gehringer_2

major difference was that WCF's incompetence was such that the Ford family made sure he never had any serious input at FoMoCo, OTOH, Mike picked Chris out to the exclusion of his sibs to run the enterprise. That and the continued success of Ilitch enterprises argues that Chris is no-where near the lightweight WCF was. I suppose you can argue that it hasn't all fallen apart because Marion is running everything, but that is probably a stretch. So I don't think the idea that Chris is incompetent in general works well. That doesn't mean he isn't a bad owner for any number of other possible reasons, but I don't think a comparison to WCF, while tempting, is particularly apt.

If Chris Ilitch didn't come into baseball ownership knowing more about it than 90% of other owners, it would surprise me. I tend to believe it's his choice not to act based on a set of beliefs about the current situation that - let's just say - are not widely shared. Or maybe by temperament he is simply not hard-core enough to run a sport org well. If you don't like firing people, you can work around non-performing or ill-placed people in a large business operation fairly easily. The management circle of a sports team is too small to stash incompetence in very easily.

And still no shake-up in the coaching staff. Our owner's patience appears to have morphed into softness, which is not the same thing.

but to be honest, since errors get harder to earn every year, and esp this year, a constant fielding % probably represents decay. OTOH, advanced stats take a long time to find their level. My guess from watching is that there is nothing wrong with Javy's fielding skill, but that his concentration level may be suffering playing on a non-competitive team. As a pro that absolutely should not happen, but Javy is exactly the king of high strung guy where you might expect it.

I wouldn't hurt. There is a difference between being able to play anywhere, and being able to play anywhere well. Harold can play anywhere, but Don Kelly he is not.

Postulate 1: Money is the driver of all things. If NIL becomes a major cost - which is appears is going to happen, then someone has to pay it. And that means you need to take that money from fans, and that means it comes down to the marketability of a giving team either nationally or regionally vs the potential population. Almost no teams are really marketable nationally, so I think there is a good chance it will end up following the pro sports model, which is that there will be top level teams where there are major markets to support the costs - and the number of those markets will determine the number of those teams. Granted this is but one of a hundred possibilities, but right now, in the absence of any vision articulated by anyone in college football of where else they might be going, I would rank it the most likely.

Nice to see a Tiger wallop a middle-middle FB.

manager wants wins, GM wants development? Manager feels he's in a stronger situation contract wise than the GM so he basically thumbs his nose at him? Great. Only in Detroit.

Well, I would think you sue an Alex Jones as much to put him out of business as to collect big $$ for yourself. I suppose it will depend a lot on how skeptical the bankruptcy court is. A tough judge could make sure there are no assets left for the parent Co to reorganize easily.

Maybe doesn't top this, but I'd rank 'Patriot Act' up there pretty high.

Ya think? More than any other thing in the Avila/Hinch 'era' this is telling me they have no clue what they are doing.

just another (soon-to-be-ex) tiger.

pretty strange - still no update for this to the Hen's roster or transaction page.

LOL, Okay!

Chafin and Fulmer won't be hard to lose, but for the same reason the return is not going to do much to turn the team around either. If they manage to be an average hitting team next season I think the odds are it will have more to do with guys already in the system being better (or making the team) than anything that happens this weekend. I don't have any thing against them making trades, but I get the sense people are over optimist about the potential results.

So far the Tigers have 16 pitchers with more than 30 IP, only two with more than 60.

the trick is guessing which half to trade.

Tigers can't trade their way to any major improvement in the roster. They don't have that kind of depth. They'll trade relievers for a bat and next yr they'll score 40 more runs and give up 35 more.

This is just there to get Manchin buy-on on the rest of the energy plan, and to be honest, I will say there is a good chance any out year expenditures on oil programs disappear should the Dems win a bigger majority. ...just sayin'

OTOH, how likely was it that a guy whose timing and pitch selection is messed up was going to unwind it instantly just by decreasing his latitude by one degree? You can look at it as two competing ideas about his problem. If he hadn't gotten into bad habits, if he was doing everything the same as he was before he was called up, then sure - he'd go to Toledo and instantly be back to where he was, but the implication of that would be that he simply couldn't hit MLB pitching doing the things that had gotten him to the big leagues. I don't think that is a conclusion I'd like to see verified. OTOH, if he was a player who had gotten out of sync with himself, who had things he had to fix to get back to better, you might expect him to have work through that over some time even once the pressure of facing the best pitching was reduced. I'm here all week. Try the veal.

he's been on base 6 times in his last 5 games. You gotta start somewhere.

I always thought moving Norris to the pen was a mistake. They did it because they thought he got too amped up looking forward to his starts, but it seemed to me that for a guy with problems repeating his delivery, longer outings working across the range from fresh to fatigued would help him learn how to get into a groove better. But at 30 the die is probably now cast for him - improving the way he pitches now has to be a long shot - whether working short or long.

clutch matters! But seriously, a couple of leverage walks in a couple of days is the kind of sign you want to see that the Tork we are looking for is still in there.

At Toledo: Kreidler 2/4, 3B BB. Torkelson 0/4 but a bottom of the 9th walk to keep the line moving when Toledo was trying to mount a come back. (Game ended with Davis up again with the winning runs in scoring position but no walk off for Brendon tonight.)

Jimenez. Never would have thought it. Never did think it. And they will probably trade him.