gehringer_2

I don't know how the Tigers handle OF positioning vs the sun. Back in the day when guys mostly decided where to play on their own, a guy could cheat a little to which ever side keep the sun out of the play in more of his field. You'd given up a step or two of what you can reach for the benefit of having fewer plays in the sun. I'd be curious if they still let guys have that freedom that the positioning being driven by analytics.

Not good. You have to think about where the Sun (or lights are) is beforehand and maybe try to take a little bit of an indirect route that keeps the ball out of it. Obviously tougher when you have a long way to go.

I wonder if Hinch did that challenge just to give ERod another minute since the Tiger hitters went down so quickly

Curiously, Vierling has gotten better against RHP this season. He has a negative platoon split for this season. You see him trying to take the slider away to RF a fair amount, which is a good way for a RHB to neutralize a RHP's usual advantage.

i don't know if it's skewed perception because the Tigers have had so much trouble filling the position, but it seems like the supply of good defensive 3B is short all around the league. Maybe just part of a long general trend of fewer players with strong arms?

Billy Butler was pretty much a full time DH from the time he broke in as a rookie. Had a few good years, but a pretty short career.

The same guy who decided that Dots were polka?

I'm still guessing what kind of hitter Torkelson is going to be in the end. The power part is in place, but whether he's going to be a 330 OBP/30 hr guy or develop the OBP to go with it to be an all-star is still hard to tell.

Ramirez seems like he's been around forever - he's only 30.

Got the 1st kwon.

Jake's been BaBIP'd tonight.

LOL at myself. I kept looking at Naylor and wondering how he lost so much weight in just a couple of weeks. Bo - not Josh!

Bigbie with another mulit hit game 2/4 Meadows with his 19 HR. I guess the DH sort of sucked up the baseball oxygen yesterday but Gipson-Long has some love coming for his start at Toledo yesterday. One hit, which was a bloop down the LF line against 12 K in 6 IP.

Tork goes to right. Nice

Lange is really a hot mess at this point.

I just hope they don't lose by one because Riley could have caught the triple but obviously didn't realize it.

I guess he figured no-one was likely to take him to arb so at least he has a leg up with the Tiger ord if he plays decently. I like that they actually got a deal in place already though - at least shows the FO isn't just coasting on waiver signings.

my SO says she saw that some brewery in KC has made a boutique quantity.

Still might be a good investment since Dingler and Crouch don't look like any kind of sure thing and the FA for catchers is usually poor.

Not like the Tigers haven't made stupid moves going too cheap on the catcher position before ( Alex Avila says "Hi" )

It has to be bummer to be let go this late in a season and I would normally call it kind of bad faith move this late in a season when they weren't going to make the playoffs, but they had no control of Kelly becoming available and Hasse is out of options with the Tigers.

Most hopeful reading would be the broken wrist messed up his hitting and that it might have healed better by now. OTOH it may have left a permanent deficit.... Tigs have him for the minimum for now, but his arb number could be high to keep him next season if he doesn't show much before this season ends.

Who is Carson Kelly? Sounds like he should have been the QB for Navy in '58 Edit: Couldn't hit in some call ups with the Cards, had a couple of over 100 OPS+ seasons with the D Backs. Bat slowed down last couple of years - also with some unlucky injuries - wrist fracture in '21, then an arm fracture this season. Lost his gig with the D_Backs who DFA'd him. He had enough service time to refuse and Tigers made the move. Still under 30. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2023/08/d-backs-release-carson-kelly.html

I thought the bat was Ozzie!

This might be a little more complicated. The story below paints a picture more sympathetic to the league. I won't vouch for its accuracy but it's a counterpoint to be considered. Obviously it hinges a lot on whether the alleged maintenance required is real or not and I have no idea about that. But that said: The current stadium is publicly owned, the Brewers lease it, but are not responsible for upkeep, the gov is, and the complaint is the gov entity has not funded maintenance (LOL -maybe because supporting spending on the stadium got one legislator recalled?). League is demanding the public side put up the money to keep the ballpark up to the standards agreed to in the Brewer's lease. The various units of government can't agree on how to provide funding (there is already a local 0.1% sales tax but it's apparently not raising enough). Sounds to me that the public made a bad deal for itself 20 years ago that now has no political support and the team, or at least the league, is caught in the middle to some degree. (Hmm - you wonder if having committed public money for private business back the 90's might be exactly the kind of thing that has driven Wisconsin voters more red!) In any case, the article argues that the league's concern is not having another team start down path Oakland went with the coliseum, where the ballpark became an orphan allowed to decay to where the situation became impossible. https://newstalk1130.iheart.com/featured/common-sense-central/content/2023-05-24-exclusive-mlb-tells-brewers-they-need-to-repair-american-family-field/#:~:text=Public financing of Milwaukee's stadium,%2C Ozaukee%2C and Washington Counties. BTW - Tigers are responsible for the maintenance on COPA, though the DDA does also make a small contribution each year.