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2024 Detroit Tigers Spring Training Thread


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2 hours ago, Longgone said:

No need to option or outright him, he's not on the 40.

then there is this twist reported by Petzold

Quote

Hiura has an assignment clause, also known as an upward mobility clause, in his minor league contract, according to sources. There are three dates — March 26, June 1 and Aug. 1 — where the Tigers must notify the other 29 teams to see if a different club wants Hiura on its 26-man roster. If so, the Tigers must either add him to their roster or trade him to the interested team. If not, he will remain in the minors with the Tigers.

 

so what can you get back in a trade if the other team knows you have to offer the player? Tigers need to hope there are at least 2 teams interested.

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53 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

then there is this twist reported by Petzold

so what can you get back in a trade if the other team knows you have to offer the player? Tigers need to hope there are at least 2 teams interested.

Brady Allen...

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The amazing thing is that Al Avila was the disaster happening right in front of our eyes that practically nobody could deny, which all of us with few exceptions agreed on at the time. He took a franchise that had just come off a playoff run and had it floundering for not two, for not three, for not even four, but for seven years, with no respite in between and no end in sight. By the time he finally got ****-canned, other teams like the Orioles and Padres had already gone into their rebuild later and emerged much earlier. Al crippled this organization so thoroughly that it was essentially still at the beginning of its rebuild when a new front office finally came in to clean up the mess.

Now, through the gauzy haze of memory, at a time when things are finally looking up two season later, people like Lynn Henning want to give Al more than half the credit for this ray of daylight, simply because out of the gaggle of players he drafted—not traded for, not signed internationally, not picked up off the waiver wire or free agent pile, but drafted, the only player acquisition channel he had even a little clue about—the new regime looks like they might be able to salvage a few. His friends who are writing the history are now casting him as the savvy hero who saved the franchise, instead of an out-of-his-depth Peter-Principled technocrat who ran it into the rocks. It’s a mass gaslighting gone berserk. 

So go ahead and give the guy credit if you like. At least I still remember how it really happened.

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Henning called Harris "the kid"?

Yes, Avila does get some credit and should.  But he also had numerous 1:1 picks and other top 5 slots.  And I'm not convinced some guys develop the way they had under a system still run by Avila.

 

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1 hour ago, SkyBlue said:

Here is a link to the archived article for those who  don't have a News subscription.

Henning: New and improved 2024 Tigers are an Avila and Harris product

Thanks,  I thought what Henning said was accurate and non-controversial.  Bascally, Avila inherited a mess, did some things which will help the current and future Tigers, but had weaknesses in some areas - including the same areas where the Tigers have been weak for most of the last three decades.  Now, Harris needs to take them to the next level and seems to have the ability to do so.  

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26 minutes ago, oblong said:

Henning called Harris "the kid"?

Yes, Avila does get some credit and should.  But he also had numerous 1:1 picks and other top 5 slots.  And I'm not convinced some guys develop the way they had under a system still run by Avila.

 

I also don't know if they would have developed under Avila's system.  I don't know that they wouldn't have though and they aren't fully developed until they succeed in the majors.  Having experienced the Randy Smith era Tigers (and I know many others here also remember that time), it's just hard for me to see Avila as the abject failure he's been made out to be.  

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Avila was always great drafting good prospects.  His biggest weakness was signing/trading for veteran talent.  He would overpay or get players that were way passed their prime.  While we can praise him for getting players like Greene, Torkelson, Mize (and even Jobe, Jung, and Clark), the reality is that they wouldn't have been able to draft them if the Tigers were competing during Avila's run.  

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1 minute ago, Tiger337 said:

I also don't know if they would have developed under Avila's system.  I don't know that they wouldn't have though and they aren't fully developed until they succeed in the majors.  Having experienced the Randy Smith era Tigers (and I know many others here also remember that time), it's just hard for me to see Avila as the abject failure he's been made out to be.  

the other thing to be said in Avila's defense is that ownership matters. In his 1st two years Mike Ilitch's presense likely enforced the status quo. The org was not going to get a major refit while Mike was still alive and even in 2017/18 Chris' attention on the ball club was likely pretty limited getting his hands around all the roles he had inherited. That said, Al still needed to have moved faster once Chris gave him the go head to start changing things.

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Avila wanted to start over in 2015 but Ilitch was the one on insisting we go for it which led to the signings of Zimmermann, Upton and the delayed trades of JV, JD and Kinsler.

If we tore things down to the studs when Avila wanted to and traded our guys 2 yrs earlier when they had more value perhaps we would be in a completely different situation.

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46 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I also don't know if they would have developed under Avila's system.  I don't know that they wouldn't have though and they aren't fully developed until they succeed in the majors.  Having experienced the Randy Smith era Tigers (and I know many others here also remember that time), it's just hard for me to see Avila as the abject failure he's been made out to be.  

He wasn't Randy Smith bad.  I'd give him a solid C. He probably would have been a good GM 40-50 years ago.  That's not a criticism, it just means we're getting old and 40-50 years ago was the 70's and 80s, not the 1940's like it should be.

He couldn't clean house up on arrival.  He just stepped into a new role with an org he'd been a part of for a long time so all the people here also sort of worked for him already since he was the Asst. GM.  Where I would knock him is the FA spending.  

 

 

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21 minutes ago, RandyMarsh said:

Avila wanted to start over in 2015 but Ilitch was the one on insisting we go for it which led to the signings of Zimmermann, Upton and the delayed trades of JV, JD and Kinsler.

If we tore things down to the studs when Avila wanted to and traded our guys 2 yrs earlier when they had more value perhaps we would be in a completely different situation.

Avila did tear it down to the studs after 2017 and five years later, longer than entire rebuilds should even last, the organization was still revving in neutral, with no prospects for improvement.

Credit to Al for drafting a few decent guys, but the track record under his leadership is practically proof positive they would have stalled here. The actual improvements didn't start until Harris came on board, remade practically the entire scouting, development, and data science functions, and allowed them to do their thing. Here's an example just from today.

This article reads as basically a refutation of the Henning piece.

 

 

Edited by chasfh
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1 hour ago, Tiger337 said:

Thanks,  I thought what Henning said was accurate and non-controversial.  Bascally, Avila inherited a mess, did some things which will help the current and future Tigers, but had weaknesses in some areas - including the same areas where the Tigers have been weak for most of the last three decades.  Now, Harris needs to take them to the next level and seems to have the ability to do so.  

 

35 minutes ago, oblong said:

He wasn't Randy Smith bad.  I'd give him a solid C. He probably would have been a good GM 40-50 years ago.  That's not a criticism, it just means we're getting old and 40-50 years ago was the 70's and 80s, not the 1940's like it should be.

He couldn't clean house up on arrival.  He just stepped into a new role with an org he'd been a part of for a long time so all the people here also sort of worked for him already since he was the Asst. GM.  Where I would knock him is the FA spending.  

 

 

I think its fair to say Avila brought the farm system from an F to a C, which is probably a plateau for Avila, and Harris has the ability to improve upon the C.  Or something along those lines.

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50 minutes ago, RandyMarsh said:

Avila wanted to start over in 2015 but Ilitch was the one on insisting we go for it which led to the signings of Zimmermann, Upton and the delayed trades of JV, JD and Kinsler.

If we tore things down to the studs when Avila wanted to and traded our guys 2 yrs earlier when they had more value perhaps we would be in a completely different situation.

Well, it could be a completely different situation.  I just don't know that it would have resulted in better success under Avila.  At some point the issues with development would have crept up regardless of when the rebuild started.

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53 minutes ago, RandyMarsh said:

Avila wanted to start over in 2015 but Ilitch was the one on insisting we go for it which led to the signings of Zimmermann, Upton and the delayed trades of JV, JD and Kinsler.

If we tore things down to the studs when Avila wanted to and traded our guys 2 yrs earlier when they had more value perhaps we would be in a completely different situation.

Dombrowski started the rebuild when he traded David Price to the Blue Jays for Daniel Norris and Matt Boyd; traded Yoenis Céspedes to the Mets for Michael Fulmer; and traded Joakim Soria to the Pirates for JaCoby Jones.  Then he was fired for it.  

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I think Avila drafted well his last couple of years and deserves some credit for that.  Now did he have the infrastructure in place to rapidly improve the development process for his talent?  No, however, a lot of that goes back to DD and Ilitch mandates and how far back the organization was in the newer approach to development.

I remember going to the back fields when DD was here, early ST days, and not seeing any equipment on the field to measure things.

It was noticeable to see these new gadgets on the field after DD was gone.  But Avila was 20yrs behind the leaders in the movement and a decade behind the rest of MLB.

Harris has taken what Avila started and excelerated the development process in all phases.  Now, I realize it's early on and putting the cart in front of the horse. 

To be blunt, I had lost some of my Tiger passion the last couple of years. Didn't go to any Flying Tiger games for two years, partially because now Low A to be fair.  Now, I'm back all in.  I can't wait for each level to get started.

 

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4 minutes ago, bobrob2004 said:

Dombrowski started the rebuild when he traded David Price to the Blue Jays for Daniel Norris and Matt Boyd; traded Yoenis Céspedes to the Mets for Michael Fulmer; and traded Joakim Soria to the Pirates for JaCoby Jones.  Then he was fired for it.  

I think Dombrowski was fired for sneaking around with the Red Sox brass behind Mike Ilitch in his final contract season wth the Tigers.

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45 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Avila did tear it down to the studs after 2017 and five years later, longer than entire rebuilds should even last, the organization was still revving in neutral, with no prospects for improvement.

Credit to Al for drafting a few decent guys, but the track record under his leadership is practically proof positive they would have stalled here. The actual improvements didn't start until Harris came on board, remade practically the entire scouting, development, and data science functions, and allowed them to do their thing. Here's an example just from today.

This article reads as basically a refutation of the Henning piece.

 

 

I can't read the article, but I see Chris Fetter's name in there.  He was hired durig the Avila administration.  

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2 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I can't read the article, but I see Chris Fetter's name in there.  He was hired durig the Avila administration.  

the other guy who knew how to fix velo even without the high tech was Jeff Jones. One of the Tiger's more under the radar talents of recent coaching staffs. 

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42 minutes ago, casimir said:

 

I think its fair to say Avila brought the farm system from an F to a C, which is probably a plateau for Avila, and Harris has the ability to improve upon the C.  Or something along those lines.

If Pipeline is to be believed, by the time Avila was shown the door, he brought the system down from an A to a D+. I would call that going backwards.

image.png.0bc23958e7e372595e58de0ade3f85ad.png

 

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32 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I can't read the article, but I see Chris Fetter's name in there.  He was hired durig the Avila administration.  

He did, but I don't think that nut exonerates the squirrel.

FWIW, Hinch was also hired under Avila, but he wasn't Avila's choice.

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