2022-23 Detroit Tigers Offseason Thread

[Dan Gilmore]

I’m going to keep on this. The 2020 season was not a full year. Jeimer got 185 ABs in 2020. Yes, those were high production ABs, but only constitute about a third of a regular “year”.

I am not in the camp that was glad to see him go. If they had paid him the 7 mil to stay, I wouldn’t have been upset. Just quit using the small sample size of 2020 as if it counts the same when throwing out his performance or expectations for the future. 
 

/rant

[mtutiger]

8 hours ago, Jim Cowan said:

I believe in what others have said here.  If Candelario is a $4 million player, let's offer him $4 million.  Let's not put a $7 million hole in our budget just because the alternative is not immediately obvious.

I like this guy, he's smart.

100%. I understand that we are all fans and it isn't our money so, why should we care? But just thinking realistically, teams aren't generally in the business of paying significantly over market value on players. 

I see the other side of the argument as well and it has merit, but ultimately it's just hard to be upset at the Tigers on this one for doing what a lot of other teams likely would have done in this situation from a business sense.

 

Edited December 3, 2022 by mtutiger

[chasfh]

21 minutes ago, Dan Gilmore said:

I’m going to keep on this. The 2020 season was not a full year. Jeimer got 185 ABs in 2020. Yes, those were high production ABs, but only constitute about a third of a regular “year”.

I am not in the camp that was glad to see him go. If they had paid him the 7 mil to stay, I wouldn’t have been upset. Just quit using the small sample size of 2020 as if it counts the same when throwing out his performance or expectations for the future. 
 

/rant

The sample of 2020 gets more weight when combined with the sample of 2021, because of their similar levels. One could reasonably believe there is just as much to question about our 2022 as there is of 2020, given how so many other regulars on the team beyond Jeimer collapsed in the same manner. It’s possible all these individuals collapsed at the same time in some random fashion, and it’s also possible they all collapsed because of failed hitting philosophies (e.g., swing early, swing often) and incompetent coaching (leading players to seek outside help).

[mtutiger]

9 hours ago, HeyAbbott said:

Over 7 seasons, Jemier, has a 7.5 WAR. In 2018 he had a 1.8 WAR, then in 2019 he collapsed to .2 WAR. I would throw out 2020 in any player evaluation due to season length. In  2021 Jemier posts a 4.1 WAR, then in 2022 he posts .8 WAR. His WAR is one good year followed by one poor year. Of his total career, 54 % of that value comes from his 2021 season. There is a great deal of risk to Jemier's production as shown by his high season to season variabilty, with one year being very strong, and the following year being poor.

The lack of consistency no doubt has an impact on his value... 

Reminds me of Jonathan Schoop to an extent, who has more or less ping ponged around the league since leaving Baltimore. Presumably because he's streaky and isn't consistent at the plate

Edited December 3, 2022 by mtutiger

[casimir]

8 minutes ago, Dan Gilmore said:

I’m going to keep on this. The 2020 season was not a full year. Jeimer got 185 ABs in 2020. Yes, those were high production ABs, but only constitute about a third of a regular “year”.

I am not in the camp that was glad to see him go. If they had paid him the 7 mil to stay, I wouldn’t have been upset. Just quit using the small sample size of 2020 as if it counts the same when throwing out his performance or expectations for the future. 
 

/rant

There's more than sample size for the 2020 season.  There was a lot else going on besides the season length that make it so out of the ordinary.  This isn't to suggest everything about 2020 was randomized results.  I think 2020 makes sense in an evaluation if it is a reasonable bridge from 2019 to 2021.  If it is an outlier, it could be that there is already a degree of inconsistency by the subject of the evaluation to begin with.

Taking another look at Candelario specifically, I think its reasonable to assume his 2020 success was likely a hot streak.  His career normal HardH% mid to high 30s% jumped up to 47% and his BABIP of .372 were pretty likely not going to follow for a full 162 game season.  At the same time, his early 2019 was dismal and there was a demotion to Toledo at one point.  Looking at his second half OPS of low/mid .700s then, 2020 was an absolute spike up, and then 2021 was a more normal HardH%, a bit of a high BABIP, it stands to reason that coupled with his age, 2022 was an absolute unexpected clunker from which there could very well be a rebound from in 2023.

I think sports fans love to be too decisive one way or another too much.  I think there's a pretty reasonable debate to either side on whether or not Candelario was brought back.  I think the decision is a lot more gray area than black or white.  The ultimate decision has to be black or white.  It is interesting to me that Harris comes with a reputation of reclamation projects, called out the Tigers' need for a LHH IF, and then Candelario's arbitration $7M price tag is dumped.  It seems curious to me, but its also early in the offseason.

[chasfh]

14 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

100%. I understand that we are all fans and it isn't our money so, why should we care? But just thinking realistically, teams aren't generally in the business of paying significantly over market value on players. Nor is it smart for teams to do that.

It's just hard to be upset at the Tigers on this one for doing what a lot of other teams likely would have done in this situation.

 

I don’t know anyone who’s upset that Jeimer is gone. I thought for a bit there might be a chance we go to arb with him because of his likely bounceback, but I wasn’t at all surprised they sent him packing.

Edited December 3, 2022 by chasfh

[Sports_Freak]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

I don’t know anyone who’s upset that Jeimer is gone. I thought for a bit there might be a chance we go to arb with him because of his likely bounceback, but I wasn’t at all surprised they sent him packing.

I remember one year we let Polanco walk and gave the job to Scott Sizemore. That didn't work out. This year we let our 3rd baseman walk with no player waiting in the wings. Just sign a good defensive LH hitting 3rd baseman who hits .320 with 30 home runs and 120 RBI and I'll be happy. 😆

[casimir]

28 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

I remember one year we let Polanco walk and gave the job to Scott Sizemore. That didn't work out. This year we let our 3rd baseman walk with no player waiting in the wings. Just sign a good defensive LH hitting 3rd baseman who hits .320 with 30 home runs and 120 RBI and I'll be happy. 😆

Back when we were all so young and innocent.

[gehringer_2]

46 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

I remember one year we let Polanco walk and gave the job to Scott Sizemore. That didn't work out. This year we let our 3rd baseman walk with no player waiting in the wings. Just sign a good defensive LH hitting 3rd baseman who hits .320 with 30 home runs and 120 RBI and I'll be happy. 😆

Placido was a head scratcher. Sure he was getting old for 2B but he still put in two more decent years. Maybe he was demanding more years than the Tigers would offer, but he took one year in the end from Philly. 

[HeyAbbott]

3 hours ago, chasfh said:

If mediocre is 1.1 WAR, and then Jeimer is on balance better than mediocre, not sub-mediocre, because his recent three-year average is worth better than 1.1 WAR over year, plus he is projected to be better than 1.1 WAR by all available measures so far, and that makes sense to me.

All that aside, I would agree that 2022 was sub-mediocre by any definition.

For his seven years Jemier should be at 7.7 WAR , but I think the variability and 2022 are telling. I respectfully agree to disagree with you.

This entire discussion has been informative in that it has provided insight into how members of the board view risk versus reward. It has been like a SWOT analysis conducted in a graduate level management class. Some of us seem to think the strengths of keeping Jemier outweighed the weaknesses. Some of us don't. Some of us seem to think that the opportunities of keeping Jemier outweigh the threats. Some of us don't. What this discussion actually reveals is how each of us answer the question, "What is a reasonable amount calculated risk to assume?"

Edited December 3, 2022 by HeyAbbott
removal of dangling clause

[HeyAbbott]

3 hours ago, mtutiger said:

100%. I understand that we are all fans and it isn't our money so, why should we care?

 

 

All resources are finite. A waste of resources ( such as the signing Jordan Zimmerman back in the day), no matter who is wasting them, impacts the ability of a team to move forward on other choices later. I can be worth 3 billion dollars, but not all of that is in cash, and given contractual outflows I have, cash availability can be more restrictive than it appears.

Edited December 3, 2022 by HeyAbbott

[chasfh]

2 hours ago, Sports_Freak said:

I remember one year we let Polanco walk and gave the job to Scott Sizemore. That didn't work out. This year we let our 3rd baseman walk with no player waiting in the wings. Just sign a good defensive LH hitting 3rd baseman who hits .320 with 30 home runs and 120 RBI and I'll be happy. 😆

So will Useful Idiot!

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, HeyAbbott said:

For his seven years Jemier should be at 7.7 WAR , but I think the variability and 2022 are telling. I respectfully agree to disagree with you.

This entire discussion has been informative in that it has provided insight into how members of the board view risk versus reward. It has been like a SWOT analysis conducted in a graduate level management class. Some of us seem to think the strengths of keeping Jemier outweighed the weaknesses. Some of us don't. Some of us seem to think that the opportunities of keeping Jemier outweigh the threats. Some of us don't. What this discussion actually reveals is how each of us answer the question, "What is a reasonable amount calculated risk to assume?"

What it really comes down to is what Jeimer is likely to deliver in 2023. Some people here appear to believe he’s done done even though he’s still short of his 29th birthday. Others believe as I do he is likely to recover to at least a two-win level this year. I’m not sure how many here believe he’s capable of being a two-win player but simply don’t want him on the team under any circumstances, or more perplexingly to me, for a relatively small salary such as $7 million, which is an absolute bargain for two WAR.

If you believe Jeimer is done done, that’s fine, it’s an opinion anyone is welcome to. If you think he can’t be even replacement level anymore because of his early career numbers, and/or because of his variability in results, that’s a fair in-bounds opinion for any fan to have. I respectfully agree to disagree with both of those.

I don’t think anything Jeimer did from 2016 through 2019 has any bearing on how he’ll do in 2023, which is why I focused on the recency of 2020-22 instead. Barring career collapse, players are more likely to perform more closely to their recent numbers than to the numbers they started their careers with X years ago.

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

What it really comes down to is what Jeimer is likely to deliver in 2023. ..

I guess the other thing that worries me in Jeimer's 2021 is that a chunk of his performance is doubles, and doubles can be a really noisy stat - there is just a lot of luck getting balls down the line and his doubles rate that season is an outlier that stands in opposition of other peripherals like his K rate which were more stable. Conversely, the fall-off in his walk rate from a pretty steady career average in '22 was  worrisome.

I think you can look at Jeimer's last two seasons and draw any conclusion you want and provide reasonable justification. What we don't know is the inside information of what he may have been trying to do/coached to do approach wise and how that may argue in his favor or not, or as noted before, if there was or wasn't any nagging physical issue that the team understood but was never public.

Edited December 3, 2022 by gehringer_2

[chasfh]

2 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

What we don't know is the inside information of what he may have been trying to do/coached to do approach wise and how that may argue in his favor or not, or as noted before, if there was or wasn't any nagging physical issue that the team understood but was never public.

Right, which would help me understand why it made sense to let Jeimer go. It would make sense to let him go if we have designs on a better third baseman through free agency or trade; or he has a chronic injury issue; or he's a clubhouse problem of some sort; or if proprietary internal projections belie the current public projections and they determine that he is indeed a sub-one-win player, or even completely toast. If any of those apply, then OK, I totally get letting him go.

What wouldn't make sense to me is that the Tigers determine that he is a good bet to recover to being a two-plus-win player next year, but they let him go because the fan base was calling for his head, or worse, they just didn't want to spend the $7 million, a paltry sum for a two-win player, in arbitration.

[Tenacious D]

Let me help you make sense of the decision not to give Jeimer a raise: .217 batting average and .633 OPS. Pretty sure that Zach Short could give us that.

You guys are like a bunch of millennials who expect a participation trophy for each of our players.  Personally, I don’t want to sit through another bullshit season with the same group of underperformers.  

[mtutiger]

4 hours ago, HeyAbbott said:

All resources are finite. A waste of resources ( such as the signing Jordan Zimmerman back in the day), no matter who is wasting them, impacts the ability of a team to move forward on other choices later. I can be worth 3 billion dollars, but not all of that is in cash, and given contractual outflows I have, cash availability can be more restrictive than it appears.

Just to add to this, putting resources on a position player also takes their position off the board. In Jeimer's case, tendering him likely means you aren't in the market to acquire another (possibly longer term) 3B option in this offseason.

We have spent a lot of time on the risk side of the coin, the idea that non-tendering Jeimer risks leaving the position to someone worse for 2023. But what happens, hypothetically, if the Tigers manage to swing a trade or acquire someone who ends up being a longer term option at the position? In that case, that's likely something that doesn't happen if you tender Jeimer.

*That's* calculated risk... tendering Jeimer is the safe move, and is even defensible to a degree. But the downside is that, assuming he was always just a placeholder, is that you pull yourself out of consideration for trying to improve for the longer term at the position in this offseason.

Edited December 3, 2022 by mtutiger

[Dan Gilmore]

It’s not binary Chas- either done done (whatever that means statistically) or two-plus-war. I think he could very well fall somewhere in the middle, with a war between .7 and 1.5. The former, not worth keeping, the latter, kinda maybe.

Since he had his best year after the greatly reduced workload in 2020, maybe he does have nagging issues that subside when he gets ton of rest and rehab.

Guess we’ll see what the future holds.

[casimir]

I’m sure it’s a long shot, but Brian Reynolds has requested a trade out of a Pittsburgh.  He has 3 more seasons of control through what should be his prime seasons and that’s an organization that can make mistakes.  I don’t know what Scott Harris is doing right now, but I’d hope he’s chatting up the Pirates about how he has some quality pieces to move.

[mtutiger]

1 minute ago, casimir said:

I’m sure it’s a long shot, but Brian Reynolds has requested a trade out of a Pittsburgh.  He has 3 more seasons of control through what should be his prime seasons and that’s an organization that can make mistakes.  I don’t know what Scott Harris is doing right now, but I’d hope he’s chatting up the Pirates about how he has some quality pieces to move.

I saw that earlier, he would be a great fit here imo

[Tenacious D]

I’ll bet our 3B is someone we haven’t even considered yet, like a DJ LeMaheiu-type veteran that we get in a salary dump trade, where we don’t need to give up much, or get a nice prospect in the package.  

[chasfh]

2 hours ago, Tenacious D said:

Let me help you make sense of the decision not to give Jeimer a raise: .217 batting average and .633 OPS. Pretty sure that Zach Short could give us that.

You guys are like a bunch of millennials who expect a participation trophy for each of our players.  Personally, I don’t want to sit through another bullshit season with the same group of underperformers.  

lol I’m a millennial 

If all you want out of third base is Zach Short, that’s your prerogative.

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, Tenacious D said:

I’ll bet our 3B is someone we haven’t even considered yet, like a DJ LeMaheiu-type veteran that we get in a salary dump trade, where we don’t need to give up much, or get a nice prospect in the package.  

We already have a nice prospect for third base. I would like a solid starter who’s good for two wins. 

Edited December 4, 2022 by chasfh

[chasfh]

2 hours ago, Dan Gilmore said:

It’s not binary Chas- either done done (whatever that means statistically) or two-plus-war. I think he could very well fall somewhere in the middle, with a war between .7 and 1.5. The former, not worth keeping, the latter, kinda maybe.

Since he had his best year after the greatly reduced workload in 2020, maybe he does have nagging issues that subside when he gets ton of rest and rehab.

Guess we’ll see what the future holds.

Of course you’re correct, it’s not done done or two. It could be 0.7, it could be 1.5, it could be -0.4, or 2.3, or 3.8, or 6.1 with some MVP votes. I’m aware projections are not guarantees. But they do reflect likelihood, and negotiated contracts reflect compensation for likelihood of performance based on projections, and not for what players did the previous year. You pays your money and you takes your chances.

It’s possible Washington got a steal in Jeimer, but it could definitely go upside down on them, too. 

[Tenacious D]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

We already have a nice prospect for third base. I would like a solid starter who’s good for two wins. 

DJ had over 3.0 last year.  He’d more than make up for Candelario.