IdahoBert

The 2006 Tigers were clearly a better team than the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals but not for five games. I take no solace in this assertion.

Doing another family related pet-sitting, this time with our 14-year-old family terrier Dino. Dino was found roaming the streets of Oakland, California 14 years ago and ended up being shipped to the Humane Society in Boise, Idaho, where our family adopted him. We think he’s half blind and he’s 98 years old in dog years bordering on senescence, but he actually takes the time to stop and smell the flowers every day. He just sticks his face in there and sniffs. It’s really quite fetching.

I love how our team wins with both brute force, and finesse. The Tigers are the karate kid of baseball. Brute force alone means you’re one of the bad guys.

It’s laughable that people who don’t think the Tigers are real just don’t like a team that actually plays like a team using all its movable parts. Playing smart isn’t satisfying. It needs to be splashier. It needs to be of a collection of big star egotists they can worship from the cheap seats like peasants in awe of King Arthur. Big stars, big personalities, big news. That’s the ruling narrative. The way the Tigers go against the grain of American sports culture makes them even more satisfying in my eyes. And we’ve got enough stars as it is right now and we have more on the way.

Is Jobe still alive? That’s all I’m interested in right now.

Josue Briceño Is 6’ 4” and 200 lbs - those of you who are metric and recalculate this in your head - and he’s only 20 years old. I don’t know how much more “growing into his frame and filling out” this guy has to go. Should we trade him for a short term reliever to get us over the bump in August and into the playoffs, even though he might be the next Aaron Judge? I sure hope not.

I hadn’t seen this. This sucks that sounds painful

I hadn’t heard about that. Apparently it’s common knowledge, but anything to do with the Rockies kind of disinterests me. I guess pitchers still don’t get the full effect of breaking balls there no matter what. When I hear about doing things to baseballs, I remember how the White Sox used to freeze baseballs for the Tigers when they came to the ballpark in the 60s.

The Coors Field effect is seemingly so extreme I’ve never been able to take either the Rockies or the players that excelled in that environment seriously. And granted I’ve never compared how well Larry Walker and Todd Helton did on the road, but those stats are so extreme they bore me. 59 doubles in a season and unbelievably high batting averages sound like beer league stuff. In a sport that reveres statistics so much, these statistics just don’t seem to count, and neither does the team that records them. If the apostasy of an expansion team in Salt Lake City happens at nearly the same altitude and this occurs again it’ll give me one more reason to feel like an old man shouting at a cloud. Although a lot of things that I looked up sort of dismiss how extreme it is quote from a ball player seemed more authentic: 'S---, the whole time there was a horror story, man," said Marvin Freeman, who started 41 games for the Rockies over the first two years of the ballpark. "We called it arena baseball. It was like a pinball machine up in there sometimes. Balls were flying out of there. And you just had to make sure when you did leave Colorado you maintained some sanity because it could be hard on your mentality."

I think the Rockies got one because it didn’t significantly encroach on anybody else’s territory and let’s face it, it’s a kind of unlikely place to have a team.

As a personal insight into the Colorado Rockies top brass, a few years ago when I attended a Boise Hawks NWL short season league game the entire front office was in attendance and I sat right next to them. They were, honestly, a very impressive, almost infectiously interesting group of young men bristling with energy and optimism along with a couple other elder statesman who were owners and they reminded me of that kind of élan I witnessed in other corporate settings where there’s this obligatory “can do“ attitude that everyone adopts, which is often little more than attitude and confidence. I can see how these guys with lots of money and lots of attitude could make the mistakes that led to the Colorado Rockies being so awful this year. Drive, attitude, and confidence may build a real estate empire, but a baseball team is a different animal.

For what it’s worth this is what the robots think: AI Overview The Colorado Rockies are experiencing a historically bad season due to a combination of factors, including poor offensive performance, a struggling pitching staff, a lack of impact prospects, and a perceived lack of commitment to a full rebuild. The team's struggles are also compounded by injuries to key players and a perceived lack of progress in applying analytics compared to other MLB organizations. Here's a more detailed breakdown: Poor Offense: The Rockies are struggling to score runs, particularly when playing away from Coors Field, which is known to be hitter-friendly. They are last in MLB in on-base plus slugging and have struck out an MLB-high number of times. Weak Pitching: The pitching staff has struggled to contain opposing batters, with a high ERA and poor walk-plus-hit-per-inning statistics. Lack of Impact Prospects: While some young players are emerging, the Rockies lack a significant pipeline of top prospects to fill roster needs, hindering their ability to compete. Perceived Lack of Rebuild Commitment: Some observers suggest the Rockies are not fully committed to a rebuild, even with their poor performance, potentially limiting their ability to attract quality talent or make necessary trades. Injuries: Injuries to key players like Ezequiel Tovar and Kris Bryant have also impacted the team's performance. Organizational Issues: Some believe the Rockies are behind other teams in terms of analytics and player development, leading to perceived mistakes in trades and free agency signings.

This is a good post. It took a lot of work to assemble. Thank you. Although I feel no remorse in the Tigers sweeping the Rockies, I do feel bad for the players and the fan base that has to endure this. Although I’m kind of a snob about my team being 125 years old and with an extensive tradition to both enjoy and lament, I know there are genuine fans with a heartfelt love for teams with less extensive traditions such as the Rockies. They too are field of dreams dreamers, and this has to be very hard on those fans. It’s natural to want to blame someone when things go wrong. It’s not like the players themselves spontaneously formed a team. I’m sure blame lies with the front office that assembled the team. But they would’ve had to almost do a bad job on purpose to achieve results this dismal and I find it hard to believe they did.

I learned the hard way though that you have to keep all the bathroom doors shut.

Those photos are awesome @Biff Mayhem I housesat my oldest daughter and her husband’s four cats last weekend and they were an absolute treat to be around.

Don’t get me wrong, teams with stars are cool. I remember the excitement I felt in 2008 when the Tigers added Cabrera and Sheffield (even though Shef was old) and we already had Irod and Magglio and we had JV. And on paper the team was slated to win the World Series and score 1000 runs. But the team fell flat and went 74–88. And certainly not all teams filled with stars run cold. But I really like the club we have right now. Aside from the fact that its success last year was surprising and dream-like, this first third of the season is proving that it was not a dream. This style of play is a part of the collective muscle memory of the team. And we have stars, but the supporting cast of characters make surprisingly fertile contributions and that’s exactly where a lot of the fun comes from.

A team full of stars can be a mere assemblage. This is what people who are impressed by swagger enjoy. This is what executives who are selling a spectacle want to present Then there are teams with an organic synergy which is more than the sum of its parts. The Tigers do have stars. No doubt about it. But the Tigers are a team and not a mere assemblage of parts so they have a greater momentum that carries them over rough spots where other teams stumble. The Tigers certainly play the numbers, but they also access the human element in a way that is truly exciting, where role players get to be the star of the day.

There are only five games total in all of MLB today and one of them is due to a rain out yesterday so otherwise there would be only four.

103 games is quite a while to continually cheat “fate.” Of course we have yet to hit one of those stretches where even really good teams will inexplicably lose eight out of nine games. Perhaps going with the odds in critical situations actually works. It’s not like the Tigers have rubbed two sticks together and created an atomic bomb. It’s more like a series of micro decisions made within contingent circumstances and motivating the human element to buy into it.

What is the name of your spirit squirrel?

Jobe is going through the growing pains. He may even be following the advice of someone he respects. He may not know what to say right now and sometimes it’s better to say nothing than to say something you might regret. It’s probably hard to be the best and the most incredible stand out at something forever and then for that not to be the case. I for one wouldn’t know how to deal with that because I’ve never been in that position.

On a happier note, Rays defeated the Minnesota Twins!😍

Yes!!!

Indeed.