2025-2026 Tigers Off Season Thread

[gehringer_2]

2 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

Let's say you take positional adjustment out if altogether and make WAR = OWAR + DRS.  That would be a stat which is totally based on what they do on the field.

I like that. For me it just goes back the idea that I find it nonsensical for an above average defender at any position to be considered as having cost his team runs/wins. That part is only a matter of the semantics of what the unit is called. If you are going to call it Wins above replacement, than no above average D player at any position should be rated as costing his team wins, because they didn't in any reasonable sense. He may not field like a SS, but his contribution was not negative. So if you call it something else that goes away. 😉

[Tiger337]

3 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

I like that. For me it just goes back the idea that I find it nonsensical for an above average defender at any position to be considered as having cost his team runs/wins. That part is only a matter of the semantics of what the unit is called. If you are going to call it Wins above replacement, than no above average D player at any position should be rated as costing his team wins, because they didn't in any reasonable sense. He may not field like a SS, but his contribution was not negative. So if you call it something else that goes away. 😉

I would have been happy to just keeping fielding separate from hitting and not trying boil everything down to one number.  If you do want to arrive at one number for a player's value though, I do think you need to consider the position they play.  If a DH goes into the Hall of Fame or wins an MVP, he should have to hit better than his peer who plays a position.  

Edited Monday at 03:30 AM by Tiger337

[gehringer_2]

44 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I would have been happy to just keeping fielding separate from hitting and not trying boil everything down to one number.  If you do want to arrive at one number for a player's value though, I do think you need to consider the position they play.  If a DH goes into the Hall of Fame or wins an MVP, he should have to hit better than his peer who plays a position.  

no arg on that.

[Edman85]

Did Longenhagen's roster crunch post make it in here?

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2025-american-league-40-man-roster-crunch-analysis/

Trevin Michael wasn't on my Rule 5 protection radar.

[4hzglory]

43 minutes ago, Edman85 said:

Did Longenhagen's roster crunch post make it in here?

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2025-american-league-40-man-roster-crunch-analysis/

Trevin Michael wasn't on my Rule 5 protection radar.

Yeah, that doesn't make sense to me at all.  And the fact that he places Lee, likely a top 125-50 overall prospect who is 22 and played a full season at AAA behind Cruz is crazy to me.  I do think Cruz has a chance to be selected, but losing Lee for nothing would be significantly worse than losing Cruz for nothing IMO as Lee has a significantly higher offensive floor and upside than Cruz IMO.  Lee could still be part of a trade, but I think he absolutely needs to be protected if he isn't traded.

[Tiger337]

So, who wants to talk about Park Factors today?😃

[Edman85]

34 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

So, who wants to talk about Park Factors today?😃

I am sad I missed out on a lot of the nitty gritty talk last week. I probably won't have much nerd time until after Christmas though 😀 

[Tiger337]

42 minutes ago, Edman85 said:

I am sad I missed out on a lot of the nitty gritty talk last week. I probably won't have much nerd time until after Christmas though 😀 

I don't have time either, but nerd time is a priority!

[chasfh]

WAR is replacement based and DRS is average based so that’s a mismatch. It would be closer to say WAA = oWAA + DRS. I dont know whether that would be the answer either. 

Edited Monday at 04:47 PM by chasfh

[Tiger337]

2 minutes ago, chasfh said:

WAR is replacement based and DRS is average based so that’s a mismatch. It would be closer to say WAA = oWAA + DRS. I dont know whether that would be the answer either. 

Average DRS is considered replacement level.  The reasoning is that a terrible hitter who can field his position at an average level is not hard to find.  If your starting player goes down with an injury, you can usually find a find a weak hitter who can field reasonably well.  

[gehringer_2]

53 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

Average DRS is considered replacement level.  The reasoning is that a terrible hitter who can field his position at an average level is not hard to find.  If your starting player goes down with an injury, you can usually find a find a weak hitter who can field reasonably well.  

It's a funny thing though, it certainly is true that good fielders are a dime a dozen compared to good hitters, but just because that is true, we (well at least 'I'..😉) tend to think they should be more common than they are -- so I'm always a bit surprised when a minor leaguer with a weak bat or a utility guy gets called up and their glove is only mediocre at best. If you don't have a big bat and can't field how do you even get to AAA? 🤷‍♂️

[Tiger337]

2 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

It's a funny thing though, it certainly is true that good fielders are a dime a dozen compared to good hitters, but just because that is true, we (well at least 'I'..😉) tend to think they should be more common than they are -- so I'm always a bit surprised when a minor leaguer with a weak bat or a utility guy gets called up and their glove is only mediocre at best. If you don't have a big bat and can't field how do you even get to AAA? 🤷‍♂️

I think we may underestimate the difference between fielding in the majors and minors.  When I see minor league games, I notice the difference in fielding between majors and minors as as much as I notice the hitting and pitching differences.  It's a whole different game in the majors.   

[chasfh]

3 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

Average DRS is considered replacement level.  The reasoning is that a terrible hitter who can field his position at an average level is not hard to find.  If your starting player goes down with an injury, you can usually find a find a weak hitter who can field reasonably well.  

I did not realize that. OK. If they could spool that out to tenth of a point, I could see it being paired with something like oRAR to arrive at something close to what I'm looking for. There may be some fatal flaw in this but I'm probably done thinking about this topic for a while.

[chasfh]

2 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

I think we may underestimate the difference between fielding in the majors and minors.  When I see minor league games, I notice the difference in fielding between majors and minors as as much as I notice the hitting and pitching differences.  It's a whole different game in the majors.   

I think you're right on this although I would bet that average minor league fielders are a lot closer to average major league fielders than average minor league hitters are to average major league hitters.

[Tiger337]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

I think you're right on this although I would bet that average minor league fielders are a lot closer to average major league fielders than average minor league hitters are to average major league hitters.

I agree, but the difference is still noticeable.  It might be because I can follow fielders better in person which is the case when I go to a minor league game.  It's hard for me to judge hitters in person.  

[Edman85]

Gonna be some transactions tomorrow...

• Alex Lange's 7 day DFA window is up.
• It's the 40-man roster deadline.
• Because the non-tender deadline is Friday, a lot of non-tenders just get DFA'ed tomorrow to jump the gun. Even some non-arb guys may be chopped. Note: anybody injured or anybody selected to the 40-man after August 15 can't be outrighted, so they may be prime non-tender candidates. Teams like non-tendering, because you can just agree to a minor league deal and not risk losing guys to waivers. It also doesn't count as a release, which is significant because players released after Labor Day can't be added back to your major league roster until May.
• We might get a guy or two on the non-tender bubble avoiding arbitration.

Edited Tuesday at 12:20 AM by Edman85

[Tiger337]

4 hours ago, chasfh said:

I did not realize that. OK. If they could spool that out to tenth of a point, I could see it being paired with something like oRAR to arrive at something close to what I'm looking for. There may be some fatal flaw in this but I'm probably done thinking about this topic for a while.

I actually would like to see RAR rather than WAR regardless of how the stat is constructed.  I think of Wins as more of team stat.  Players don't win games by themselves.  They win partial games by producing and preventing runs.  And it's pretty easy to translate into wins if someone favors that.  It's basically just dividing by 10 (as you suggested in your post).  

Edited Tuesday at 12:53 AM by Tiger337

[Shelton]

56 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I actually would like to see RAR rather than WAR regardless of how the stat is constructed.  I think of Wins as more of team stat.  Players don't win games by themselves.  They win partial games by producing and preventing runs.  And it's pretty easy to translate into wins if someone favors that.  It's basically just dividing by 10 (as you suggested in your post).  

Sure, but you could also just multiply by 10 if you want runs. Wins feels more user friendly and tells a better story for what is already a shorthand stat. It’s easy to point to McKinstry and his 1 war and Bregman and his 4 war and consider the value of adding three wins all things being equal. Wins may be a team stat at the end of the year but it’s a team made up of interchangeable pieces, and we don’t care too much what a team’s run difference is at the end of the the year if the team has the necessary number of wins (even if they are intertwined).

[Tiger337]

43 minutes ago, Shelton said:

Sure, but you could also just multiply by 10 if you want runs. Wins feels more user friendly and tells a better story for what is already a shorthand stat. It’s easy to point to McKinstry and his 1 war and Bregman and his 4 war and consider the value of adding three wins all things being equal. Wins may be a team stat at the end of the year but it’s a team made up of interchangeable pieces, and we don’t care too much what a team’s run difference is at the end of the the year if the team has the necessary number of wins (even if they are intertwined).

For the casual fan, I agree wins sounds good, but then I can imagine someone asking: "which games did he win"? 

Another thing I like about runs is a wider range of integers.  With wins, you have 1, 2, 3, ... wins and there is a big difference between each integer and most of the players are either 0, 1 or 2.  Somebody could have 1.5 wins or 2.6 wins, but that doesn't make practical sense.  With runs, you have more integers, so you can make a leaders list without decimals. 

It's not really a big deal, just a preference I have.  

[Shelton]

5 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

For the casual fan, I agree wins sounds good, but then I can imagine someone asking: "which games did he win"? 

Another thing I like about runs is a wider range of integers.  With wins, you have 1, 2, 3, ... wins and there is a big difference between each integer and most of the players are either 0, 1 or 2.  Somebody could have 1.5 wins or 2.6 wins, but that doesn't make practical sense.  With runs, you have more integers, so you can make a leaders list without decimals. 

It's not really a big deal, just a preference I have.  

Yeah, that’s fair. It’s such a mushy stat that I feel like getting down to tenths (or runs) it actually too many significant digits! Give me the integers for this type of thing. There is enough noise in performance anyway, it’s just fine. It doesn’t matter if Skubal is 7.2 war or 6.7 war. We get it. 

[gehringer_2]

5 minutes ago, Shelton said:

Yeah, that’s fair. It’s such a mushy stat that I feel like getting down to tenths (or runs) it actually too many significant digits! Give me the integers for this type of thing. There is enough noise in performance anyway, it’s just fine. It doesn’t matter if Skubal is 7.2 war or 6.7 war. We get it. 

Good point. If you are going past 1 sig fig you ought to also add the C.I.  🤔

[Tiger337]

41 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Good point. If you are going past 1 sig fig you ought to also add the C.I.  🤔

With the uncertainty around fielding statistics, I would be afraid to see the CI's!  

[AlaskanTigersFan]

If Jud Fabian becomes a minor league fa, I want him. 

[AlaskanTigersFan]

By the way, this is by far the most boring off season in history of MLB so far............

[Tiger337]

Harris needs to shake it up!