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This is pretty much how it landed with me, too. This really does shine a bright spotlight on a clear deficiency of Al Avila: the inability to extemporaneously articulate his thoughts at the level of effectiveness necessary for the top public-facing official of a highly visible organization. Either Al meant the "drunken sailor" comment as a dig against a beloved icon whom even people not beholden to him still reverentially refer to as "Mister"; or he blurted out the comment cluelessly, not realizing that it could be perceived in that way. Personally, I believe it's the second option, but really, either way, it reflects poorly on Avila as a communicator and leader. The one thing this is not is surprising, because it reminds us that Avila is an erstwhile scout who basically Peter Principled his way into the Tigers GM job. The Tigers apparently didn't want to go through the time and expense of searching for a replacement for Dombrowski, instead just handing it to the guy who happens to be next in line at the moment. But as pliable as Avila appears to be, an obvious upside for ownership, the deficiency that leads to this kind of faux pas is just as obvious a downside.

And since right field was out, you had to throw ground balls to the pitcher to get the batter out at first. You also had to supply the catcher. We had exactly zero left-handed hitters among the two groups of kids I’d play sandlot with, so closing off RF was not an issue for anyone.

Hard no on Tucker Barnhart. One of the worst-hitting catchers in baseball, and his pitch-framing isn’t good enough to make up for it.

I used to think Charlotte could never support a big league team because the population of the DMA is so spread out, they would never draw 40,000+ fans 81 dates a year. But now I’m coming around to the idea that attendance doesn’t matter all that much, given all the extraneous revenue streams teams enjoy, so they could probably put in a 27,500-seat stadium that will look more full on TV, which helps with optics, plus they could sell out more which would lead to higher ticket prices, which is always a nice nice-to-have.

In the city of Chicago, it is illegal to ride your bike on the sidewalk, so you must ride it in the street. So we have no choice. Of course, the main roads in the city are nothing like the main roads in the suburbs, so, there's that.

Also, I prefer it to shouting.

I use the bell on my bike. Works fine.

Director of Sleep wouldn't make any sense to me. Director of Biomechanics would totally make sense to me.

I would be surprised if any other city would get a new team before Vegas and Nashville.

I can’t pretend to know whether Gabe Ribas is the right hire for Director of Pitching, with all the responsibilities enumerated above, but I do know that I love that the team I’ve rooted for all my life is hiring a Director of Pitching.

I wouldn’t mind this at all, but I believe Baseball would never do this because it both reduces the number of division races, and it forces seventh- and eighth-place teams to try to market themselves late in the season. I get that a 55-85 team would have a bad time marketing itself in September under any circumstance, but it would still be substantially worse if they had to do so as an seventh-place team than as a third-place team.

And, once they hear that it’s already being done in Korea, “foreign”.

I’m trying to envision how they would do a 16-team (eight-per-league) playoff scheme after expansion, because we just know they’re gonna. So how do we make it work the best way possible? As we all know, baseball is the one sport where any bad team could beat a good team in a short series (ex: Rockies beat the Dodgers in a series at home in late August just this year). So maybe the way they handle this is, first round is best of three, but the division winner starts the series up 1-0, so they have to win only one on the field, while the wild card team would have to beat them two straight to move on. That way, there would be a much better chance the better team advances, and a mediocre team catching the better team in a three-game funk would happen less. Better teams make for better late October and early November matchups. One of the other good things about this is that this would make winning a division really mean something, so teams’ strategies would have to be, load up to win 90+ games and a division title instead of just 85 games just to sneak into the playoffs. It should make the trade market and the offseason free agent market more interesting and competitive.

I know we’re gonna get this eventually, but I don’t exactly love it, since it means almost certainly that 82+-loss division winners will make the playoffs occasionally. I don’t know how I’m going to feel once we see a sub-.500 tea, get to the World Series, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be warm and fuzzy, unless it’s us, and then it’ll be warm and fuzzy mixed with a touch of embarrassed.

I think the way they’ll do a 14-team (i.e., seven per league) playoff scheme is that all division leaders get byes, and the four other teams have a one-game knockout tournament across two days, with the winner advancing to the LDS against the top record.

Given our record against division opponents this year, I can see why you’d like that. 😉

I played for the Senators for two years. Yes, I’m that old. And we were terrible. All my youth baseball teams were last place, every one. I played on one team called the SuperSonics. I hated it because we were the only team without a big league name. The Macomb Daily misspelled our team name as “Supersonies” whenever they published the standings. One game, on my birthday no less, we were shelled by the Shell Cubs, 30-1. I don’t think they would let a youth baseball game get out of hand like that anymore. We finished 0-14. I hated playing organized youth baseball. I loved playing summer morning overhand-lob sandlot ball instead, with the same group of friends, just enough to field two teams while still having to close off right field to hitters. That’s where I honed my admittedly meager skills.

Ha haaa, I knew someone would bite! 😆 I don’t have the same hatred of the White Sox some here have. I root against them when the Tigers have at least a mathematical chance, of course, but as long as we’re out of it I’m fine with them, I think maybe because they’re the neglected little brother in this city, and I’m sympathetic to that kind of underdog.

I hate the Yankees and don't like the Red Sox anymore. I don't like the Braves chop. I don't like Cardinals fans. I don't like the cheating Astros. The Dodgers are yesterday's news to me. The Giants beat us in 2012 and I'm still sore about it. That leaves the Rays, White Sox, and Brewers, and I would be fine if any of them win.

Yeah. In Trump states.

For easy reference, here are the Statcast percentiles for Tiger hitter and pitchers this year.

Solid take, Mr. 1 Post. 😆

Pass on Tucker Barnhart. Hard. I'd rather cobble together another year of Haase/Garneau than spend too much for a year of a guy who's worse than both combined.

Haase appears to be one of those guys who, if you give him 250 at bats throughout a season, you can get a lot of value from him, but if you make him an everyday player, you consistently see all the things he can't do.

Ah, you mean I would have gotten a like from @CMRivdogs if I had announced my ignore add? Ah, lost opportunity ...