gehringer_2

haven't seen any of them play but just looking at these numbers - relatively low # of doubles for Crews - pretty much a middle of the field hitter?

I think one possible thing is that few guys come up knowing how to add and subtract from their fastball anymore. If we take Verlander as being as close to an old school pitcher as we have as a recent example, when he came up he could throw 100 - but while he could, he kept it in his back pocket most of the time and his fastball might vary from 90 to 96 through most of the game. He only had to show a guy high velo to keep him keyed to it. Today, most 95+ guys either aren't going to try to or are not able to spot a FB at 3/4 effort, so they are going to throw a change or hard slider with full arm velo to get the same delta velo effect. You can keep a hitter off guard with either break or speed change. Break is more dramatic, but it comes with more cost to the pitcher.

Jose is a nice baseball story - the Guy that comes back from nowhere at 30 after failure and years away from the majors. He is almost the perfect deadline deal - FA at the end of the year at an age where any year could be his last, yet throwing the ball well right now. Almost the Perfect Profile for team that needs help on a playoff push. The one thing that might limit his attractiveness to other teams is that even though he works short, for whatever reason - Jose rarely pitches on back to back days. It happens so seldom I assume there must be reason though if I ever heard why I've forgotten.

Yeah - but you have to consider that one was Boyd, so....

Sobering (list of best seasons since 2009 at Erie): https://twitter.com/tigersMLreport/status/1673490095708545027 (for some reason the chart is being cut off when the tweet is embedded so here is the link.)

Stavenhagen tweeted that Hinch said no updates/decisions tonight.

True enough. People's reluctance to move is driving some of the largest scale remodeling job I've seen in years in our neighborhood. People literally doubling the size of houses instead of just moving to something bigger.

Agree that Dirks is very good, but do we know if he even wants the job or if this is just moonlighting for him? I'm OK with Scales but he's still sounds a bit too tense to me. Maybe that would pass with time. I'd probably put Maybin a little ahead of Scales for that reason - Cam is more relaxed. I've probably said it before, but I expected Monroe to be much better when he got his shot, but to my ear he just can't stop overplaying. It's baseball Craig - just dial it down and you'd be way better.

small piece of luck for the Tigers - since Toledo has a couple of days off, they can fly a guy down but wait 'til tomorrow to decide if they need to call him up. Boyd didn't look hopeful but Vest might be something that's fine tomorrow.

Holton leaves 'em loaded.

Hope Dan D's crystal ball is a good one with the way he keeps promoting Jace Jung to the majors....

Foley only throws 12. He and Lange should both be OK for tomorrow. But it looks like Hinch is going to use Holton. I suppose the could activate Brieske for tomorrow as well. Unrealistical to expect more than 5 from Manning tomorrow.

He's arm is not great for the left side and as someone already noted - his fast twitch/first move just isn't really fast enough for 3B. Ergo a 2B.

Lol - Wind Pudge up and stand back, he'll talk your ear off. But it's all good - it was less air time for Shep and C-Mo.

He's such a moron he doesn't even understand that DOD draws up and games out every kind of possible war scenario - it's their job to have thought out every scenario. He's looking at a contingency planning doc and comming to the conclusion that the DOD want's to start a war. How do people manage to miss the monumental stupidity of the man?

Thats a fair question. The Tigers have been very aggressive with guys trying to get them to change their hitting styles. Maybe that's not always a good idea for every batter. I believe at least our old buddy Willi Castro has been quoted as saying he's been able to do better by worrying less about his peripherals outcomes. Javy has cut down his K's, but he's not more productive for it overall. Schoop has increased his walk rate, but it's coming at the expense of everything else as well. Of course Schoop may just be done - we won't know unless he goes somewhere else and recovers his career.

LOL - I'll turn the arg around and say while willing to be proven wrong, I'll stand on 400 OPS pts being on the high end of the distribution of 150 AB performance swings.

Don't remember much why but my recollection now is that at the time the org just didn't like Oglivie for some reason. Seemed to be in the dog-house from day one and never really got out. Was happy for his success in MIL.

The spark would be nice, but at this point I'd just settle for someone who can adequately FIELD THE POSITION, and that ain't Tyler Nevin.

This is the kind of claim that admittedly gets confusing to people, especially when people with an agenda have vested interests in half truths. Malone is like a guy who invented a riveting tool claiming expertise as a building designer. It's not obvious to people that you can be an expert in RNA chemistry and synthesis and know nothing about immunology, but there really isn't any necessary cross-over. Certainly some people know a lot about both, but that's not any logical necessity.

no-no. I mean science - as imperfect as it is, is still miles ahead of the Joe Rogans.

he of the great 1986 Tigers 5x20 HR infield.

Is that an invitation to run a regression on monthly splits across the league? The reservation is the raw data doesn't give you minor injury data and if a guy is fighting/playing over something that's another layer of complexity. And in fact much earlier in his career Jeimer was playing though some kind of chronic wrist condition - I can't remember the exact details. Any maybe he still does but he just doesn't talk about it anymore. On the other hand, it doesn't seem they let guys play over much anymore, Miguel playing so beat up maybe being the recent exception to putting a guy on the DL as soon as he has a hang-nail...... I mean back in the day those old ball players were stitching themselve up with mitt lacing, rubbing some dirt on it and getting back on the field!

yeah - in truth, science pegged this virus wrong on day one. They used the model of Sars-I, which made perfect logical sense since it was a related virus, but the epidemiology we actually got wasn't SARS-I at all, it was more like the corona viruses that circulate as part of today's 'common cold' panoply of viruses. So while the early science was all based on a premise of heard immunity and eventual extinction of the circulating virus, what we got was a virus that is capable of infecting without causing symptoms and another addition to the inventory of endemic low level infectors. So yeah - it was a learning curve, knowledge at every point is provisional, perfect knowledge is chimerical. That said, it doesn't mean there is no difference between imperfect knowledge and ignorance or political agenda driven pseudo-scientific wishcasting, not by a long shot.

good point - it does depend on how far from #1 he thought he might fall if he doesn't offer a deal with the Pirates. It's hard not to be schizophrenic about drafting pitchers. You look at busts like Appel and injuries like Mize, but even with all that they are probaby more reliably projectable than hitters. Esp a guy like Skenes where the calling card is a great swing and miss fastball, unlike say Mize whose signature splitter ended up not playing all that well in the majors. The only thing with Skenes is you maybe wonder if he throws too hard - a la Zumaya, to where the physiology isn't goint to survive.