05/08/2026 7:40p Detroit Tigers at Kansas City Royals

[chasfh]

9 hours ago, motownblues said:

On top of bullpen woes, this is a terrible clutch hitting team.

They sure were yesterday, at least.

[chasfh]

Colt Keith is having a super weird year. He’s hitting .321 and his wRC+ is 113 even after yesterday, so it’s not as though he’s collapsing, but he’s in this weird sort of purgatory where his contact quality is actually the best of his career in term of hard hits, but two things are suppressing his results: (1) a launch angle drop to 9.7 that’s turning potential home runs into hard grounders and line drives, and (2) literally zero home run luck on his fly balls. His xSLG is .451 vs his actual SLG of .387, which should suggest a comeback, but his SLG has trailed his xSLG his entire career, just never like this. It’s a real question whether that drop is the result of instructional intention, since the Tigers are one of the more line-drivey teams in the majors; whether pitchers are exploiting his weakness at hitting sliders more systematically lately; and whether his more passive approach at the plate this year (much lower strikeout AND walk rate) is a slump artifact or a real change.

Everything about his individual and expected metrics screams inevitable comeback, but man, it sure is hard to watch while we’re waiting.

[Tiger337]

22 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Everything about his individual and expected metrics screams inevitable comeback, but man, it sure is hard to watch while we’re waiting.

Come back to what?  He hits the same way every year.  He's a decent hitter, but not somebody you want to build around, especially since he can't field.   

[casimir]

52 minutes ago, kdog said:

They miss Javy's defensive versatility..even if he had some boneheaded errors along the way.

 

But the plays Baez makes above and beyond the current in house replacements far outweigh the boneheaded errors he makes.  So, yes, this team misses him.

[gehringer_2]

54 minutes ago, chasfh said:

A bat-first outfielder. A tale as old as 1876.

I've never quite understood why training guys to throw better seems to be the one great failure of Kinesiology/exercise science. Nobody ever seems to get better at it. Weird.

[casimir]

6 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

Come back to what?  He hits the same way every year.  He's a decent hitter, but not somebody you want to build around, especially since he can't field.   

His contract doesn’t suggest that he’s someone to build around.  It’s potentially longer term, but it’s at a nominal salary.  While @gehringer_2 brings up a valid point (and I’m paraphrasing loosely) about offering the contract but then not playing him, it’s not an onerous deal on the money side.  But they’ve got a roster spot wrapped up with someone they appear to only want to platoon.

I think they’ve gotten a little too platoon happy.  They’ve got some versatile players.  But now we see that versatility is robbed when those players are missing.  And then you realize that the players with no versatility really need to be everyday players.  A guy like Jones doesn’t help when he can only play a nominal amount of OF.  And he’s tied somewhat directly to Carpenter.  And then strictish platoons of Keith/Lee at 3B forces the Tigers to carry a guy like Short to cover middle IF.

And this doesn’t even get into potentially playing Dingler a bit much because they need his bat in the lineup.  Sure, he’s young.  But the innings behind the plate are going to add up quickly.  They should figure out a way to DH him a bit more, but that cuts into Jones’ time at DH.

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

Colt Keith is having a super weird year. He’s hitting .321 and his wRC+ is 113 even after yesterday, so it’s not as though he’s collapsing, but he’s in this weird sort of purgatory where his contact quality is actually the best of his career in term of hard hits, but two things are suppressing his results: (1) a launch angle drop to 9.7 that’s turning potential home runs into hard grounders and line drives, and (2) literally zero home run luck on his fly balls. His xSLG is .451 vs his actual SLG of .387, which should suggest a comeback, but his SLG has trailed his xSLG his entire career, just never like this. It’s a real question whether that drop is the result of instructional intention, since the Tigers are one of the more line-drivey teams in the majors; whether pitchers are exploiting his weakness at hitting sliders more systematically lately; and whether his more passive approach at the plate this year (much lower strikeout AND walk rate) is a slump artifact or a real change.

Everything about his individual and expected metrics screams inevitable comeback, but man, it sure is hard to watch while we’re waiting.

yeah - it's weird isn't it?. I think if you take all the data together - his swing is pretty similar, he's seeing the ball better - which implies he's now quicker - able to wait longer, but as you note, despite having the same swing plane, and same pull %, his launch angle is significantly down. So I guess the conclusion is the stance change has shifted the relation between where his eyes are and where the bat is and he hasn't quite adjusted to that. He 'just' needs to swing a little lower than his eyes are used to telling him he should. That's why fiddling with the way you bat is so terrible - you can make a change that fixes a bunch of things but if it changes one other thing you can't fix, you are screwed. Can Colt make the adjustment? Nobody knows. But we are going to find out.

Edited 1 hour ago by gehringer_2

[gehringer_2]

25 minutes ago, casimir said:

 They should figure out a way to DH him a bit more, but that cuts into Jones’ time at DH.

any decision driven by how much Jahmai Jones plays is a mistake.

[casimir]

43 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

any decision driven by how much Jahmai Jones plays is a mistake.

I don’t disagree.  But they seem hell bent on keeping him around despite the slim skill set he has.

Actually, I wonder if there’s too much pride in keeping players of his ilk around too long.  He was successful in his role as DH vs LHP last season.  Great.  In the grand scheme of roster build, how valuable is that given other concerns with the roster?  What are the odds of a duplicate season?

[Motor City Sonics]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

any decision driven by how much Jahmai Jones plays is a mistake.

Yeah, but Jahmai's mom called and she's pissed that her boy isn't getting enough ABs.     

I'd rather have Ben Malgeri on this team than Jones or Perez right now.    I know Clark has gotten ice cold in Toledo (which was expected), but Ben can play all 3 OF positions.  He hits right-handed.     Maybe he can provide SOMETHING.   This team is just lethargic right now.    I know there's a lot of injuries, but come on man.........Zach Short?      What good is having that RH bat in the lineup if he can't hit anyone?   I think most platoon guys even hitting on their weak side are better than that guy. 

 

And yes, Perez is a lot like Raburn.  He can play a lot of different spots, but none of them well.