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No amount of Akil Baddoos could equal even one Juan Soto.

It might be less a matter of whether the owner will open up the wallet and cheap out, as it is a matter of we are not yet in a position to commit five-plus years to fringey-All-Star-level players. That said, if they had to give five years to anyone, Flaherty is probably the best bet of anyone not named Burnes. Even with his years wandering in the desert, he has an early track record of great success, and he did really well under this coaching regime. If the price for Flaherty is five years, I’m guessing this is going to be one of the tougher decision Harris and Ilitch are going to have to make.

Well, there is this, too, although it is from five days ago. Maybe this is where "afternoon radio guy" got it.

Did anyone suggest getting rid of the designated hitter, still not batting the pitcher, and reducing the batting order to eight hitters? That's one of Lee's favorites.

It's one thing to trade players when a team have little to no chance of making the playoffs. It's a whole other thing to have a terrific chance of making the playoffs, then trade their best player because they're afraid they'll end up not having the team to make help them the playoffs in 2028 or '29. I'd be shocked if any GM did that, let alone Scott Harris. In fact—is there any record of a team well into the playoff hunt trading their very best player at the deadline? Or even a team who was a playoff team, was expected to take a big step the following year, then traded their best player in the offseason to avoid having him walk for nothing in two years? If so, I'm curious how that worked out for them.

OK, have it your way. Everyone who has managed people for a living knows what I'm talking about.

Maybe it’s not about dirt found on the Kennedy woman. Maybe this is something “among the Italians, real greaseball shǐt”.

Yes, I’m afraid you will have to watch Skubal pitch for the Tigers for another year. Try not to rue what could have been this winter while you do so. 😉

Because his bosses went around him directly to the players. If you ever managed people, you would understand what that means.

I’m not sure we will sign him, but I am certain as can be that if we are firmly within the playoff picture, we won’t trade him.

I don’t know whether eight months of Skubal could unearth “three or four quality players”, by which I assume you mean substantially WAR-positive—that sounds like a tall order, even for someone of his caliber—but I simply have my doubts that Scott Harris would put a clear and present playoff picture in jeopardy in exchange for uncertain future prospects which itself might not guarantee playoffs. Teams well in the player picture simply don’t sell, and we sold last year only because we were practically out of the playoff picture. This is especially true because not only would Harris doing so send the fans the wrong message about whether we want to win now—something they’ve been waiting for for a decade—but it would also damage his standing with the current players on the team, especially anyone else we might want to consider signing to a long deal, like Riley. If we were to start trading top players away and costing ourselves playoff appearances with it, why would he sign with us long term?

You don't have to imagine it, because it's documented.

He doesn't have it own a single satoshi to profit from the whole thing. He's the guy who has his hand on the lever. That's worth much more than ownership.

That won't matter to some fans, though, maybe even most fans. Remember how Eduardo and his stupid agent pulled the rug out from under last year's deadline trade at literally the final hour, demanding the Dodgers add a year they refused to? It wasn't Harris's fault. There was nothing he could do about that. He couldn't make the Dodgers add the year to save his own hide or something. But Harris was assigned the blame as if he himself willed it to happen. It was nonsense. Yes, he had to take responsibility, but that's not exactly blame, is it? To say Harris made the trade fail by his hand is, in my opinion, asinine. But hey, that's the job.

OK, if you believe Harris wants to fate us to be the Rays at best, and I guess the Pirates at worst, then that's a subjective conclusion you have arrived at that makes sense to you, and I would never be able to just talk you out of it. I have made the choice to assume that Harris is here to build a sustained winner and that Ilitch is on board, and there is plenty of direct and circumstantial evidence supporting that conclusion, and I will continue to believe that until he demonstrates to us otherwise. I will not engage in proactive cynicism about them. Will I look like a stupid jerk when he actually does torpedo our playoff chances to save a buck? Probably. Almost it won't take something like Harris doing that to make me look like a stupid jerk. 😁 And I want to make clear my opinion that just because Skubal won't sign an extension before he goes to free agency, that won't necessarily mean Harris is a failure because of it. I'll assess the evidence at the time, but I won't leap to that conclusion. Anyone else who wants to conclude that better come up with the evidence, or I'm coming back for an argument! 😃

The front office pays the players. There is that. And if someone from the front office wants to implement a cheating scheme to help them win games so they can all make a ****-ton of money, then if they can't get the manager to make it happen, they'll get the players to do it. That's exactly what they said in the documentary I posted! I'm not sure why all this so hard to imagine.

Did we have the means to pay Correa? Yes, indeed we did. Did we want to actually pay Correa? No, we did not. So why did we offer Correa 10/275 when they knew absolutely he was going to turn it down because he was already on record with his much-higher contract minimum? I wasn't in on the discussions, so I can't say for a fact. But if I had to guess, I'd say the Tigers were trying to send some sort of message to the fans that we are on the verge of playoffs for the first time in eight years, we are serious about getting to the playoffs next year, so we are going after superstar free agents. If you want to assure yourself a good seat for next year's team, better get those season and advance ticket orders in, because they'll go fast. No, they didn't actually say those words. That's what I think they thought the offer would communicate to fans. Whether that did is subject to fair speculation either way. The one thing they did calculate right is that the fans would blame Correa for turning down the 10/275, and that happened repeatedly right in this very forum. It's just bad luck for the Tigers that Baez just collapsed so precipitously. Not even his greatest detractors were sure that was going to happen. But them's the breaks, and now it's Scott Harris's job to deal with the situation.

We could not have easily signed Correa if our offer topped out at 10/275, because he specified in the media that his minimum he would sign for was something like 310, and ours was the first offer at the time. So the offer was designed to fail from the start.

If the Tigers move Skubal at a time when the franchise and the big club are ascending, they are telling the fan base that payroll and roster machinations are more important than winning games, and that is a potentially fatal way to shoot themselves in the foot. And that goes double for, as you suggest, they do it right now.

Did Hinch recruit Correa in that meeting? Do we have any report about what they discussed?

I'm not even talking about baseball managers. I'm talking about middle managers in everyday employment situation, like in offices or factories or even academia. If you've ever been one and had your own boss go around you to work directly with your people without your approval or knowledge, you'd know what I mean.

As long as the Tigers are contending for playoffs, there is exactly zero chance we trade Skubal just to get something anything for him before he walks.

I don't know if the ringleadership would be a stronger reason, but I agree it's probably a consideration. Probably also why we tried suspiciously not hard enough to go after Correa.

I guess I meant "Long Duk Park".

Because he's personally going to pocket billions off it? That's my best guess, anyway.