sabretooth

Very good point.

Yeah he was smoking for a couple of weeks but he looked terrible tonight at the plate.

And now Manning has "arm fatigue" after a season where he has thrown a total of 85 innings in the minors/majors. Last year he threw 127 total innings. 202 innings over two years and he has "arm fatigue". I know eveybody wants to keep harping on the hitting, and it's got big holes, but IMHO we are in far worse shape with the starting pitching for the foreseeable future than any other part of this team/minors/organization. SLOT 1: Eduardo Rodriguez has NEVER been anything remotely approaching reliable in his career to-date, and has only exceeded 157 IP once (2019), and in 2021 and 2022 combined his ERA is about 4.50. I would cite his lower FIP in 2021 but his strikeouts are **so** far down in 2022 that I wonder what level of pitcher he may be in 2023 if healthy. You hope for 25 starts, 150 IP, and an ERA below 4.5. SLOT 2: Matt Manning has only pitched 150 innings in the MLB, has battled arm problems, will be 25 years old in 2023, and now has experienced arm fatigue after a fairly light workload this year. Can he even make it to 20 starts and 100 IP next year or any year? His stuff looks good now, but if he cannot stay on the hill, it wont matter. You hope for 20 starts and a repeat of the below-4 ERA. SLOT 3: Add one good SP FA for 30 starts, hopefully an ERA below 4. SLOT 4: you hope that the group of Wentz, Skubal, Turnbull, and Mize in 2023 can cover one spot worth of starts (30-35), but their collective ERA will likely be around or above 4.50 as they test out their recoveries. SLOT 5 AND EXTRA: Even if the above hoped-for start totals manifest themselves, that would still leave about **55-60 starts** for the AAAA gang (Hutch, Hill, Alexander, Brieske, Norris, Faedo, R. Garcia, etc.) with ERAs collectively above 5. The above would weight-average to around a 4.5+ ERA for the SPs, which would be what they did this year, good enough for the bottom 10 in the MLB. Add another good SP for 30 starts and an ERA around 4, to replace 30 starts from the worst of the SLOT 5 guys (with ERAs around 5.5), and you could drop the rotation's ERA by 0.25 - 0.30, good enough to save 30+ runs, 3-4 WAR. If we wind up getting two FA SPs and we get **really lucky** health/performance wise, we would have chips to trade for better position players. I don't see them signing more than one FA SP for 2023, but again I say they will likely be forced by events to bring in at least two outside SPs in the next two offseasons in order to build a winning team.

HR by Cabrera = 600 at-bats next year /sarcasm

I fully expect that this new FO will not be keeping guys just to keep them or getting rid of guys just because they had a bad year either....alternatives should be weighed and all I want is the best team on the field in 2023 that doesn't harm our ability to build the best team for 2024 and so on. If the FO can't do the above then Harris will have failed at his basic function. I believe he will perform this function well. The only thing I am not sure about with Harris (or any GM not named Theo) is whether he can get Chris to put up the $$ for a league-average payroll. I'm leaning towards "yes" but I have to see it to believe it.

If we got 4 WAR out of Schoop and Candy in 2023 I would be happy enough with that. Then they can leave 🙂

I disagree.....Candy has had two very good periods (July - 150 OPS+ over 75 PAs, and the period of 8/24 to the present - 133 OPS+ over 79 PAs) where he's been excellent, whereas... ....Schoop has had only one decent-ish 30 day period all year from May 10 - June 9 (109 OPS+), and otherwise has sucked, except I guess for a recent 30 at-bat period where he has had 4 EBH, making him suck with a bit of power for a change. If Schoop keeps doing this for the next week and a half that would be better than horrible, but it would still constitute a rotton and terrible season with only a modest "bump" in the waning days if that were the case. Candy has had a history of off-again/on-again hitting, so it wouldn't surprise me at all to see him have a decent or even very good 2023 with the bat (120 OPS+) and be a 1.5 - 2.5 WAR player, but I'm not expecting that. I'm **expecting** average-ish with the bat (100 - 105 OPS+) and below average with the glove, 0.5 - 1.0 WAR if he were to play regularly. Schoop on the other hand looks like toast, but I think he *could* bounce back. I am only hoping at this point that he's still excellent with the glove and bounces back to being Brandon Inge circa 2009 - 2010 (87 - 93 OPS+, 1.3 - 1.6 WAR), decent if below average with the bat, above average to excellent with the glove.

Yeah, I still like wins even at a time like this.

Hopefully Burks is back and healthy when expected.

His 2011 was one of the greatest hitting-years by a catcher ever....age 24....and he was only above average hitting-wise one other time (2017). He was the Miguel Andujar of Catchers in terms of hitting.

I completely agree with this plan, its what I would really love to see, especially if its Correa. I would also not mind if they cut Candy, get him on a minimum 1 year deal, and stash him at Toledo just in case.

Woooooow. Just wow. What the hell.

You couldn't trade Miggy for a double cheeseburger... ...'cause he already ate it

Candy has shown some signs of life in the second half with a good July and September, sandwiched around an awful August. He's probably not a solution to anything but if they can have him around in 2023 for cheap in case he figures it out again, that would be fine. Schoop has had 2 BB, 2 singles, 2 doubles, and 2 HR in his last 28 PA....that's not good but it's a better than horrible for a short stretch. All we need out of him is the Brandon Inge reboot version circa 2009-2010....87 and 93 OPS+, good defense, 1.3 and 1.6 WAR. I give it a 50/50 chance.

Jamaal had a great game. The running game continues to be way way way better than anything I've seen in 45 years of watching Lions football except for Barry and of course Sims....that leaves another 30+ years that this running game is beating by a mile. And thats with a plug and pray OL and the backup RB yesterday. This FO and Coaching staff has already been a huge success based solely on the running attack,l.

I go back and forth on Schoop.....cannon arm, versatile defender, and up until 5 minutes ago, a plus hitter of the Jhonny Peralta line. Either he's totally done as a player (possible) or he's going to be a valuable piece as a plus+ defender and a guy with at least a decent if below average bat. 4 days out of the week I feel like it's the latter case.

It seems that Hinch and Fetters wild success with the bullpen would be attractive to relievers who need to revive or improve themselves. I think you're right that it's only "decent" so far because we haven't seen a successful development pipeline, especially for starters. Hinch and Fetters have so far done amazing work plugging guys in to fill 162 starts this year, but there aren't any developmental success stories on the starting pitching side to-date, Turnbull's promising developments last year, and Skubal's excellent first couple of months of 2022 notwithstanding. Manning is starting to look promising, Mize was doing OK before he blew out his arm, and if you squint at Wentz you can see something, but otherwise for 2023 it's all AAAA guys with mediocre stuff and peripherals. The younger prospects like Flores and Madden who are a couple of years away would hopefully bear the fruits of improved development techniques. Seems to this uneducated viewer that the next phase of development has to be to figure out how to maintain healthier arms. I have no idea whether pitchers who might come here would care about the injuries here (probably not, it seems to be a problem league-wide), but if a team could be viewed as a place where you can improve and succeed **and** they have a better way to keep you healthy and on the mound, I would think that would be at least a modest plus factor in recruiting and signing Free Agents in addition to the $$$.

Pretty much

Yep, thats the plan. Hopefully Ivey and Cade can also shoot well enough to keep defenses off balance.

I dunno, I dont think that any of these guys individually are the problem if they are in a proper support role. Any or all of the pitchers you mentioned can go. I dont mind if they have one of the Castros on the bench, as long as neither are starting.

Your red-hot opinion counts for something

Hate to say it, a real SOL loss.

Hughes and 24 are the goats. The bad kind.

Hughes with the disappearing act

Where the eff did our coverage go