Evaluate Scott Harris' first year

[Tiger337]

37 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Two things mentioned here, failing to keep Jeimer and to trade Rodriguez, are things he has to take responsibility for because of his position, but I think both of them might have been more out of his control than people believe.

 

 

If he's going to get an A grade, doesn't he need to make sure things are not beyond his control?  An A grade suggests that he is an elite GM in the game.    

[mtutiger]

16 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

If he's going to get an A grade, doesn't he need to make sure things are not beyond his control?  

Referring to the comment made earlier, in the case of ERod, I'm not clear how the situation could not involve parties having to take each other at their word.

And yes, that involves stuff that was outside of his control. Just as it was outside of Andrew Friedman's control, who is by many's estimation an elite MLB executive and the other executive involved in the trade.

Edited September 3, 2023 by mtutiger

[Tiger337]

2 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Referring to the comment made earlier, in the case of ERod, I'm not clear how the situation could not involve parties having to take each other at their word.

And yes, that involves stuff that was outside of his control. Just as it was outside of Andrew Friedman's control, who is by man's estimation an elite MLB executive and the other executive involved in the trade.

Rodriguez was not Friedman's player.  I wouldn't expect him to have much control over it.  

If the same thing happened to Avila, there would have been no excuses.  Everyone would have been laughing at him.  

[mtutiger]

1 minute ago, Tiger337 said:

Rodriguez was not Friedman's player.  I wouldn't expect him to have much control over it.  

Rodriguez held the no-trade clause, so he had the leverage. And it doesn't matter what org he was in at the time both executives had to negotiate that gulf. 

It is what it is.

3 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

If the same thing happened to Avila, there would have been no excuses.  Everyone would have been laughing at him.  

I dont have understand why Al Avila matters when discussing what actually happened in the ERod situation.

Other than it was Al Avila who signed him to the deal that gave him Uber amounts of leverage and likely made it harder to trade him anyway

[Tiger337]

5 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Rodriguez held the no-trade clause, so he had the leverage. And it doesn't matter what org he was in at the time both executives had to negotiate that gulf. 

It is what it is.

 

How was Friedman responsible for other possible deals that Harris could have made?  Maybe Harris could have realized that Rodriguez would have been difficult to work with and worked out a deal long before the deadline.  Maybe he did try to do that.  I don't know.   I just don't see why he has so quickly reached a level where he can not be questioned.  I am not unhappy with him at all, but he seems to be getting deified like Hinch was in 2021 and it seems unjustified at this point (for both of them).  

[mtutiger]

6 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I just don't see why he has so quickly reached a level where he can not be questioned.  

Feel free to question him all you want. It doesn't mean we're all obliged to agree with you in every case.

I'd suggest your position on this is the majority one as well and the rest of us are the ones pushing back on the conventional wisdom that Scott Harris is 100% to blame for how everything went down wrt ERod.

Edited September 3, 2023 by mtutiger

[Dan Gilmore]

While we have learned more since the ERod trade crashed and burned, we never actually got the black box to know fully what happened, and where blame should fall. Without that knowledge I am fine with assigning a good deal of blame to Harris, but well short of calling it his failure. Maybe it will be revealed later, should ERod opt out.

[mtutiger]

2 minutes ago, Dan Gilmore said:

While we have learned more since the ERod trade crashed and burned, we never actually got the black box to know fully what happened, and where blame should fall. Without that knowledge I am fine with assigning a good deal of blame to Harris, but well short of calling it his failure. Maybe it will be revealed later, should ERod opt out.

This is reasonable to me.

[gehringer_2]

2 hours ago, Motor City Sonics said:

but E-Rod may have been telling him something and then backed out in the last minute.  

Yup. Or he warned them he didn't want to move and they weren't listening or really didn't believe he was serious, or maybe he was OK with a trade right up to the point it tuned out to be the Dodgers because he doesn't like LA. Lots of possible points for a communication miss.

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, Tiger337 said:

I think his big picture plan of collecting young talent was similar to Harris' plan.  Harris might be better at player development, but almost all of the developing players were acquired by Avila.    

Harris is rescuing guys, and we had to let a bunch of guys go, and a bunch more will go this winter. 

[gehringer_2]

I'll give you one thing that does give me pause, and that is the approach to their major league hitters. Despite the excellent results lower in the system with Malloy, Perez, Keith, Lipcius, Bigbie, Meadows, the hitters at the MLB level, with the exception of Greene, all seem to hit below their potential. They may all be terrible hitters for sure, but I'd have like to see at least a couple guys on the MLB roster make more progress. Carpenter has, but Carpenter went out of the org for his hitting coaching. Torkelson has found his power but I think he has the tools to be a better OBP guy than he is and there has been little progress for him on that front.

For me it comes down to the 'control the zone' mantra. I think it is fundamentally misguided as a primary objective because it is a symptom, not a cause. There are a few hitters that get too aggressive, but in the overwhelming number of cases, guys are not trying to swing OOZ.  The cause is too little decision time - stressing to guys to 'look for pitches' misses the mark IMO. They are all doing that to the best of their ability. The emphasis needs to be on how to get into an approach that allows you more time to your decision point - which is exactly what the guy Carpenter has worked with stresses. Maybe that is going on in the background, but I find their public statements on the team's approach to hitting to be unlikely to yield much result.

Edited September 3, 2023 by gehringer_2

[Tiger337]

34 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Feel free to question him all you want. It doesn't mean we're all obliged to agree with you in every case.

I'd suggest your position on this is the majority one as well and the rest of us are the ones pushing back on the conventional wisdom that Scott Harris is 100% to blame for how everything went down wrt ERod.

I think there are a few people who won't question Harris on anything and they tend to be pretty smart people in general.  When something like that happens, I am am always going to ask questions!  That is a big part of what makes this forum fun for me.  I don't know much about management decisions.  None of us do and that is by design.  The data tell me that Candelario and Rodriguez are pretty good players and I not satisfied with how things turned out with them.  

[Tiger337]

10 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Harris is rescuing guys, and we had to let a bunch of guys go, and a bunch more will go this winter. 

How do we know that he is rescuing guys?  

 

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, Tiger337 said:

I think his big picture plan of collecting young talent was similar to Harris' plan.  Harris might be better at player development, but almost all of the developing players were acquired by Avila.    

The other thing is that Avila did have some fundamental differences in the type of players he wanted to acquire, which is why we ended up with a bunch of players like Niko Goodrum and the Castros and Isaac Pacheco and Daniel Cabrera during his tenure.

Sure, he picked Tork and Riley, but they were no-brainers. And he picked Kerry Carpenter, too, but he also picked 18 guys ahead of him, and it’s pretty well known that Carpenter fixed himself rather than Avila’s team fixing him. 

 

[1984Echoes]

41 minutes ago, Dan Gilmore said:

While we have learned more since the ERod trade crashed and burned, we never actually got the black box to know fully what happened, and where blame should fall. Without that knowledge I am fine with assigning a good deal of blame to Harris, but well short of calling it his failure. Maybe it will be revealed later, should ERod opt out.

My incomplete assessment on that trade is that Harris holds responsibility because he's the "man in charge"; but Eduardo was the one holding the bloody dagger in his hand. ER killed the deal, unexpectedly to both Harris & Friedman.

Based on what came out subsequent to the deadline, I am comfortable absolving Harris of blame for the failed trade, except for the "man in charge" responsibility portion of it...

On Candelario: I think that was a bad decision; I was adamant it should have been Schoop dumped and Candy held onto (which would have cost an additional $7 mill or so...); but if it was based on salary control and out of Harris's control because of that, what chas is alluding to I believe, then what amount of blame goes to Harris if it's out of his control? Zero? 

I love that he cleaned up the PD team and it's showing early results. That's a major key for me. We've GOTTA be a draft & development organization... IMO.

I give him a solid B++

And needing more time to really establish his bona fides. If he gets us to a perennial playoff team, that bumps to an easy A for me, maybe even an A+ but we'll see how that goes in the next couple of years...

[gehringer_2]

4 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Avila did have some fundamental differences in the type of players he wanted to acquire

He did have a real excess weakness for switch hitters, to the point where he pretty much ignored the fact that too many of the SH he brought in couldn't actually switch hit, they just stood in the opposite batters box to take some of their outs.

Edited September 3, 2023 by gehringer_2

[Toddwert]

2 minutes ago, chasfh said:

The other thing is that Avila did have some fundamental differences in the type of players he wanted to acquire, which is why we ended up with a bunch of players like Niko Goodrum and the Castros and Isaac Pacheco and Daniel Cabrera during his tenure.

Sure, he picked Tork and Riley, but they were no-brainers. And he picked Kerry Carpenter, too, but he also picked 18 guys ahead of him, and it’s pretty well known that Carpenter fixed himself rather than Avila’s team fixing him. 

 

In 5 years we might be saying the same thing about Maton, Vierling , JHM and Max Anderson 

[1984Echoes]

5 minutes ago, chasfh said:

The other thing is that Avila did have some fundamental differences in the type of players he wanted to acquire, which is why we ended up with a bunch of players like Niko Goodrum and the Castros and Isaac Pacheco and Daniel Cabrera during his tenure.

Sure, he picked Tork and Riley, but they were no-brainers. And he picked Kerry Carpenter, too, but he also picked 18 guys ahead of him, and it’s pretty well known that Carpenter fixed himself rather than Avila’s team fixing him. 

 

He also picked Parker Meadows, Colt Keith, Bigbie, Wenceel Perez, etc...

Those guys have had some ups and downs... But Avila picked them. I like a LOT of players that Avila picked.

But I feel more comfortable with Harris's development team with those and any of our minor league guys (picked by Avila OR Harris).

Hands down.

[1984Echoes]

4 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

He did have a real excess weakness for switch hitters, to the point where he pretty much ignored the fact that too many of the SH he brought in couldn't actually switch hit, they just stood in the opposite batters box to take some of their outs.

He also went for power a lot...

With zero hit tool attached or MAJOR swing holes attached...

Far too often.

[Tiger337]

10 minutes ago, chasfh said:

The other thing is that Avila did have some fundamental differences in the type of players he wanted to acquire, which is why we ended up with a bunch of players like Niko Goodrum and the Castros and Isaac Pacheco and Daniel Cabrera during his tenure.

Sure, he picked Tork and Riley, but they were no-brainers. And he picked Kerry Carpenter, too, but he also picked 18 guys ahead of him, and it’s pretty well known that Carpenter fixed himself rather than Avila’s team fixing him. 

 

He also got many other players that are being billed as parts of the team's future - Skubal, Manning, Mize, Parker Meadows, Keith, Rogers, Jung. Jobe, Madden, Flores.  

Edited September 3, 2023 by Tiger337

[1984Echoes]

I would say this:

If Harris's development team can coax out major steps forward for Roberto Campos & Christian Santana and Josue Briceno (I'll add Dingler in here too, and maybe even Trei Cruz)...

Then I am giving MAJOR props to both Avila for selecting those guys and Harris for developing those guys...

IMO.

 

 

Edited September 3, 2023 by 1984Echoes

[gehringer_2]

4 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

He also got many other players that are being billed as big parts of the team's future - Skubal, Manning, Mize, Parker Meadows, Keith, Rogers, Jung. Jobe, Madden, Flores.  

I didn't have any problem with Avila's US drafts - I thought that was probably the strongest aspect of his tenure. It was in Latin America that the Tigers did poorly, which seemed odd since that had been part of Avia's beat coming up as a baseball exec. Maybe a case of familiarity breeding contempt. I wasn't thrilled with the Mize pick, but conventional wisdom on Mize was pretty universal and he may yet end up a good pitcher.

Edited September 3, 2023 by gehringer_2

[Tiger337]

5 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said:

He also picked Parker Meadows, Colt Keith, Bigbie, Wenceel Perez, etc...

Those guys have had some ups and downs... But Avila picked them. I like a LOT of players that Avila picked.

But I feel more comfortable with Harris's development team with those and any of our minor league guys (picked by Avila OR Harris).

Hands down.

I agree.  Tigers fans learned from Randy Smith that having high draft picks does not guarantee that you get good prospects.  

[RatkoVarda]

Incomplete. It's very difficult to separate Avila successes and failures from any analysis of Harris. A vast majority of the major and minor league players and coaches and staff are Avila's guys.

Harris has a few clear, but not crippling, self-inflicted hits: Candelario let go to save $2M with no one lined up to replace him; losing Chafin over money and then downgrading to Schreve; bringing back an obviously cooked Schoop; whatever part of the ERod fail that falls to him.

The transactions he has actually made have all generally made sense, both from a big plan perspective and a talent perspective.  What I wanted from him was more moves. And that is what I want this Winter. Doing just a handful of transactions this Winter would be hugely disappointing.

But I suspect he is going to use 2024 to fold in Meadows, Keith, Malloy and others, and ignore acquiring establish hitters. And that will mean a lot of growing pains. Yet again.

[Tiger337]

15 minutes ago, chasfh said:

The other thing is that Avila did have some fundamental differences in the type of players he wanted to acquire, which is why we ended up with a bunch of players like Niko Goodrum and the Castros and Isaac Pacheco and Daniel Cabrera during his tenure.

 

 

Yes, I do like that Harris targets players with different skill sets.  They are still terrible at getting on base, but I think it's a step in the right direction.