monkeytargets39

At this point I trust Skubal to put together a better AB than what Baez will give us

I’m gonna be really frustrated if we trade one of our two top pitchers and don’t address SS with the return.

Oh I don’t feel bad. I’m sure they’ll pull some other goofy named white kid out of their system who will inexplicably be dominant like they always do.

Not that I like seeing anyone hurt, but if Bibee goes on the DL that really helps our quest to make up ground on them in the division.

I’m sure there are scouts from all over the league here representing the robust trade market for Mark Canha

Demoting Torkelson certainly helps with this stat….

I’d be curious to hear what the trade market would be for Torkelson and Manning. Obviously they’re not at high value, but still young with potential. Maybe swapping them for players in a similar boat within their organizations that we identify a high ceiling for could be a shrewd move. Otherwise do we just let them stall out and fade away?

Sure, but he just went April through the last week of July with only 11 starts and 41 innings. So it could very easily go either way.

Very true, however he’s sitting just over 40 innings pitched and we are almost to August. He had something like 66 innings last year. He’s also had injuries pop up each of the last two years that has cost him some time. Getting him up to the 90-100 innings range for the rest of the year sounds great, but let’s get him there first.

To clarify my actual point here: I’m not trying to say Jobe isn’t allowed to be promoted to Detroit or that him getting innings there is a problem. Im saying that going into 2025, it would be reckless to expect Jobe to be a full fledged member of the rotation and for him to be expected to compete at a high level for a full season while needing to make a huge jump in workload. If we are talking about having him work out of the pen or as a spot starter, that’s an entirely different situation. I think we all agree that if we can have a successful trade deadline and further address needs in the offseason that we should be able to further compete for a playoff spot next year. Assuming the loss of Flaherty, we are looking at a most likely scenario of Skubal/Olson/Mize, and then the internal options of Manning/Maeda/Montero/Jobe/Gipson-Long. It’s pretty apparent that Maeda is cooked, and the org seems to have soured quite a bit on Manning being a viable option. If anyone here sees Keider Montero as a viable 4 or 5 starter on a playoff caliber team, please elaborate on why. So you have the two wild cards with Jobe and SGL. SGL has good peripherals and would be a good choice for a spot pending his health. Jobe, while clearly capable from an ability standpoint, is still very young and hasn’t gone through the workload increase to suggest that he’s going to be able to go a full season as a starter without having periods where we limit innings, skip him in the rotation, or shut him down for a time period. If we start him in the rotation and he does really well but runs out of gas midway through the year and we have to take measures to work around that—is it really beneficial to the team? All of those extra innings and starts are going to be picked up by our garbage heap of Faedo/Wentz/Manning/Maeda/etc. Would it not make more sense to get Jobe his innings across multiple levels and deploy him strategically in Detroit rather than go into the year relying on him to provide something that he may not physically be capable of? My argument for next years rotation is not that Jobe doesn’t have the ability, it’s that if we are trying to position ourselves to contend, we need to bring in at least one starter who has a strong track record of being reliable and competitive and if that means that we don’t unleash Jobe fully until 2026, then so be it. But heading into the year expecting Jobe to be a major part of the team is short-sighted. For all I care he can get innings at whatever level the organization wants to get him innings at. Just temper the expectations of him taking on a full workload at the major league level next year.

The point isn’t that he can’t get big league hitters out. It’s that you can’t take Jobes workload and jump it up 100+ innings from what he has been previously done and expect him to maintain effectiveness and health. For all I care he could come up and take Wentz spot in the bullpen right now. You just can’t at this point go into 2025 thinking he’s gonna give you 33 starts or 200 innings without running into problems all along the way that would require adequate roster strategy in place as a contingency. Id rather us go get an established and capable arm for that potential rotation spot than get 3 months of Jobe at full strength and then have to revert to Manning or Maeda if Jobe fatigues during a hypothetical playoff run.

Agree. And SGL is older and has the workload history

He could. You’re just absolutely going to have to have contingency plans in place in case he hits an organization determined innings limit or he falters. Which means having additional capable starters on the roster anyway. So why not just let him continue to build up his stamina in an environment where win/loss performance of the team isn’t as important and where it’s more plausible to skip him in the rotation from time to time or cap some of his starts at 3-4 innings.

Jobe may be ready from a stuff standpoint but he’s not ready from an innings standpoint. The most he’s gone in a year as a pro is 77. i can’t see the Tigers brass putting him into the major league rotation for the start of next year. Maybe he’s the guy that is the spot starter for double headers and such. The goal next year needs to be him staying healthy and him building the arm stamina to handle a full year of ML work in 2026. We put Bonderman in the rotation full time before he was ready and it definitely seemed to stunt the development and his health. i also would expect a similar approach to Gipson-Long coming off injury. We are almost going to have to get a free agent SP this offseason even if we somehow retain Flaherty and Skubal.

I’d say that offensively Jung would be an upgrade over Canha and Urshela. I’d also argue that while his defense may not be a plus, he would be better defensively at 2B than Keith has been. Assuming Flaherty and Kelly get dealt but not assuming what the return would be, I’d be inclined to wish for a 2025 look of: C- Rogers/Dingler 1B- Keith 2B- Jung/Ibanez SS- Baez 3B- Vierling LF- Greene CF- Meadows RF- Perez DH- Carpenter/Malloy. Thats 12 out of an ideal 13. Ideally we get a SS/3B mlb ready prospect in a trade or decide to sign a FA for it and then platoon Meadows and Vierling in CF instead. Its not out of line to expect a .700+ OPS from every position group aside from Javy and catcher if everyone can stay healthy and play to reasonable expectations

Also, do we carry 5 (6 if you include Vierling and we go Jung or FA at 3B) outfielders so that we can platoon them? A Malloy/Carpenter platoon at DH would be productive, but is that how you want to approach roster construction? Only then can you play Greene full time and then also platoon Meadows and Vierling. Then Perez in RF as a switch hitter. Assuming you’d want to continue to keep Ibanez as a platoon option for Jung/Keith as well. That really puts an emphasis on what to do at SS and 1B going forward. Assuming everyone is healthy of course. Do we stick with Javy and a lousy backup SS who only would ever need to play SS? Does Keith move to first base and Jung to 2B? Lots of interesting possibilities if we keep the roster as constructed going forward. Also ignoring what could come in a Flaherty deadline move.

I agree with all of that. We also need to get past the point where we are signing one or two pitchers each off season in hopes of them bouncing back and becoming trade options. If we sign a pitcher in the offseason, whether it’s Flaherty or someone else, I’d prefer it to be someone that can be very confidently looked at as a 3-5 year piece of a contending rotation. We’ve gotten fortunate with Lorenzen and now with Flaherty, but more often than not those back end of the rotation cheap pick ups don’t work out.

Anyone know if Rogers/Kelly/Dingler have ever taken 1B reps?

More that we have a bit of depth at outfield (if healthy) and if adding a part of that depth to increase the return in a Flaherty trade can help us with depth at other positions of need, then it should be considered. I will say that I like his profile as a guy who can hit for average and get on base, so I don’t WANT him traded- but when you look at other guys in our system that could have positive trade value, most of them either won’t be moved or are at a low point in value currently. Less about wanting to move Perez and more about getting even more likely of a max return in a situation like a Flaherty trade. I would be happy if we could arrange to keep Flaherty, but I don’t think that’ll be the strategy here.

Have we ever had that art? We let Nelson Cruz terrorize us for a decade

I just mean heading into next season. There’s not much we can do about it now unless some waiver wire possibilities come up around and after the deadline

I’m of the opinion that we should try to sell high on him in a deadline package.

Everyone is so focused on prospect upgrades from possible deadline deals that we are ignoring the biggest way we can improve the team: replace Faedo and Wentz (and Maeda) with capable relief pitchers.

That’s not enough for Skubal by himself let alone throwing Foley into the deal. Foley in a bandbox stadium would be very high value for a team. That’s not just a pot-sweetener we are talking about.

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