gehringer_2

another thing that is fun is that now we are starting to have stretches where the Wings are the team that brings the extra gear and runs the other team ragged, instead of it always being the other team doing it to a Wings team that couldn't respond.

there is no question that on the fly recall gets worse. OTOH, I still know (so far!) exactly who or what I mean even if the noun is AWOL. A interesting contrast was Biden referring to the President of 'Mexico'. The tongue slipped but he knew perfectly well he was talking about Sisi and referred to him by name correctly in the same sentence. Contrast to Trump thinking he's running against Obama or that Haley was Speaker of the House on 1/6. *That's* confusion.

and Gost almost had the turnover of the month in the 1st but Vancouver couldn't finish.

You don't see a lot of players with the kind of career batting arc Whittaker had much anymore, if you ever really did. When he came up the best thing he could do for an XBH was a hard ground ball right over the 3b bag, and he was pretty good at it. His value as a hitter was mostly oppo. But as he got older year by year became more of a turn on the ball pull hitting threat to where as an older player was taking full advantage of the short HR distance to right. Maybe because there is a lot more emphasis in the minors for guys to develop their power quickly and a lot less patience for low OPS glove guys in the majors? Maybe this relates back to the question of why two way players are so hard to find today. Maybe we wash more of them out who might have eventually have found some ISO in their late 20's but teams won't wait for it anymore.

If I had to choose I guess I'd rather go into a season with the possibility of upside surprise rather than waiting for the disappointment of how much our aging stars had fallen off. But that's just me being jaded by watching decades of too old teams. And even aside from analytics uncertainty, it's just human nature in the media and even among the players themselves to pay the most attention to the guys with established track records, even after the higher probability is that Father Time is going to take his toll. But there are always enough guys that do manage to stay good late into careers that teams full of stars, even aging ones, will still get the heaviest buzz.

When Avila took over, they could neither find nor develop players. Al did a lot on the 'finding' end, not much on the other. Would he have gotten there in time? Who knows? I think Avila's biggest problem wasn't not knowing what to do, it was not having nearly enough urgency about doing it - incremental change from year to year seem to be all he could manage. He wasn't backward in his approaches as much as just too slow, maybe too reluctant to break some china on his way.

The work to prep for and the grind of a major league season when you are almost 40 and your team is probably going to lose 90 is not an easy sales pitch. Blame ownership and the FO for not having a team on the field he wanted to play on.

Supposedly we can't lay Williams at Weaver's door and the fact that they are not at least at 10-15% better team with Cade back to play with Ivey/Duren/Stew is inexcusable. If you add talent and it doesn't add wins, then your coaching is literally being counterproductive. Possibly his hands were tied "Play Hayes, we're trying to get something for him" etc., but there is no excuse the rest of the season. The need to be significantly better or Williams has to go as well, regardless of the sunk cost.

I really think a lot them just are not all that bright and on top of that they are ideologically blinkered enough to protect themselves from having to see and deal with the real. Plus these are mostly folks who were climbers their whole lives, it's how they got there. The serious intellectuals on both sides are probably cul-de-sac'd at the district level or in law schools because anyone who really thinks is probably going to be too controversial for either side to get to the SCOTUS. Or you get a guy like Kavanaugh, who has just been a pilot fish doing the dirty work in the wake of bigger swimmers all his life who finally earned enough chits to get tabbed.

The one thing that you almost never know much about when an assistant gets the top job is how good they are at assembling a staff. Gonna find out quick with Moore.

If Workman or Kreidler had hit better you'd have a couple of better gloves. But to be fair, Jake is a good catcher, and if Meadows sticks and Jung gets here, you added two ave to above ave gloves.

Will he be with Kane today? Report the other day had the practice line this week as Kane with Compher and Perron.

Hronek has been doing his best to make the Wings regret that trade. Then again, he's probably benefiting big time form playing next to Hughes. I had thought his play was turning up before they moved him but I guess the Wings didn't believe it was real? C'est la vie.

guys with good bats and gloves are just rare - but I'd also guess that part of it is that the Tigers have done a poor job in Latin America - which is a where a lot of the best two way players originate. I think kids in the US who show hitting ability early often don't get pushed hard to become better fielders when they are still young enough for it to happen.

In his last season, at age 40, in 485 AB he finished the season only one point below his career OPS+ (109). Pretty rare.

This make organizational sense - the question is does it work for recruiting where the one one one between player/coach and/or player position coach is a big part of closing the deal. Then again, if and as the sport becomes more professionalized, that part of it may well fade in significance.

agree completely. People, and especially parents themselves, who think they have anything like a complete idea of what their kids are doing are deluding themselves and have apparently forgotten their own childhoods!

Lots of different cultures out there. Also don't forget - a larger % of UM alumni base went there for graduate school than most other major sports universities. Plus nearly half the undergrad came from out of state and may have rooting interests for college teams they grew up rooting for. The graduate group in particular who are many of the highest income cohort, don't have nearly the kind of emotional attachment to things like varsity sports, and in fact may have whatever sports loyalty/interest they carry still with their undergrad school. I mean it's not some kind of cosmic accident that UM is not OSU. There are lots of real reasons they are different.

that may be true but most of them didn't get that way by spending their money on things like the salaries of college athletes that should/could be getting paid out of the games rights income they already generate. As an alum, if I make a gift, I want it to be something with a legacy. NIL has zero attraction in that direction. You are basically asking your individual donors to just light their money on fire for all the long term value the contribution has. I think you have a better sell to the business community that can get something back from the athletes by actually making promotional use of the NIL they buy. That and the unicorn individual mega rich goof balls with peculiar obsessions like Ishbia or Knight at Oregon. A&M had a huge donor along that line as well but I've forgotten who it was. Not to forget Ross at UM but he seems to be as much a brick and mortar guy.

Changelis story about NIL at UM https://www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/college/university-michigan/2024/02/08/michigan-wolverines-nil-efforts-get-boost-from-university/72242043007/ She reports UM has raised $6M, and think they need $10M. I think they'll be pretty lucky to get there. $15M is probably a more reasonably competitive number at your average top 10 school, so they are at the bottom of the hill looking up. I'm a broken record on this but I just can't see there are many schools - maybe ND, OSU, A&M, USC and a couple in the SEC, where that level of annual outside fundraising can possibly be sustainable. But even if the rest of the schools who don't want to play that game get together can create a controlled direct pay scheme, the court has basically put NIL outside their control so it probably couldn't stop an OSU from raising another $15M over whatever direct pay schedule that might be formatted. Direct pay would be a boon for most of the athletes, but by itself wouldn't end the arms race. As Buddha has noted - the only way to legally limit outside money may be via a collective bargaining agreement, and even then you would need an effective policing/enforcement architecture for it work. The current NCAA is not up to the task.

I thought maybe he whole league was taking a long break but apparently the Wings' is days longer than anyone else's.

Hasn't the GRE been electronic for 30yrs?

"Weaver on Bogey: "We had better offers last year at the deadline. You can say that. This is where we are now and I like what we got in return for those guys" Trans: "Yeah, I blew it. But it be cool."

"if you’re a guard in this league you have to make shots" I mean like really, man - Who knew?