Lol at the "you want us to spend money but also hate Baez" schtick.....like one bad contract means you should just not spend any more money
I think I would love Harris as the guy running the show if he got the job in 2015 instead of Avila. Organizationally, we're in such a better place to build something sustainable and good. And he's a huge reason for it. Especially in terms of scouting, drafting and developing on the hitting side of things. But Avila happened and I really don't want to wait 2-3 more years for my team to be good again. And hearing him talk makes me think he's fine if that is how this all plays out.
The Avila hiring and the choice to stick with him so long is the crime, and people are right to be mad. I have no issue with people who are frustrated. I stopped following the Tigers mostly during the Avila era b/c it just stunk of the Randy Smith era all over again. Harris really is part of the modern era when it comes to team management. Add in Benetti, and this team is so much more interesting to follow. Casual fans* who have lost their patience or who don't understand how seismic the shift from Avila to Harris will vent and that's fine. I just don't think there is a way around waiting 2-4 more years. There aren't great examples of teams who bought their way out of being devoid of talent, so I don't expect Harris to stray from the plan that Ilitch hired him to execute. There is no guarantee Harris's tenure will work out, but the Tigers now are under leadership that uses the same principles that teams like the Astros, Dodgers, Red Sox, Cubs, Rays, Orioles, Dbacks, etc. used for their recent or current successes. That is such a huge improvement long-term for Tigers baseball. As painfully long as this takes, it's so much better than my adopted hometown's Rockies, who still show no sign of understanding what modern baseball is all about, and probably never will until their owner dies. * By casual fans, I mean those with lives who don't constantly pore over sites like Fangraphs to understand team management philosophy.
I think there's a middle ground there that is reasonable with just a little more aggressiveness. I don't think Juan Soto is necessary, but doing better than Baez, Torkelson and Urshela isn't that hard. I also think we're going to have to sign at least one legitimate mid-rotation or better starter this offseason for real money. I'm not sure there's a way around that at this point.
Looks like a revolving door of pitchers will be deployed here. I'm not sure I've ever seen Hanifee's or Guenther's names before.
Lmao, both the batter and base runner immediately started walking back to the dugout after the pitch too
Fangraphs ranked the acquired prospects during this trade deadline. The Sweeney comment includes a reference to swing path issues. Tigers player development types are likely going to work on those swing path issues, but I'm sure the Dodgers also had good people trying to do that. Even if he's a reserve, having one who is a LH hitter is a lot more versatile in terms of usage than a guy who only hits LH pitchers, especially when they are filling in for an injury. Sweeney had pronounced batting splits in 2023 and 2024, and been much more effective against RHP. Spoiler More detail on his swing from their off-season write-up on Sweeney: This has been the crux of Sweeney’s defensive evaluation at FanGraphs since his draft year, and now we’ve also cooled a bit on his bat. His hands have so much pre-swing movement that we worry he won’t consistently be on time against major league fastballs, and stiffness in Sweeney’s lower half makes it difficult for him to scoop lower pitches. His underlying bat-to-ball performance (like his 8% 2023 swinging strike rate), propensity for airborne contact, and consistently excellent plate discipline is all evidence to the contrary, and it’s plausible adjustments will coincide with the change of scenery. Sweeney tracks pitches very well and check a lot of heuristic boxes (left-handed, performed immediately as a pro despite his small school background) that we tend to like, but he doesn’t have an impact tool or play a premium position well, so he profiles more as a reserve infielder.
Is Chris Illitch gonna show his bitch ass tonight at Comerica, or does he only show up for road series now?
Remember when every game had this type of atmosphere. Even a Monday night. Spend some fucking money Chris and fans will come to the game.
And west michigan is pretty notoriously a pitcher friendly league. Pretty sure a lot of our HS guys especially usually struggle there
my new scouting method is to remove competition entirely from stats and my method tells me Wyatt Langford has never done this in his pro career so it is in fact Langford that is the bust
He was a college guy and got hot there at least, but I'm pretty sure off the top of my head younger guys on our team who went through there all sucked (Meadows, Greene, Perez). Like I think all sub .700 ops and I think even sub .650 ops. Went and verified Greene had a .630 ops in WM, Meadows was .620 and .608 in his 2 years there. Wenceel was .613 and .661.
The context is different for all these guys and makes it really hard to compare. Greene went to West Michigan in his draft year when he was 18 (he was also probably tired lol!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). Meadows had massive swing flaws that the org couldn't fix until Avila finally hired Garko and they started fixing it in year 5. Perez didn't hit more than 4 HR in a season in the minors until his 6th year in the organization. I'm excited for Clark and McGonigle and not saying you're wrong. Just adding the context of why it's hard to compare them to each other. Especially Greene, whose circumstances were really weird.
I don't care enough to do advanced research, but my grand parents have lived in GR and I've been going to whitecaps games a few a season since i was a kid and I feel like pitching stats were always inflated and hitters usually struggled. Although most that time they were low a and it was a lot of guys first time with wood bats
It definitely has a reputation as a pitcher's park, and the Midwest League has that rep as a league. The age thing also matters when talking low A/high A. Playing in a bigger park in colder weather to start the season at that age is a variable most took into account. I think both Clark and McGonigle are ultimately closer to Greene than they are the other two, who had massive flaws at that age. Greene almost certainly would have started the 2020 season in WM if not for COVID, and based on how the reports were back then + the stats he put up the following season at much higher levels (AA and AAA), I am guessing he would have shredded low A ball in WM in a similar or bigger way than Clark and McGonigle did in Lakeland.
Would be nice if any of these Tork HRs down in Toledo came off a pitch that wasn't either a hanger or nothing FB sitting middle/middle