2025-2026 Tigers Off Season Thread

[alex]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

I would not be opposed to picking up Nolan Arenado for the next two years. 

Although I still think Bregman is the optimal target - Arenado might be a good addition. I know people here would say WAR, barrel %, not as good as he was, etc. but he is a pro. He has plenty of experience, could mentor by example and I think he really feels he has something to prove on his own.

Heck, maybe SP Gray and him in a deal. StL more than likely would pick up a chunk of salary and we would NOT have to give up 'top' prospects which Harris would like.

Regardless, if Arenado is moved, I think he personally would like it done well before ST as would StL. simply, it is time for both sides to move on - regardless of what team he is dealt to.

[Tenacious D]

27 minutes ago, alex said:

Although I still think Bregman is the optimal target - Arenado might be a good addition. I know people here would say WAR, barrel %, not as good as he was, etc. but he is a pro. He has plenty of experience, could mentor by example and I think he really feels he has something to prove on his own.

Heck, maybe SP Gray and him in a deal. StL more than likely would pick up a chunk of salary and we would NOT have to give up 'top' prospects which Harris would like.

Regardless, if Arenado is moved, I think he personally would like it done well before ST as would StL. simply, it is time for both sides to move on - regardless of what team he is dealt to.

His OPS was .666 last season. He’s done.  McKinstry and Baez are better options at this point. 

If we think this team needs a mentor, let’s find one that can still hit.

[chasfh]

2 hours ago, KL2 said:

I know baseball players can be dumb but nobody is asking you to live in the bad part. Detroit like every other major city in the nation has suburbs. Many of them are safe, have good schools are interchangable. Highland Park, Grosse Pointe, Coral Gables. Are they really that different?

Q: How can you tell someone is a Detroiter? A: They can't imagine anyone who could afford not to would ever live in any actual city. 😉 

I jest, really I do, but there might be a kernel of truth to that. I remember the first time I went to Minneapolis in the late 80s—I had not even traveled much beyond Detroit let alone live elsewhere yet—and was just knocked that this beautiful neighborhood I was passing through which had huge homes near a gorgeous park with a pristine lake was in the actual city of Minneapolis. I had grown up believing central cities could never be anything but wall-to-wall "ghettos".

That's not you, obviously. I suspect you do not believe that's the case. But beyond that, I would wager that the vast majority of big league ballplayers live in kickass apartments or rented homes located within walking distance from the ballpark. I briefly met Zach McKinstry earlier this year—really nice kid—and he said he and a few of the other guys lived about a mile away, and he pointed toward northeast from the ballpark up Gratiot or Jefferson or so.

I think a lot of it is, most ballplayers don't make enough money or have the locational security to throw down roots in a Bloomfield Hills or a Winnetka or a Scarsdale or whatever. Most ballplayers don't stay with the same team for years on end, or else stay in the majors from year to year or even month to month. There's also the potential to get traded, DFA'ed, or released with the first really bad stretch, which could be essentially career-ending. And almost all of them have permanent homes elsewhere, including guys with long-term deals, either where they grew up, or in Arizona or Florida. I'm pretty sure gone are the days when a team consisting of Lolich and Horton and Freehan and Stanley and Kaline and Northrup all throw down roots for good in the city they play. When was the last guy the Tigers signed to a long term contract who kept living in Detroit during the winter as well?

I know Cabrera bought in Bloomfield, but (1) he also didn't stay during the winter; and (2) that was over 15 years ago, and things are different now when it comes to the perception of living in cities, and when it comes to that, certain cities have substantial advantages over others.

I believe the trump card to play here is, if the Tigers offer the most money, they'll come to play here. And that's true to some degree. But as Alex Bregman demonstrated last winter, that's not true always.

[chasfh]

3 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

Is that's what you were asking the whole time? 

On B-ref, the positional adjustment is included in both OWAR and DWAR, so as you noticed they don't add to WAR.  I think it's done so you can compare players at different positions separately for both offense and defense.  OWAR kind of makes sense.  It's like the old BP WARP before they had defensive measures.  Putting the adjustment into  DWAR is not very useful since the adjustment was already made in OWAR. 

This is the second time we have had this discussion and I finally think I understand what you were asking!  I agree with you, assuming that's what you were asking!  I think Gehringer asked something different which threw me off.  

So I found the positional adjustment article on Fangraphs.

They estimated at the time the various positions have the following positional run adjustments:

Position	Full Season Adjustment
C	12.5
1B	-12.5
2B	2.5
SS	7.5
3B	2.5
LF	-7.5
CF	2.5
RF	-7.5
Total	0.0

You can see how it all evens out among the eight positions. (Not sure why the P position is not covered here, but, some other time.)

So assuming this table is correct, if two players each save 10 runs above average at their positions with their defense, if one is a first baseman, his fielding run value is 10 + -12.5 = -2.5 defensive runs overall, and if he is a center fielder, his fielding run value is 10 + 7.5 = +17.5 defensive runs overall.

I guess the idea is that because first base is so much easier than center field, the former is expected to not make mistakes and lose runs with his defense versus a center fielder, which is so much more difficult to play. This would suggest that even a slightly above average first baseman (a couple runs more than 0 runs saved) loses runs overall with his defense for the team, because that's the nature of first base; and that even as a slightly below average center fielder (a couple runs less than 0 runs saved) would still produce a net gain of fielding run value for his team.

Am I on track so far? Or off track? Please remember I not concerned about how the theoretical mathematical formulas work as I am trying to comport the data we have to reflect what's happening on the field itself.

[Tiger337]

46 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Q: How can you tell someone is a Detroiter? A: They can't imagine anyone who could afford not to would ever live in any actual city. 😉 

I jest, really I do, but there might be a kernel of truth to that. I remember the first time I went to Minneapolis in the late 80s—I had not even traveled much beyond Detroit let alone live elsewhere yet—and was just knocked that this beautiful neighborhood I was passing through which had huge homes near a gorgeous park with a pristine lake was in the actual city of Minneapolis. I had grown up believing central cities could never be anything but wall-to-wall "ghettos".

That's not you, obviously. I suspect you do not believe that's the case. But beyond that, I would wager that the vast majority of big league ballplayers live in kickass apartments or rented homes located within walking distance from the ballpark. I briefly met Zach McKinstry earlier this year—really nice kid—and he said he and a few of the other guys lived about a mile away, and he pointed toward northeast from the ballpark up Gratiot or Jefferson or so.

I think a lot of it is, most ballplayers don't make enough money or have the locational security to throw down roots in a Bloomfield Hills or a Winnetka or a Scarsdale or whatever. Most ballplayers don't stay with the same team for years on end, or else stay in the majors from year to year or even month to month. There's also the potential to get traded, DFA'ed, or released with the first really bad stretch, which could be essentially career-ending. And almost all of them have permanent homes elsewhere, including guys with long-term deals, either where they grew up, or in Arizona or Florida. I'm pretty sure gone are the days when a team consisting of Lolich and Horton and Freehan and Stanley and Kaline and Northrup all throw down roots for good in the city they play. When was the last guy the Tigers signed to a long term contract who kept living in Detroit during the winter as well?

I know Cabrera bought in Bloomfield, but (1) he also didn't stay during the winter; and (2) that was over 15 years ago, and things are different now when it comes to the perception of living in cities, and when it comes to that, certain cities have substantial advantages over others.

I believe the trump card to play here is, if the Tigers offer the most money, they'll come to play here. And that's true to some degree. But as Alex Bregman demonstrated last winter, that's not true always.

Do we know for sure that the Tigers offered significantly more than any other team?  The Astros reportedly also offered six years, but he wanted more than that.  The Red Sox offered more per annum than the Tigers which it turned out was preferable to Bregman.  Now, he gets to be a free agent again.  

[gehringer_2]

7 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

Because playing shortstop contributes more value to winning games than playing first base.  Similarly playing first base contributes a little more value to winning games than being a dh.  What if they all started out at zero (as Echoes suggested) and you added 25 points for being a shortstop and 5 points for being a frst baseman .  The designated hitter stays at zero.  The next step is to add or subtract points for being a good or bad fielder at your position.  Again the designated hitter can not gain or lose any points here.   Does this make more sense?  You would end up with the same result.  

Sense, yes. But does that work in terms of getting to the right totals? I've always assumed -and I'm sure you will correct me if not () that the whole system is normalized so that a teams total WAR connects to their win differential. If you only make fieldling adjustment positive, would the system then need to be normalized somewhere else to come out right?

[Tiger337]

7 minutes ago, chasfh said:

So I found the positional adjustment article on Fangraphs.

They estimated at the time the various positions have the following positional run adjustments:

Position	Full Season Adjustment
C	12.5
1B	-12.5
2B	2.5
SS	7.5
3B	2.5
LF	-7.5
CF	2.5
RF	-7.5
Total	0.0

You can see how it all evens out among the eight positions. (Not sure why the P position is not covered here, but, some other time.)

So assuming this table is correct, if two players each save 10 runs above average at their positions with their defense, if one is a first baseman, his fielding run value is 10 + -12.5 = -2.5 defensive runs overall, and if he is a center fielder, his fielding run value is 10 + 7.5 = +17.5 defensive runs overall.

I guess the idea is that because first base is so much easier than center field, the former is expected to not make mistakes and lose runs with his defense versus a center fielder, which is so much more difficult to play. This would suggest that even a slightly above average first baseman (a couple runs more than 0 runs saved) loses runs overall with his defense for the team, because that's the nature of first base; and that even as a slightly below average center fielder (a couple runs less than 0 runs saved) would still produce a net gain of fielding run value for his team.

Am I on track so far? Or off track? Please remember I not concerned about how the theoretical mathematical formulas work as I am trying to comport the data we have to reflect what's happening on the field itself.

I am not sure I understand your question, but the way Tango figured out positional adjustments was to take all the players who played a good number of games at multiple positions and determine how much better they did at each position compared to the average at those positions.  For example, a player who played both 1b and shortstop, might have been 10 runs better than the average at firsbase, but 6 runs per average worse than he average shortstop.  If you aggregate  that data for all players who played both positions, you can estimate the gap between the positions. 

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, Tiger337 said:

Do we know for sure that the Tigers offered significantly more than any other team?  The Astros reportedly also offered six years, but he wanted more than that.  The Red Sox offered more per annum than the Tigers which it turned out was preferable to Bregman.  Now, he gets to be a free agent again.  

It's generally accepted that the Tigers offered the most money to Bregman last winter, which is the thing many people claim all the time is all it takes to get these greedy bastards to sign on the line that is dotted. 😁

[chasfh]

58 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I am not sure I understand your question, but the way Tango figured out positional adjustments was to take all the players who played a good number of games at multiple positions and determine how much better they did at each position compared to the average at those positions.  For example, a player who played both 1b and shortstop, might have been 10 runs better than the average at firsbase, but 6 runs per average worse than he average shortstop.  If you aggregate  that data for all players who played both positions, you can estimate the gap between the positions. 

OK, then let's make it -10 at 1B and +6 at SS. That works for me. The actual numbers don't matter to me. The principle does, and these numbers go in the same direction as the numbers from the old Fangraphs article. So, I come back to the question, does a slightly above average first baseman still lose runs for his team and a slightly below average center field still gain runs for his team, because of the positional run adjustments?

EDIT: let's ask an even more basic question: you appear to be saying that Tango calculated his positional adjustments based on fielding runs saved or lost by players at these positions during actual games he studied. Do I have that part straight?

Edited 13 hours ago by chasfh

[gehringer_2]

Just now, Tiger337 said:

I am not sure I understand your question, but the way Tango figured out positional adjustments was to take all the players who played a good number of games at multiple positions and determine how much better they did at each position compared to the average at those positions.  For example, a player who played both 1b and shortstop, might have been 10 runs better than the average at firsbase, but 6 runs per average worse than he average shortstop.  If you aggregate  that data for all players who played both positions, you can estimate the gap between the positions. 

LOL - that reminds me that Carlos Guillen had been a shortstop but was a disaster at 1b - couldn't manage the footwork at all. Of course he was playing 1b mostly after he was already shot as a fielder anywhere.

But that raises a more serious question, did Tango normalize for age comparing guys who changed positions? Or only compare data in single seasons? He may have the same name, but a SS that goes to 1st at age 35 is not the same fielder that played SS at 24. And nobody goes from 1st to SS so there's going to be a lack of reciprocity in a data set like that.

Edited 12 hours ago by gehringer_2

[casimir]

6 hours ago, chasfh said:

I would not be opposed to picking up Nolan Arenado for the next two years. 

He’s due $27M in 2026 ($5M paid by Colorado) and $15M in 2027.  He’s on the down slope.   I don’t know, I don’t think he’s all that intriguing anymore.

[Tiger337]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

LOL - that reminds me that Carlos Guillen had been a shortstop but was a disaster at 1b - couldn't manage the footwork at all. Of course he was playing 1b mostly after he was already shot as a fielder anywhere.

But that raises a more serious question, did Tango normalize for age comparing guys who changed positions? Or only compare data in single seasons? He may have the same name, but a SS that goes to 1st at age 35 is not the same fielder that played SS at 24. And nobody goes from 1st to SS so there's going to be a lack of reciprocity in a data set like that.

I don't know the details, but you can be sure that Tango took age into strong consideration.  He has done a lot of studies on aging curves.  

My only question would be whether multi-position players are a representative sample.  

Edited 11 hours ago by Tiger337

[Arlington]

3 hours ago, chasfh said:

So I found the positional adjustment article on Fangraphs.

They estimated at the time the various positions have the following positional run adjustments:

Position	Full Season Adjustment
C	12.5
1B	-12.5
2B	2.5
SS	7.5
3B	2.5
LF	-7.5
CF	2.5
RF	-7.5
Total	0.0

You can see how it all evens out among the eight positions. (Not sure why the P position is not covered here, but, some other time.)

So assuming this table is correct, if two players each save 10 runs above average at their positions with their defense, if one is a first baseman, his fielding run value is 10 + -12.5 = -2.5 defensive runs overall, and if he is a center fielder, his fielding run value is 10 + 7.5 = +17.5 defensive runs overall.

I guess the idea is that because first base is so much easier than center field, the former is expected to not make mistakes and lose runs with his defense versus a center fielder, which is so much more difficult to play. This would suggest that even a slightly above average first baseman (a couple runs more than 0 runs saved) loses runs overall with his defense for the team, because that's the nature of first base; and that even as a slightly below average center fielder (a couple runs less than 0 runs saved) would still produce a net gain of fielding run value for his team.

Am I on track so far? Or off track? Please remember I not concerned about how the theoretical mathematical formulas work as I am trying to comport the data we have to reflect what's happening on the field itself.

I think you need to add the number of chances into the equation as well.  Shortstop defense is valued more that second defense, in part, because more balls are hit there.  That would seem to be a function of human evolution.  The baseball diamond is symmetrical but our brains are not.  Right-handed hitters tend to hit the ball more to the left side of the infield and there are more right-handed hitters.  Center fielders probably get more chances than the corner outfielders.  

 

[gehringer_2]

3 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

My only question would be whether multi-position players are a representative sample.  

yup. That comparison sounds easier to describe than it might actually be to do. 🤔

[Tenacious D]

Pretty cool