2023 Detroit Tigers Spring Training Thread

[Toddwert]

1 minute ago, chasfh said:

Oh my god, this is so thrilling to read.

https://www.freep.com/story/sports/columnists/jeff-seidel/2023/02/26/detroit-tigers-top-secret-lab-giving-pitchers-new-tools-to-dominate/69942299007/

Check out what Chases Shreve says here:

In January, after left-hander Chasen Shreve signed a minor league deal with the Tigers, with an invitation to major league spring training, he met with Hinch and pitching coach Chris Fetter.

“We were talking about analytics and what they want me to do,” he said.

And he found it so refreshing.

“I've never really been on a team that told me how to use my analytical numbers,” he said. “Nobody's really ever been like, ‘Hey, this is what we think you should throw your fastball, your splitter and in what counts.”

This is a guy who has nine MLB seasons behind him, as part of five organizations.

“On the teams I’ve been on, nobody has ever been like, OK, this is analytically what we see and this is how you should pitch,” he said. “Nobody's ever said that to me until I got here. In our meeting, they were telling me what they thought, and I told them what I thought, and we were bouncing ideas off each other and I was like, ‘I've never done this, like, with a team before.’ ”

He found it refreshing and encouraging.

Think about that: here is a guy who spent a ton of time in the Braves, Yankees’ Cardinals and Mets’ systems—all considered top tier systems—and here he is saying that no one told him how to use the numbers from analytics until he came to the Tigers this year.

The Detroit Tigers, on the forefront of applied analytics. WOW!

I never imagined I’d ever see something like that!

lets hope they find a hitting coach like Fetter .... they need to give him whatever money he wants

[chasfh]

57 minutes ago, Toddwert said:

lets hope they find a hitting coach like Fetter .... they need to give him whatever money he wants

Hopefully we will find we have already hired that guy. 

[Tigeraholic1]

Looking forward to this.

[romad1]

26 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Hopefully we will find we have already hired that guy. 

They needed to bring in the Kinesiology guy because the number of injuries were off the charts.  Having the idea of how to spin the ball is one thing.  Knowing when the rubber bands will snap is the other.

[gehringer_2]

45 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

Looking forward to this.

 born in Southfield, played at UM, a decade in the minors with SD and Chi, a couple cups of coffee with the Cubbies.

[RandyMarsh]

Just googled him and for spouse it said "Monica Scales" but I read it as "Monica Seles" the former female tennis great. I momentarily was like "whoa how did this minor league lifer pull her" lol

[Tiger337]

4 hours ago, RandyMarsh said:

Just googled him and for spouse it said "Monica Scales" but I read it as "Monica Seles" the former female tennis great. I momentarily was like "whoa how did this minor league lifer pull her" lol

Are you seriously questioning the ability of minor league lifers to pick up chicks?

[RandyMarsh]

2 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

Are you seriously questioning the ability of minor league lifers to pick up chicks?

Good point but baseball was always Deuce's side hustle and front for his more lucrative underground businesses. 

[gehringer_2]

I think Hinch is all wet with his opposition to letting pitchers call their own pitches. Pitchers who cared to have have been shaking off catchers to get to what they wanted since forever. Now the clock doesn't give them the option of leading their catcher to what they want at each pitch - so doing it through reverse pitch-com seems perfectly reasonable. I don't think you will ever be able to say there is a hard and fast right answer between whether it's better for a catcher to coerce a pitcher into throwing something he has no conviction in, versus throwing what he has confidence he can execute even if it goes against the 'book' on the batter. I pay to see the players play the game, put their best against each other, not the geeks in the office.

[chasfh]

I was thinking it’s too bad we couldn’t find a couple million to take a flyer on Will Smith for a year, since it seems like he probably still has a few miles left in the tank for cheap, but it reads as though he was never going to sign for a Harris/Hinch-type team, anyway.

We’ve talked some about how players sign with teams for soft reasons (i.e., other than just the most dollars), such as playing for a contender or playing close to home. But it looks like a team’s analytics philosophy could be another factor for some guys making their decision. Will Smith is probably right about that age where it could break either way for a guy.

Edited March 5, 2023 by chasfh

[chasfh]

On 3/4/2023 at 5:20 PM, gehringer_2 said:

I think Hinch is all wet with his opposition to letting pitchers call their own pitches. Pitchers who cared to have have been shaking off catchers to get to what they wanted since forever. Now the clock doesn't give them the option of leading their catcher to what they want at each pitch - so doing it through reverse pitch-com seems perfectly reasonable. I don't think you will ever be able to say there is a hard and fast right answer between whether it's better for a catcher to coerce a pitcher into throwing something he has no conviction in, versus throwing what he has confidence he can execute even if it goes against the 'book' on the batter. I pay to see the players play the game, put their best against each other, not the geeks in the office.

It is very traditional and even romantic for pitchers to call their own pitches based on their gut instead of the information about hitters they are provided. It very much dovetails into a heroic narrative about the pitcher as a gunslinger taking on and beating all comers on his own terms. The $64 question is, does a pitcher calling a game based on his gut lead to more wins than the dugout calling the pitch based on the information?

[gehringer_2]

Just now, chasfh said:

It is very traditional and even romantic for pitchers to call their own pitches based on their gut instead of the information about hitters they are provided. It very much dovetails into a heroic narrative about the pitcher as a gunslinger taking on and beating all comers on his own terms. The $64 question is, does a pitcher calling a game based on his gut lead to more wins than the dugout calling the pitch based on the information?

I don't know if 'gut' has that much to do with it - it's how he senses a particular pitch is working for him that I would be concerned with. There are all kinds of things a pitcher has always been able to communicate to his catcher about his physical condition wrt throwing a given pitch etc., that always had all time the time needed to get communicated to his catcher, either in mound visits or just by shaking him off to get the where he (the pitcher) wanted to be. As much as I love the pitch clock, combined with visit restrictions, it does very arbtrarily cut off the abilty of that return communication from the pitcher to the catcher. That's not a matter of romance but of practical teamwork.

[chasfh]

4 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

I don't know if 'gut' has that much to do with it - it's how he senses a particular pitch is working for him that I would be concerned with. There are all kinds of things a pitcher has always been able to communicate to his catcher about his physical condition wrt throwing a given pitch etc., that always had all time the time needed to get communicated to his catcher, either in mound visits or just by shaking him off to get the where he (the pitcher) wanted to be. As much as I love the pitch clock, combined with visit restrictions, it does very arbtrarily cut off the abilty of that return communication from the pitcher to the catcher. That's not a matter of romance but of practical teamwork.

I would think that Hinch would not force Rodriguez to throw pitch he has no command of or feel for in a particular moment just because the data say, although who knows for sure. But Hinch strikes me as emotionally intelligent enough to get on that same page with Rodriguez and still maintain control of the game plan, provided Rodriguez will allow that. Based on the reporting coming out of camp this past weekend, though, it looks as though Rodriguez might be trying to take that control into his own hands, and using the media to put pressure on the issue. It will be interesting to see how it all comes out.

[gehringer_2]

4 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I would think that Hinch would not force Rodriguez to throw pitch he has no command of or feel for in a particular moment just because the data say, although who knows for sure. But Hinch strikes me as emotionally intelligent enough to get on that same page with Rodriguez and still maintain control of the game plan, provided Rodriguez will allow that. Based on the reporting coming out of camp this past weekend, though, it looks as though Rodriguez might be trying to take that control into his own hands, and using the media to put pressure on the issue. It will be interesting to see how it all comes out.

ER probably made a strategic error in being too enthused. 

In any case it's going to be the league's decision. If they approve it I don't think any manager will be able to tell his staff they *can't* use it as matter of team policy without engendering rebellion. And if a manager decides he has a pitcher that's overusing it, he'll be faced with the same situation he has with any other player that doesn't swing at strikes or throws to the wrong base - how much winning value does he bring and is it worth living with the non-compliance? I think it's always been true for pro athletes - if you are good enough, they pretty much have to let you play the way you want to, if not - not so much!

[chasfh]

2 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

ER probably made a strategic error in being too enthused. 

In any case it's going to be the league's decision. If they approve it I don't think any manager will be able to tell his staff they *can't* use it as matter of team policy without engendering rebellion. And if a manager decides he has a pitcher that's overusing it, he'll be faced with the same situation he has with any other player that doesn't swing at strikes or throws to the wrong base - how much winning value does he bring and is it worth living with the non-compliance? I think it's always been true for pro athletes - if you are good enough, they pretty much have to let you play the way you want to, if not - not so much!

I think "ERod" falls into that "not so much" category. 😏

[Tiger337]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

I would think that Hinch would not force Rodriguez to throw pitch he has no command of or feel for in a particular moment just because the data say, although who knows for sure. But Hinch strikes me as emotionally intelligent enough to get on that same page with Rodriguez and still maintain control of the game plan, provided Rodriguez will allow that. Based on the reporting coming out of camp this past weekend, though, it looks as though Rodriguez might be trying to take that control into his own hands, and using the media to put pressure on the issue. It will be interesting to see how it all comes out.

If he doesn't get his way, will he go home?  

[chasfh]

14 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

If he doesn't get his way, will he go home?  

That's fine as long as he doesn't take the ball with him.

[RedRamage]

On 3/4/2023 at 9:02 AM, chasfh said:

 

Think about that: here is a guy who spent a ton of time in the Braves’, Yankees’, Cardinals’, and Mets’ systems—all considered top tier systems—and here he is saying that no one told him how to use the numbers from analytics until he came to the Tigers this year.

The Detroit Tigers, on the forefront of applied analytics. WOW!

I never imagined I’d ever see something like that!

Well... I mean this is just one guy saying it so I dunno if I'd say ironclad that the Tigers are "in front" of other teams, but... regardless it's still very, very cool to see that at least one person is saying that the Tigers are doing more/better than others.

[RedRamage]

At what point do we start getting concerned about Tork?  I mean, I know it's only Spring Training, and I know that it's only 6 games so far for him, but... 2 hits (both singles) in 16 at bats?  6 strike outs, and no walks?

[RatkoVarda]

38 minutes ago, RedRamage said:

At what point do we start getting concerned about Tork?  I mean, I know it's only Spring Training, and I know that it's only 6 games so far for him, but... 2 hits (both singles) in 16 at bats?  6 strike outs, and no walks?

Kelenic has had 3 long looks over 2 years and the jury is still out if he will hit. Same for Tork. Either he can or he cannot.

But drafting CJ Cron 1/1 is really disappointing.

[mtutiger]

1 hour ago, RedRamage said:

At what point do we start getting concerned about Tork?  I mean, I know it's only Spring Training, and I know that it's only 6 games so far for him, but... 2 hits (both singles) in 16 at bats?  6 strike outs, and no walks?

As far as I can tell, there isn't anyone who isn't concerned with Tork... the topic has kinda dominated the Tigers spring thus far.

[KL2]

5 hours ago, RedRamage said:

At what point do we start getting concerned about Tork?  I mean, I know it's only Spring Training, and I know that it's only 6 games so far for him, but... 2 hits (both singles) in 16 at bats?  6 strike outs, and no walks?

About may

[CMRivdogs]

 

[Toddwert]

any surprises?   who is the odds on favorite at 3rd  Maton?

[MotorCityAlex]

Should Tork start he season in AAA with the Mudhens until he put it together (unless he heats up this spring)? 

 

Not even from a winning perspective (we all know we won't be winning much anyway) but just for development. The talent is there in my opinion, it's just mental for him.