Tenacious D

Meh (apparently)

Yes, isn’t this the proper gauge, since all other hitters are dealing with the same? And it’s not like Briceno and Liranzo are coming out of nowhere. It will be interesting to see if their AFL performance contributes to their inclusion and ranking on Top 100 prospect lists. Agree that the quality of pitching seems to lag the hitters, especially when you consider who the Tigers sent.

Skubal had never thrown more than 150 innings at the big league level, back in ‘21. He only pitched 80 last season. This year, including the postseason, he had 211 IP. And those were max effort. Pretty big jump and impressive that he didn’t show any degradation.

Don’t kill the Nostradamus

Spoiler alert (you’ve been warned) Tigers free agent signings will be: 1B/DH Paul Goldschmidt ($14M/1 yr) OF Tyler O’Neill ($34M/2 yr) SP Jack Flaherty ($88M/4 yrs) RP Pierce Johnson ($14M/2yrs) If you ask nicely, I’ll tell you what the trades will be.

Not an expert on payrolls, but isn’t the Yankees already insane with Judge, Stanton, Cole, Rizzo, LeMahieu, Rodon, etc? Will they take an unlimited salary cap approach?

The Baez debacle should have zero impact on adding a free agent. There were red flags with him when he signed—clearly the worst option of that famous SS class. We signed the absolute worst choice.

He’s not leaving New York. The Mets will drive up his price, and he’ll choose between them and staying with the Yankees.

Is anyone else having difficulty accessing this site intermittently lately? Seems to be happening frequently (at least to me).

Mebbe

I think they’ll want to stay in the area to appeal to the current fan base. Plenty of nearby minor league parks, including Tampa and Lakeland. Just don’t know what the seating capacity is for spring training locations. In theory, you could leverage a couple to provide scheduling flexibility.

Some Briceno and Liranzo love on a recent BA podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/baseball-america/id201539011?i=1000673190412

What’s the story with this? Not familiar.

Bring in Paul Goldschmidt for a season at DH/1B. Lineup could use a RH bat, insurance at 1B and someone who can buy beer for the younger players.

Catchers don’t hit any more, in general. The few that hit well, but provide average to below defense get moved off the position. Liranzo might fall into this.

Dingler, who has 84 career MLB AB’s?

I’m too lazy to do the analysis, but I think evaluating draft performance requires looking at the missed picks—the players you passed on relative to where you picked. Who did the Tigers pass to select Manning, Mize, Tork, etc… As has been previously discussed, it would be disingenuous to second guess the Mize and Tork selections—they were the consensus guys at 1:1. We just got unlucky. I think Avila’s drafts were good, in general. I’d give him a B/B-. His flaws were in the free agent signings and trades, especially when we started unloading salaries upon entering the tank phase of our rebuild.

I’m not worried about bringing in veterans that will provide more offense. Rosters turn over all of the time, and fixing our offense is critical. We still have a flawed lineup, that our pitching and defense were able to mask. If this team wants to turn the corner, they need to upgrade 1B, SS and 3B. Maybe C, but if we upgrade the other spots, we can live with Jake’s bat. I don’t think free agency is the solution at the spots we have—I want nothing to do with Bregman or Adames. They are ready for decline. This will need to be solved via trades. We have the prospect capital to bring in established players.

How exciting. Future is bright, boys!

Congrats fellas on your daily diligence and mostly unwavering support. It’s pretty cool to come here and learn things and make this a shared experience. Couldn’t be happier for all of us to be rewarded with the last two months. Here’s to the offseason and 2025!

How we feelin’?

Us

This feels about right. It’s way too much to expect from Skubal to carry this team. I’m not anticipating a Tigers win, but would love to be wrong. Regardless of the outcome, it was a magical two months and probably changes how the front office might be thinking about accelerating this team’s window in the offseason.

Must win, amirite?