Arlington

Flaherty did fail the Yanks physical 6 months ago. That could be tainting his chances at a long term contract. Maybe he's a 1973 Vega

If that's the case, they are going to want Flaherty if Skubal stays as well.

True, should have said "could see" rather than "saw". But honestly, I have never seen such an forward looking evaluation before.

Law said he saw McGonnigle having a long career and getting 2,500 hits which only 3 other Tigers have accomplished as Tigers. Wonder if the Tigers are considering any Colt Keith like contracts here. With so many players coming within a few short years, it might be well worth their money to pay a little bit more early so that they can have a more manageable budget when they are all peaking. Also, thought the Max Clark commentary was particularly interesting. Apparently Max had lost a significant amount of speed since high school. At draft time he was rated a 70 but that has fallen to 55. Thought that was unusual.

I thought I had LordStanley's post quoted. This is in reference to it. We had moved to western NY in 1969 and the Tigers were out of range except by a WJR broadcast that was dependent on atmospheric conditions. The Tigers on national TV was a rare treat. I still can picture in my mind Rodriquez' dribbler that made it over second and through the infield to plate the winning run. That was the game, wasn't it. It still is a cherished memory for me and it was just a game on tv that I watched alone.

Twins wouldn't have needed to fall off the cliff like the Lions (sorry) had the Tigers not gone 8 under. The May Tigers and the September Tigers just don't compare. Just look at up the middle defense. Sweeny was above average, Keith improved tremendously and needless to say, Parker. Defense after Urshela might have dropped at 3rd. Limited action by Carpenter and Green. Maybe the only position that didn't see an overall 2nd half improvement might have been catcher. Dingler might have been a step down from Kelly. What should propel the Tigers in 2025 is pitching. We have a possible lock down 1 and 2 in Skubal and Jobe, and then 8 more starters who could fill the other three slots. There is a lot of pitching talent in the minors who could be part of an effective fluid staff. And we have numerous plan Bs and probably plan Cs and Ds with the talent to accomplish them.

Fydrich is my favorite what might have been. You don't associate him with the '80s but he would have been in his prime when the Tigers were. A healthy 30-year old Fydrich leading the 1984 rotation?

Bernie Williams is a pretty good comparable to Chet and he's not in.

Jaden Hamm must have been knocking on the door. He made BA's list. The list gives us a complete infield including catcher, a starting pitcher and CF.

I wish someone told Avila that!

If we keep getting into the playoffs, we'll have to look elsewhere to pick up from the drop in draft rank. International is really a lightly tapped resource for this team

Also, not really buying into the need for right side batters philosophy. Left-handers have an advantage in that the bulk of pitches thrown are by right-handed pitchers. Some teams don't have a left-handed starter and few have no more than two in the pen. Seems you could press an advantage by having a LH available for every AB.

Just catching up on posts and saw this in the Newsweek article linked a few pages back. "They're starting to creep into the free-agent market, with Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press linking them to Alex Bregman and Anthony Santander," Rymer wrote. "Which is good, but the problem is that only one of those guys is a full-time right-handed hitter. Here's why this matters: In terms of total run value, the Tigers got +27 from the left side and -63 from the right side in 2024." Can anyone see an iota of logic in rejecting a switch-hitter because you need a right-handed bat? Truthfully, I'm kinda dumbfounded by this. Would telling Santander to bat only right-handed solve the problem?

I could see Tork going in a change-of-scenery change where a like-underachiever is sent here.

Awhile back I say a similar breakdown of the top three teams in each state and the Yankees were in practically, if not every state, top 3, most often second if not first. Montana going Cardinal red is the most surprising to me, but then maybe it's the kids from two large displaced families going to the site over and over again.

I never really thought of that. I guess you can be better off exposing someone in the Rule V rather than protecting them as the 39th or 40th man and having to eventually outright them and lose them on waivers.

Isn't that why he played 2nd, to keep him away from the walls.

Ditto

You have to remember that DD came on to a feckless team and developed them into a contender very quickly, providing perhaps the longest stretch of competitiveness for the team since probably the 1934 - 1940 period. DD's last acts were the start of the tear down and in July 2015 he picked up some good prospects, including a future ROY. Avila had a wealth of material to trade and we came out of it with Jake and a handful of WAR from a few other fringe major leaguers. If DD and the Tigers were dedicated to rebuilding in 2015 I doubt it would have put us into the decade long drought we've seen. I put that entirely on Avila. Anyway, Harris does seem to be the anti-Dombroski so far, but there might be a time and place for Dombroski's methodology and I'm not sure if Harris will entirely ignore that going forward. I have a lot of faith in Harris and I trust he will take the right direction.

Trading prospects is the way to go right now, but replacing those prospects will be a little harder now that the Tigers have had success and are picking later with less available money. It will be interesting to see if Harris goes the path of restocking through trades ala Tampa Bay or depleting through trades ala Dombrowski.

Wonder when they are going to give Jace a 1st baseman's glove. Yea, third is relatively new and it needs to be his focus but just think of the flexibility it would provide.

Baseball is talking about a Golden At-Bat It was described as "A manager can use one Golden At-Bat per game to slot their preferred batter into the order for a single at-bat. I’m in the on-deck circle with the bases loaded, and Juan Soto is on the bench. So you simply send Soto to the plate instead of me." I think they should allow a pitcher a free toss at a batter each game. If they hit him, it's counted as two balls. If they miss, just one ball. The pitcher has to signal the throw and it will be broadcast by the stadium announcer. The pitcher will get an extra 20 seconds to build tension and give fans a chance to get a viewing point. Anyone else have a totally stupid idea to make the game more entertaining?

The connection between global change and the Tigers season. Have we had a discussion here on Hinch not getting even 2nd in MVM voting? I thought he was a shoe-in. He truly lead a team of young, malleable kids to the playoffs despite being at 0.2% odds. Those odds reflect an event that happens once every 500 years. He then managed the team into a 2-1 advantage into the ALDS, again against the odds. Not only did he lead them through a once in a 500 year-olds life event, Hinch did more play-calling than any manager I've seen. I don't need to go into detail on how he used a much inexperienced bull-pen and lead them through pitching match-ups to produce. His bullpen days strategy has to be a subject of study for managers/coaches/analysts everywhere. And his match-ups on the other side produced a lot of memorable events. Is Hinch being black balled because of the Houston scandal or is it more like global climate where events that were once in a lifetime event are occurring awfully regularly so that we don't have to go that far back to find the last once in a lifetime flood, or hurricane, or other weather event. A once in a lifetime comeback isn't all that astounding perhaps because it's now a fad were we are presented with rarities regularly. "Jake Hardhelmet is the first player since 1937 to get hit in the head twice and hit two homers in a game." Anyway, I thought Hinch would win unanimously.

I'd like to buy a "D:" "The doldrums of late November"

Granted JHM in 61 PAs blows Carpenter's results in 32 PAs out of the water. In those 93 PA we did much better with HMH. But JMH had a -.4 WAR. He had value only as a hitter in 61 PAs against LH pitching. Is it worth carrying a -.4 WAR player to upgrade a few Carpenter ABs. I understand JMH is in development. But we might be leaving something behind by not developing Carpenter's capabilities against LH pitching.