Shelton

My list of Scott Harris complaints is very short. I was very happy with the roster exiting spring training. I personally didn’t see the need for McKinstry, but that was about it. My in-season complaint is that I think he should have just called up max clark to play CF and bat 9th when Javy went down. I don’t care that he he had gone cold following his hot start. The cold streak was as limited a sample as the hot streak. And I do not agree with any sort of rigid rule for PAs at a certain level. I think development can continue at the major league level similar to AAA. The issue is whether or not that development will hurt or hinder the major league team’s performance, but we needed a CF and he was the AAA CF. And he was also quite likely to end up on the roster at some point this season. I of course understand that the first and easiest move is to call up a guy like Lee or Jung that is already on the roster. But that only goes so far and once more guys start dropping like flies, for example the point where Kerry got hurt, it’s time to break that emergency glass a take a chance. Instead we got gage workman added to the 40 because he had a hot streak. We still continue to be without a CF. We still continue to carry both Short and McKinstry to backup SS. I know Clark is not forcing the issue. If he was that would a completely different complaint. I think he could hold his own at the major league level right now, and there is nothing stopping them from sending him back down if he doesn’t.

Yes, and as Chas pointed out recently, the guys in the locker room are indeed human and I believe there can definitely be inertial confidence / depression when things start moving in a certain direction. They can say all the right things to the media in the locker room about “next man up” or “we come back tomorrow and try to win a baseball game”, but it has to be frustrating to see that your reserves are the likes of Zack short and gage workman. These guys know. It’s not a secret which guys have high ceilings and which guys are placeholders. It’s fine to play roster games for a week or so, but when the roster games result in having a month worse than 2003 (I think last I checked their offense in May was worse than the 2003 tigers), I doubt it is going to be received well.

I recall going to game at tiger stadium when Nokes hit two homers. I believe the second one was to right field and barely cleared the fence. Might have even gone off the RF’s glove. He couldn’t have had that many two homer games. I could probably find it.

It’s obviously true that the timing of any call-up has downstream effects on service time and related benefits. I think it’s fine to take those into consideration when it means a difference of a couple weeks. But I don’t agree that if you have a valid reason to make a move that you delay that move by months because of it. Whether or not Clark (or Anderson) is both ready for a promotion and can help the team is certainly debatable. But in my view if you conclude that he could be called up and he could help the team, I think it’s wrong to leave him in Toledo. We just had one of the worst months of baseball that we have ever seen, and we played the entire month without a CF. I’m not necessarily saying max clark would have helped us win more game in May. But I don’t think he would have hurt us either, and now the season is basically over. Sometimes call up timing is clear and easy like with Kevin this year. But that didn’t stop at least a few in the media from actually suggesting that he not be called up until August. That was crazy then and it is obviously hilarious to think about now. If it were August 2 instead of June 2 and we were in the same state as we are currently, then it would be a much easier call to make.

I want to see the actual prospects. The fools gold one-month AAA warriors like malgieri and julks and workman can stay away. But guys like Clark and Anderson have actual skills and I don’t necessarily agree that a specific level needs to be achieved before advancement.

I do love the idea of other execs griping that Harris wouldn’t accept their ****ty prospects and AAAA guys in exchange for Eduardo and Jack a few years ago, or his refusal to include Kevin and max and Melton in rental deals last year. The same execs mad that he wouldn’t accept the ****ty prospects are the same ones not accepting Jace Jung and Hao Yu Lee last offseason.

I agree with alL of this except for the phrasing of the Morton/paddack “process” not being sound. The results were of course very bad, but I rarely agree with “the results speak for the themselves”. For the same reason, I’m not sure whether you can say the process for signing Framber was sound. If he pitches to a 5 era over the next few seasons and we are stuck paying him a big chunk of our budget, the results will surely be bad. Signing Framber put us right up against the tax threshold, and that’s probably going to be fine because it doesn’t look like we will need to add anyone this year. But anyway, I agree that teams should lean into more present day risk when you are within a championship window. It sucks that they seemed to do so for this year only to get absolutely screwed in the luck/injury department. It could very well be the case that we had a nice offer on the table last year involving melton that we didn’t take. I think it’s clear any deal involving Kevin was rightfully declined. Maybe there was a deal to be made for max clark that we didn’t make. Hard to say. I do think they probably screwed up not getting the Bregman deal over the line last year.

They went 1-5

I don’t think Mize will be traded. For one thing, putting him on the market alongside Skubal gives people a backup option to trade a mid tier package for a decent SP rather than pay up for Tarik. But that’s minor. The larger aspect is that I don’t think the potential return is going to be much higher than the comp pick, and I do think Mize is right in that sweet spot where he accept a QO and we would be happy if he did. And if he didn’t, I think he’s good enough to get the FA deal needed to net the good draft pick. That said, if a team out there wants to trade a top 50 prospect for him, then he’s gone. But I don’t see it.

I think that was more a comment regarding last season’s deadline. Personally, I’m not sure there is much else that can be said about the current season, so maybe dissecting last season again could be interesting. With the benefit of hindsight now, what could have been don’t differently a year ago at the deadline when we were on track for a bye? Can of worms opened.

I think meadows was basically a lock to play every day against RHP, and even occasionally against lefties, in the fully healthy roster scenario this season. I do recall how much criticism he got in the spring when he hadn’t gotten many hits early on, but that always felt like an overreaction to me. I’m surprised to see you refer to him as a provisional member of the 26 man roster because I see very few scenarios where they would choose to keep him out of the lineup, at least through the end of this season. The only thing that made it feel somewhat minor when he went out was that Javy had shown the ability to play CF well and hit enough while doing so, and it was annoying that he was taking SS reps from Kevin, so it felt like a minor thing to swap Javy into CF and lean on Colt and Kevin to play the left side.

Bring in whoever they should have brought in for vest the other night.

That was close to the same ball Neto hit that bounced off vest. This time it doesn’t hit vest and it’s the out it should be.

I thought the same thing the other day. But then I thought about how any of the four teams in line to get the first round bye should be in on Skubal, regardless of market size and general philosophy. These opportunities really don’t come around that often (meaning both being a title contender and having a rental cy young on the market at the deadline). And even in the brewers case, they already cashed in Freddy P, so they kind of have a little house money (overall, not necessarily the guys they got back in particular) and could maybe look at it as they upgraded from Freddy to Tarik and also came out ahead in system depth, while also being in position to contend. With a looming work stoppage, the time is now.

Weather not looking great.

I think Jones was a fair gamble to try to replicate last year. But otherwise I think the problem is simple and it’s the injuries. Parker, Javy, Gleyber, and Kerry are all substantial losses. Tork and Colt being a bit below average at the plate is a minor factor, which is amplified when you are without those other guys. That’s 3-4 missing lineup spots being filled by bench players, and bench players being replaced by replacement level players. But it definitely doesn’t help that the bench players stepping in have been sub-replacement. It was jarring to look at the poor lineup yesterday, and then look at the bench, and realize how bad the bottom 7-8 position players are.

I said all offseason that I didn’t see a role for McKinstry on the team this year. Looks like I was wrong, but to be fair I did not anticipate so many injuries and getting to the point that Gage Workman was needed. But my view was that keeping McKinstry was a mistake if you had faith that McGonigle was going to make the team. And to me that always felt like a lock (despite how much management and their media lackeys tried to poor cold water on the idea). As a backup SS and left handed utility player, he provided value in his roster flexibility of course, but there are only so many spots and we had Javy available for that utility role. I’m happy that he had that early season success last year and made the all star team and won the weird utility silver slugger. But expecting anything close to that this year seemed like too much.

Eh, I guess I just disagree that the difference between an innocent fly ball and a 100 EV fly ball rocket is all that different. A couple degrees difference in launch angle can have a big effect. It is not reasonable to expect that a pitcher is going to be able to completely avoid giving up 100 EV, and it certainly isn’t predictable based on what happened in the prior at bat. Anyway, I think it is definitely defensible to let him face trout and/or Grissom, but it’s also defensible to have thought a different option was a better bet to get trout or Grissom out. We don’t really know exactly what their matchup numbers suggested. I suspect Vest matched up best and that was the main reason he stayed in, especially given that he was basically cruising (bad defense and bad luck notwithstanding). Holton gave up a 100 EV home run to Jose Siri in the 9th, so obviously shouldn’t have been him. Finnegan gave up a 100 mph rocket to Oswald Pereza yesterday so he shouldn’t be an option. Kenley gave up 2 rockets in his last game against Baltimore on Sunday, one of which was a 111 mph walk off, so no way.

I think the Framber signing and Drew Anderson signing are looking good so far. I’m not upset about the JV thing quite yet, but he does need to actually return from the IL and perform like a decent fifth starter. Probably down on the Kenley thing, but I think when they made that move my feeling that he would be jsut one part of a three-man closing crew, but finnegan has also not been as good as hoped and vest got hurt. These are moves that you can definitely quibble with because there are always different relievers so they feel the most fungible.

I’m sorry but no. Vest threw a total of 34 pitches (is 54 a typo?). He was at 16 total after Wenceel dropped that ball. He was at 25 total after Neto hit him in the ass. He threw 6 pitches in the 7th and got two outs. So he was at 19 in the inning before facing trout. Sure, by the time it became 34 total and 28 in the inning (the point he was indeed pulled) you probably don’t want to go any further, but I think he is probably still the guy you want lined up to face trout and Grissom when he is at 25 total and 19 in the inning.

I do think it’s hard to avoid complaining and lashing when everything is going wrong. But I’m with you in that I really don’t understand the volume of complaints against management. I guess it’s like the old saying about driving on the highway. Everyone driving slower than you is a weak idiot that needs to get out of the way and everyone driving faster than you is a madman that is going to get someone killed. In my view, I’m happy to complain about why we have guys like Wenceel and short and Lee and workman on the roster when we appear to have higher ceiling replacements available in AAA. But I’m also willing to grant that there may be valid roster considerations in play, especially as such moves would require 40-man changes and the current state is still somewhat of a short term problem with a near term solution of guys like Torres and Kerry being back soon. I think it’s pretty hard for people to give up on their position, and it’s natural to double down. I think most people do it, myself included. The important thing to remember is that my view is objectively correct and everyone else is wrong. It’s just a matter of how much they are wrong relative to my objectively correct position.

I think to say he was not “fooling” guys, and or that he was not the right guy to start the 8th inning, isn’t all that easy to defend. It was definitely a nice catch by Riley. Certainly could have been a triple if it wasn’t caught but maybe it also looked amazing because Riley got a bad jump or is slow. I don’t think that means that Vest is the wrong guy to face the next batter because of it. Even with the benefit of hindsight, it’s not an easy call, but you seem to be really committed to this position. Guys are going to give up fly balls. That’s not a bad thing. Fly balls are the batted ball most often converted into an out. They can hurt you more if they aren’t caught, of course. But the mere act of giving them up isn’t bad. But you got me curious regarding whether we could determine if he was fooling anyone. Right before Riley caught a high fly ball, Vest got Soler to K swinging with runners on the corners and one out. I’m sure soler would have liked to hit a fly ball to the track with a guy on third, but maybe he was fooled. In the 8th, vest got Adell to ground out to start the inning. Gave up a single to right. Then got a ground out to second that wasn’t hit hard enough to be a double play. Then he got a fly ball that should have been caught to end the inning. He was at 16 total pitches in the game when Wenceel missed that catch for what would have been Vest’s fifth out in six batters. He then got the following batter, Neto, to swing at the 9th pitch of the at bat low and off the plate, a soft liner that hit him on the ass and would have been caught by McGonigle or Lee. You want to argue that Hinch should have had someone else up and available to face trout or Grissom, that’s fine, although I’m not sure that holton, finnegan, or Kenley would have been better matchups.

Yeah, that’s true, although Riley did catch the ball hit to him. I do wonder how it was him and not Vierling that got to him. Whether or not AJ should have pulled him because he gave up a fly ball that was caught in order to use an entirely different pitcher that probably isn’t good, I’m not so sure.

Ok, so best I can tell he had 6 seconds. And it’s looking like this one might be in the 95% bucket. It is comparable to the catch he made at the wall on May 1, where he had 6.1 seconds, 64 feet needed to cover.

I do not know and it’s certainly possible, mostly due to proximity to the wall. I don’t think it’s in the system yet because I looked at the videos for each of his “wall” opportunities and only one was a hit, and it wasn’t last night’s. This makes me want to just check and see how long wenceel had to get to that spot.