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Running to just meet the ball is something that I as an outfielder have recognized in myself, cogitated at length, tried to change in the moment, and failed to overcome my instincts. Now I'm just too goddamned old to worry or even care about it.

yeah what about anything but this

I generally like Jason Benetti, but I wanna slap him for saying TORK! should have used two hands to catch that popup. First of all, it was back of him over his shoulder, so no way he’s getting a right hand over to his glove to catch that ball “with two hands”. But the larger point is ballplayers haven’t needed two hands to catch a fly ball in decades. Back in the early 1900s, maybe you needed two hands because gloves were exactly hand sized. Now they’re way bigger with roomy webs. A first baseman's glove is 13”, for cry eye. So you don’t need a second hand to catch the ball. Much of the time a second hand just gets in the way.

Still botching the foul popups behind first base, eh, Spencer?

It is super weird seeing a Belle Tire commercial on a White Sox-Tigers game being telecast on NBC Sports Chicago.

I’m not surprised by this. You could never stop COVID completely like China thought they could. It just lies in wait until you let your guard down. It’s basically 2020 in China now.

Not surprised. His dad is really short too.

Peat mower? Feet grower? Meat blower? Am I close? EDIT: Oh yeah I remember Alwaysthrowheat

You got that right!

TTATMIB. Rolls right off the tongue.

I think Miggy still being on the team is the one thing a lot of people do still care about. They may not be big baseball fans, but they know how great Miggy is. And of course, the beer is also very good, along with the umbrella drinks.

Greiner is hitting a foul ball, isn't he?

I would bet most people who go to Tigers games either don't know you can look up lineups before the game, or don't care enough to bother to. I think a lot of people coming to the game just assume Miggy is going to be in the game. Lots of people, maybe most people, who show up at Comerica over the course of a season are casual fans who go to only one or two games a year, not diehards who go to dozens. They probably don't watch them regularly on TV, don't listen to games on radio, or read any beat stories or columns about them, so they may not even know Miggy doesn't actually play every game. So it might be less about "let's look online to see if Miggy is playing, if he's not then forget it", and more like "this is Miggy's last year, we should go see him play before he retires!" If that's the case, then a general announcement that Miggy is not playing for the rest of the season, and by extension never play for the Tigers ever again, will probably keep a lot of those people home.

People don't want to pay big money for tickets to Tigers game to watch Miggy ceremonially coach. He will play all year, at least once a series, unless he gets too seriously injured to hobble up to the plate at all. This is price the Devil is extracting for making the deal with Papa Doc back in 2014.

Sure, why not? Meijer is already on the hockey helmet the players wear after home runs. Totally unsurprising that Tigers' ownership would whore out to corporate sponsors what is supposed to be a spontaneous celebration. Part of the reason why it sucks.

Schoop might end up in Asia.

I'm not sure if Rodriguez is a good candidate for an extension. He can be very good, and he can be not so good. If he were more consistently decent from year to year, I could be on board for that.

Ahh, dirty water, schmirty schmwater. Smells like money to me.

Thank you for putting "pennant race" in quotes. I want to win and play in the playoffs as much as the next guy, but despite that we are in second place and only 2-1/2 games out, we are still just 22-25. That's substantially below .500. Not only that, but our pythag record, an estimated winning percentage based on runs scored versus runs allowed, is 18-29. That's equivalent to a .383 winning percentage. We are 29th in runs scored, and that's not due to being unlucky, because we are also 27th in on base, 29th in slugging, 29th in wOBA, 27th in wRC+, and 29th in base-running runs. We come by our offensive futility honestly. Our run prevention is only marginally better. We are 20th in ERA, 21st in FIP, 22nd in xFIP. We can't strike guys out (25th) and we can't keep the ball in the ballpark (24th in HR/9). The one thing we can do is pound the zone (9th among teams in that) and not walk guys (4th lowest rate), but that mainly tells me how much worse the run prevention would be if our walk rates were even league average. In short, we are not ready to be a playoff team. Not close. I'm frustrated with the past seven years, too, just like everyone else. But what would frustrate me more is if this front office were to make moves now to trade future assets for marginal players as rentals in a quixotic bid to squeeze into the playoffs with a barely .500 record as the third division-winner, only to get smoked in the wild card round. (I get that the playoffs are a crapshoot yada yada, but come on, let's be real: we would get smoked by the AL East 3rd-place team in the wild card round.) And the the rental leaves in the winter and we are out not only him, but also whatever prospects we would have traded to get him. I do not want to mortgage the best of what little future we currently have in-house in order to Dombrowski our way into the postseason at all costs. That's partly what got us where we are in the first place! I won't speak for anyone else here, but I am happier with our situation knowing that we are not yet a playoff team, despite our current relative standing in the division. We are a still a rebuilding team—in fact, a rebuilding organization. If we can make the playoffs by sticking with the Harris-Hinch plan and without making any trades to get there, I would be beyond thrilled. But that's so unlikely that I'm not even hoping for it, and that's OK. It's a beautiful dream, but that's not the goal for this team this year, which is why I am not all in on winning this year. It's simply not our time yet. In the meantime, I'm not going to get too attached to the Kreidlers and the Wentzes and the Nevins and the Workmans and the Lipciuses and the Shorts and all those guys similar to them that are littering our system today. Most of them will be gone in 2024, perhaps all of them in 2025. This organization is going to look vastly different by the time 2026 rolls around, and by then our top prospects will be names we don't even know today. That's the day I'm really looking forward to. And if Harris does it right, we'll be looking back at 2023, remembering how much faith we put in guys like those I listed above, and we'll be asking ourselves, "Jesus, what was I on?"

Haven’t we recently seen the effects of rushing minor leaguers before they are ready and trying to force them to learn at the big league level?

Man, even when Lange is kind of bad, he’s really good. It’s his time.

Ha ha ha ha haaaaa naw