Longgone

9 hours ago, Jason_R said:

Sorsdal was a miss but I don't hold it against Holmes for missing on a 5th round guard. Martin was a head scratcher. So was Hooker for that matter. 

But these Rams guys have a knack for uncovering late round WR talent. And Holmes has earned the right to trust his gut in finding undervalued players. 

Why is Hooker a miss? Seems like a solid backup for a 3rd rounder 

1 minute ago, Motown Bombers said:

I don't think it's the players, it's the value that was traded for them. 

Holmes looks throughout the draft and if he has conviction on a olayers he goes and gets him. That’s what makes him successful, not playing games with value. He’s not going to hit on every player, that’s not reasonable.

8 hours ago, chasfh said:

Almost certainly not how the Tigers wanted him to approach it. Because that’s how he was approaching it for his three seasons with the team, and we all saw how much viscerally helped him.

I think it’s more likely that someone had a CTJ talk with Tork, something clicked, he buckled down to review the info, made the adjustments that he made, and improved his approach and results; than that the team said you know what, we’re use gonna leave you alone and let you figure it out by yourself, he made his adjustments all by himself, and improved his approach and results.

They didn’t “leave him alone”, they were in agreement with what he needed to work on, and he worked on it. 

41 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

This was the quote the media and some fans picked up on;

 

"As well as the usual database of video of each players’ at-bats and cage work, the Tigers have invested a small fortune in high speed cameras, motion and bat tracking systems, force plates to track balance and weight transfer throughout the swing, and much more. As he told reporters on Wednesday, Torkelson isn’t particularly interested in knowing all that information in detail.

“That’s not me. That’s not the way I roll. I’m pretty old-school in the fact that, you know, that felt good. the ball flight looked good. That must’ve worked.”

https://www.blessyouboys.com/2025/2/14/24365162/detroit-tigers-news-spencer-torkelson-spring-training-preview

Nowhere does that say he is not changing or working on anything, only that he wants to approach it more viscerally and not so analytically. 

13 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

I think he was already working on his stance and swing but got SO tired of the media questions that he just blew them off by saying he wasn't changing. ML players don't make this big of a change and have this much success in a couple of weeks, more like a couple of months 

He never said he wasn’t changing anything. He said it wasn’t his swing that was the problem, it was other things. Totally misinterpreted.

22 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

His stance is noticably different... He was much more upright previously, now he's a bit more hunched over and in a more athletic position before each pitch.

I do think the Gleyber Torres signing was a come to Jesus for him... I'm just glad he woke up and appears to be getting there, he's too good a hitter to let go and see blossom somewhere else

He knew what he needed to work on, the Tigers knew, and he worked on it. This crap about him being resistant to change is just that.

2 minutes ago, IdahoBert said:

I don’t really care if they win or not because it’s just spring training, but I really do care and it bugs me when they lose. I wish I had an attitude of serene detachment, but I don’t.

Serenity Now!

15 minutes ago, RandyMarsh said:

I guess you'd have to define unrealistic, A guy who's had 1 good year in his career suddenly hitting 50 hrs which only a tiny fraction of baseball players ever do is unrealistic to me. 

 

? He’s only 25 and he’s only had the one full year. Lots of players struggle for the first few years in mlb. They either make the necessary adjustments or they don’t, remains to be seen.

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

lol, oh really?

I have directed nothing toward you, the person—I even said you'd made a good point about Tork—and yet you are offended by my opinion and are taking it very hard, and weirdly personally, and insulting me in the process. I guess trying to make sense of that is also a fool's errand.

Look, we can stop here and part friends if you want. I'd rather, if you don't mind.

Okay, if I have to, I’ll admit I actually believe you can feel shame, and we can be friends as long as you promise not to be irritating, ever again.

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

Just can’t quit me, huh? 🤣

Well, first of all, I was not “acting as if pure assumptions are fact.” My post was littered with qualifiers such as “I suppose”, “I think”, and “I believe”. If I was stating something as though it were fact, I wouldn’t have used any of those qualifiers.

Secondly, you’re not going to succeed at shaming me for spouting my opinion on an Internet opinion board, so you might as well stop trying to do that and go back to talking about the Tigers instead. 😁

I was more expressing my irritation at the gratuitousness of it, rather than an attempt to shame you, which I know is a fool’s errand.

6 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Maybe people mis-apply an analogy to football here. Everyone on a football team uses film to learn what the opposing team does tactically, but baseball isn't football. In baseball taking and watching video is what you pay coaches and your bio-med people to do. If they see something that can help a hitter they take it to him. There is no value in requiring players to become kinesiologists - adding non-performance based requirements to your player selection criteria just reduces the pool of good players you give yourself access to and I'm sure AJ and Scott Harris know that well.

I’m talking more about taking a few random interview quotes and then building an elaborate fantasy universe filled with projected motivations and then acting as if pure assumptions are fact.

I know, it’s the internet.

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

That’s some good dancing around Tork’s comments by A.J. Astaire. 😁

I suppose it’s possible that what Tork meant by “I don’t watch video” was actually “I do watch video but I get in my own head about it and it sometimes messes me up”. But I think it’s at least as likely that he meant what he said, and management got to him and said, you cannot say this kind of thing, especially if you want us to find a spot for you on our bench in Detroit versus riding the bus in Toledo, or at least get another team interested in you so you can get a fresh start starting someplace else, which I would bet both parties would prefer at this point. Because I don’t think the org wants to torpedo Tork’s career or anything like that. Far from it, I believe. He’s been around for years, they know him, they’ve invested time and treasure in him, and I think they’d like him to succeed somewhere, if not here. Preferably in the National League, I would assume.

Either way, there’s no way the Tigers could let Tork just lip off about how he prefers to avoid video—and by implication, analytics in general—and let his comments just sit out there for the other, especially younger, guys themselves to ruminate on. The org had to get out in front of the comments and control the narrative on that, so they could keep all their players’ hearts and minds dedicated to the program versus questioning its value.

This has gone beyond the absurd to the ridiculous 

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

Everything we say in a Tigers forum is both pointless, in that it will not affect anyone's decision-making, and speculation, in that none of us are on the inside and have no real knowledge as to what's going on beyond what we have read. As such, this entire forum and all of its sub-forums is practically 100% pointless speculation.

In that spirit, your insistence that everything is fine with how Tork is approaching his job is also pointless speculation. In fact, it's even less than pointless speculation, since you are flat out rejecting what Tork himself was quoted as saying as being untrue.

Saying you don’t know **** is not the same as saying I know. I don’t, and I’m not willing to brand someone with baseless speculation.

10 minutes ago, chasfh said:

In that spirit, your insistence that everything is fine with how Tork is approaching his job is also pointless speculation. In fact, it's even less than pointless speculation, since you are flat out rejecting what Tork himself was quoted as saying as being untrue.

Where did I ever say that? 

4 minutes ago, chasfh said:

You make a good point about Tork. I speculated a while ago that Tork is a grip-it-and-rip-it guy who wants nothing to do with the analytics, and that the more information he gets, that more he gets confused, and the worse he does, so he hates getting information because he's never had to use information before just to hit. He's always had to just go up there and hit. No big whoop. And he got paid $8 million upfront for hitting that way in college, so of course he doesn't want to change his way of hitting. And at a certain level, it makes sense that whatever worked in college is going to work anywhere else he plays.

But, no surprise, that's not how it work in the major leagues, the highest level of baseball in the world. It's a lot a lot different from college, and also, from the minors (where he seemed to do well until 2022). Even a transcendent hitter is not going to go up to the plate knowing nothing about anything except see ball hit ball and succeed in the majors. Not any more, anyway. Maybe Babe Ruth could do that a hundred years ago. Not today. These days, hitters have to be educated about pitchers, what they throw, what to look for in certain situations, and how to react to it when they think they see it. They have to think about and learn the process of hitting during practice in the offseason and during spring training and in the cages between games, so that when they are in actual games, the learning is totally ingrained and they don't have to think about process while they're in the box.

It doesn't look as me like that's what Tork is doing, though. Ironically, it looks like he is overthinking when he at the plate during the regular season. That tells me he didn't internalize all this during practice when he was supposed to, so when things start going south during games, it looks like he starts overthinking and pressing to try to shake himself out of his funk while in the box, which is exactly the wrong time to do that kind of thinking. That's what practice is for.

To your other point, I would be really, really surprised to learn that the Tigers take a certain kind of individual approach where they tell their hitters, you can choose to see the analytics, or you can choose to ignore them and just swing any way you like, doesn't matter to us. I believe it matters to them a great deal, since they have established a way they want to develop their players and have poured millions of dollars into the resources needed since 2022 to do so. I don't think anyone can reasonably argue that Tork is not failing as a hitter. The organization has presumably been doing everything they can into fixing that. They've made the resources available to him to help him figure it out, and he has said, flat out in the press this week, that he doesn't want anything to do with that, and essentially, the team should just leave him alone and let him do whatever he wants so he can figure it out himself. I just don't see how that makes good baseball or business sense for the Tigers to simply accept that.

Maybe I'm just a judgmental person talking here, but my takeaway from everything I have read about what has happened this offseason is that the Tigers are unhappy with how Tork has been approaching his job and they are making preparations to move on from him. And in all honesty, I hope you get to laugh, point at me and yell "See! I told you!" when Tork is born again hard and puts up the MVP season for the Tigers that befits a former 1/1 pick. Because I will gladly accept your derision to see that happen.

The fact is, it’s just pointless speculation based on very little actual information. You don’t know how much, or to what degree he is utilizing resources, or really what are the actual issues that are holding him back. So any assumptions that he is uncooperative, or that the Tigers are displeased with anything regarding his efforts, other than production, are presumptuous.

8 minutes ago, romad1 said:

keep doing what your doing, it seems to be working great for you and Tork. 

And you just carry on being judgmental and making broad assumptions out of random comments 

1 minute ago, romad1 said:

Tork's advisors can argue this out if he likes.    

Tork's lawyer: "Your honor, i realize my client never produced as a 1st round generational talent as advertised, but when he was quoted out of context and the Detroit paper put his quotes in the article, they were smearing his good name. "

Tork: Yes your honor, I never intended to have those quotes indicate I didn't use the team's resources and data." 

Judge:  "So, you issued a correction? 

Tork:  "No"

Judge: "But you did use the resources provided by the team?"

Tork: "No, but I did come up with the Pizza Pizza-themed HR celebration" 

Judge: "You are in enough trouble, young man!  Counsel, please advise your client to stop this self-destructive testimony" 

Is there a point to this, or will you just ramble on?

4 minutes ago, romad1 said:

Torkelson had best deliver.  If he's going to present himself as a contrary example.  He's best advised to be the Barry Sanders of hitting a baseball soon. 

I don’t think he’s a contrary example. I think you are building a world out of floss.

Just now, romad1 said:

that was my goal.  

You succeeded 

Just now, romad1 said:

Example to make a ridiculous comparison for no other purpose but my own amusement. 

"Dear Mr and Mrs so-and so, 

Your son died while attempting a parachute jump out of a C-130 yesterday afternoon.  He didn't figure he needed to inspect his parachute because that's not what he's about.  He said he learns and applies skills differently and is more of a kinesiological learner so dogmatic approaches to parachute inspection are difficult for him to apply.  

Sincerely,  

Your son's boss"

Way to stretch a point beyond recognition 

7 minutes ago, chasfh said:

A player can be uncoachable, do-it-his-own-way, selfish, and hard-working. All those things could be true at the same time.

As for the idea of his doing everything the club is asking of him, Tork was directly quoted this week saying how he doesn’t like to look at numbers or video and likes to just basically grip it and rip it and let the launch off the bat tell him how he’s doing. Given how steeped in data and video this organization has been reported to be for the last two years, that smells like a lot of smoke to me, anyway.

And maybe in his case that’s what he needs to do. It may be that’s exactly what the club wants him to do. Perhaps all the analysis, for him, got him too mechanical. Hitting is a visceral activity. Maybe for him, being more athletic and reacting to what he is seeing is what will untap his ability. Being judgmental and making broad assumptions from random quotes is presumptuous.

11 minutes ago, romad1 said:

if he didn't correct the quote.  He's poorly advised by his representatives. 

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the quote. People learn and apply skills differently. What’s useful for some doesn’t work for others. You can’t tell what’s actually going on from a few quotes.

13 hours ago, ICroupier said:

Beyond all the reasons other have already expressed, Tork has been behaving like an uncoachable, do-it-his-own-way, selfish disappointment. His act of not listening to the team and then not performing on the field is tired.

Are you basing this on random quotes taken without context? All evidence is he’s a hardworking guy, and for all we know, he may be doing everything the club is asking of him. It’s amazing how fans can take a quote and create a whole scenario out of it.
 

1 hour ago, Toddwert said:

I think they would have more succes with putting Keith back to 3rd

It’s a shame his arm has never come back.

15 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

Any time I post something on BlueSky, I might get one response from Edman and that's about it.  There is very little baseball conversation there. If I want breaking news or rumors, it won't be on BlueSky.  

Yet