What they're doing is the kind of thing that creates better depth in the upper minors. They're claiming guys and then DFAing a bunch of them weeks later because most teams don't have room on the 40 man. Most of them have ended up passing through. Teams have done this with a decent number of our guys over the years. I can't remember Al doing it once.
I'm surprised we haven't hired a GM yet. Haven't seen reporting on it, really. Would think they would want someone in place by the start of spring training.
I’m hoping the ballpark looks half way decent with these changes. Leave it to Chris Ilitch to start this in the middle of winter, instead of October. I mean are they taking down the big ass scoreboard wall in right center? Not one single architectural rendering of the park. Probably too expensive.
The Athletic ranked each teams best international signing from the previous decade and it’s sad. Hopefully this go around is better. Detroit Tigers: Gregory Soto The Tigers’ past decade on the international market has been unbelievably dry. Gregory Soto (recently traded to the Phillies) was their only productive big leaguer in a generation of international prospects. Their last true international win was Willy Adames, who signed in 2012. He was traded to the Rays in 2014 and has gone on to post 15.5 bWAR in the majors. — Cody Stavenhagen
Signing 3 guys outside the top 30, that most likely will never make it to the show. Would have thought we would fire the international scout. Maybe we do now that signing period is over.
I've been slowly talking myself into this offseason for us lately. I don't think we're going to be good, but I'm kind of intrigued by the plan with the line-up. We're just going to throw a bunch of bodies at a bunch of different positions and see what happens. The pitchers we added I'm kind of bummed out about and don't really get.
I'm guessing we go into the season with the following mostly set positions... 1B - Torkelson SS - Baez LF - Meadows CF - Greene All the other ones are going to be platoons with a mix of shitty vets and younger guys and they'll see what happens... C - Haase, Rogers, Sands 2B - Schoop, Kreidler, Maton 3B - Maton, Kreidler, Nevin RF - Vierling, Baddoo, Carpenter DH - Cabrera, Carpenter, Meadows Pitching currently looks like... Rodriguez (L) Manning (R) Boyd (L) Lorenzen (R) Turnbull (R) Wentz (L) Brieske (R) Lange (R) Foley (R) Alexander (L) Englert (R) - rule 5 Vest (R) Cisnero (R) That pitching staff looks awful with the hopes of being mediocre until Skubal and some prospects maybe crash the roster mid-season. I don't see it.
This off-season cannot be sold to me as a positive. It's the off-season of a team run by owner who doesn't care
To be clear, I'm not trying to sell the players involved as a positive because I'm not sure they are. Nor am I defending an owner I hate. Point is more I agree with the process. I don't have a ton of faith that the players are the correct ones, but the process is far more in line with modern team building you see from successful orgs than the Dombrowski/Avila method of "these are our 25 guys and let's hope they're all good". In the long term, I think this gives us a better chance of competing considering Mike is dead and we're not solving problems with 9 figure contracts to all stars anymore.
We haven’t discussed the owner of Bally Sports going into bankruptcy but it’ll likely keep Illitch from getting paid for some time. Let’s see how low this payroll can go!
Law put his top 100 out on Monday and ranked Jobe and Jung in the 80s. Kiley McDaniel put his top 100 out today at ESPN and has Colt Keith 75 and Wilmer Flores 90. He's got Christian Santana and Jobe in his honorable mentions.
Maybe it's just because the skill sets are more along the lines of what I like than some of Avila's previous prospect pools, but I think we have more depth in the system than just about any point I can remember in the last 15 years. The top guys aren't there, but this seems like the furthest into a top 15-20 with viable future big leaguers we can go that I can remember. And some of these guys (Jobe, Santana, Pacheco) have reasonably high ceilings.
Or maybe I'm stupid because Keith Law says we have the worst farm system in baseball. That seems a bit extreme to me.
I have zero clue how good or bad our farm system is. I have noticed how it's been sold to us over the years and how it ebs and flows between "being deep" or at least we have "top end talent" (after the top draft picks). I'll believe it when we actually see one of our prospects do something substantial. I'd rather we didn't have one of the lowest payrolls in the game though. Especially considering 1/3 of it is going to Cabrera.
Maybin and Todd Jones added, still Shep... The 2023 Tigers' TV booth again will feature play-by-play man Matt Shepard, and former Tigers slugger Craig Monroe as the lead analyst. Dan Petry will receive the second-most work, and like Monroe will have some stints as a studio host, as well, when he's not in the game broadcast booth. Kirk Gibson returns, again with a relatively light load, joined by Maybin and Jones. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/s...jones-bally-sports-detroit-booth/69866426007/
I see the Tigers beat writers are hard at work hyping up these shit prospects. Have already see articles on Campos and Santana within the past day
I'll buy some stock in Santana. Campos being a bat only guy they paid $3M for and already going through a swing overhaul is some combination of sad and hilarious.
we’ll see. If Santana hits .200 again in low A ball you can pretty much write him off. Can only use the he’s young excuse for so long.
He had a .385 OBP as an 18 year old in full season ball. He's nowhere close to needing to be written off.
For context, Santana was 18 last year in Lakeland (now low A). He turned 19 in November. The average age of position players at that level this year was 21.0. The average age of pitchers was 21.9. And he had a 123 wRC+. We'll see as he goes forward if he can grow into some more pop and hit the ball harder (which is what the recent puff piece was about in the Freep). I don't know if he can. But the approach has been good since he start pro ball, and an underage player posting a .385 OBP is meaningful. Especially if he can reasonably stick at SS.
Harris' coaches and staff undoing Avila era instruction: From Cody Staverhagen's current article for the Athletic: Faedo has already benefited from working with new staffers such as John DeRouin, the Tigers’ rehab pitching coordinator, and new assistant pitching coach Robin Lund. The Tigers are implementing science into their pitching programs more than ever before, thanks largely to Lund’s professorial background. They’ve had Faedo throw at Joker Marchant Stadium with Hawkeye radars monitoring his every movement. They analyzed the results and worked to optimize his mechanics. That, in part, led to Faedo returning to a three-quarters delivery that he abandoned not long after coming to the Tigers organization. “I think it’s more of my natural arm slot,” Faedo said. “They’ve always been like, ‘When did you start trying to raise your arm slot?’ I was like, ‘When I first got here.’ I felt it was one of those things with prior people that I wasn’t throwing correctly … and as a player your like, ‘OK, I have to change, this is what I’m being told.’ “(The new staff) kind of relayed to me that that was incorrect and what I was doing was correct, like the guy that they drafted. Use more of that three-quarters arm slot, play more like an athlete.”
My favorite thing about Spring Training is the new articlesevery day on the Athletic and in the local papers. They're the same articles every year - just with different names - but they're just a pleasant reminder that baseball is back.
This is going to get thrown in my face later in the season when we're the worst team in the league, but... I've kind of talked myself into the idea that we're going to end up being somewhere around .500. Probably wouldn't be that if we played in other divisions, and I think the offense is still going to aspire to be "below average". But here we are.
I just don't see it. Last year everything that could go wrong did, but even bounce back seasons from Baddoo and Tork, a step forward from Greene and a healthier SP rotation (even with Mize already) out, I can't see this team being any better than bad and not sniffing .500