Tiger337

I am pretty sure you'll blame it on Avila

Neither is any worse than Jim Rice, but he is one of the poorest choices.

I don't doubt his self-confidence, but he hasn't made any really big moves since he's been in Detroit and I don't believe he did a lot of that before Detroit. Making a big splash is not his style and we don't really know how good he would be at the negotiation part of trading. Being smart about player evaluation doesn't necessarily mean you will be equally good at making a blockbuster deal happen.

This is how I feel. Mid-market teams get limited opportunities to win championships. When you've got a chance to do that, you've got to go for it. We don't don't know how long that's going to take to happen again if they trade Skubal. Collecting prospects so that you can get another chance in three years might not work. We don't even know if the prospects they do receive will pan out.

yup, if you don't put Bonds and Clemens in then you can't put Otiz in. Pudge and Bagwell are a little different in that nothing was proven. Kent doesn't belong regardless.

Kent is more like Kinsler than guys like Grich and Whitaker.

I think they are comparable and that BYU has as much right to complain as Notre Dame. But they are BYU, so nobody cares.

They are a better team now than they were then now that their young QB has grown up and their offense is on fire, but you are right. The regular season counts and they lost head to head. In fact, one of the things I like about NCAA football is that it's the only major sport where you have to excel during the regular season to make the playoffs. Now, I don't really think they put Miami in because they beat Notre Dame head to head. The committee poll had Notre Dame ahead of Miami in recent polls because Miami had some bad losses and aren't a great team. I believe they flipped it at the end because they wanted to put an ACC team in there and it wasn't going to be Duke. If Virginia had beaten Duke, then I think Miami doesn't make it. There was a legit case for Miami over Notre Dame though.

Very true, they've got 64 teams in baseketball and everybody still bitches.

I'm used to getting screwed as a Tigers fan...I thought that wouldn't happen to my new favorite sports team. Oh well.

They were loaded with superstars under Dombrowski and still didn't win one, so I don't know that the correlation is that strong. I would say since they only have one, they need to keep him because they probably won't even make the playoffs without him. I also don't think trading him is necessarily just a matter of player performance value coming and going. The Tigers just made the playoffs two years in a row after a really long and ugly drought. It seems that trading your only star at this time will potentially alienate a lot of people from fans to teammates to potential free agents.

Not actually killing it if you know how to recognize BS, but that's a skill not everyone has. Maybe even the majority don't have it.

Without getting into topics we can't discuss here, the whole country is like that now.

AI has killed the internet. As expected, it's being used as a way to make money, not to make informatiion better.

The Tigers are apparently interested Brad Keller...as a starter.

Avila was likeable but inept, whereas Smith was an inept douchebag.

It's no secret. There are no guarantees, especially with pitchers. However, the pitchers who you think are going to be good this year usually require long-term contracts. So, you want to get guys with high probabilities of giving you multiple seasons.

I don't see the disagreement. I am using "5th starter" as a euphemism for useful substitute pitchers you don't want to rely on all year. You need guys like that to get through a season. I definitely want them to also add someone like Ranger Suarez who they they should be able to reliably plug into the rotation for multiple years.

Thanks. FanGaphs says no optons remaining, although they are not always right. I suspect this might be a Margot type deal where there is an automatic consent. Given that there is a club option to retain him for 2027, it would seem that they don't want to risk losing him and I also don't think Harris would want to pencil him onto the 26-man roster at this point. On the other hand, if other teams were interested in him, it might have been more difficult to get that consent.

What they need is three of four fifth starters that can be used when the inevitable injuries occur. If he can be one of them, then great. If he can be better than that, then that's even better, but he seems like a long shot. I hope there are better options going into Spring Training.

Maybe he is our de facto Rule 5 guy then. I think I am going to get Edmanned for the second straight day.

I believe he can still play in the minors. I am sure Edman will tell us. He is smarter than AI.

I think Flaherty, Mize, Olson and Melton have much better shots and hopefully they'll add to that. If Anderson is being regarded as anything more than a 7th or 8th starter right now, that would be disappointing. He had some impressive stats last year in the equivalent of AA or AAA, but has a poor track record in the US.

By opening day. I want them to be a better team next year than they were this year. Otherwise, keep Skubal.

Scott Harris coming into the Winter Meetings HOT!