2023 Detroit Tigers Regular Season Discussion Thread

[Toddwert]

1 hour ago, Tenacious D said:

Why?  He was one of our better hitters this season.  For all of the consternation that everyone seemed to have at the beginning of the season, my AAT was pretty good.  Not HOF good, but he had some key hits playing part time. I’m glad he was on the team.

I wasnt serious ... He's made this season way more enjoyable and I'm gonna miss him 

[Tiger337]

3 hours ago, Jim Cowan said:

I remember being dissatisfied with Al Kaline's struggle for 3,000 hits, it took him 3 years to get the last 300.  I thought that it was undignified and totally self-centered.

Unfortunately, That is all I remember about him.  It wasn't until after he retired that I realized how great he was.  There are probably kids growing up today that are having the same experience with Cabrera.  

[Tiger337]

1 hour ago, Tenacious D said:

I can think of something worse.

You have to understand,  For people like me and Edman, seeing arbitrary end points is like getting kicked in the nuts.  

[Jim Cowan]

46 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

Unfortunately, That is all I remember about him.  It wasn't until after he retired that I realized how great he was.  There are probably kids growing up today that are having the same experience with Cabrera.  

The other part of my dissatisfaction with Kaline was that the DH rule was so recent, and a lot of fans including me hated it.  So when he got his last 150 hits as a DH my feeling was that it was cheap, all the other greats got 3,000 by playing a defensive position too, it was an important part of their durability. 

[chasfh]

10 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

Unfortunately, That is all I remember about him.  It wasn't until after he retired that I realized how great he was.  There are probably kids growing up today that are having the same experience with Cabrera.  

I know what you mean. When you and I were kids right around the same time coming into baseball fandom, Kaline was at the end of his run and being overshadowed in our eyes at the plate by Horton, Freehan, Cash, Northrup, McAuliffe and maybe a couple others. Maybe kids today, middle and high school age, who came into their fandom at about the same age think of Miggy the same way—although I don’t know who overshadows Miggy in the same way those guys did Kaline. It almost makes me wonder what there’s been on the team the past seven or so years that would even draw in a 10-year-old to become a Tiger fan.

[Edman85]

I was coming of age as Tram and Whitaker were on their last legs. I remember them as the greatest double play combo of all time, not the declined/injury bugged players they were in the early-mid 90's. Edit: heading to their BR page, Tram's decline was a lot more harsh than Whitaker...

Edited September 30, 2023 by Edman85

[Tenacious D]

I don’t remember anything about Kaline’s playing career—my fandom started in 1976.  Glad I was spared from his decline. I remember him most on the Tiger telecasts with George. And having batteries named after him.

Im probably more forgiving of Miggy because of the debilitating injuries he has has encountered.  He’s not been able to use his legs to hit for sometime, which sapped his power. Without this, he is easily a top-10 all-time hitter in many categories.

[1984Echoes]

28 minutes ago, Tenacious D said:

I don’t remember anything about Kaline’s playing career—my fandom started in 1976.  Glad I was spared from his decline. I remember him most on the Tiger telecasts with George. And having batteries named after him.

Im probably more forgiving of Miggy because of the debilitating injuries he has has encountered.  He’s not been able to use his legs to hit for sometime, which sapped his power. Without this, he is easily a top-10 all-time hitter in many categories.

This is my timeline...

So my first memories are pretty vague on any of the 60's crew... Just the end of their careers that didn't really register...

My first REAL memory of the Tigers that really stuck... was THE BIRD!!!

Mark Fidrych, and then the very next year (or two) a crapload of kids coming up all at once in Trammell & Whitaker & Morris & Petry & Thompson & Kemp & Parrish & Rozema and shortly thereafter Kirk Gibson.

This might explain my fascination with all the kids in the minor leagues and getting them graduated to Detroit.

[HeyAbbott]

When I think of HOFers that establish points of reference for me, I think of Warren Spahn, whom I saw pitch live in July of 1963. We will never see his innings or wins per season again, but what I remember most is his his perfect fluid motion, and the fact he was better in the 7th through 9th innings then in the start of the game. His years as a pitching coach with the Mets saw him mentor Tug McGraw and others.

Miggy , in his prime, used the whole field as a hitter better than anyone I remember.

Miggy's influence will hopefully continue in player procurement, particularly in Latin America. I hope he does continue assist the Tigers in time to come.

[Biff Mayhem]

On 9/29/2023 at 10:54 PM, Jim Cowan said:

The other part of my dissatisfaction with Kaline was that the DH rule was so recent, and a lot of fans including me hated it.  So when he got his last 150 hits as a DH my feeling was that it was cheap, all the other greats got 3,000 by playing a defensive position too, it was an important part of their durability. 

[Shinzaki]

On 9/29/2023 at 3:42 PM, Tiger337 said:

What did happen was that he was a replacement level player for seven years padding his counting stats.  The 500/3000/600./300 numbers are just arbitary cutoffs designed to eliminate guys like Ruth and Williams while keeping Cabrera in the group. 

Cabrera was a great hitter, easily the best Tigers hitter of my lifetime.  However, he is nowhere close to an all-time great like Aaron or Frank Robinson.  At one point, he looked like he was going to end up in that class, but he didn't have the lasting power.  There is noting shameful about being in the class of Frank Thomas and Jim Thome though.  

I disagree...pretty much any stat is an arbitrary cut off 

I think Cabrera is a fascinating player to examine.  At his best, he was absolutely a HOF player.  Did his massive contract help him get the HOF level counting stats?  Maybe over the past two years...but...he did it.  He accumulated those stats.

Looking at his decline..you could say he is something of a Potemkin HOF because at his best he was mediocre over the past six or seven years

 

I think he is going to look better as the time passes because with the general decline in BA, you aren't going to see very many people with his accumulated power numbers and a BA over .300

 

 

[Tiger337]

20 minutes ago, Shinzaki said:

I disagree...pretty much any stat is an arbitrary cut off 

I think Cabrera is a fascinating player to examine.  At his best, he was absolutely a HOF player.  Did his massive contract help him get the HOF level counting stats?  Maybe over the past two years...but...he did it.  He accumulated those stats.

Looking at his decline..you could say he is something of a Potemkin HOF because at his best he was mediocre over the past six or seven years

 

I think he is going to look better as the time passes because with the general decline in BA, you aren't going to see very many people with his accumulated power numbers and a BA over .300

 

 

Stats are not arbitrary when you use them to try to fairly answer questions.  Using them to try to make your favorite player look better than Ted Williams and Hank Aaron is a misuse of stats. 

He is absolutely a Hall of Famer.  He's just not in the sane class of guys like Hank Aaron and Ted Williams.  He's Manny Ramirez (who statistically meets Hall of Fame standards) and Frank Thomas.  Nothing wrong with that.  

I disagree that he'll look better over time. I think he'll look worse over time because his WAR total is not very high for a hitter of his caliber and that is more and more becoming the standard.  I think he's probably a little better than his career WAR suggests, but he's still not Aaron or Williams.  

 

[chasfh]

I can't imagine how good Miggy could have been had he actually worked hard on his game instead of skating by on talent alone.

[Tiger337]

5 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I can't imagine how good Miggy could have been had he actually worked hard on his game instead of skating by on talent alone.

Maybe he would have been Hank Aaron instead of Manny Ramirez.  

[gehringer_2]

19 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

Stats are not arbitrary when you use them to try to fairly answer questions.  Using them to try to make your favorite player look better than Ted Williams and Hank Aaron is a misuse of stats. 

He is absolutely a Hall of Famer.  He's just not in the sane class of guys like Hank Aaron and Ted Williams.  He's Manny Ramirez (who statistically meets Hall of Fame standards) and Frank Thomas.  Nothing wrong with that.  

I disagree that he'll look better over time. I think he'll look worse over time because his WAR total is not very high for a hitter of his caliber and that is more and more becoming the standard.  I think he's probably a little better than his career WAR suggests, but he's still not Aaron or Williams.  

 

How would we remember Sandy Koufax if he had pitched 5 more years at a 100 ERA+?

Cabrera was more dominant at his peak than a Jim Thome ever was and that does count for something. Greatness is not only all about counting stats (and I'm taking WAR as fundamentally a counting stat). The fact that some of the greatest players of all time couldn't play 20 years doesn't diminish the value of their dominance in its time. There is nothing wrong with recognizing that even it demands more subjective considerations. Some value judgments deserve to be argued about on aesthetic grounds instead of always being reduced to the quantitatable.

Edited October 6, 2023 by gehringer_2

[1984Echoes]

Is there an easy way to find "Peak Years WAR"?

That is probably the best definition of a player's greatness, I would think.

The career counting stats speak to longevity... "Peak Years WAR" would speak to dominance...

[Tiger337]

3 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

How would we remember Sandy Koufax if he had pitched 5 more years at a 100 ERA+?

Cabrera was more dominant at his peak than a Jim Thome ever was and that does count for something. Greatness is not only all about counting stats (and I'm taking WAR as fundamentally a counting stat). The fact that some of the greatest players of all time couldn't play 20 years doesn't diminish the value of their dominance in its time.

Probably the same.  Pitchers are expected to have shorter careers and are usually remembered for their peaks.  Also, I think it's understood that you can't compare pitcher counting stats across eras because pitcher usage has changed so much.  At least, it should be understood.

Cabrera's last 7 years have zero effect on his peak dominance.  Cabrera was a little more dominant at his peak than Thome.  He was not more dominant than Ramirez and Thomas though.  I would say they were pretty similar.  

They also have little effect on his all-time ranking for me, but that is the problem. They could have enhanced his status and they didn't.  

Cabrera was awesome.  I don't even know what we arguing about.  I am just not going to say he was one of five greatest hitters ever because of four arbitrary categories designed to eliminate guys like Ruth and Williams.    

 

[Tiger337]

7 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said:

Is there an easy way to find "Peak Years WAR"?

That is probably the best definition of a player's greatness, I would think.

The career counting stats speak to longevity... "Peak Years WAR" would speak to dominance...

Yes, B-ref has JAWS.  They calculate WAR over the best seven years of a player's career (WAR7) and then then take the average of WAR and WAR7 to get JAWS.  Here are the results for first basemen:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/jaws_1B.shtml

It may surprise some people that Cabrera ranks better on WAR than WAR7.  

[chasfh]

1 minute ago, gehringer_2 said:

How would we remember Sandy Koufax if he had pitched 5 more years at a 100 ERA+?

Good one. Sandy Koufax was a unicorn in his moment: Late 50s/60s, Brooklyn-born, Jewish, arguably the greatest peak period for a pitcher up to that time, out at 31. To your implied point, leaving at that young age probably helped his legacy: he is one of those rare Hall of Famers who was at the top of the game when he left.

[1984Echoes]

9 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

Yes, B-ref has JAWS.  They calculate WAR over the best seven years of a player's career (WAR7) and then then take the average of WAR and WAR7 to get JAWS.  Here are the results for first basemen:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/jaws_1B.shtml

It may surprise some people that Cabrera ranks better on WAR than WAR7.  

That would do it, thank you.

[Shinzaki]

Koufax is the "live fast, die pretty" player of all time