gehringer_2

Curious to see if they offer Turnbull or if all the speculation about bad blood was just smoke.

A mostly replaceable group. Diaz has done OK. I don't see any of the bats being significant contributors to a winning team. McKinstry made a contribution early this season this season but I really don't care for guys that collapse in the second half, argues that pitchers have them figured out so their future is dim.

Ibanez is the exactly the kind of utility player you want on a good team*. The question is whether the Tiger start viewing themselves as a good team or not. *i.e. not a player you signed because you were hoping he could turn into a regular and actually fill a hole in a crappy lineup. or IOW, not a McKinstry or Maton.

That seem that an unusually high number of eligibles for one team! Does this year hit some kind of peak because of the lost Covid season?

There have been Mexican administrations in years past that were more open to assistance from US LEO, if not direct military, than the current one. Things ebb and flow in Mexico. This does not seem to be one of the better eras. TBH, I would guess the way things are going we are going to start seeing more El Salvador solutions to our South.

Yeah - there were several comments after the post to the effect that the US Mil does have the capability to push initiative back down the CoC. But I was more interested in the Ukraine end of the story; the argument that Ukraine is probably matching tactics to conditions in a more optimal way than many have given them credit for recently. Even Michael Kofman, one of the primary WOTR writers, has in the past noted lack of larger scale combined arms action by Ukraine as a failing/limitation

I wonder if someone still has the detachable Keweenaw from his map?

I'm going to guess the exception is for a game that can't be made up.

good point. Do you have a count? Madden, Mattison, Hurter? Maybe Couch, Malgeri?

interesting.... BTW - Forecast is 40% chance of rain.

He means the player with the most career home runs who ever wore a Tiger uniform. Matthews has 512 HR - he played out the string at the end of his career with the Tigers in 67/68. Only 9 of his HRs were hit as a Tiger.

Future radar projection at Weather Underground does have the rain clearing out....at 2am.

interesting read: https://warontherocks.com/2023/09/biting-off-what-it-can-chew-ukraine-understands-its-attritional-context/

Is that the player's choice?

That is what I understand. They've changed the rules on rain-outs vs finishing incomplete games over the years, but they've gone back to the old school system again. Teams don't like the line-up and pitching problems that finishing an incomplete game the next day or even 2 months later represent.

If we do a little rough math... Gone: Erod, McK, Maton, Cisnero, Wingetner, Vest, A Meadows, Cabrera, Kelley + maybe gone: Nevin, Turnbull, Ibanez. =9 + 3 maybes Incoming: 2 FA Starters, 1/2 FA reliever, Catcher, Keith, Malloy, Perez, 2 FA bats. = 9. Seems like the ins and out may be in reasonable balance.

Akil still has at least one option left so they don't have to let him go if he doesn't make the 26, and I suppose in the case that Parker has a terrible ST, Baddoo might be the alternate to come North with the team in his place.

In Baddoo's favor, he's still only 24 this year an is still only at 1000 AB. Not so much in his favor is that it's hard to see any progress or evolution in his hitting over those 1000 AB. I don't how the Tigers will come down on it, but I like Vierling the most of all the guys potentially on bubbles because not only can he play all three OF and 3B, but he has almost zero platoon split - so to me he's their most ideal 'anywhere, anytime' player.

Well, sure if you spell 'reform' "S" "H" "I" "T" "C" "A" "N"

they wouldn't qualify it because it would have made it more difficult to chase down those pesky escaped slaves.

Congrats to your 2nd place Detroit Tigers.

don't see any progression on pitch recognition though. When he came up and we saw how fast his bat was I figured that meant he'd be able to wait on pitches enough to be a good hitter, but not so much so far.

LOL - I was typing almost the identical post. I like to see a rookie be able to come back from his 1st slump, means he was able to make the 1st adjustment he had to. Good omen.

If you'd checked in on this team earlier in the year you might not have thought it was surprising they could take their league, but to have still done it after the core of the early season lineup all went to AAA is cool.

90 rbi for Tork. Extra credit for having done it on a team where nobody can get on base.