gehringer_2

Pretty terrible last 30 min from the Oilers. I didn't think think they where going to wake up in time to hold on in this one and that once the Panthers went 6 on 5 they'd be sure to tie it up, but pulling the goalie seemed to finally wake the Oilers up a little.

note Hinch talking about a pitcher making it hard for the Tigers because he didn't do what they thought he would. Maybe think about working harder at just recognizing what is actually being thrown at you and spend less energy trying to outguess what a guy whose team can also read scouting reports is going to do.

Do they get any points for repeatability?

I think this is possible just because if he can’t make the transition now, there is no remaining point for him at AAA either.

As badly as he started he only gave up 2 to a good offense plus the added outs he had to get because of some poor defense, so I don’t take this start as a step back.

He doesn’t throw enough strikes or Ks to be a good BP candidate. TBF he doesn’t have enough IP since the TJ to give up on, but it points to how important it would have been to get him into competition before last season ended.

Depends. Not sure you can teach/coach pitch recognition. That may or may not be why a guy is a free swinger but if it is, I’d just stay away.

It’s what always happens when you have a line-up with low OBP. It’s simple math, when individual batters have high probability of making outs, you don’t get many multi hit rallies or men on base leading off innings.

And he has learn you don’t throw strikes on 0-2 in this league unless your stuff is better than Casey’s

And it's not like Zadina ever even got remotely close to flashing high level NHL skill. Even when a guy fails you can usually see where the attraction was - he shows you something occasionally where you can see where the potential was. We never saw Zadina do anything on NHL ice that even teased he could be a top level player. I think there was one season Blashill did have him doing a decent job as a fore-checker (a 4th line job), but that was it.

It's good to play next to a Hughes

no, to the contrary, I define 1st level smart guy as the guy who is above average but just not enough to overcome the structural disadvantage of trying to operate in a 'sustainable' manner in an MLB mid-market, which is the maybe the toughest assignment in US sports management. So the way I would put it, is that if you have found Theo Epstein V2.0, I sort of expect him to be extra-ordinary enough that he'd have already pulled a rabbit or two out of his hat, and that's what I don't see yet, so at this point I can't be real excited about slow and steady because in the end I don't think slow and steady is going to be enough to ever get 'there' which is an ever receding target you have to move fast to catch up with. Now 12mo from now if Jobe, McGonigle and Clark are all knocking at the door, Tork and Partker has been coached up and found their swings, Casey Mize has regained at least mid-level breaking ball command, and a successful Flaherty has been signed instead of traded, I'll consider that a fine fluffle of little rodents.

good catch! - yes the Sandinistas. I never have been able to remember which is my left from my right without looking....

The difference is that in the NFL, teams are pretty much on a level playing field, so once you get a smarter than average FO in place, you start to win, plus the turnover is much faster for an NFL team so things can happen much faster. A mid/small market baseball team already starts at such a disadvantage that just being above average in the FO is not enough, you have to be *way* above average. I'm hoping Harris is that guy, but the jury is still out that maybe he's only another 1st level smart guy. Ilitch wants to do the sustainable thing - without getting on the boom bust cycle Dombrowski operated in, but the Tigers (like the Royals/Indians/Cinci/Stl/etc/ have a terribly narrow window to succeed at it.

The CBAs, maybe especially in Basketball, have gotten so complex to navigate that I see a future with more teams slotting GM's as contract management specialists and team Presidents acting as primary team managers.

Yeah - when your city council makes a gift of a garbage truck to the Contras you know they have lost sight of what they are there for. (Ann Arbor City council actually did this some years back, and hasn't gotten much better since....)

Another aspect could be a changing philosophy as much as the particular plays. For instance, did McVay start introducing concepts that resulted in giving Goff less freedom to make his own calls on the field? That's the kind of thing that could sour the relationship even absent issues around ability to execute particular plays. I've seen Goff's coach from Cal say that he felt Goff was the best game manager he had ever coached and he gave him wide latitude (rare at the NCAA level) to make decisions on the field. From what I gather Goff also enjoys that kind of confidence from this Det staff. I think it's easy to envision a dynamic where a smart coach believes he is certainly smarter than his players and they need to bend to his control, and a proud skilled player asking "why don't you let me play my best game?" Not sure that has to be anyone's fault - it's just a mismatch.

I think the decision on when to brings guys up from AAA just keep getting harder. Used to be, a guy would reach a reasonable performance level at AAA and you had a pretty good idea he would be able to stay afloat in the MLB even if it was at a lower level than you hoped, but more and more we see guys all around the league put up even pretty impressive AAA numbers and then fall completely flat after call up. One has to suppose teams will be breaking down AAA hitter assessments by quality of pitching faced to a deeper level than we have access to as fans.

Parker might be a nice player, but at this point I think the window has closed on him being any kind of star, so you aren't going to have to pay that much if you want to keep him even if he gets the year.

I buy this arg a lot more for pitchers than hitters. Hitting is a young man's game. Guys that don't show some MLB hitting talent by 23/24 at most 25 probably won't ever be more than role players. As for the future - there's some light in Lakeland, but very little in the way of bats likely to make Det anywhere above that (Lee?) so it's going to be a long haul if they can't find some help outside the current org.

I wouldn't minimize the work Fetter and staff have done helping pitchers improve their stuff, and I still think Hinch is about as good as they come at utilizing what he has to work with, but even with all that, when guys break down you get left short of talent and there is no way around that when you lose guys that were were previously effective the team will suffer. Talent is still the bottom line. Lange's deflagration has been a big blow, and Faedo had been useful before he went down. Chafin may be better than last season but is still not pitching as well as he did in '22. Wentz has been fool's gold. Because they are inconsistent, bullpen is a place where if you aren't trying to improve every year, you are getting worse. Miller was the org's only even half serious attempt to upgrade with a high level talent and he is basically a reclamation project

sure, I can see two ways of looking at those results. The first is that you have a bunch of AAAA players, so when they face a team that by circumstance can only throw a AAA level pitcher at them, they clean up, but then can't handle normal MLB pitching the majority of the time - so there is your rationale for boom and bust. The other way to look at it is that you have hitters with MLB potential (if not, why did the FO bring them to the Majors?) but are trapped in an approach that is too geared to hitting mistakes only. The outcome of either scenario will be the same - an exaggerated amount of boom and bust based on who they are facing. I think both are or have been true. In Torkelson's case I do believe he is a better hitter than the approach he was using was allowing him to realize, (though may yet be proved wrong 😥). The staff certainly appears to have recognized that and sent him to Toledo to straighten out. They probably should have done it sooner. He would be my main case where I think there had been a coaching failure. Kriedler, McKinstry, Baddoo, are not MLB hitters. Rogers is a AAA hitter with a bit of MLB level power. Vierling, Ibanez, Canha, Kelly are MLB level role bats, not team carriers. Keith and Perez represent hope, but can't be expected to supply much production yet. The only significantly above average quality bat on this team right now is Greene. I'll grant Malloy is still too SSS, but since I've had my reservations about how he would make the transition from the beginning, I haven't seen anything to take me off my scepticism. Clearly since the hitting was thin to begin with, the loss of Carpenter and Torkelson's regression have been fatal. The difference between one feared hitter and three in a line-up is pretty huge.

Parker is sitting at about 270 at Toledo with an OBP over 375. I used to take 50 pts as a typical BA drop from AAA to MLB but the gulf seems to be worse now. But if he could hold at 220-230 given his occasional power and speed on the bases I think he's still an asset, but he was at 096 went he was sent down and yeah - you can't hide that enough.

I haven't followed Meadows' ABs at Toledo, but have checked in on Torkelson's. He seems to be trying to swing the bat more. If that's true, and it's just a guess, than I'd rather give him time to work through that. You have to hope they have some plan for him to accomplish 'x' while he is there so whatever it is, he needs to complete it before they bring him back. In Torks case it's not like they just sent him down to get his confidence back, he had some surgery to do on his mechanics/approach.

Miller is the odd case right now. His peripherals look fine, the result are terrible. In 6 IP since coming off the IL he's given up no walks, 3 hits, 6K, a 143 BA against, and blown 3 saves. How do you do that? Have to think his luck should improve.