gehringer_2 Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 Just now, buddha said: i mean, it was for nick quintana, another great al avila second round pick who is now 24 in A ball. heck, as bad as barnhart has been, that might be one of avila's better trades! correct. The issue isn't the trade, it's having Barnhart as your #1 catcher when he'd be a fine #2. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
romad1 Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 2 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said: correct. The issue isn't the trade, it's having Barnhart as your #1 catcher when he'd be a fine #2. The question is if Jake Rogers is that #1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mtutiger Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 (edited) 6 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said: correct. The issue isn't the trade, it's having Barnhart as your #1 catcher when he'd be a fine #2. But they really needed a #1... on that level, the trade hasn't worked out. I do wonder if this is another case where Al limited his options by moving too early and pre-lockout... post-lockout, we saw other catchers move in trades (Mitch Garver the most notable). Had he waited, maybe he could have found an alternative. Who knows, it's hard to be counterfactual when the prevailing wisdom was that it was a good move (even among the more impartial beat writers like Stavenhagen). Edited June 23, 2022 by mtutiger Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chasfh Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 7 minutes ago, Tiger337 said: Barnhart's career year was 3.6 in 2017. It really was a career year as he has never come close to that again. However, I feel like catcher WAR is not very meaningful as catchers typically don't hit much and catcher defensive statistics are not very useful. Anyway, if he had a .685 OPS this year, we wouldn't be having this discussion. We'd be blaming other players. Fangraphs has Tucker at 1.1 WAR in 2017. Shows how, to your point, catcher defensive stats are so nascent that two of the top stats site would come out so different on their numbers. FWIW, Statcast is far more down on Tucker’s catching abilities in 2017, especially in pitch framing, than either B-Ref or Fangraphs. As far as I’m concerned, it’s neither here nor there anyway, because 31-year-old Tucker was probably never going to be as good for the Tigers as 26-year-old Tucker was for the Reds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Cowan Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 (edited) 1 hour ago, buddha said: at least avila signed a proven coach He did? When? I missed that. The only "coach" that he has recently signed "won" only one championship with a ridiculously loaded team that openly defied him. That coach would be in Double A right now if Al Avila had not outbid himself to sign him, nobody else would have touched the guy with a 10 foot pole. I rank that among Avila's worst signings, not his best. When Chris Ilich finally removes any real accountability from Al Avila and kicks him upstairs, the hogwash that Avila sold him about Hinch will have been a major factor. Edited June 23, 2022 by Jim Cowan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buddha Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 8 minutes ago, Jim Cowan said: He did? When? I missed that. The only "coach" that he has recently signed won only one championship with a ridiculously loaded team that openly defied him. That coach would be in Double A right now if Al Avila had not outbid himself to sign him, nobody else would have touched the guy with a 10 foot pole. I rank that among Avila's worst signings, not his best. When Chris Ilich finally removes any real accountability from Al Avila and kicks him upstairs, the hogwash that Avila sold him about Hinch will have been a major factor. whose on your list of proven coaches? connie mack, joe torre, tony larussa and john mcgraw? lol. give me a break with the hinch hate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Cowan Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 Just now, buddha said: whose on your list of proven coaches? connie mack, joe torre, tony larussa and john mcgraw? lol. give me a break with the hinch hate. Proven coaches? I honestly can't think of anyone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buddha Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 Just now, Jim Cowan said: Proven coaches? I honestly can't think of anyone. larussa isnt a "proven coach"? dave roberts? joe madden? joe girardi? jim leyland? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Cowan Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 1 minute ago, buddha said: larussa isnt a "proven coach"? dave roberts? joe madden? joe girardi? jim leyland? I don't see any of those guys as being able to elevate the performance of mediocre players. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gehringer_2 Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 I don't so much have a particular problem with anything the Tigers have done since Chris I took over. The complaint is the pace of change has been too slow. If the PD staff needed to be rolled-over, it needed to and should have been done 4 yrs ago. Most of the actions taken individually are fine - but they keep coming too little or too late. The question for C Ilitch is how to jettison Al the tortoise and bring in a hare that doesn't come in wanting to start everything over at square one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoCalTiger Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 4 hours ago, mtutiger said: But they really needed a #1... on that level, the trade hasn't worked out. I do wonder if this is another case where Al limited his options by moving too early and pre-lockout... post-lockout, we saw other catchers move in trades (Mitch Garver the most notable). Had he waited, maybe he could have found an alternative. Who knows, it's hard to be counterfactual when the prevailing wisdom was that it was a good move (even among the more impartial beat writers like Stavenhagen). Cashman got Trevino. Low salary and solid production and very good defender which does not cost 7.5 mil. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dtrain72 Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 Breaking news: Al Avila sucks at his job and Chris Illitch may very well be a functional idiot, more at 11. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chasfh Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 (edited) 8 hours ago, gehringer_2 said: I don't so much have a particular problem with anything the Tigers have done since Chris I took over. The complaint is the pace of change has been too slow. If the PD staff needed to be rolled-over, it needed to and should have been done 4 yrs ago. Most of the actions taken individually are fine - but they keep coming too little or too late. The question for C Ilitch is how to jettison Al the tortoise and bring in a hare that doesn't come in wanting to start everything over at square one. tl;dr: As long as Al Avila delivers on the business goals set forth for him, Chris Ilitch has no reason to either fire him or kick him upstairs. The problem I have with Baby Doc, based on the aggregate of my observations and readings, is that he has appears to me to have no real interest in the game of baseball. Nothing I have seen of interviews of him, articles about him, or even statements from him, show me any real burning desire to put a consistent winner on the field. If sports are important to him at all, I view him as much more of a hockey guy than anything else. Yes, he threw money around this winter, as businessmen seeking a return on investment occasionally do. But just as he almost certainly wouldn’t get involved in franchisee relations or ingredient procurement or lease negotiations, he almost certainly won’t get involved in the baseball operations of the front office, and definitely not in the decisions regarding the field itself. I believe his interest more or less stops at the bottom line for the business unit, and as long as that line shows sufficient year-over-year growth versus goals, I would guess he’s satisfied. And given how exquisitely Baseball has developed and optimized revenue streams from so many varied sources, sufficient year-over-year growth is relatively easy to achieve. I assume Baby Doc recognizes a constituent-facing role for himself on occasion, which requires him to go through the agony of in-booth interviews one game a year and travel to owner’s meetings, but make no mistake, this guy is not now and never will be Steve Cohen. He will never learn the inner workings of this particular business unit enough to make tactical or even strategic decisions at the operations level. That’s why he has Al Avila, after all. Al has executive responsibility to make sure that baseball operations are helping the Sports & Entertainment business unit deliver on the goals set forth for them at the beginning of the year. And to all appearances that is happening, since Al is still in charge of Baseball Operations, despite the ongoing and highly-visible baseball incompetence that has plagued this unit in full view of all of us for years. I will say that the Rosenthal article might fairly be viewed as a shot across the bough. Tycoons love fat bottom lines, but many of them also appreciate how bad PR can threaten those bottom lines, and the article definitely makes the baseball operations unit and its leader look bad. That can represent a threat to future revenue growth for the unit. But given all the different non-game revenue streams feeding baseball these days, it’s hard to imagine them getting into a situation where they lose real, actual money. The bigger threat is leaving money on the table by not delivering on growth goals, which to a tycoon is the same as a losing money. It’s going to be up to Avila and his front office team to manage the media fallout so that this article doesn’t turn into many articles, which could damage public perception that the Detroit Tigers are single-mindedly focused on putting a winner on the field. As long as they can keep the backlash confined to this single article for a while, the baseball operations unit can continue to focus on its own business without interference from above and fear of media mutiny from below. And as long as the bottom line remains fat, everything will be just fine. Edited June 23, 2022 by chasfh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenacious D Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 14 hours ago, buddha said: i mean, it was for nick quintana, another great al avila second round pick who is now 24 in A ball. heck, as bad as barnhart has been, that might be one of avila's better trades! Agree we didn’t give anything up, but doesn’t excuse the fact that he has sucked. We could have pursued someone else that might have been a better contributor. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
romad1 Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 6 hours ago, Dtrain72 said: Breaking news: Al Avila sucks at his job and Chris Illitch may very well be a functional idiot, more at 11. This news been broke Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1984Echoes Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 18 hours ago, Tenacious D said: Perez is money. Might have something there. Wenceel was our 1st foray into actually spending money in the international market instead of spending only low dollars on as many players as we could. Our first high-dollar international signee... I think it was something like $550K. I don't remember spending higher than $125K on any one guy prior to that... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1984Echoes Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 18 hours ago, Tenacious D said: I bought into the Barnhart hype. Foolish me. ??? Barnhart hype? What exactly was that supposed to be? 18 hours ago, chasfh said: Nobody may have expected Barnhart to be at -0.3 fWAR right now, but ... Bottom line: unless Barnhart has some kind of second half surge, this is going to go down as a failed sign. And Buddha is calling this a "failed trade". What are you guys even talking about? There was "Hype" associated with his name? Barnhart is exactly what he was supposed to be: NOTHING but a 1-year stopgap. Nothing more than that. Rogers is out for a year after surgery so we went after a guy who had MLB experience, was good with pitchers, and had a small amount of pop in his bat but a known/ expected low BA. We traded almost "nothing" for him. We need nothing more than 1 year out of him. (This does nothing to answer the future of the position, but that isn't what we traded for). And Barnhart has proven that he is exactly what we traded for: a catcher with MLB experience, good with pitchers, and a crappy bat. What exactly were (sorry for the Jersey here:) you'se guys thinking he was going to provide? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1984Echoes Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 18 hours ago, romad1 said: The question is if Jake Rogers is that #1 That's next year's question, not this year's. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1984Echoes Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 18 hours ago, gehringer_2 said: correct. The issue isn't the trade, it's having Barnhart as your #1 catcher when he'd be a fine #2. And that's not even the issue. The only correct issue here is that we needed a 1-year stopgap MLB catcher. Barnhart probably should be a #2 catcher. But he was a #1 catcher previously, and even if he SHOULD be a #2 catcher, we got him for THIS YEAR ONLY to be a #1 stopgap catcher. Listen (not to just you G2, but addressing this to everyone), there may be a lot of issues with this team, starting with health and a lot of failed expectations... but why is everyone making Barnhart out to be something more than what he is? Pure and simple: a 1 year stopgap. I could care less about Barnhart... I think there are bigger fish to fry... IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
romad1 Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 (edited) 13 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said: And that's not even the issue. The only correct issue here is that we needed a 1-year stopgap MLB catcher. Barnhart probably should be a #2 catcher. But he was a #1 catcher previously, and even if he SHOULD be a #2 catcher, we got him for THIS YEAR ONLY to be a #1 stopgap catcher. Listen (not to just you G2, but addressing this to everyone), there may be a lot of issues with this team, starting with health and a lot of failed expectations... but why is everyone making Barnhart out to be something more than what he is? Pure and simple: a 1 year stopgap. I could care less about Barnhart... I think there are bigger fish to fry... IMO. Quote I think there are bigger fish to fry... IMO. Now this is an episode of River Monsters. Edited June 23, 2022 by romad1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenacious D Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 39 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said: ??? Barnhart hype? What exactly was that supposed to be? And Buddha is calling this a "failed trade". What are you guys even talking about? There was "Hype" associated with his name? Barnhart is exactly what he was supposed to be: NOTHING but a 1-year stopgap. Nothing more than that. Rogers is out for a year after surgery so we went after a guy who had MLB experience, was good with pitchers, and had a small amount of pop in his bat but a known/ expected low BA. We traded almost "nothing" for him. We need nothing more than 1 year out of him. (This does nothing to answer the future of the position, but that isn't what we traded for). And Barnhart has proven that he is exactly what we traded for: a catcher with MLB experience, good with pitchers, and a crappy bat. What exactly were (sorry for the Jersey here:) you'se guys thinking he was going to provide? You either have amnesia or stepped away for a bit, but that trade was hailed as genius when it happened. And most of the talk was that we had our next catcher—not a stopgap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stanley70 Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 52 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said: Wenceel was our 1st foray into actually spending money in the international market instead of spending only low dollars on as many players as we could. Our first high-dollar international signee... I think it was something like $550K. I don't remember spending higher than $125K on any one guy prior to that... The first international guy that received a million was Danrys Vazqez in 2010. Wilken Ramirez got close to that as well a few years earlier. Both were busts. Most years they spread the money around like you said though. AA entered pro baseball with the Marlins overseeing the international operations with the Marlins. His dad was a long time scout with the Dodgers. AA was there when Florida signed Miggy. The fact that they have been so bad on international signings with has background underscores his ineptitude. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1984Echoes Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 17 minutes ago, Tenacious D said: ... but that trade was hailed as genius when it happened. And most of the talk was that we had our next catcher—not a stopgap. Maybe I was reading other articles but I never saw either one of those: That AA was a genius or that he (Barnhart) was expected to be anything other than a 1-year stopgap. My own expectations, starting from when Rogers went in to Tommy John, and have never changed since that time, were that we need only a 1-year stopgap to get back to Rogers after he recovers. Barnhart certainly was not someone taht was going to change that for me. And I'm pretty certain I argued that on the old board... "Barnhart's a crappy option, but we only need him for one year." It doesn't take a whole lot of research on, like, you know, the internet, to see that Barnhart is a 31 year old "meh" catcher not any different than as described: a crappy 1-year option just to get by until we get Rogers back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buddha Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 1 hour ago, 1984Echoes said: ??? Barnhart hype? What exactly was that supposed to be? And Buddha is calling this a "failed trade". What are you guys even talking about? There was "Hype" associated with his name? Barnhart is exactly what he was supposed to be: NOTHING but a 1-year stopgap. Nothing more than that. Rogers is out for a year after surgery so we went after a guy who had MLB experience, was good with pitchers, and had a small amount of pop in his bat but a known/ expected low BA. We traded almost "nothing" for him. We need nothing more than 1 year out of him. (This does nothing to answer the future of the position, but that isn't what we traded for). And Barnhart has proven that he is exactly what we traded for: a catcher with MLB experience, good with pitchers, and a crappy bat. What exactly were (sorry for the Jersey here:) you'se guys thinking he was going to provide? chas said it was a "failed signing." i just pointed out that it was a "failed trade" instead of "signing." we gave up nothing to get nothing so is that a "fail"? BUT, as was pointed out by others, we could have gotten something else so maybe it was? barnhart was supposed to be a defense first catcher. i thought it was nothing special at the time and its proven to be nothing special. you can find defense first non-hitting catchers anytime you want. if youre going to deal assets, you might as well get something of value back. barnhart aint much value. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
romad1 Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 Hypothesis: Miggy is loyal to Al and so they won’t make a change until he retires Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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