gehringer_2

This Tiger season is beginning to remind me too much of last years Lions' season. Great team that takes on too many injures by the end of the season to remain great. Though with the Tigers it not just injuries but also pitchers just lost to ineffectiveness - Brieske, Hurter, Holton,

You can do the math for any pro sport the same way - divide the roster size by the average career length. 6 yrs is typically quoted as the average NHL career. There are 20 roster spots, you need to average a little better than 3 players per year added to keep up with natural attrition - or find more above league average level players that tend to have longer careers. If your system can't provide that many, you have to make trades that net the amount of added value that you didn't get from your drafting -i.e "win" all your trades. That is extremely hard for any GM to do, and Yzerman is no exception there. In the last couple of years the Wings have met that target, not clear if thy can this year.

One of things I have finally begun to understand about bullpens is that in the modern game, managers don't really decide who they are going to use out of the bullpen, GMs do, because you have to use everyone - there are too many BP innings needed to hide anyone or just save them for mop up. You just don't have the spots with starters' innings constantly falling. So if a guy in on the roster, he's going to pitch - and you are going to take your lumps if he isn't any good.

what little hope is left is Melton away...

The pitching staff is starting to reach critical failure mass - which is what happens when a manager loses so much confidence in his bullpen arms that he leaves starters out too long. The result is failed starts and failed relief, and it all snowballs into outcomes like this.

What villainy is this? Even our Sommers become the Winter of our discontent.

+1. Ann Francis was Emma Peele before Diana Rigg wore her first Cat Suit.

and trying to push 300 lbs guys around on the line of scrimmage is just the thing for L4/L5 issues.

They also lost a ton of income from collapsing cable fees.

No, we are saying that it sucks the proven overall talent level isn't better 6 yrs in. The best we can say for Yzerman right now is to take the comparison to the Tigers. If you take 2016 as Al Avila's first draft in control of the Tigers as a turning point, it took to last season - 8 seasons - to build a competitive baseball team and development system from zero. Do we think Yzerman is within two years of a team that can challenge for a cup? Maybe, but a lot of guys are going to have to make a lot of progress to meet that bar, and most people don't even think Avila was a particularly good GM. Is there an argument that it's harder to rebuild a hockey org than a baseball org? Then again, the Wings have been "sub-contracting" most of their important development responsibility to European teams.

Hinch seems to be losing his touch. He's waited one batter too many a bunch of times recently. Sharpen that hook up AJ. Can't let optimism get the best of you as a manager.

you mean hopeful like the one where Burgess Meredith gets all the books to himself because everyone else is disappeared but then breaks his glasses? That's certainly more hopeful than this game right now.

Torkelson MIA recently. Too many pop-ups and GBs to 3rd. Maybe a little pull happy.

🤮

The worse part is that they can put two D men on the ice together with only 163 games still not have that be close to the weakest pairing.

Pretty much what I was guessing. Well, thanks anyway for a bit of info I would have been happy to live without ever having to hear about.

Yup - JV had made no secret that his ambition was to be the last pitcher with 300 wins and that's what he was playing for. Whether reality has set in and the Sun has set on that ambition to where he just wants to play and compete, I have no idea.

LOL - yeah - quite the fall to the above from the below. Usually not the best sign when people stop caring about their personal appearance.....

One one hand, at this point Charlie Morton and Justin Verlander are the same guy so it probably doesn't impact what happens on the mound every 5th day much if you traded one out for the other. OTOH, Morton is not a distraction from the team focus on winning today's game each day; it's hard to see how Verlander could fail to be, even if he was trying his best not to be, and there is no guarantee that he would be. So- not a move I would make.

I guess I don't pay any kind of attention to things at ESPN, I basically just use the site for real time scores - but I assume they must now also be bedded down with some big gambling interest also as I see now that betting info is front and center in front of and above any actual game data.

With Bannon I agree it's that, but also that Bannon is an independent thinker (never mind whether that thinking has any merit) and Trump hates that as well. Bannon wants people to listen to him, Trump doesn't like people who try to tell him anything. I don't think it's that hard to sway Trump, but it has to be indirect - basically the approach has to be to appeal to his narcissism, make him believe everything you are pushing is his idea. Bannon won't/wouldn't do that. He has too much of his own intellectual ego. Plus maybe even Trump could tell that Bannon is crazy.

There has been some smoke over the years regarding Rudi supposedly having an alcohol problem. He's has always denied it. Of course a public figure with enemies will have a lot of random stuff dished about them. Whether the drinking is fact or fiction, he seems to have become a rather erratic figure in recent decades, whatever the cause.

they may need to go back to pitching chaos before the playoffs!

sounds like he had his head rest down and got a case of whiplash as a consequence.

his last two outings at Toledo were 1 IP as an opener and 3 IP in middle relief. Make of that what you will.