2025 Detroit Tigers General Discussion Thread

[romad1]

  On 4/21/2025 at 1:47 PM, Tiger337 said:

There's the famous story about Hornsby when he was a manager and a young player asked him to teach him how to hit. Instead of giving instructions, Hornsby grabbed a bat and started hitting line drive after line drive.  After he was done, he said: "That's how you hit".

The story may not be true, but he had a reputation of being a terrible manager.  

 

Expand  

I spent a lot of time with my kids teaching them how to hit at young ages and I run hitting clinics for my girls now and I'm astounded at the difference between girls who are in Travel and are hitting all the time and my kids who only lightly did travel and the amount of contact my kids make vs these supposed selected players.   My kids were never power hitters (indeed my daughter has noodle arms) but she can put a ball in play on any pitch that is within 5-6" of the strike zone.  

Was that taught or was it just reps?  

[Tiger337]

  On 4/21/2025 at 1:56 PM, romad1 said:

I spent a lot of time with my kids teaching them how to hit at young ages and I run hitting clinics for my girls now and I'm astounded at the difference between girls who are in Travel and are hitting all the time and my kids who only lightly did travel and the amount of contact my kids make vs these supposed selected players.   My kids were never power hitters (indeed my daughter has noodle arms) but she can put a ball in play on any pitch that is within 5-6" of the strike zone.  

Was that taught or was it just reps?  

Expand  

I think, at a young age, a lot of improvement can come from reps.  At higher levels versus better competition, instruction in the finer points of hitting becomes more necessary.   

[romad1]

  On 4/21/2025 at 2:08 PM, Tiger337 said:

I think, at a young age, a lot of improvement can come from reps.  At higher levels versus better competition, instruction in the finer points of hitting becomes more necessary.   

Expand  

Yeah true.  

[papalawrence]

Mantle told a story about an all-star game and Ted Williams gave him a lot of specific advice on hitting. Mantle said he tried it and went 0-20, so he just went back to trying to barrel up every ball

[oblong]

I do believe that those guys would struggle more in today's world where the pitchers are also doing analysis at a higher level.  Attitudes on pitching approach evolved so Mantle and Hornsby would be facing guys who are adjusting.  Williams would eat this **** up.

Of course I think the strategy for hitters has been the same but we have more ways of identifying and quantifying it so when guys say "they don't do that", they are, they just don't know it.  Like Joe Morgan being against analytics but he played the way analytics supports, he just had a bug up his butt.  They just call the strategy different things but the concepts are the same.

 

[Tiger337]

  On 4/21/2025 at 3:29 PM, oblong said:

I do believe that those guys would struggle more in today's world where the pitchers are also doing analysis at a higher level.  Attitudes on pitching approach evolved so Mantle and Hornsby would be facing guys who are adjusting.  Williams would eat this **** up.

Of course I think the strategy for hitters has been the same but we have more ways of identifying and quantifying it so when guys say "they don't do that", they are, they just don't know it.  Like Joe Morgan being against analytics but he played the way analytics supports, he just had a bug up his butt.  They just call the strategy different things but the concepts are the same.

 

Expand  

I think gifted talents like Mantle and Hornsby would adjust instinctively.  They wouldn't analyze anything and might have trouble if they were instucted to do so, but would probably be fine if left alone.  I agree that Williams would thrive in today's game because he would benefit from all the additional information.   

[gehringer_2]

  On 4/21/2025 at 3:29 PM, oblong said:

I do believe that those guys would struggle more in today's world where the pitchers are also doing analysis at a higher level.  Attitudes on pitching approach evolved so Mantle and Hornsby would be facing guys who are adjusting.  Williams would eat this **** up.

Of course I think the strategy for hitters has been the same but we have more ways of identifying and quantifying it so when guys say "they don't do that", they are, they just don't know it.  Like Joe Morgan being against analytics but he played the way analytics supports, he just had a bug up his butt.  They just call the strategy different things but the concepts are the same.

 

Expand  

I think the one thing that has shifted wrt hitting in recent years is that as pitch velocity has climbed, hitting becomes more and more pure reaction capability. Everything you do today mechanics, technique, everything, has to serve the single purpose of giving the greatest possible time to make a swing decision. It's always been that way to some degree, but the degree keeps increasing. Tork's case is illustrative - he had to slow down his swing to gain more control of it and increase his contact, but he had to move back to get the time back needed for a slower swing. I'd really love to see them experiment with moving the mound back 1' at one of the minors levels just to see how it goes.

[papalawrence]

Chipper Jones recently said he would hit .200 in today's game. I'm sure he would have adjusted and performed better than that, but it emphasizes how much better pitching has become. When Chipper was drafted 1-1 the Tigers held the 2nd pick and took Tony Clark. They were so close to getting Chipper

[Tiger337]

  On 4/21/2025 at 3:46 PM, papalawrence said:

Chipper Jones recently said he would hit .200 in today's game. I'm sure he would have adjusted and performed better than that, but it emphasizes how much better pitching has become. When Chipper was drafted 1-1 the Tigers held the 2nd pick and took Tony Clark. They were so close to getting Chipper

Expand  

If he did everything the same way as he did when he played, then may he would have batted .200.  However, I don't think that argument holds, because if he was playing today he would have learned the game differently and would not have played the game the same way.  

[papalawrence]

Kreidler optioned to Toledo, it's Jung time again!

[gehringer_2]

  On 4/21/2025 at 8:33 PM, papalawrence said:

Kreidler optioned to Toledo, it's Jung time again!

Expand  

I guess Riley is going to have to survive playing CF - McKinstry and Baez as his relief?

[4hzglory]

  On 4/21/2025 at 8:42 PM, gehringer_2 said:

I guess Riley is going to have to survive playing CF - McKinstry and Baez as his relief?

Expand  

Baez is starting today 

[gehringer_2]

  On 4/21/2025 at 8:48 PM, 4hzglory said:

Baez is starting today 

Expand  

I think he'll be fine if he doesn't kill himself against the wall. The guy can flat out catch baseballs, that talent really has never been in doubt.

[chasfh]

  On 4/21/2025 at 8:48 PM, 4hzglory said:

Baez is starting today 

Expand  

That's what I was wondering, whether Baez will see a lot a lot more CF. Jace Jung is not coming up to be a DH—that's Colt Keith's job. 😁 So I am guessing he's going to get a lot of reps at third, and probably a few at second.

[gehringer_2]

  On 4/21/2025 at 9:40 PM, chasfh said:

That's what I was wondering, whether Baez will see a lot a lot more CF. Jace Jung is not coming up to be a DH—that's Colt Keith's job. 😁 So I am guessing he's going to get a lot of reps at third, and probably a few at second.

Expand  

they have played Jung some at 2nd, which surprised me when I just looked it up. 7 games at 2B and 10 games at 3B. So Hinch will be able to keep the position line-up vego-matic going full tilt. 

[chasfh]

  On 4/21/2025 at 10:13 PM, gehringer_2 said:

they have played Jung some at 2nd, which surprised me when I just looked it up. 7 games at 2B and 10 games at 3B. So Hinch will be able to keep the position line-up vego-matic going full tilt. 

Expand  

And why not?

[romad1]

Some random clickbait on my FB..(so that is a strong negative caveat)...says Tigers are about to sign Tarik Skubal to a massive extension.  

[monkeytargets39]

  On 4/22/2025 at 2:10 AM, romad1 said:

Some random clickbait on my FB..(so that is a strong negative caveat)...says Tigers are about to sign Tarik Skubal to a massive extension.  

Expand  

We are trading Kriedler for Ohtani and LA is eating the full contract too

[papalawrence]

With all that Detroit has coming up, I would think at this point they are a desired destination if money is market rate. That said, Boros will convince Skubal to wait, unless an offer starts with a 4.

[gehringer_2]

  On 4/21/2025 at 11:01 PM, chasfh said:

And why not?

Expand  

Indeed. Sure, part of it was slowly hit balls and part was Sweeney not being as quick on the toss as he might be but tonight I was not impressed with Gleyber's DP pivots either.

Still holding my breath for when Javy gets a play at the wall in CF. He looked fine otherwise though.

[romad1]

  On 4/22/2025 at 2:27 AM, papalawrence said:

With all that Detroit has coming up, I would think at this point they are a desired destination if money is market rate. That said, Boros will convince Skubal to wait, unless an offer starts with a 4.

Expand  

I would both fret over the fragility of a SP at a huge pay number over the life of a contract and be annoyed we couldn't keep a homegrown talent if we lost him.  Either way I'd rather we were closer to the 2012-2014 version of our payroll than the Tampa Bay Yankrays.  

[chasfh]

  On 4/22/2025 at 2:27 AM, papalawrence said:

With all that Detroit has coming up, I would think at this point they are a desired destination if money is market rate. That said, Boros will convince Skubal to wait, unless an offer starts with a 4.

Expand  

Meaning 4 years? I’m good with that. 😉

[Edman85]

  On 4/22/2025 at 2:27 AM, papalawrence said:

With all that Detroit has coming up, I would think at this point they are a desired destination if money is market rate. That said, Boros will convince Skubal to wait, unless an offer starts with a 4.

Expand  

Google's AI is using this post to feed their AI, it appears.

[chasfh]

I sense that Skubal would like to re-sign with Detroit, but he is not going to pass up a huge payday with rest-of-career security just to do so, and it's easy to understand why.

[SoCalTiger]

No way I am giving 400 million to a pitcher and neither is Mike I or Harris for that matter. This team's identity is now based on depth and not dependent on any one player. Many  "good" players and a few great ones before they become expensive and when they do flip them for more "good" players and added depth. That's how they will roll.