chasfh

I wonder what the plan with Trey Sweeney is. Clearly Javy is the hot hand and Sweeney got in over his head lately, but Trey has played only four of the nine June games so far, and he was pinch-hit for early in two of those and was a sub in another. As a former first-rounder, the kid presumably has a lot of potential, so sitting him on the bench for the rest of the year won’t help either him or us. But, also, his long-term prospects with the Tigers was already limited given the shortstop depth we have in the system (which, hopefully, still includes Rainer at the top). I think the team would like to package him in a trade for a back-of-the-pen strikeout guy, but they’re going to have to get him some trigger time somewhere, whether it’s here or down I-75. I think they would rather he figure it out up here because he would be more valuable trade chip as a serviceable major leaguer who will be eventually squeezed out by circumstances than as a minor leaguer with an uncertain prognosis.

I think the manager and the coaching staff all have different jobs, as a necessary division of labor. At the major league level, coaches aren’t exactly teaching players anything about the game of baseball itself as much as they are spotting things players are doing wrong, or whether players have gone out of sync, or helping players work on a particular skill they’re trying to acquire, or preparing players specifically for this team/this pitcher/these hitters we are facing today—stuff like that. Coaches’ job is to guide players in these ways and provide feedback to them as they go. The manager, to your point, is focused more on managing the players’ expectations, state of mind, in-game trigger time, etc., but they also provide the coaching staff the guidance they need on what to work with the players, and what the expected successful outcomes should look like. In that sense, the manager is the executive and the coaches are his officers. In a cohesive organization, the front office and field manager work together on establishing goals, objectives, and strategies, and the manager distills all that to the coaching staff who distill it further to the player level. That’s the way a winning organization should probably behave, at least, and after years of not doing that in a way that was obvious even to outsiders like us, the Tigers apparently have finally figured out how to do it right. And look what’s happening.

Agreed, and the interesting part of this post is that I don’t think anyone would have accused us of having a solid and deep roster before the season started. I do wonder how much of the depth of roster has to do with guys simply becoming the best players they could possibly be; with the coaching and development staff guiding the players to make the most of their abilities; and the manager deploying the players in just the right way that leads to optimum outcomes. What’s the mix at hand?

That’s true of the June 1 1-0 over the Royals because of the inexplicable orthodoxy that the win must be awarded to a relief pitcher if the start doesn’t go at least five, even if the starter was far and away the most effective pitcher of the game. That’s where awarding the win is completely within the scorer’s discretion. That’s one of the crazier scoring rules in baseball, right up there with walks don’t matter in batting averages. Last night was different in that there was no discretion at hand. MLB rule 9.17(a) stipulates that “The Official Scorer shall credit as the winning pitcher that pitcher whose team assumes a lead while such pitcher is in the game, or during the inning on offense in which such pitcher is removed from the game, and does not relinquish such lead, unless (1) such pitcher is a starting pitcher and Rule 9.17(b) applies; or (2) Rule 9.17(c) applies (i.e., the effective pitcher discretion ruling).”

Remember the game-winning RBI, which was supposed to reward the most valuable run batter in for the game? They used the same principle for that. If a team took a first inning lead on a home run, scored eight more to lead 9-0, then gave up eight but held on for the 9-8 win, that first home run was granted the GWRBI for the game. Yeah, it didn’t make any actual sense for that, either.

Quick, call in the National Guard. Sounds suspect.

No problem, just use prison labor.

Speaking as someone who’s on the same side here, Terry Moran’s tweet was well out of bounds, and his journalistic integrity and objectivity could be fairly questioned in the aftermath. ABC could not afford to keep him around after that. It’s just a shame he couldn’t restrain himself, because who knows what kind of character he’s going to be replaced with.

“Soldiers are to be fit and not look fat.” This is something you’d expect from a middle schooler, which is where I think the guy’s development got arrested.

Adam Engel. Remember him well. Saw a couple homer robbers from him.

Chase Lee got the win because he was the pitcher of record when the Tigers took the lead they never relinquished.

Man, right down the middle to get O'Hearn. What the hell was he waiting for?

Don't look now, but McStinky is tied for the majors' lead in triples.

Because of course they're going to.

How much you wanna bet they're brown?

Tork bomb! That was almost a home-run robbing catch. We're moving slowly toward blowout territory.

Should we be concerned how much like an old man Riley runs?

Good call.

I thought I saw where SGL was supposed to come in?

Brant Hurter is off to a good start. He's at 25 pitches now—if he comes out for the third, I would guess he's facing two more guys max before SGL comes in.

Torres is really struggling right now.

Were it not for McStnky's hustle, Javy would have left us stranded without a run.

Tough short hop for Gleyber, but a good second baseman would have rushed in to get in on the big hop. No harm, though.

That third catch is in the conversation for greatest catch on video in history. That second catch, the way he slammed into that wall with his gloved wrist: isn't that how Junior broke his wrist?

I made this up with a simple ChatGPT image request and circles and lines from Snagit. I'm thinking of having T-Shirts made for Saturday. Who wants one?