gehringer_2

I give Leyand credit for getting outside the conventional BP thinking box with his use of Zumaya in 2006, that was the only time I remember JL ever getting much outside conventional use patterns. But in truth, DD gave him pretty much consistent garbage to work with so I won't hold Leyland to the performance of his BPs.

I hope they don't wait for the team to be better first. A fan who hears some buzz about an improved team is going to tune into a game before they ever buy a ticket or a jersey and if they hear Shep and Monroe and turn it right back off........

ABC Persuading players and closing the deal is part of Harris' mandate. As Blake would say "You close - or you hit the bricks!" 😎

yes -also true. The BP has been a huge issue in other games but less so last night.

well, lets just say that taking your fan base for granted is a risk. The other thing is that they will *have* to fix the TV broadcast before they get better. Really part of the same issue wrt respecting the fanbase when an org decides to put out a horrible broadcast like the Tigers have.

That's fair, but Houston's market is a lot bigger than Detroit's now so they can fill the orange juice can on less interest as a percentage of population.

LOL - maybe that's just his natural state, but if I'm a batter I think I'd be nervous facing a pitcher that looked that nervous! 🤣

a full generation of baseball fans has died out of the fanbase since then and the incoming generation starts from a position of caring a lot less about baseball, if at all?

what hurts now is that Jimenez is gone and Malloy is sitting in the minors. Now if Malloy develops the trade is still a plus, but for now it isn't helping. Soto for Maton and Vierling the jury is out. Don't think Vierling is much of an add over the guys already in the system like Baddoo. The question for that trade is the marginal value of Maton over say Kreidler. If you gave up Soto for Maton and Kreidler could have provided near the same value, you made a mistake. Jury out on that obviously - Maton is showing some plus signs in the power dept. And BTW, those laughing over the initial bad outing by Soto with his new team may be less entertained to know he is looking better now. Jimenez is walking too many and had a bad night last night but 4 of 5 outings with no ER.

I'm pretty skeptical of Vierling so far - he's seem the re-incarnation of Harold Castro: shows you enough to be interesting but can't make the play that needs making or makes the critical mistake at the critical time too often.

If Al Avila could piece together a decent BP the last couple of years on bad teams with a known poor FO and no prospects I'm not sure why there is grounds to give Harris a pass.

the issue here is that he is gaming out ahead, wanting to keep options open for using Lange today etc. That is fine - to a point. But it's a managing style for a winning team, not a losing one. This is maybe my number one issue with Hinch's philosophies. He's managing to marginal effects his team will almost never get to the point of being able to use. All this interchangeable parts for ultimate lineup flexibility and saving relievers to keep every option open is fine if you think you are going to be in every game you play, but the Tiger are not going to be in every game they play so to me that means your philosophy to maximize your chances to win 100 games needs to be ****canned and replaced by one where you pull out every stop in any potential win in front of you and let the next loss that is probably coming anyway just come.

Hinch's defense of himself was that there was no chance the call would be overturned, but that really isn't the point, is it? You still owe it to your players to give the ump hell for making a bad call that led to the run that was the difference in the game. Your manager rolls over for the ump --> your teams rolls over to the opposition. QED.

LOL - . The Tigers MLB page headline for last night was 'Bullpen Growing Pains' Cisnero is 34, Shreve is 33, Wingentner is 29. Youthful inexperience last night was not.

The thing with Hinch that maybe disappoints is that he is really very old school/conservative about the way he wants games to go. if you gave Maddon a bad team don't you think he'd at least be trying all kinds of variations in how he used pitchers/lineups etc., looking for something unconventional that might give his bad team an edge? But Hinch is about as boring a manager as there is. There is nothing wrong with that per se, and unconventional probably loses anyway, but conventional does nothing to make an uninteresting team more interesting than it is.

Give Kane some credit for not softballing about Lange - and then laugh at McCoskey for going right to the softball Q to 'rescue' Hinch after Kane was done.

This is the first season in years that I don't even want to watch. Of course I'm not sure whether Shepherd and Monroe or the batting line-up have more to do with it. Prolly about equal parts.

the old guy has 2 100mph exit velos tonight.

And he's still not a good OF. TBF, not bad coming in but pretty terrible going back. If he can't use his speed productively in the OF or on the basis he better hit pretty well.

Thiessen is wacko. Waste of bytes for WaPo to even post his stuff.

So I hate to make fun of our local hacks.....not! McCosky's story about Brieske today - I'll give him credit for describing the procedure Beau had, but then he drops this tidbit: LOL - you'd think a baseball writer, esp one in Det, would know what TJ surgery is by now, or know the difference between a nerve and a ligament, or know how to use Google. Keep trying Chris - you'll get there. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/mlb/tigers/2023/04/11/tigers-brieske-has-hydro-procedure-on-ailing-arm-bez-dropped-in-batting-order/70103480007/

The state gov now trying to gut the Nashville city gov... Hard to call it anything but just evil - and a total rejection of the whole American premise. The symmetry is perfect though - people who wrap themselves in the Bible and reject every semblance of its teaching also wrapping themselves in the Constitution while doing their damndest to govern as tyrants.

IDK - Paredes was pretty well unlocked in his last season at Toledo with an 845 OPS and even starting to show power at a HR per 30 PA. The problem was only when he got to the Detroit dugout. The problem the tigers had with Paredes was only with the last step - bringing him from AAA to Detroit. I don't know what that means/implies about the org as a whole but I'm not sure it's accurate to dump on the whole develop chain in his case.

The demise of the drop back passer is pretty regularly predicted, about then another crop of great ones comes along.

I think one of the pitfalls for managers and FOs in this era is that players are not dumb, they know what their bosses want to hear, so especially with young players, you probably are going to get a pretty filtered version of what they really think about what management is giving them. Tork OTOH, is one the guys that appears to have the confidence to say he's doing it his way - which is not necessarily a bad thing - a young JV rejected a lot of the coaching the Tigers tried to give him as well - The best players often know their own games as well or better than their coaches.