Al Avila: “You’ve got to go full bore from Day 1"

[pyrotigers]

The bottom line is that Al Avila is the most important employee of a multi million (billion?) dollar business. 

By any metric, finances, success on the field, fan support, the franchises standing in the league, etc, he's done a terrible job. 

Outside of sports he'd have gotten a golden parachute a long time ago, sadly, that's not how absentee sports owners run things. 

Which leads to the real problem. If you're not going to spend and win, and you're not going to win with smaller budgets like the Rays or whoever, why on earth do you own the team? Avila needs to go, but the buck does stop with the owner in the end. 

Edit: With regards to Stewart, how many players on our mlb roster can catch up to a good fastball these days? We're one of the worst teams in history at this. Perhaps he's more of a symptom of the current regime than we realized. 

Edited August 9, 2022 by pyrotigers

[chasfh]

2 hours ago, 1984Echoes said:

Why do we need to count on those guys "next year"?

Were we planning on making the playoffs next year and therefore those guys "must" be counted on?

Just asking for your thinking on that...

We are in the window we were led to believe we would be contending for championships right now. So I can understand why people are talking about counting on players next year, instead of waiting for another window five years down the road during which, based on what we now know from experience, we can’t expect this front office to prepare them to contend for championships, either.

[pyrotigers]

The year is 2027

"Avila HAS to move Greene for prospects this deadline! We're looking to compete in 2030!"

 

[gehringer_2]

17 minutes ago, pyrotigers said:

The bottom line is that Al Avila is the most important employee of a multi million (billion?) dollar business. 

By any metric, finances, success on the field, fan support, the franchises standing in the league, etc, he's done a terrible job. 

As much as we talk about development failure, I'm more struck by their inability to correctly evaluate their own everyday players. They had money to spend last season and could have done any number of things differently, but their internal intelligence told them that Candelario, Willi Castro, Schoop, Barnhart, Grossman were players that could form the core of a decent team that rookies like Greene and Torkelson could add into. But in 6 of 6 cases their internal evaluation of the player was wrong.   

[mtutiger]

Another "accomplishment" to add to Al's resume.

[buddha]

i dont want to defend avila because i think he should have been fired after the jd martinez trade, but this season really has been a bit unforeseen.  meadows' injury, candy and schoop falling into oblivion offensively, all your pitching injuries belonging to us...it really has been a catastrophe of biblical proportions.  im wondering when the frogs are going to start falling out of the sky at comerica.

what i cant understand is how the hitting coach hasnt been fired yet.

[gkelly]

There is no point in being mad at Avila any longer.  He has already proven he can't perform at least in a below average capacity at his position.  I believe he was trying to the best of his abilities and skills, he just isn't capable.  Now it is all on Ilitch's shoulders; it's his fault now for allowing him to continue at his position.

[SoCalTiger]

5 hours ago, casimir said:

Cumulative records since the beginning of the 2017 season and that winning percentage extrapolated to a 162 game season:

Wow its worse than I thought and the last team, Baltimore, is in the wild card hunt this year. We are the worse team in Baseball since 2017 so asking the fans for more time is just wrong.

[mtutiger]

1 hour ago, buddha said:

i dont want to defend avila because i think he should have been fired after the jd martinez trade, but this season really has been a bit unforeseen.  meadows' injury, candy and schoop falling into oblivion offensively, all your pitching injuries belonging to us...it really has been a catastrophe of biblical proportions.  im wondering when the frogs are going to start falling out of the sky at comerica.

Pitching wise they've held up about as well as they can under the circumstances. Bullpen has performed well and they have gotten some reasonably good performances out of guys who needed to make steps coming into the year (Lange, Jimenez, Foley) as well as guys who weren't even on the radar going into camp (Vest). And regardless of how quality one thinks a lot of the young starting pitching in the minors can potentially become (guys like Brieske, Faedo, Hill or hopefully Wentz when he gets some starts), there's been enough of it to keep the wheels from flying completely off the cart for the most part.

Where Al deserves criticism is on the position player side.... obviously no one could have foreseen Candy, Schoop, Grossman (he deserves mention) falling into obliviion or Meadows injury, but by this point in the rebuild, one clearly would expect that they would have more options at the upper tier of their system, particularly in AAA, that could really push for playing time at the bigs in a pinch. And that hasn't happened. There's Carpenter who, despite his meteoric rise, still lhas reason for skepticism and Kreidler, who hasn't played much this year because of a fractured hand.

Put another way, if the Tigers system had the kind of talent at the upper ranks of the system that the St. Louis Cardinals have (among others), they would have had more options and flexibility to deal with the trio of players whose offense fell into oblivion and Meadows being incapacitated most of the year. But they do not.

I've been watching 84 Lives for days (in multiple threads) talking about a lot of the prospects and I hear him and all, but even if one feels like their drafts have been better the past couple of years and that they have brought some guys in who have reasonable enough chances for success moving forward (such as Pacheco, Jung or Graham), these guys are still years away. Even a lot of the guys who have seen performances pick up, such as Wenceel Perez or Parker Meadows, are still in AA and all still seem to warrant skepticism. So aside from hoping that Al gets canned, we're kinda left living off lottery tickets for at least the next year and a half and hoping a couple of them pan out lol

Edited August 9, 2022 by mtutiger

[buddha]

1 hour ago, mtutiger said:

Pitching wise they've held up about as well as they can under the circumstances. Bullpen has performed well and they have gotten some reasonably good performances out of guys who needed to make steps coming into the year (Lange, Jimenez, Foley) as well as guys who weren't even on the radar going into camp (Vest). And regardless of how quality one thinks a lot of the young starting pitching in the minors can potentially become (guys like Brieske, Faedo, Hill or hopefully Wentz when he gets some starts), there's been enough of it to keep the wheels from flying completely off the cart for the most part.

Where Al deserves criticism is on the position player side.... obviously no one could have foreseen Candy, Schoop, Grossman (he deserves mention) falling into obliviion or Meadows injury, but by this point in the rebuild, one clearly would expect that they would have more options at the upper tier of their system, particularly in AAA, that could really push for playing time at the bigs in a pinch. And that hasn't happened. There's Carpenter who, despite his meteoric rise, still lhas reason for skepticism and Kreidler, who hasn't played much this year because of a fractured hand.

Put another way, if the Tigers system had the kind of talent at the upper ranks of the system that the St. Louis Cardinals have (among others), they would have had more options and flexibility to deal with the trio of players whose offense fell into oblivion and Meadows being incapacitated most of the year. But they do not.

I've been watching 84 Lives for days (in multiple threads) talking about a lot of the prospects and I hear him and all, but even if one feels like their drafts have been better the past couple of years and that they have brought some guys in who have reasonable enough chances for success moving forward (such as Pacheco, Jung or Graham), these guys are still years away. Even a lot of the guys who have seen performances pick up, such as Wenceel Perez or Parker Meadows, are still in AA and all still seem to warrant skepticism. So aside from hoping that Al gets canned, we're kinda left living off lottery tickets for at least the next year and a half and hoping a couple of them pan out lol

hey, i think Al has been horrible.  my only point was that this particular failure this year was a bit unforeseeable.  not unforeseeable in that they didnt have a winning record or make the playoffs but unforeseeable to have fallen off the cliff so badly.

but i agree that the lack of talent in the system is a direct indictment on the guy who has been in charge of it since 2015-16 and was a major part of it even before then.

all this talk of "re-doing rhe system" in the last few years shouldnt save him either.  what took him so long?  and the results havent been that good as to make a huge difference.

if avila isnt AT LEAST kicked uostairs aftet this year you really have to wonder about illitch's ability to run the organization.  i mean, i already do but that would just confirm it for me.

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, mtutiger said:

even if one feels like their drafts have been better the past couple of years and that they have brought some guys in who have reasonable enough chances for success moving forward (such as Pacheco, Jung or Graham), these guys are still years away. Even a lot of the guys who have seen performances pick up, such as Wenceel Perez or Parker Meadows, are still in AA and all still seem to warrant skepticism. So aside from hoping that Al gets canned, we're kinda left living off lottery tickets for at least the next year and a half and hoping a couple of them pan out lol

solid take