gehringer_2

Why is Beau still out there? I think Hinch had this game written off before it started.

Brieske - Major league - even swing and miss FB, but the breaking stuff needs work.

Shep is so FOS

Baez had completed the force but didn't know it.

PED systems that are beating the tests?

I'm sure he was very comfortable playing it on the big hop.

Kewl

Jeter, ARod would be if they would let him in, Simmons, Baines, Halladay....a lot I'm guessing without going through the list further!

Seriously, the only thing keeping Seider from being 'completely' elite is more TOI with better other players.

LOL - I know, I watched that game 7 and thought "Where did the Wings get those green sweaters!

lets hope it's Wilmer Flores knocking at the door.

Freehan is such an odd case to me. He was the hands down dominant catcher in his league for nearly his whole career. Forget all the stats, that alone should get you more consideration that Freehan ever got.

They are crappy on D because they do not attack the puck when the other team has it - they all sag off all the time - they don't fore-check, they don't close-out opposing puck carriers. They basically wait to recover pucks after shots on goal and aren't very good at that either. There are two extreme poles as to why - 1) they are just too slow 2) they have been coached to play that way. I have no question that #1 is at least partly true, but replacing Blashill should help resolve the balance between those possibilities. Of course the degree to which #2 is the problem is why he had to go. For instance there is no reason for Larkin or Bertuzzi to rank poorly defensively.

Interesting. I don't think you need to be a great performer to lead, but I do think you need to be a steady one - and good enough your job is secure. Guys who are always going in and out of slumps have to consume too much of their own mental energy on themselves - so that leaves out Schoop, Baez, Grossman etc. OTOH, I think despite not being an all-star, Alex Avila was a team leader - other than one year he wasn't much at the plate, but he was always a solid receiver and consistent in doing what he could do with the bat, and that kind of combination is/was enough for credibility I think. If Torkelson makes it, I think he is the most likely candidate to grow into the role. Candy would be the other obvious possibility, but I think he's a little too sweet to push anyone - maybe not...

34 RA in 5 games for a playoff team? Morris and the whole staff sucked in that series. Everything that happened post 84' sucked really. Even reaching the playoffs in '87 couldn't erase the fact that Monaghan was an idiot (in Ann Arbor we knew him up close and personal already) and it was obvious management was intent on screwing up the team to save a few bucks and everything could only get worse - which it did.

No arg there. My one extra thought on that is that I think Mickey got everything out his talent, I think maybe Jack could have been better than he was - not that that should get him anything in retrospect - his record is what he made it. But I think maybe the reason Morris was able to rise to the occasion as well as he did on those occasions he gets so much credit for is that there may have been a more successful pitcher in there that his personality/stubborness always sabotaged a little over a season. Or another way to put it is that for as much sage advice as he claims to have for Tiger pitchers today, I never thought he was a very smart pitcher himself.

Next year could be get tricky if Mize, Manning, Turnbull and Faedo are all healty, but then again, how likely is that!?

half dozen good years only gets you the HOF if you do it for the Dodgers.....

He had a bad week and Mayo was a manager in a hurry? I do see some significance to the fact that two of the losses were to the offense that won 109 the next season. Mayo jerked guys around all the time - did he ever use the same batting order twice in a row? Just looking at the game logs over that two weeks it's honestly hard to figure what Mayo was doing. Fred Lasher was out, so the BP would have been short. The starts Mickey didn't make were given to Pat Dobson(2), Darryl Patterson and Hiller took one - so that wasn't saving the pen really. OTOH, Mickey worked 5 and 5.2 innings in his last two relief appearances with no runs so he was already in split start - stretch out mode. But then Mayo skipped him for a full week before his next start (Aug 22) so who knows what was going on? Maybe he was ready to start again and got a virus or something. They did add Don MacMahon on July 28 which adds some evidence they needed more BP arms. If they wanted to see what Patterson (rookie?) or Dobson could do as a starter your couldn't send Sparma to the pen, his control was erratic, Wilson was a senior guy (and a good hitter), you weren't going to move McLain! In any case, I don't know how often Mickey was higher or lower in FIP than 19th, but for him, his '68 FIP was pretty normal. I mean, there is a reason he's not in the HOF despite retiring with the most K's for a LHP. He usually was not *that* dominant, he was just very good. His real talent came later in the number of innings he would give you, that saved you as a team from having to use somebody worse for those innings. That did have great value but there is no prize or award for that.

Cleared to start 'baseball activities' but still at least a week/2 to a rehab assignment

I'm telling you that we fans in '68 were NOT surprised Lolich had a good series. I think the difference is that we are taking opposite views on what the '68 league ERAs mean. You seem (If I understand your basic arg) to be saying the league ERA was great because all the hitters sucked so every pitcher should have had a great ERA year. I think it much more highly probable that the hitters were basically the same and enough pitchers (like McLain and Gibson) had relative career years to skew the league average ERA. Since it takes far fewer pitchers having good years than hitters having bad years to get to the same set of ERA+ results, I'm going with the former on pure probability grounds. Thus to me, Lolich was the guy he usually was, and that is backed by his peripherals being some of the best of his career.

yeah - I don't like 'state of mine' law much in general. As Yoda would say, You either did, or did not do.

Are we looking at the same logs? I think Cantor was a little overdramatic. He had exactly three rough outings at the end of July. His ERA was 3.22 on July 15. He got roughed up on the 19th, 24th, 28th, gave up runs in relief on Aug 2 and then was right back on track, not giving up a run in 6 more BP appearance and then going back into the rotation. His ERA for the rest of Aug after the 2nd was 1.83. So clicked immediately is more accurate. So basically he had a rough 2 week. And I'm sure he was POd at being sent to the pen. Interestingly enough, look a little deeper, those games were in three series - a home and home against the Orioles sandwiched around the Senators. Denny got roughed up Jul 20 and 23 in games in the same series. Could the other team deserve a little credit? The Orioles were on their way to being a great team. They came into DET and took 3 of four, the only game we won was one Lolich started (his 1st poor one) and Dobson won in relief. McLain and Wilson also took losses in that series. Then they lost two of three to the Sen (McLain and Lolich) and took two of three against the Orioles in Balt - Lolich with his final bad start there. Another thing to consider is that given poor starts by multiple starters in a short a short stretch it might also have been a bug going around the clubhouse. Of course they all would have been doubly upset because Baltimore was the team behind them. That week was the closest Baltimore got the rest of the way. In '69 the same Baltimore team brought Palmer up for good, picked up Cuellar, and ran away with it, winning 109. I know you don't think Lolich was much of a pitcher, but he was pretty much same pitcher in '68 he usually was. To argue he had an overall off year in total does not match the facts of his peripherals at all.

I'd push back some that Lolich wasn't good in '68. He wasn’t used as much (in fact made 7 relief appearances - which I have to say I don't remember at all) and "only" completed 8 games so Mayo was taking him out of games earlier than later in his career. He was credited with 17 wins but the Tigers won 24 of his starts. So counting totals maybe weren't as high, but his peripherals were mostly quite good. His K rate was the 3nd best of his career and his FIP was 2.99 which was well better than his average FIP of 3.2 while in Det (which discounts his poor last years in SD) and only 0.34 off his career best, his WHIP was third best of his career, hits/9 was the 2nd best of his career. His ERA+ was below 100 -- but 68 was a pretty nutty year for ERA across the leagues. His raw ERA and FIP were better in 68 than 69 despite his 69 ERA+ being 119, so I'd argue it wasn't Lolich's performance that was the difference in ERA+ as much as the league itself being the outlier in '68./ Down the stretch from Aug 1, McLain's ERA was 1.85, Lolich's was 2.39 and in fact in Sept. Mickey's ERA (2.27) matched McLain's (2.29) across their last 6/7 starts. It was not a surprise Mickey pitched well in the Series (of course the 3 CG was), they were 1 and 1A by that time. The surprise was McLain didn't pitch better.

Serious question - you don't think top starting pitchers are as reliable from year to year as top hitters? I'd agree that the risk of losing them to catastrophic injury in a given year is higher, but it seem to me your top pitchers stay on the leader boards performance wise pretty much as consistently as good hitters. Relievers are for sure a different deal.