4/9/25 1:10PM Yankees @ Tigers

[Tigeraholic1]

Comerica Park - Detroit, MI

Listen: 97.1 The Ticket

Watch: FanDuel Sports DET

Game Time Forecast: Cloudy 42 

LHP Max Fried

RHP Jack Flaherty

[Motor City Sonics]

Broom is still in the closet.................Let's free it !

 

[Motor City Sonics]

Tigers are 7-1 when not playing an All Star team. 

[chasfh]

Eleven games in, and talk about topsy turvy: the pitching has been just so so, but the position players, especially the infield, are basically killin' it so far.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/2025.shtml#all_team_output

My guess is that the pitching will pick it up (as they started to yesterday) just as the hitting cools off. That's fine as long as the Ws keep coming.

[oblong]

It's baseball.  The best teams lose 3 times a week and 12-13 times a month.  Water finds its level.  Yada yada yada

[chasfh]

Fun with playoff odds:

If Baseball-Reference and Fangraphs are to be believed, the Tigers are the #2 team in the American League in terms of projections to win the pennant and World Series:

Baseball Prospectus is a bit more circumspect about our chances:

[Tiger337]

9 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Eleven games in, and talk about topsy turvy: the pitching has been just so so, but the position players, especially the infield, are basically killin' it so far.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/2025.shtml#all_team_output

My guess is that the pitching will pick it up (as they started to yesterday) just as the hitting cools off. That's fine as long as the Ws keep coming.

That is probably accurate.  Overall, I am seeing more good than bad.  If Torkelson and Mize are for real, which is very possible, that makes a huge difference.  If Sweeney shows that he can be the regular starting shortstop, that solves a big problem.  My biggest concern now is how long Meadows will be out.  The other cocern is their bullpen, but that can be amelioarted by Hinch's management.  It's also the easiest thng to fix at the deadline if necessary.  

[Tigeraholic1]

[chasfh]

I thought maybe Brewer Hicklen would get a start, but he’ll be coming off the bench instead. 

[chasfh]

15 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

That is probably accurate.  Overall, I am seeing more good than bad.  If Torkelson and Mize are for real, which is very possible, that makes a huge difference.  If Sweeney shows that he can be the regular starting shortstop, that solves a big problem.  My biggest concern now is how long Meadows will be out.  The other cocern is their bullpen, but that can be amelioarted by Hinch's management.  It's also the easiest thng to fix at the deadline if necessary.  

I’m not counting on Meadows at all. Not that I think he’ll never come back—I still think at this point it’s more likely he will than won’t—but I’m not waiting for him or even thinking about him. I will get more interested when he does his minor league rehab assignment. 

[gehringer_2]

36 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

That is probably accurate.  Overall, I am seeing more good than bad.  If Torkelson and Mize are for real, which is very possible, that makes a huge difference.  If Sweeney shows that he can be the regular starting shortstop, that solves a big problem.  My biggest concern now is how long Meadows will be out.  The other cocern is their bullpen, but that can be amelioarted by Hinch's management.  It's also the easiest thng to fix at the deadline if necessary.  

And we there are multiple possible paths to get a decent outcome at 3rd. Jung is hammering the ball at Toledo and javy is 8/24 so far, and not just against LHP. I would guess 3B against RHP is Javy's to lose at this point.

[Tiger337]

34 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

I am interested to see what Dingler does playing regularly.  On the other hand, much has been said about how Rogers works with the pitching staff. It didn't hurt them yesterday.  

[Tiger337]

1 minute ago, gehringer_2 said:

And we there are multiple possible paths to get a decent outcome at 3rd. Jung is hammering the ball at Toledo and javy is 8/24 so far, and not just against LHP. I would guess 3B against RHP is Javy's to lose at this point.

It wouldn't be the Tigers if there wasn't a question about third base.  It'd been their weakest position historically.  

[gehringer_2]

Malloy is looking like he's going to be his usual dilemma though - he's holding up his OPB with walks, but otherwise he's not hitting. Is an OPS so heavily weighted by walks as useful as it claims to be? You always have to be careful applying correlations when your data set is an outlier, and Malloy is definitely an outlier.

Edited Wednesday at 02:59 PM by gehringer_2

[gehringer_2]

8 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I am interested to see what Dingler does playing regularly.  On the other hand, much has been said about how Rogers works with the pitching staff. It didn't hurt them yesterday.  

I noticed Dingler doing a LOT of looking into the dugout as he worked pitch-com - that could mean Dingler was getting some help with calls from the coaches. 

Edited Wednesday at 03:01 PM by gehringer_2

[gehringer_2]

16 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

It wouldn't be the Tigers if there wasn't a question about third base.  It'd been their weakest position historically.  

so looking for 3Bs with at least a couple of 3WAR seasons you get:

Cabrera - who put up 14 WAR as a 3B but only played there for 2 years.

after that:

Moriarity and McManus (way back!), in the more modern era: Kell, Ray Boone, Inge, Fryman.

Boone, Kell and Fryman were  All-Stars and obviously Cabrera.

Wert, Bookens and Rodriguez played there for fairly long stretches - so the position was stable, but neither was more than average production player.

So the overall history is maybe average, but it's definitely been since Cabrera's first years here that it's been locked down and that's been a while - too long. Cabrera keeping his weight to 215 and staying at 3b for half a dozen years is still my most disappointed alternate baseball history.

 

 

 

[RatkoVarda]

they have had good health luck at C for a while, but I was hoping Harris would stash a better 3rd option at Toledo than Nido (of course I was concerned more about Dingler's bat, so what do I know)

[Tiger337]

5 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Wert, Bookens and Rodriguez played there for fairly long stretches - so the position was stable, but neither was more than average production player.

 

 

 

 

Rodriguez and Brookens had a few average years, but they played regulary for too long, so stability may not have been a good thing in their cases.  When they lost their fielding skills, they became useless.  

[Sports_Freak]

4 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

Rodriguez and Brookens had a few average years, but they played regulary for too long, so stability may not have been a good thing in their cases.  When they lost their fielding skills, they became useless.  

Dean Palmer and Brandon Inge.

[gehringer_2]

4 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

Dean Palmer and Brandon Inge.

I thought Palmer had put up better numbers than he did but he never broke 2 WAR with Detroit.

Edited Wednesday at 03:46 PM by gehringer_2

[lordstanley]

2 hours ago, Motor City Sonics said:

Tigers are 7-1 when not playing an All Star team. 

The Dodgers are now 9-4 and tied for 2nd in their division. The Tigers must have worn them down, just like so many teams were losing the week after playing the Lions. 

[Tiger337]

6 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

I thought Palmer had put up better numbers than he did but he never broke 2 WAR with Detroit.

I used to say that he was like Rob Deer except Deer had a good year one year.  What was strange was that fans seemed to like Palmer, but regarded Deer as a joke.  

[LongLiveMaroth]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

Eleven games in, and talk about topsy turvy: the pitching has been just so so, but the position players, especially the infield, are basically killin' it so far.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/2025.shtml#all_team_output

My guess is that the pitching will pick it up (as they started to yesterday) just as the hitting cools off. That's fine as long as the Ws keep coming.

[gehringer_2]

4 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I used to say that he was like Rob Deer except Deer had a good year one year.  What was strange was that fans seemed to like Palmer, but regarded Deer as a joke.  

My guess would be that it was because Deer not only K'd a lot, he looked BAD doing it. That always makes it even worse to the fans than the actual numbers (e.g. Baez).

[gehringer_2]

4 minutes ago, LongLiveMaroth said:

Coming out of the gate the Yankees have had too many guys hitting way over their career norms  - they will be moving to the left. Tiger may well be also