Tiger337

I can see them making one of those Randy Smith era multi-player deals involving major leaguers or major league ready players except I am hoping Harris is a little smarter than Smith and able to steal a useful player.

Sure, he's in the mix. I just have no expectation that he'll succeed. If he does, then great. I don't think he has any meaningful trade value.

Turnbull has barely pitched for three years and he is 30. I don't think about him much.

There is no such thing as an excess of pitching. You can never ever have too much pitching especially now with starters throwing fewer and fewer innings as time goes on. There is such a thing as a shortage of position players and a better supply of pitchers relative to position players.

He was aware. He was just saying what he needs to say to get political points. That all these clowns do.

The social media response might be fun initially, but not so much over time. I could see two different scenarios: (1) They hire a woman who is bad at her job. Woke Twitter protects her because she is woman and calls everybody misogynist if they criticize her. (2) They hire a woman who is good at her job but men never accept her and constantly make sexist remarks.

But, in my example, it knocked two better teams out of contention. So, there was one less team with a chance.

Yes, it was Allyson Footer. She has been doing good work for a long time.

There was a woman who did a couple of games with Dickerson during the summer who I thought was very good. I can't remember her name, but I think she was a writer for the Astros or Rangers. Walden would be a cheer leader like Monroe and would not add any useful analysis.

But you've got the same number of teams making the playoffs every year regardless. So, players are not making more playoff money. I am not even convinced there are more contenders under a structure with smaller divisions. By having an 83-win division winner make the playoffs, all that does is prevent another team from making the playoffs. What if you've got a wild card race where the three best teams are 95 93 and 92 wins and then there are two teams with 87 and 86 wins. Now that 83-win team has knocked two teams out of the race.

I was assuming Tenacious suggested Emily Walden just to stir the pot.

The Harper/Arcia thing has got to be the silliest baseball controversy ever. What happened to the good ole days of Billy Martin and George Brett.

She and Monroe would fit well together.

So, the bigger concern with Greene might be whether he will be at full strength offensively rather than defensively.

I suspect that what big money owners see in a broadcaster is probably the opposite of what I would want, so I wouldn't be concerned if the Tigers got a mid- to low-level broadcaster.

Probably not, but nobody is untouchable in the right deal. Skubal is really good, but also a significant injury risk. Of course, other teams understand that about them which might limit what the Tigers could get in a deal. Thus, it would probably be best to keep him. I just don't like to say "never".

I think players want to play in smaller divisions if the schedules are unbalanced as it means fewer long trips, but there is no advantage to them if the schedules are balanced. Players are highly competive people and given a balanced schedule, I believe they would like to see the most successful regular season teams make the playoffs. I do remember some of them suggesting elimination of divisions in a realignment.

Of course you can't sell a 14th or 15th place team in a league. Those are almost surely awful teams. You should be able to sell a 6th, 7th or 8th place team if you have 6 or more teams making the league playoffs. Just list the teams in order and draw a line at the playoff break point. It's easier to explain that to someone than "our team finished 2nd and the Red Sox finished 5th, but they are going to the playoffs and we are not." Fans only identify place in the division over place in entire league, because that is how it has been presented to them for years. Owners might not like big divisons because many of them have made their fortunes largely by marketing to simpletons. However, the last time they discussed realignment, I remember that a group of players wanted to eliminate divisions because they wanted to assure that the best teams during the regular season made the post-season and they felt (probably correctly) the owners wanted divisions to water down league and make it possible to get into the playoffs cheaply with an inferior team. Players also were not in favor of expanding the playoffs further. So, I hold out some slight hope that the players might make this an important issue in future negotiations, although I understand it will probably just be used as a bargaining chip.

What's going to hapen to him? Can he hit well enough to be a full-time DH? If not, why did they acquire him? Was it because they thought he could learn a position?

Much of that can be simulated based on past results. I think the only think you can't simulate well is the effect of a long layoff.

One thing I would definitely like to see is for them to eliminate divisions. Make the schedules as balanced as possible and just take the top 6 teams (or however many teams the televison networks think are necessary) in each league. There is no need for all the wildcard nonsense unless the schedules are unbalanced.

They could have fewer teams in the playoffs. That would my change in the format which I know won't happen. No, fans and media don't say that an inferior team dominated all year. What they do is twist themselves into pretzels trying to explain why the inferior team won. "They wanted it more", "They were built for the playoffs", etc. Then they will point to something wrong with the more dominant team's roster construction suggesting they were built for the long haul but don't have the talent or character to compete in big games. And they agonize for years viewing them as a failure despite having a great season. I am not accusing people here of doing these things. Most people here are smarter than that.

Martinez/Castellanos would not have been kept forever, just until there were viable replacements. I am not a fan of completely tearing a team down without getting a decent return on your players and being left with a horrible team for years and years. I want to see them try to be reasonably competitive every year.

It's something Bill James came up with a long time ago based on the assumption that all teams are equal with every game having a 50% probaility of a win for each team.