2025-2026 Tigers Off Season Thread

[chasfh]

4 hours ago, Hongbit said:

Reading up on ABS and I didn’t realize they are incorporating a plane in the middle of the plate where the ball must pass.   A pitch that just catches the front corner of the plate is not a strike.   The ball has to be in the strike zone when 8.5 inches back of the front of the plate.   That will be very interesting especially with some of the nasty sweepers and other breaking balls out there . 

Thanks for pointing this out. We had noted this last year but it was easy to get past people. There was no way they could use a 3-D representation of the plate area where not only your example of catching just the front corner would be a strike, but also a floater that comes in and passes you up around your eyes clips the back of the plate area for a strike.

[chasfh]

2 hours ago, oblong said:

Miggy's in camp.

Now we know he's in for the win.

[Tiger337]

2 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I don't hate Avila, either. What I do hate is when people insist that Avila deserves as much as or more credit than Harris for the recent run of Tigers' success, and there were plenty of people here insisting as much.

I think it's impossible to measure how much each one deserves for 2024-2025.  You seemed to want to give Harris 100% credit which I don't agree with.  For 2026, His impact is going up substantially in my mind.  

[chasfh]

2 hours ago, alex said:

All IMHO and perhaps another thread for another day. MLB really needs to look at having less games played (ex 150), bye-weekends for each team (ex 2 per team per season), maybe scheduled DHs 1-2 a year so more off days. Maybe 27-28 man rosters (at least). All of this for more actual rest and recovery time as the players of today are so fine tuned physically they actually, from that standpoint, are more readily over taxed/trained and their bodies are simply breaking down faster (the travel days and time zone changes are hard as well).

The increased IL times that teams are all using this day and age, again IMHO, are proof of this. Maybe the next CBA will consider some of these mentioned things.

 

I will reject this idea up to the very moment they announce it's going to be implemented.

[casimir]

3 hours ago, chasfh said:

I don't hate Avila, either. What I do hate is when people insist that Avila deserves as much as or more credit than Harris for the recent run of Tigers' success, and there were plenty of people here insisting as much.

This is silly.  Who is claiming Avila deserves more credit than Harris?

[Tiger337]

40 minutes ago, casimir said:

This is silly.  Who is claiming Avila deserves more credit than Harris?

Some have said that.  I wouldn't make that claim but I don't think it's outrageous to say that Avila deserves a good deal credit for the roster and I don't think there is an accurate way to say how much  

[casimir]

6 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

Some have said that.  I wouldn't make that claim but I don't think it's outrageous to say that Avila deserves a good deal credit for the roster and I don't think there is an accurate way to say how much  

Yes, agree, there’s credit to both, but difficulty to assign some kind of amount or percentage.  We don’t know all of the behind the scenes that either one (or other people) have contributed to the overall success.

[casimir]

6 hours ago, alex said:

Yes, I admit at times I question SHarris and his ability to acquire MLB talent.

The above post is a good thing to know (Greenberg also hinted at possibly being opportunistic later on in the off-season). I do feel AJ had a lot to do with Valdez signing however and JV, as we now know, wanted to come back here. Yet to hear CIlitch say Scott came to him early on about this possibility as the off season went on is a good thing to know. I have always said I like the direction and am all good with the improvements: scouting, player development, fitness/nutrition/rest/psychology, international attempts, facility upgrades, etc. - they are improved for sure since Harris took over. I personally like that he does not like long term deals for Ps as they are more volatile than position players.

Not every GM/CEO can be good at 'everything'. The only thing I have not seen is if Harris has the ability to trade for MLB talent (ex last seasons deadline approach) and can he deal a prospect in position of strength for an MLB talent and/or prospect of position of need ex an Inf prospect which we have many of for say a young SP or deadline help ex RH bat (if even needed later on).

I also like that SHarris recognizes that depth is of utmost importance. I have said many times the following: the days of a team with 6-7 position players starting 140+ games a year are gone as is also multiple teams with 3-4 SPs throwing 180+ innings. That is sooo unfortunate.

All IMHO and perhaps another thread for another day. MLB really needs to look at having less games played (ex 150), bye-weekends for each team (ex 2 per team per season), maybe scheduled DHs 1-2 a year so more off days. Maybe 27-28 man rosters (at least). All of this for more actual rest and recovery time as the players of today are so fine tuned physically they actually, from that standpoint, are more readily over taxed/trained and their bodies are simply breaking down faster (the travel days and time zone changes are hard as well).

The increased IL times that teams are all using this day and age, again IMHO, are proof of this. Maybe the next CBA will consider some of these mentioned things.

 

I find it odd given advantages these days with respect to training and nutrition and general health and wellbeing that players aren’t able to keep up with the physical demands of the game now vs the past.

I suspect pitchers are putting too much on their arms and throwing maximum pitches rather than pitching a longer game is a strategy and health issue.  Throw it on a spectrum between the two, I’m not sure where it resides.  I grew up with shorter pitching staffs.  I think the 1984 Tigers had all of 13 or 14 different pitchers used that season.  There’s now 13 pitchers on the roster at any given time and a few of those are shuffled from majors to minors during the season.

[Tiger337]

1 hour ago, casimir said:

I find it odd given advantages these days with respect to training and nutrition and general health and wellbeing that players aren’t able to keep up with the physical demands of the game now vs the past.

I suspect pitchers are putting too much on their arms and throwing maximum pitches rather than pitching a longer game is a strategy and health issue.  Throw it on a spectrum between the two, I’m not sure where it resides.  I grew up with shorter pitching staffs.  I think the 1984 Tigers had all of 13 or 14 different pitchers used that season.  There’s now 13 pitchers on the roster at any given time and a few of those are shuffled from majors to minors during the season.

The players have more leverage now.  

[tiger2022]

What did Harris actually do to help the mlb roster the last few years?  His FA signings have been meh to bad...his trades have been awful.  So Harris takes the job, waves a magic wand, sprinkles pixie dust and suddenly transforms the players that were in the organization into competent players. 

The credit goes to the players first and foremost.  Anyone who thinks Skubal suddenly became a Cy Young caliber pitcher because of Harris really needs to lay off the drugs.

 

[CaliforniaDreaming]

Are we really going to have this Harris/Avila debate AGAIN? I'm sorry, but it is getting a bit old and tiresome to me. I've read all the opinions multiple times as they have been hashed and rehashed in multiple threads and there is no way to either "prove" or "disprove" any of them. We are just going to recycle the same opinions again.

If there is interest in prolonging this endless debate, could someone start a separate thread for it...please?

[oblong]

We should have a Jerry Walker/Joe Klein debate.

 

[casimir]

9 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

The players have more leverage now.  

I'm not sure I understand you.

[Tiger337]

2 minutes ago, casimir said:

I'm not sure I understand you.

They are just as capable of keeping up with the demands of playing every day as they have ever been.  They have more off days now and no scheduled double headers for other reasons other than capability.  One of them is having a strong union. 

The reason for bigger pitching staffs is that teams have figured out that having more fresh pitchers allows their best pitchers to throw at maximum effort and get maximum results.  Then when they get tired, they have plenty of fresh arms to fill in the innings at the end of the game.  Pitchers could pitch just as many innings as they use to, if they were not pitching at maximum effort on every pitch.  

[oblong]

6 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

They are just as capable of keeping up with the demands of playing every day as they have ever been.  They have more off days now and no scheduled double headers for other reasons other than capability.  One of them is having a strong union. 

The reason for bigger pitching staffs is that teams have figured out that having more fresh pitchers allows their best pitchers to throw at maximum effort and get maximum results.  Then when they get tired, they have plenty of fresh arms to fill in the innings at the end of the game.  Pitchers could pitch just as many innings as they use to, if they were not pitching at maximum effort on every pitch.  

That's something lost on the old timers who complain about "today's soft pitchers who can only go 100 pitches" and then they bring up one guy who pitched a lot and ignore the others who blew out their arms.  It's not about ability or durability.  It's a conscious decision to pitch this way.  Same way with strikeouts and hitters.

 

[chasfh]

12 hours ago, casimir said:

I find it odd given advantages these days with respect to training and nutrition and general health and wellbeing that players aren’t able to keep up with the physical demands of the game now vs the past.

I suspect pitchers are putting too much on their arms and throwing maximum pitches rather than pitching a longer game is a strategy and health issue.  Throw it on a spectrum between the two, I’m not sure where it resides.  I grew up with shorter pitching staffs.  I think the 1984 Tigers had all of 13 or 14 different pitchers used that season.  There’s now 13 pitchers on the roster at any given time and a few of those are shuffled from majors to minors during the season.

Pitchers are valued for their ability to induce high levels of swing and miss, because they can’t give up hits and runs on balls that don’t get put into play. That’s always been the case, but that ability was considered special and limited to a small percentage of pitchers. Science has allowed more pitchers to figure out how to get much more swing and miss, and that requires a kind of max effort from most arms. But that’s where the money is, so pitchers will gladly risk their arms falling off for a chance at the big payday.

Seems to me the thing to do is to change the game to reduce the need for swing and miss. Not eliminate it, just reduce it, to the same degree it was when a teams averaged 130 homers instead of 190. That way, it wouldn’t be so horrifying for a pitcher to give up contact. That sounds like changing the ball to me, which I’ve advocated for more than a decade now, but maybe there’s more to it, I don’t know. But there’s got to be something that can be done to eliminate the idea that a permanently shredded arm is a mere occupational inconvenience.

Of course, chicks still dig the long ball, and Baseball makes a lot of money off that, so it would take some real business discipline to strive to put that genie back in the bottle.