08/17/2026 7:05p EDT Detroit Tigers vs Pittsburgh Pirates

[casimir]

8 hours ago, Motor City Sonics said:

Should have taken him out 2 batters ago and we all know it.  

He should pitch to his contract and we all know it.  The bullpen needed a break.  He had a comfortable 7 run lead.  His pitch count was in a good place.  And he made uncompetitive pitches.

This on top of Keith looking like this was his first game at 1B.  And Baez letting one go by.  And Lee rushing a throw.

The Tigers got the win, and they definitely needed it.  But they opened a door for Pittsburgh in this game and, by putting pressure on the backend of the bullpen, opened things up for the rest of the series.

[4hzglory]

8 hours ago, SeattleMike said:

Sommers with a K rate of 13 per 9. Have the Tigers found their long elusive late inning strikeout guy? 

I’d say for this year anyway, they won that trade with the Rays-for Mason Englert and his career -0.7 WAR.

[chasfh]

12 hours ago, Dan Gilmore said:

Colt is a DH. 😕

Tork would be, too, if he could hit well enough.

[chasfh]

11 hours ago, SoCalTiger said:

If Colt has trade value he should be moved. He simply can not play in the field. Seriously he should play winter ball in the outfield corners. He runs well enough and we are used to noodle arm outfielders. 

Statcast disagrees. In fact, Statcast believes Colt is above average.

FanGraphs is more mixed on Colt.

Either way, neither of them regards Colt as a worst-in-class fielder as they do Tork.

Plus, Colt hits every bit as well as Tork.

I'm against moving Colt.

 

[Tiger337]

4 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Statcast disagrees. In fact, Statcast believes Colt is above average.

FanGraphs is more mixed on Colt.

Either way, neither of them regards Colt as a worst-in-class fielder as they do Tork.

Plus, Colt hits every bit as well as Tork.

I'm against moving Colt.

 

I don't know if there enough data at any position to get a reliable evaluation of Keith's fielding.  I wouldn't move him though.  He does enough offensively to make a positive contribution.  

[monkeytargets39]

I don’t think Keith is horrible at 3B, but when he does make mistakes or errors, they tend to look pretty bad.  Is Valencia a better option as a backup 1B than Keith?  Or maybe put Gleyber there on days Tork needs a rest

[gehringer_2]

36 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I don't know if there enough data at any position to get a reliable evaluation of Keith's fielding.  I wouldn't move him though.  He does enough offensively to make a positive contribution.  

he does better at 3rd than 1st - because he's played there more. He simply does not have the moves down at first. The error charged to Lee yesterday was the clear example: that was an easy knee high scoop, but Keith's movement was stiff and he had no anticipation of what the ball was going to do. That's why I've held from day one watching him that you have to put him some place and leave him there until his gets it all down pat in his muscle memory because he is anything but a natural fielder. Every bounce he's never seen before will continue to be a new hurdle for him. Do that and he can probably get to serviceable. 

I don't know if Valencia is competent at 1st but if he is you'd think Colt at DH and Valencia at 1st would have been considered.

Edited Tuesday at 05:38 PM by gehringer_2

[SeattleMike]

56 minutes ago, monkeytargets39 said:

I don’t think Keith is horrible at 3B, but when he does make mistakes or errors, they tend to look pretty bad.  Is Valencia a better option as a backup 1B than Keith?  Or maybe put Gleyber there on days Tork needs a rest

Raburn was classic example of this. He made spectacular blunders occasionally but graded out pretty well as an outfielder. Most fans, however, thought he was an atrocious OF. 

Edited Tuesday at 06:08 PM by SeattleMike

[gehringer_2]

6 minutes ago, SeattleMike said:

Rayburn was classic example of this. He made spectacular blunders occasionally but graded out pretty well as an outfielder. Most fans, however, thought he was an atrocious OF. 

For some reason errors on the plays that should be made just seem to hurt more than the occasional great play made helps. 🤷‍♂️

On that comparison I'd say Raburn actually was pretty athletic, more than Keith. But he had problems with his brain misfiring - on those occasions he'd get so crossed up his athleticism couldn't bail him out. 🤯

Edited Tuesday at 06:01 PM by gehringer_2

[gehringer_2]

If you want to put it in old school terms, you'd just say Colt doesn't have good natural instincts - it's same thing that hurts him on the bases. I think it's actually kind of amusing to see him and Javy there on the same team as they are almost the exact extreme  inverses of each other's good and bad qualities. One a well disciplined hitter, unnatural fielder,  the other the ultimate instinctive athlete and glove but very undisciplined hitter!

[Tiger337]

It was amusing that Seattle spelled it Rayburn and then edited it to Raburn, but Gehringer commented before he finished the edit!  

[SoCalTiger]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

Statcast disagrees. In fact, Statcast believes Colt is above average.

FanGraphs is more mixed on Colt.

Either way, neither of them regards Colt as a worst-in-class fielder as they do Tork.

Plus, Colt hits every bit as well as Tork.

I'm against moving Colt.

 

Well that's good news since we might be able to get a usable player in return via trade. I'm not down on him but a team can only have so many DH's snd saying he is better than Tork is not a whole lot. Tork catches infielders errant throws better than Colt and he is right-handed so I would not replace him with Keith. Personally I am trading him. Maybe both but we have more urgent issues than first base and Bricenio on the way.

[monkeytargets39]

25 minutes ago, SoCalTiger said:

Well that's good news since we might be able to get a usable player in return via trade. I'm not down on him but a team can only have so many DH's snd saying he is better than Tork is not a whole lot. Tork catches infielders errant throws better than Colt and he is right-handed so I would not replace him with Keith. Personally I am trading him. Maybe both but we have more urgent issues than first base and Bricenio on the way.

I’m not trading Keith, however I am picking ONE position for him to play and having him work all offseason on that.  Preferably 3B.

With DH types in the system…..I don’t think we can rely on Carpenter to stay healthy at this point and Torkelson is a solid enough everyday 1B.  I’m gonna need to see an extended sample size of Valencia before I say he’s a definite part of the future core.

Keith has had his struggles but there have been legitimate stretches where he has graded out as a well above average hitter.  Not worth giving up on yet.  As I’ve said since last year—the org just needs to commit to what they want to do with him and stick with it.

 

We whine that he stinks at 1B, but he plays it like twice a month.  Of course he stinks at it.

[chasfh]

36 minutes ago, SoCalTiger said:

Well that's good news since we might be able to get a usable player in return via trade. I'm not down on him but a team can only have so many DH's snd saying he is better than Tork is not a whole lot. Tork catches infielders errant throws better than Colt and he is right-handed so I would not replace him with Keith. Personally I am trading him. Maybe both but we have more urgent issues than first base and Bricenio on the way.

My concern is that we would cut bait on Colt Keith and just end up with someone there who’s worse, or just as bad, someone who’s the same, because if we’re gonna trade him, we darn well better end up with someone a lot better in his place. Otherwise, what’s the point.

[Tigermojo]

Keith is one of the best hitters in all of baseball in the second half of the season. 

[monkeytargets39]

39 minutes ago, Tigermojo said:

Keith is one of the best hitters in all of baseball in the second half of the season. 

And we know he found and fixed an issue with his Swing right around the start of the second half, so I’d lean towards him being very valuable to hang onto 

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

My concern is that we would cut bait on Colt Keith and just end up with someone there who’s worse, or just as bad, someone who’s the same, because if we’re gonna trade him, we darn well better end up with someone a lot better in his place. Otherwise, what’s the point.

The only problem for Colt is the degree to which he's in an org that wants him to be something he isn't, when what he is probably could be perfectly useful. It's a bit weird - they accept that Gleyber never plays anywhere but 2nd, Dingler is 100%  a catcher, Carpenter only plays RF (when he plays the field) and so on, so it's not the idea of a guy having one position per se. But once you are on Hinch's "I want to move him around list" there doesn't seem to any way off.

Edited Tuesday at 09:25 PM by gehringer_2

[chasfh]

1 minute ago, gehringer_2 said:

The only problem for Colt is the degree to which he's in an org that wants him to be something he isn't, when what he is probably could be perfectly useful.

Too bad we don’t know our own players, I guess. 🤷🏻

[NorthWoods]

1 hour ago, monkeytargets39 said:

I’m not trading Keith, however I am picking ONE position for him to play and having him work all offseason on that.  Preferably 3B.

McG @ 2B?   Ranier @ SS?    Lee/Anderson/Peck on the bench?

[gehringer_2]

19 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Too bad we don’t know our own players, I guess. 🤷🏻

We wouldn't be the 1st org that mis-evaluated their own players. Or even understood it well enough but decided that they's rather try to keep hammering them into something else because they thought they could. It does work sometimes.

Edited Tuesday at 09:45 PM by gehringer_2

[monkeytargets39]

17 minutes ago, NorthWoods said:

McG @ 2B?   Ranier @ SS?    Lee/Anderson/Peck on the bench?

Yes—but we can cross that bridge when they get there.  3 of those guys have proven nothing at the MLB level to this point.

 

I don’t want to give up on someone who has already shown they can be a decent MLB bat because we hopefully have others in the system that could also be that.

and Keith at 3B doesn’t mean he has to play there every day—just that if we are going to put him in the field, that’s where he goes

Edited Tuesday at 10:01 PM by monkeytargets39

[lordstanley]

On 8/17/2026 at 6:04 AM, IdahoBert said:

 

Case in point, Hayden Panettiere died overnight. She was fantastic in the video game Until Dawn that I played with my son many years ago. And she’s been in tons of stuff I’ve never watched.

 

 

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

We wouldn't be the 1st org that mis-evaluated their own players. Or even understood it well enough but decided that they's rather try to keep hammering them into something else because they thought they could. It does work sometimes.

What’s your evidence that we are misevaluating players?

[SoCalTiger]

Well when I say trade Colt Keith I am assuming the return improves the team and is a better fit than a DH they are trying to make  their baseman or first baseman or wait...second baseman. And I do think to some extent the Tigers misevaluate their players. Some players seem to improve with other organizations like Parades, Clemens and Castro off the top of my head. It's not like they fail or are any worse than other teams but I think in their overzealous platooning and multiple positioning of their players they mess them up to a degree. 

[chasfh]

I don’t know, I just don’t see any evidence that the Tigers are misevaluating their players, and I would not agree that having them play multiple positions is proof of that.