gehringer_2

Right. The thing with McCarver is that he was never gracious enough to admit the Tigers were also a pretty damn good team that year. Even Tom Izzo will admit when he plays a good opponent! 😉

I was really hoping we'd see a Riley that has moved away from the extreme swing but I'm not seeing it. I see Riley as a guy who can either be a very good 20 HR hitter or a pretty useless 35 HR hitter and he seems determined to be the later. He's just not built to hit homeruns without the long swing. His frame can't generate the power that a big guy like Judge or Cabrera, or even a more compact but powerfully built guy like Trout can without having to over commit on his swing. And the over-commit is going to leave him a poor OBP hitter if he won't change it. Be a good hitter and let the HRs come on the good barrels and he'd be fine (IOW if he had just continued to let his '24 approach improve)

Correct. Max has some personality, but I don't see him as the type to come into a clubhouse the tear into it and a HOF manager the way Gibson did in LA at all. Max is more what I'd call a "Peacock" on a Myers-Briggs scale. Outgoing, likes to be seen. Gibby was a piranha.

Kudos for the return of the MiLB reports!

No arg there. That was sort of my point about why good managers are rare and valuable. It's easy to have a long resume (say like Trammel) and get a managing gig and just try to always go by the numbers or by a 'system' (like his reliever rotation idea), but a good manager does have to have sort of 6th sense about his team and players that goes beyond the data. I didn't mean to imply Hinch wasn't as good as anyone at it, just making the point that that is always the manager's biggest challenge - and where his decisions can have the most impact, especially in such a data driven environment where it's always easy to justify "I was just following the numbers"

Not that it needs re-iterating but... ETTD.

I sort of doubt we even need to inquire to know....

The euphoria is somewhat premature I'd guess. High energy costs are going to take a while to come down and the month they have been high still has to percolate through the economy, plus we likely have a bad inflation report coming. But I'm not going to complain if the animal spirits of the market want to bid up my IRAs.

Tork is what he is, a low average guy who can put the ball in the seats and has learned to play 1b somewhat above average. I would put it that from a team building perspective, replacing him is not as high priority as shoring up the OF and replacing Torres and Baez in the short term (and KM looks like one of those) but that it's fairly likely someone will come along with a better bat but a glove that won't play in the majors where it played in the minors and bump him out of his gig - for instance a Max Anderson type, though I'm not sure Max in particular is a good enough example of his 'type' to do it himself... Riley I'm more worried about. Seems like a guy who isn't bringing his brain to the table in his career thinking.

Speaking of China. I tend to believe there were probably some quiet but powerful threats of economic retaliation from that quarter if Trump didn't end this. Of course, the Chinese being as subtle as Trump is lurid, they'll be perfectly happy if no-one ever knows.

well that's what we have all been hoping for! And seriously, on this team 'best hitter' was not a very high bar to clear. But he's still trailing Keith's start by ~40 OPS pts though he's passed Keith in most counting stats (also has ~13 more PA). Assuming this is the real McGonigle and not just the charged up version that will run down in a month - which is admittedly a huge assumption - I think he and Colt are as likely to be the highest OBP guys on the team as anyone else. And McGonigle may hit for more power. Colt has shortened his swing so much he has almost no hip rotation, he's really sacrificing power potential for contact right now. Maybe as he gets comfortable with the new stance he'll start to use his lower half more.

The sad thing is, Mario could have been better with someone else. On a few occasions when he worked with someone else the difference was obvious, he was much more personable and engaged with the other person in the booth and it was a better broadcast. Rod could do color, but Mario was right about that too - too often he hadn't done any homework and he would go whole games adding nothing but his cutesy signature lines. Tiger's have only themselves to blame, they should have broken them up years before it fell apart. Sure you don't have to like someone to work with them, but when it reaches where one detests the other to the point he can't be his best self professionally it's no good to keep forcing it. The interlude with Shep was regrettable, but they've landed on their feet with Benetti, for as long as he stays.

Until tonight Riley only had 7 Ks in 43 PA, which is a decent reduction. Unfortunately all his other results have a reduction as well. We've heard a lot of talk about Riley having worked on a lot of stuff in the off season, but so far the upper cut swing doesn't look real different to me.

So all this amounted to was that we have given Bibi the free use of the worlds most expensive lawn mower for 30 days (which we get back with its blade seriously dulled) so he could extend his 'forever war' just a little further out before it becomes the failure it will inevitably be.

No, you don't understand, we just have to be patient and we will see the victory emerge....or so we were told.

Iran has just been funded to the tune of 100 new Shaheeds per ship Transit. So much winning.

It is too bad Johnson isn't up this cycle because he'd probably be toast.

I thought maybe the tide had turned when we got past Riley in the order, but foiled again.

This April is looking too much like '24. I liked last year's better.

LOL - Spencer apparently loves batting 7th, on base 10 of his last 16 PA.

tying run on the bases....

Strkle one to Riley was a ball

Strike one to Torres was a ball.

Hinch's pinch hitters are leaving lumps of coal in Tiger stockings. Tigers show life, but I've got Riley for the last out.

a 10 pt loss is still a big loss. Moral victories on margins are meaningless until they happen in districts where it matters.