gehringer_2

LOL - so much for that....

Blashill said they had to clamp it down on defense and they've only given up one so maybe that message sunk in a little.

Apparently Posey has had physical issues maintaining his play in the second halves of seasons and one SF writer speculated that he believes he only got through the 2nd half of this one because of the short season last year and he didn't want to crash next year. He also has young twins at home. Plus if he has made a big pot of money.....

Just what they would need from their 'C'

I don't think Al is looking for long term or top of the rotation pitching so I could see a guy like Miley as a likely target. $10million might be more than they would go for Miley though. With the dollars now spent for Barnhardt you imagine there must be a remaining number for the total they are going to spend on pitching and SS. Since Chris has taken over it seems their process it to set a number and spend right to it. If they miss on a top SS I could see them going bigger on a pitcher than they might initially be inclined to.

That's a good way to put it.

Reparations is such a great issue for the GOP. I've seen some black political writers debate whether the whole white guilt strategy is the best politics or not on relative grounds , but the real problem is that is misses the larger point of historical reality in America that the forebearers of *most* of the white population came here after 1865 and many from horrible oppressive places themselves. No-one can tell those white American's that somehow they should carry the burden for the long arc of US history. Whether it's a fair argument that all emigrated whites received some kind of generalized benefit from the legacy of white privilege or not, most of the US white population is not going to accept a direct individual (individual because it comes via direct taxation) demand like reparations. The moral calculus is too indirect - it's just not going to happen. Black political leadership errs if they generalize that most whites will accept themselves as heirs of the O'Haras.

Miley. '22 $10M club option with $1M buyout. If the Reds are dumb enough to not want to pay him next season they save the $1M moving him to a team willing to pickup up the main option. It's probably unlikely even the Reds would dump a 14 game winner over $10M but we can always hope! Of course if Castellanos opts out they will save a chunk there. https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/cincinnati-reds/wade-miley-8797/

BTW, the Reds also have a pitcher who was the starter in 39 of their wins in '19 and '21 and also has a '22 option they may not want to pick up.

If you compare stats to the player who may be the best in history at his position not in the HOF, you will get outcomes like that.....

American society has turned "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" on it's head. Today it's all the random drug, gun, pollution and public health disaster death that the pursuit of profit and power can buy.

Protected from same side pitching Haase and Barnhardt are potentially both slightly above average hitters at their position. This move is exactly the kind of unspectacular mid-level roster depth building move that the Tigers seldom made under the previous FO's feast (and famine) trading style.

Surprising that as thin as the catching market is, we didn't seem to be bidding against much to get him. Obviously most teams thought the Reds would just decline his option and they'd approach Barnhardt as a FA if they were interested, but it turned out it required very little to motivate the Reds to give the Tigers the right to exercise his option. I give Al some credit here for seeing an easily exploited angle that the competition apparently ignored. Considering what the Mets paid McCann a team waiting for Barnhardt to go to free agency to save a million or two was probably miscalculating anyway.

Hasse has a 250 pt platoon split (OPS) and hit HRs at twice the rate against LHP. His non-counting stats will benefit quite a bit by having his PAs against RHP limited.

That one could cut either way. It could be they always had Barnhardt catch their the bad starters so they'd have more support. One assumes the Tigers' new generation of back office nerds were all over those numbers though......🤓

at this point all I want from the catcher spot is a decent OBP. Just don't make an out every time up. Barnhardt is 324 OBP for his career. That's 40 pts better than Wilson Ramos or Greyson Greiner last yr. That's an improvement I can live with. Haase's OBP is poor also so he has to keep hitting the long ball to be useful.

Smoltz did return to one observation several times that I think may be spot on and maybe is more generally applicable they he even gives it credit for - which is that maybe on the reasons we are seeing this huge shift in the way managers handle pitching and the decreasing value of starters is nothing more than the familiarity factor. There used to be fewer teams and each team had fewer pitchers. In particular for starters, most teams a Lolich or Gibson faced knew them really well. So you really had to have a lot of tools in the toolbox to have been a successful starter. There are so many team and each team has twice as many pitchers, todays batters just never get familiar with the guys they are facing - esp the relievers - this gives relievers a huge advantage compared to the 'old days'. All a reliever has to do is look different and that can get him through as many innings as any other team will see him for. In that calculus coming in fresh and strong begins to mean more than not being a pitcher with a good variety of pitches. The only question is why it took baseball so many years after expansion and pitching staff increases to actually start managing to current conditions. Probably because it takes a long time for the culture in coaching and management to change. Look at how long the 3 pt shot existed before basketball finally started being played to take full advantage of it - it was decades.

absolutely. It was quite strange. The traditional playoff team's dilemma is usually which regular starters give up their role because you don't need 5 in the players. The Braves were pretty much down to 2 starters and they still managed to win.

You can bank on the Tigers trying to make more moves quickly. That seems to be Avila's MO.

it did strike me that once it looked like there would be no game 7 Fox's attention did seem to shift to football. 🙄

so if what I just read is correct, once the 1b and runner both miss the bag, it's not enough for the 1b to just step on the bag, it becomes a tag play. To get the out, Fried either had to tag Brantley before he returned to the base after running by, or the Braves had to do a regular appeal play where the pitcher goes the rubber - steps off etc and they ask for a ruling that Brantley missed the base. The didn't do either so they forfeited their chance to get the out called by not doing either of the correct procedural options. If they had gone to replay all it would have proved is that Fried didn't tag Brantley. https://larrybrownsports.com/baseball/video-braves-challenge-max-fried-michael-brantley-first/586498

Solid deal. Kind of a So-So player but one that fills a need that will still provide value given the context of the Tiger's weakness at the position. And sure, it's mostly about the salary. Agreed $7.5 does seem high for what Burkhardt can do but it's a seller's market in catchers. Quintana's chances of turning into anything are vary small at this point. He's just enough to call it a trade rather than a pure contract dump.

Cunningham going to have to change his first name to Mason. We're going to need some posts on what terrible early games some past stars have had.

Hopefully Correa has been lowering his $$ with every out he he has made in this WS.... 🙄

I absolutely could not make it through the day with a mask that hung from my ears - so I wear one that ties behind my head. Problem solved.....