the best free agents simply don’t want to come to Detroit if they have better options. Established All-Stars require top prospects or even established big leaguers in trade, and even you have said you would not to want to lose our best prospects in trade. And lack of high-impact deadline trades might mean he was offered jack**** in exchange for numbered prospects. 

With a nod to Edman, trying to prove incompetence because of lack of activity is akin to trying to disprove a null hypothesis. There are a lot of variables at play that we’re not privy to, and I don’t think it makes anyone a slappy to say that Harris deserves the benefit of the doubt that he knows what he’s doing until it’s clear that he doesn’t, versus the out-of-the-box assumption that every move that doesn’t go his way merely highlights his incompetence. And that’s doubly true since he’s led the team from the dregs of baseball to two playoff series wins in just his first three years.

When Harris starts making **** trades and free agent signings that blow up in his face and losing 95+ games a season with no end in sight—yes, like Avila did—then I’ll jump on your bandwagon. Not before.

Yes, Avila sucked. Nobody is denying that. There's no bandwagon to jump on. But the Harris moves have been...underwhelming. Flaherty and Torres have been his best moves in, what, 3 years? I've speculated, over and over, that nobody really knows if his hands are tied by the Tigers owner or not. We just...don't know. But wasting 15 million dollars on a broken down Alex Cobb, when he was planning on retiring, doesn't inspire much confidence. Would you admit that was a mistake or are you prepared to defend him with excuses? 

And I didnt mean to trigger you, I was mostly joking. 🙄🙄

[Sports_Freak]

25 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said:

I would go with 99.9%.

Maybe there's 1 or 2 holdouts.

And I'm not one of them.

I was probably his biggest supporter and last holdout... But I was also ready to dump him, just as much as everyone else, when he got the ax.

I just think it's so ridiculous to go through all the pretzel logic and gymnastics trying to discredit him for anything and everything.

No one wants Avila back. We're all glad he's gone. And I think mostly happy with Harris. Harris may need a couple more years to re-fashion this team into the exact mold that he wants. So give him his chance.

I think most people are thinking along this vein, except a few who are a little more demanding of Harris, at this point in time.

But it's still asinine all the pretzel logic trying to discredit Avila (Avila hired Hinch and Fetter... "NO he didn't, pretzel logic pretzel logic pretzel logic...", These are mostly Avila players "THEN 2006 WAS ALL Randy Smith!!! Pretzel logic pretzel logic pretzel logic...").

I said it before but I'll repeat it; I wanted Avila fired when he extended Brad. And I still say if we would have had a competent manager for those years, we could have squeaked out a few more playoff seasons. There would have been no reason to have that huge sell off. Of course, under Avila, it would have led to even more barren years.

[Tiger337]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

Yes, I misread as much on his card. I also was misled by another web page that Randy Smith and Al Avila were GM and assistant, with Dave Dombrowski not yet in the picture, and my own memory failed to evaluate and dismiss that.

A couple big swings and misses on my part. Time to go back to the cages. 😁

"You can't believe everything you read on the internet" is as true as "you can never have too much pitching"  

[casimir]

I just jumped on baseball reference and one of the featured player pictures was Chet Lemon.  And then I think about head first dives into first base.  And one handed fly ball catches just above the left shoulder.  And a dirty jersey by the 4th inning.  And that time on NBCs game of the week where he introduced the Tiger lineup and he had a nickname for everybody and “Redneck” was used 3 times.  And, my, how far graphics have come since then.

Ok, back to GM bickerbate.

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, Sports_Freak said:

Yes, Avila sucked. Nobody is denying that. There's no bandwagon to jump on. But the Harris moves have been...underwhelming. Flaherty and Torres have been his best moves in, what, 3 years? I've speculated, over and over, that nobody really knows if his hands are tied by the Tigers owner or not. We just...don't know. But wasting 15 million dollars on a broken down Alex Cobb, when he was planning on retiring, doesn't inspire much confidence. Would you admit that was a mistake or are you prepared to defend him with excuses? 

You keep suggesting that Harris must either be skittish about signing free agents or ilitch must be clamping him down, ignoring the idea that the top free agents may simply have wanted to go to higher profile teams instead, which is a real possibility. Just ask Alex Bregman, who turned down more money from us to go to a Big Six team with a short LF porch. You make it sound as though Harris is a child whose daddy won’t let him buy an expensive toy at Target. Toys at Target don’t have the agency of choosing not to be bought.

And people keep bringing up the Cobb thing as though it was a fatal error that sunk the franchise. Really, it wasn’t that big a deal. We still won a playoff series without him.

1 hour ago, Sports_Freak said:

And I didnt mean to trigger you, I was mostly joking. 🙄🙄

You seem unclear on the winky-wink concept. 😁

[chasfh]

55 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

"You can't believe everything you read on the internet" is as true as "you can never have too much pitching"  

Words of wisdom 

Edited 13 hours ago by chasfh

[Sports_Freak]

1 minute ago, chasfh said:

You keep suggesting that Harris must either be skittish about signing free agents or ilitch must be clamping him down, ignoring the idea that the top free agents may simply have wanted to go to higher profile teams instead, which is a real possibility. Just ask Alex Bregman, who turned down more money from us to go to a Big Six team with a short LF porch. You make it sound as though Harris is a child whose daddy won’t let him buy an expensive toy at Target. Toys at Target don’t have the agency of choosing not to be bought.

And people keep bringing up the Cobb thing as though it was a fatal error that sunk the franchise. Really, it wasn’t that big a deal. We still won a playoff series without him.

You seem unclear on the winky-wink concept. 😁

Yeah, I was done comparing Avila and Harris 3 pages ago. I'm glad Avila isn't here and I'm glad we have Harris. But I can also admit that most of the better players that got us to the playoffs the last 2 seasons were drafted by Avila. That's an actual fact that you don't seem to want to give him credit for. But I get it, I felt the same way about Brad Ausmus. No matter what he did, I would never, ever, give him any credit. IMO, he was in wayyy over his head. And the day he got extended was the day I realized just how bad Avila was. 

[Netnerd]

Wasn’t Chris Shelton a Rule 5 guy in 2004?

[gehringer_2]

5 hours ago, Sports_Freak said:

I wanted Avila fired when he extended Brad.

Yeah - I thought that was lazy management.

Edited 9 hours ago by gehringer_2

[IdahoBert]

Why are we still giving Avilla credit for drafting the guys almost everybody else would’ve drafted if they were in a similar draft order? That’s sort of like saying “I won the lottery so I’m better than you.” 

[Sports_Freak]

1 hour ago, IdahoBert said:

Why are we still giving Avilla credit for drafting the guys almost everybody else would’ve drafted if they were in a similar draft order? That’s sort of like saying “I won the lottery so I’m better than you.” 

Agreed. And in order to draft those guys, his team had to lose hundreds of games. Those were some very dark Tiger days. And I dont think folks were giving Avila "credit." Folks were just saying the players they got us into the playoffs the last couple of seasons were drafted during the dark Avila days.