2025-2026 Tigers Off Season Thread

[This is the year]

Wish they would put all MLB games on Amazon, just pay $1 to unlock and watch the game.

[lordstanley]

2 minutes ago, This is the year said:

Wish they would put all MLB games on Amazon, just pay $1 to unlock and watch the game.

That would be a great idea for all sports, and what I envisioned when people talked about Pay Per View 20 years ago. As far as I know, NBA.com is the only major pro sports league I know that offers a la carte single game purchases (albeit for considerably more than $1)

[gehringer_2]

18 minutes ago, Stormin said:

The more I listen to Avila, the more I like him as a person, and the more I doubt him as a GM. 

Al had a good eye for talent and understood scouting and how to use and deploy scouting. But along with that other big failings - he had insufficient sense of urgency in making the changes that needed to me made because he wanted too much to 'bring the old-school guys along' instead being more cold hearted (again, you can like him more a person than as a GM for that), and secondly he was just a terrible, terrible trade designer/negotiator - probably lacked the creativity for it. So I believe Al when he says *he* couldn't find the deal, I'd wager that plenty of other GMs could have. Lastly, Al recognized the need for the tech, but was always going to be too dependent on the people around him because he was not going to master any of it himself. Always better to have enough command yourself to be better able to process what the people you hired are giving you (even if you are making good hires).

Al had enough connections to stay in the game if he had wanted to so I tend to think he probably recognized he was a bit of an anachronism and it was going to be easier to retire.

[lordstanley]

On 11/30/2025 at 9:55 AM, Tiger337 said:

I really dislike the narrative that nobody can compete with the Dodgers.  This year's World Series was arguably the most competivive World Series in history.  It went seven games wiith one game going 18 innings and the 7th game also going into extra innings.   During the regular season, four teams won more games than the Dodgers.  

On September 15, 2025 with just under 2 weeks to go in the regular season the Tigers' record was 85-65. The Dodgers' record that day? 84-65.

[lordstanley]

 

[gehringer_2]

44 minutes ago, lordstanley said:

On September 15, 2025 with just under 2 weeks to go in the regular season the Tigers' record was 85-65. The Dodgers' record that day? 84-65.

but the Tigers collapsed and the Dodgers didn't. The Dodgers were deeper, were able to get to that record using more experience players (4 yrs older by weighted ave than Det) who were able to maintain their consistency but who cost more.

Edited 11 hours ago by gehringer_2

[Edman85]

The only thing I hate more than the "Give 100% of the credit for player's success to the person in charge of baseball ops at the time" take is arguing the same thing over and over again.

 

Actually I hate several things more than both: seafood for one.

[kdog]

https://www.mlb.com/tigers/press-release/press-release-detroit-tigers-and-detroit-red-wings-enter-broadcast-partnership-with-major-league-baseball

[theroundsquare]

first of its kind . . . new platform . . . same options that have been recently available

color me confused

[Sports_Freak]

18 minutes ago, kdog said:

https://www.mlb.com/tigers/press-release/press-release-detroit-tigers-and-detroit-red-wings-enter-broadcast-partnership-with-major-league-baseball

Doesn't really tell us much. How much is it and how do I stream?

[chasfh]

To me, if the agreement is like those made between MLB other teams before this season,  the most important part of the Tigers’ partnering with MLB is going to be losing all the in-game gambling odds, drop-ins, billboards, promos, and the like. 

[NorthWoods]

2 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

Al had enough connections to stay in the game if he had wanted to so I tend to think he probably recognized he was a bit of an anachronism and it was going to be easier to retire.

And really, why not retire?   He had enough $$.   His kid(s) were set.   Why not kick back and enjoy life?

Too many people in this world keep working until they have enough money to splurge in retirement and then either die before they use it or get too old to do all the things they want to.

Life's short man, exit the rat race.

Edited 9 hours ago by NorthWoods

[chasfh]

3 hours ago, Stormin said:

The more I listen to Avila, the more I like him as a person, and the more I doubt him as a GM.  Avila brought good prospects into the organization, but as a GM sometimes what you don't do is more important than what you do.

• JV had to be moved for financial reasons but the Tigers sent $16M to Houston in the deal?
• Still calling  the prospect return for JV a good return?
• The bad return for JD was because there was no market market for an over 1.000 OPS hitter who signed a big money contract a few months later?
• Make Zimmerman the first MLB signing of the off-season, over paying in years and dollars, because you thought everyone wanted him?
• After determining you can't afford Correa, you bid against yourself and sign a batter who struggles to stay in the zone to a long term deal. Correa ends up signing 3 year deal with the Twins which he opted out of.

Harris has avoided long term free agent signing and that approach yielded better results than Avila's free agent efforts.

Harris has not executed a really good trade, but at least Harris is not trading away All Star talent for nothing.

 

Al Avila was as good a talent evaluator as the next guy, but he was peter-principled into the GM job which requires a plethora of skills he simply did not have, and the organization was set back close to a decade because of his seven-year tenure. 

[casimir]

52 minutes ago, kdog said:

https://www.mlb.com/tigers/press-release/press-release-detroit-tigers-and-detroit-red-wings-enter-broadcast-partnership-with-major-league-baseball

PASS Jr?

[Shinzaki]

Just bring back PASS..with a streaming app...incredibly expensive to build..but I want that.

 

Will we no longer be subjected to endless updates on the betting lines?

Edited 9 hours ago by Shinzaki

[romad1]

34 minutes ago, chasfh said:

To me, if the agreement is like those made between MLB other teams before this season,  the most important part of the Tigers’ partnering with MLB is going to be losing all the in-game gambling odds, drop-ins, billboards, promos, and the like. 

Imagine if the Tigers were sponsored by a barely concealed prostitution front say it were called "Happy Ending Massage" and they put a constant stream of information on the crawl about the various "services" you could get.  And that's about how I felt about all the gambling information.  

[Shinzaki]

I would hate to see Daniella have to do updates on the cost of a beej

[Sports_Freak]

5 minutes ago, romad1 said:

Imagine if the Tigers were sponsored by a barely concealed prostitution front say it were called "Happy Ending Massage" and they put a constant stream of information on the crawl about the various "services" you could get.  And that's about how I felt about all the gambling information.  

A massage service/marijuana dispensary. Gambling...legalized. Cannabis...legalized. Next up...prostitution...soon to be legal. A great man (Eisenhower?) once said..."you can't legislate morality"

[chasfh]

5 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

A massage service/marijuana dispensary. Gambling...legalized. Cannabis...legalized. Next up...prostitution...soon to be legal. A great man (Eisenhower?) once said..."you can't legislate morality"

I don't think prostitution could ever be legalized, for a bunch of reasons. Probably better to carry on any follow-up discussion elsewhere.

[Sports_Freak]

There was a Free Press article about Enmanuel De Jesus. I guess the Tigers signed him after he's been playing in Korea. Any idea if he has a chance to stick in Detroit or is he just Toledo depth? Scott Harris is collecting pitchers and some of them seem pretty good. Our pitching staff may be a team strength this year.

[Tiger337]

7 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

 Our pitching staff may be a team strength this year.

It better be.  

[romad1]

49 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

A massage service/marijuana dispensary. Gambling...legalized. Cannabis...legalized. Next up...prostitution...soon to be legal. A great man (Eisenhower?) once said..."you can't legislate morality"

I’ve lived and travelled to places where it was legal…you’d still not want that sort of sleeve that much a part of your evening baseball. 

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, theroundsquare said:

first of its kind . . . new platform . . . same options that have been recently available

color me confused

yeah - "I'm here now to tell you that anything you actually need to know you'll find out later."

[NorthWoods]

40 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

yeah - "I'm here now to tell you that anything you actually need to know you'll find out later."

Pretty easy to cipher that they're still working this out on the fly.   Better little or no information than bad information.

[Edman85]

Looking around, and this may not be complete, here's how other teams have handled this since they got taken over by MLB.

Across MLB, it looks pretty universal. Each Team has its own app, somebody in market can pay $19.99 to watch the games in a year. A portion of the games are simulcast on local TV. Don't forget some teams lost their RSN in 2023, several more last year. The only thing groud-breaking about this is MLB is subsidizing the Red Wings too.

I don't see how this helps the Tigers' bottom line relative to their past FSD deal.

Edited 6 hours ago by Edman85