General Tiger Discussion

[SoCalTiger]

2 minutes ago, bobrob2004 said:

 

Also, is Greene really that good defensively to play CF?  It would be awesome to watch Greene/Baddoo/Hill all in the outfield at the same time.

Miggy is in the way of that. Hill can't hit but his defense over Grossman and whatever Hill hits might surpass Miggy's production ? Don't know but could be close.

[gehringer_2]

19 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

The Tigers are probably a .500 team if everything goes as projected.  However, they have a bunch of young players who could develop fast.  If enough of them break out, they could contend.  

My other guess is that the young pitchers are better than we even give them credit for. How many of their innings were extended or starts cut short by all the extra outs the defense gave up? That kind of thing snow balls into more fatigue on the mound and more batters faced by bottom of the barrel relievers. Park Hill or Greene in CF and Schoop at 2B next to Baez, you have your GG catcher in place and maybe we take 0.5 off the team ERA. That's 80 runs off the team's differential before anyone even develops a new pitch or hits any better. I don't think the Tigers will need to be a top offensive ball club to be competitive. Barring more pitchers going down anyway.

Edited December 1, 2021 by gehringer_2

[Archie]

11 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

The Tigers are probably a .500 team if everything goes as projected.  However, they have a bunch of young players who could develop fast.  If enough of them break out, they could contend.  

For the most part the Tigers were a .500 team last year.  This team is better so I'm hoping for a little more.

[gehringer_2]

11 minutes ago, bobrob2004 said:

Also, is Greene really that good defensively to play CF?  It would be awesome to watch Greene/Baddoo/Hill all in the outfield at the same time.

The film shows that Greene can make all the highlight catches - I don't think that part at least is a question. What you can't normally see from clips is how good his 1st step was, and that is what really separates the elite OFs like Hill. 

[Tiger337]

15 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

My other guess is that the young pitchers are better than we even give them credit for. How many of their innings were extended or starts cut short by all the extra outs the defense gave up? That kind of thing snow balls into more fatigue on the mound and more batters faced by bottom of the barrel relievers. Park Hill or Greene in CF and Schoop at 2B next to Baez, you have your GG catcher in place and maybe we take 0.5 off the team ERA. That's 80 runs off the team's differential before anyone even develops a new pitch or hits any better. I don't think the Tigers will need to be a top offensive ball club to be competitive. Barring more pitchers going down anyway.

Strong defense up the middle should help a lot.  There will be pitching injuries, so I hope they add some depth there.  I don't think they need to be top offensive club, but I think they need to be average (which is possible).  

[1984Echoes]

I think the best defensive OF alignment is Baddoo in LF, Hill in CF, and Greene in RF.

You can liberally put Grossman in there to sub for Baddoo (against pretty much all LH'ers), and Hill (against quite a few righties... Greene moves to CF and Grossman takes over RF)...

But I would like to see Greene play primarily RF I think.

[lordstanley]

The Ghost Of Ernie is a great Twitter feed. Question this teeet raises for me is, if you’re a career minor league named Aurelio and at the age of 33 an MLB teams offer you a September call-up, do you accept knowing this means you may only have another 15 years to live? 
 

 

[djhutch]

2 hours ago, lordstanley said:

The Ghost Of Ernie is a great Twitter feed. Question this teeet raises for me is, if you’re a career minor league named Aurelio and at the age of 33 an MLB teams offer you a September call-up, do you accept knowing this means you may only have another 15 years to live? 
 

 

I remember being enamored with Aurelio Rodriguez's black glove as a kid. I'd never seen a glove SHINE like that.

[casimir]

8 hours ago, Jim Cowan said:

Schoop is trash?

I don't think he's trash.  But let's be honest.  Outside of June, his 2021 was rather meh.

[Tigermojo]

They made some improvements to their running game with Hinch last season and I think they can be even better in that department next year. Maybe near the top of the league in baserunning. That really disrupts the opposing team.

[Tigeraholic1]

 

[Cruzer1]

If I may rant about the union/Max Scherzer right now. Max said he was all about competition with the next agreement, but the union is against adding more playoff teams, and changing the 6 divisions into 4? How does that create more competition? It does the opposite. Stupid.

[1776]

On 12/2/2021 at 7:40 AM, Cruzer1 said:

If I may rant about the union/Max Scherzer right now. Max said he was all about competition with the next agreement, but the union is against adding more playoff teams, and changing the 6 divisions into 4? How does that create more competition? It does the opposite. Stupid.

I prefer the union’s stance on this, based on your description. How does adding more teams increase competition? I believe it is, in reality, only rewarding mediocrity. If there is any success to be realized through an expansion of teams included in the playoffs, that success will be monetary through revenue. That doesn’t add anything to the level of competition. If anything, it rewards the less competitive teams. Adding teams, in my opinion, doesn’t increase competition. Rather, it is simply lowering the bar in a way that redefines what is considered successful.

[gehringer_2]

7 minutes ago, 1776 said:

I prefer the union’s stance on this, based on your description. How does adding more teams increase competition? I believe it is, in reality, only rewarding mediocrity. If there is any success to be realized through an expansion of teams included in the playoffs, that success will be monetary through revenue. That doesn’t add anything to the level of competition. If anything, it rewards the less competitive teams. Adding teams, in my opinion, doesn’t increase competition. Rather, it is simply lowering the bar in a way that redefines what is considered successful.

Whether you are going to have deep (6 teams or more) divisions, or not, but especially if you do, you have to do something to insure parity, because no-one is going to pay to go see a 5th place team that is 20 games back at the ASB. Trying to 'reward' or 'punish' owners is a fools game and can only hurt the sport in the long run. You need a structure where more teams have a chance deeper into the season - whether that is fewer divisions and more WC or vice versa is immaterial, it's how many team stay in the mix for how long.

The system now incentivizes the kind of build and bust cycling that we have seen in Detroit and that leads to the huge talent disparities and noncompetitive teams. Chris Ilitch has just proved that the Tigers were not bad because he was a cheapskate owner but because he was following the straightest path the system left him to get better.  The big issue, parity, is not directly addressed by the how you put together the divisions at all and not even that much by how many team make the playoff in the end. You could go back to just one pennant winner playing the WS but if 20 teams were in the hunt into Sept you would still have the same fan engagement for the season.

[Tiger337]

Not adding anymore playoff teams and going back to four divisions sounds like a great idea!  Unfortunately, it is probably just a bargaining chip and not something they care about.    

[Tiger337]

7 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Whether you are going to have deep (6 teams or more) divisions, or not, but especially if you do, you have to do something to insure parity, because no-one is going to pay to go see a 5th place team that is 20 games back at the ASB. Trying to 'reward' or 'punish' owners is a fools game and can only hurt the sport in the long run. You need a structure where more teams have a chance deeper into the season - whether that is fewer divisions and more WC or vice versa is immaterial, it's how many team stay in the mix for how long.

The system now incentivizes the kind of build and bust cycling that we have seen in Detroit and that leads to the huge talent disparities and noncompetitive teams. Chris Ilitch has just proved that the Tigers were not bad because he was a cheapskate owner but because he was following the straightest path the system left him to get better.  The big issue, parity, is not directly addressed by the how you put together the divisions at all and not even that much by how many team make the playoff in the end. You could go back to just one pennant winner playing the WS but if 20 teams were in the hunt into Sept you would still have the same fan engagement for the season.

How about financially rewarding regular season performance?  Maybe reward teams which finish first, second and third in their division or however many teams is necessary to keep players and fans engaged.   

[1776]

There are more than a handful of problems facing the game now. Yes, it will take more than reconfiguring teams and divisions to correct. The tanking has to go. There needs to be a spending floor and a spending cap. Even if it is not a hard cap there should be some structure in place that addresses the disparity in competitiveness across the league. 

One of the biggest problems in the game today is Rob Manfred. He, through support from owners, now has a full blown monopoly on the game. 
 

[1776]

11 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

How about financially rewarding regular season performance?  Maybe reward teams which finish first, second and third in their division or however many teams is necessary to keep players and fans engaged.   

How will rewarding teams financially keep the fans more engaged? I understand the players may have a heightened interest in this. Apologies if I’m missing your point.

[Tiger337]

21 minutes ago, 1776 said:

How will rewarding teams financially keep the fans more engaged? I understand the players may have a heightened interest in this. Apologies if I’m missing your point.

Fans have been convinced largely by TV that winning the World Series is all that matters.  Market the gold, silver and bronze division medals conept and they will buy into that too.  

[CMRivdogs]

48 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

How about financially rewarding regular season performance?  Maybe reward teams which finish first, second and third in their division or however many teams is necessary to keep players and fans engaged.   

One of the things I've thought about after playing in APBA and other draft leagues is the teams that are regularly consistent in their records but more often than not miss the playoffs tend to get screwed compared to teams that tank every couple of years.

I've always thought you should reward teams that just miss the playoff by giving them a higher pick over tanking teams. You want one of the top few picks, build your team better.

TBH, not sure if it would work, but it adds incentive to spend a bit more money on building your team along the way.

 

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, Tiger337 said:

How about financially rewarding regular season performance?  Maybe reward teams which finish first, second and third in their division or however many teams is necessary to keep players and fans engaged.   

you know me, I'd do something more radical. How about a scheme were the league pays everyone's minimum at about 2 million, and the teams all pay a revenue based tax to the league to fund that. All the guys at the minimum would go into a draft every year, which would include all AAA guys with 5 yrs. You pick the guy, you get him for one year. If you like him, you can sign him to an 'extension' contract, say a minimum of 2yrs and 25% more than the minimum, but otherwise for as long and as much as you want and you leave the luxury tax in place. When contracts run out, guys with enough seniority (say 5 years at MLB) are FA. If a FA doesn't sign during the FA period, he can go back to the draft pool with the rest at the minimum salary.  If you are at the min and don't get picked up, you are a minor league free agent. That would leave a lot of decent players as a performance floor for bad teams to turn around quickly with and you could weight the 'draft' rules even more heavily toward bad teams  - say multiple picks in the 1st round to the worst teams. You 'own' your minor leaguers for a fixed number of option years much like now, but if you don't give them the 2yr +25% deal in 5 yrs, they go to the pool.

just a sketch - but the idea is to increase minimums and give poor teams more options to turn over their rosters at moderate cost. Insulate players from cheapskate ownership since the league sets the floors. Let journeyman players move and maybe help keep good players with the same team. It doesn't address what to do about albatross contracts, but I think in the long run that is self correcting because the teams that give them out almost always do suffer in the end.

Edited December 3, 2021 by gehringer_2

[sabretooth]

On 11/30/2021 at 8:08 PM, Tigermojo said:

Is this realistic for next year? That's 37.5 WAR. A good starter, better bullpen and better DH could push them to contend.

Barnhart 1 YEP

Torkelson 2.5 YEP

Schoop 2 YEP

Baez 3 YEP

Candelario 3 YEP

Baddoo 2.5 YEP

Greene 2 YEP

Grossman 2 YEP

Cabrera -1 I THINK PROBABLY ZERO

Haase 1 YEP

Hill .5 YEP

H. Castro .5 YEP

 

Rodriguez 3 YEP

Mize 2 I'm thinking 3

Skubal 2.5 YEP

Manning 1.5 YEP

5th starter 1 YEP

Alexander 1 YEP

Fulmer 1.5 YEP

Cisnero 1 YEP

Soto 1 YEP

Funkhouser .5 YEP

Lange .5 YEP

Foley .5 NO OPINION

Jiminez .5 MAYBE

Edited December 3, 2021 by sabretooth

[sabretooth]

For some reason, I could not place text outside of the box above.....overall, I think you are on target....the bullpen as a whole (including bad/negative-WAR relievers) was 3.5 in 2021, and I think it will be about the same in 2022.

I would bump up Mize from 2 to 3, and Miggy from -1 to Zero....

Overall, I think we agree that the aggregate WAR will be about 37 or so, good for about 85 wins as a team.

[gehringer_2]

9 minutes ago, sabretooth said:

For some reason, I could not place text outside of the box above.

yeah - I've seen that. I think if you insert a quote and then delete the entry cursor - for instance you put in a sentence and then delete it all the way back the beginning, you lose the cursor out side the quote box permanently, even though you can still edit in the quote box. The way out is to ctl-Z to reverse the deletion you made. Then edit what you want but sure not to delete the entry point again.

Edited December 3, 2021 by gehringer_2

[AlaskanTigersFan]

On 12/1/2021 at 7:13 PM, casimir said:

I don't think he's trash.  But let's be honest.  Outside of June, his 2021 was rather meh.

I like Schoop. Don't get me wrong. But he's not a top 15 second basemen in the league..... And he's our 2nd best hitter on our team now. And we are ready for the playoffs? Oof. I want to be optimistic. But let this marinate for a second and honestly tell me you disagree....... 

 

Our pitching is lightyears ahead of our hitters any day. Our only prayer is Torkelson and Greene come up and don't act like Jared Kelenic which very well could happen. Then we'll have 3 decent hitters (Tork, Greene, Baez) and 2 Meh hitters in our lineup (giving Grossman some love just cause of his OBP). Tough to be in the playoffs with 5 hitters and 4 black holes.....