2022 DETROIT TIGERS REGULAR SEASON THREAD

[mtutiger]

19 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Names?

Before his last start in Houston, people were giving ERod way more crap than he deserved and subsequently blaming Al.

In general, there's tons to complain about with Al's GM tenure, but the last free agent class isn't a legit one. He made a lot of logical signings that were recieved as such at the time

[bobrob2004]

24 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Names?

Do we still like the Baez signing?  Barnhart?  Rodriguez?  Baddoo?  

If Avila hasn't made any bad moves in 2 years, why do so many people want him fired?  

[buddha]

baez will eventually come out of his slump.  

at some point, do you blame the baseballs?

[mtutiger]

10 minutes ago, SoCalTiger said:

The maddening thing is we do have talent on this team based on multiple years of production in Baez, Meadows, Candy, Schoop, Grossman but they are all stinking up the joint. Yes we have injuries but offensively only Greene, which considering Torks adjustment ,he might not be that much of an impact at this point. Crazy bad. Look at their stats..Grossman has a.263 SLUGGING percentage for one example. It's not just bad it's ugly.

"They all need to go out on the town slump busting" - Mark Grace.

Again, there are two questions here... the macro question, which is why is this ballclub still a projected 70-75 win ball club after year five of the rebuild. And on that score, Al Avila is terrible and deserved to be fired.

And then there's the micro question of why a projected 70-75 win team has a lineup that is playing like a 50-55 win team. And on that score, as was the case last year, players have track records and it's reasonable to expect them to meet expectations.

This whole debate kinda minimizes the contributions of the player to the success and failures of the team. And more than anything else, that's why they are where they are in the micro... not Al or AJ, the players.

[Tiger337]

5 minutes ago, buddha said:

baez will eventually come out of his slump.  

at some point, do you blame the baseballs?

I blame the players.  

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, mtutiger said:

The team underwent some organizational restructuring late last year, particularly relating to player development.

The upshot being that AJ's fingerprints were likely all over that

Got it. Agree that’s the case and agree it’s a good thing.

I’m reasonably confident that Avila is here for the long haul and that he received assurances about being involved in personnel before agreeing to come here. Which is why I say that if he bugs out after this year, that indicates to me that promises to him were broken which led him to go.

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, Tiger337 said:

Maybe they can get Dusty Baker.  He is doing great in Hinch's old role.  

Sure helps to be given really good players! 

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, Motor City Sonics said:

What is it?    

 

Is it terrible drafting

Or is the drafting good, but they can't develop positional players

Or is it both? 

 

The horror......................The horror. 

I think the drafting, international free agent, trading and development philosophy for years has been to draft the best athletes and then hone their baseball skills to major league quality. I think we might be finding that it’s hard to take someone with just average baseball skills, or guys with significant holes in their game, and teach them all the way up. 

[gehringer_2]

57 minutes ago, buddha said:

baez will eventually come out of his slump.  

at some point, do you blame the baseballs?

It would be nice if we could, but the baseball is not why they have a terrible barrel rate. If we were hitting a lot of balls hard it would be one thing, but we mostly are not. Tork and Candy and Cabrera have hit a few hard and come up empty, but the random nature of BaBIP is nothing new. 

Besides of course - both teams are playing out of the same box of balls.

[Tiger337]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

Sure helps to be given really good players! 

Exactly.

[buddha]

17 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

Exactly.

where do we get some of those?

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

I think the drafting, international free agent, trading and development philosophy for years has been to draft the best athletes and then hone their baseball skills to major league quality. I think we might be finding that it’s hard to take someone with just average baseball skills, or guys with significant holes in their game, and teach them all the way up. 

which is probably a bad strategy. Hitting doesn't seem to have that close a tie to athleticism, and what association there is mostly goes the wrong way. While many hitters are athletic, very few athletes are hitters. That's why your average HS outfield's fielding probably isn't much worse than an MLB one. (Nick C and JD say "hi")

Edited May 13, 2022 by gehringer_2

[Tiger337]

10 minutes ago, buddha said:

where do we get some of those?

I am just saying that managers don't matter that much.  I have seen a lot of fans saying that Hinch turned the whole organization around last year, but a manager can't do that. 

I don't think Avila has been good.  The one good thing is that he has stuck to the plan and hasn't made any fatal mistakes like trading away young players too soon.  His trades have been mostly bad and his drafts have been mediocre, but he hasn't been nearly as haphazard as Randy Smith.  I don't think Avila has been as terrible as some say, but the results are not there after so many years, so I wouldn't mind if they fired him and tried somebody else.  I am not sure ownership is very helpful either.  

[RatkoVarda]

Reds about to win, so the team that ESPN called maybe the worst team ever will be 1 game behind Detroit.

[buddha]

2 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

I am just saying that managers don't matter that much.  I have seen a lot of fans saying that Hinch turned the whole organization around last year, but a manager can't do that. 

I don't think Avila has been good.  The one good thing is that he has stuck to the plan and hasn't made any fatal mistakes like trading away young players too soon.  His trades have been mostly bad and his drafts have been mediocre, but he hasn't been nearly as haphazard as Randy Smith.  I don't think Avila has been as terrible as some say, but the results are not there after so many years, so I wouldn't mind if they fired him and tried somebody else.  I am not sure ownership is very helpful either.  

i think ownership is a hindrance because the first thing he did was put avila in charge because he didnt know what else to do.

he got lucky with the wings when yzerman fell into his lap.  he had to make a decision with the tigers and totally blew it.

[gehringer_2]

4 minutes ago, buddha said:

i think ownership is a hindrance because the first thing he did was put avila in charge because he didnt know what else to do.

he got lucky with the wings when yzerman fell into his lap.  he had to make a decision with the tigers and totally blew it.

I think when Mike passed, Al went to Chris with a plan that said this is where we are, this is where we are headed and this is where I want to go instead and it sounded good enough to Chris to give him the job.

I think it's probably incorrect to assume Chris is some kind of naif  at making personnel moves - he'd been running a multi-billion $ business for a number of years - it's not like he's some rich wet behind the ears wannabe like a DJT Jr. , he'd actually been doing the job.

He may have made a choice he has to eventually walk away from but I doubt it was not at least a reasonably informed decision.

[buddha]

1 minute ago, gehringer_2 said:

I think when Mike passed, Al went to Chris with a plan that said this is where we are, this is where we are headed and this is where I want to go instead and it sounded good enough to Chris to give him the job.

I think it's probably incorrect to assume Chris is some kind of naif  at making personnel moves - he'd been running a multi-billion $ business for a number of years - it's not like he's some rich wet behind the ears wannabe like a DJT Jr. , he'd actually been doing the job.

He may have made a choice he has to eventually walk away from but I doubt it was not at least a reasonably informed decision.

he left holland with the wings and avila with the tigers.  i'm not sure what he's done with those teams to indicate to you he knows what he's doing.  seems to me he just left the guys in charge who were there.  i.e.: the easy thing to do.

but i dont know, its pure speculation on my part obviously.

[gehringer_2]

11 minutes ago, buddha said:

he left holland with the wings and avila with the tigers.  i'm not sure what he's done with those teams to indicate to you he knows what he's doing.  seems to me he just left the guys in charge who were there.  i.e.: the easy thing to do.

but i dont know, its pure speculation on my part obviously.

The wings weren't quite a dumpster fire yet though. 2017 was a bust but it was the first year out of the playoffs, some of the new talent still looked promising  and Kenny had just brought in a new coach so I'm not sure too many people were after Holland's scalp yet at the time. It would actually be a little rash not to give a guy coming off the 25 yr playoff run at least a little rope.

Edited May 13, 2022 by gehringer_2

[buddha]

4 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

The wings weren't quite a dumpster fire yet though. 2017 was a bust but it was the first year out of the playoffs, some of the new talent still looked promising  and Kenny had just brought in a new coach so I'm not sure too many people were after Holland's scalp yet at the time.

mmmm....maybe.  

what is the justification for leaving avila in his job?

[gehringer_2]

8 minutes ago, buddha said:

mmmm....maybe.  

what is the justification for leaving avila in his job?

That he was meeting the metrics of the plan laid out? That's the problem, we have no idea. Sure you can say 'the only criteria is winning' but that's nonsense. You can win stupid and you can lose unlucky (don't we know), the key is to build institutional strength - which Ilitch talks about all the time. If that has been the objective and those were the benchmarks, that is probably why is he still here. As I said, no-one is saying a change may not be made, but I don't think it's hard at all to see why one hasn't been. Remove the fan emotion and it's easy to make a rational case for why Avila has kept his job - the organization has moved miles. It may not be the case we agree with but it's not an irrational case.

The reality is the fans think Avila is dumb because he is not glib. Well sure he could be, but again, we have zero real idea because glibness and solid management/organizational skills do not have overlapping Venn diagrams. The lack of polish is easy to see, what the organization looks like internally is unknown to most.

[buddha]

13 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

That he was meeting the metrics of the plan laid out? That's the problem, we have no idea. Sure you can say 'the only criteria is winning' but that's nonsense. You can win stupid and you can lose unlucky (don't we know), the key is to build institutional strength - which Ilitch talks about all the time. If that has been the objective and those were the benchmarks, that is probably why is he still here. As I said, no-one is saying a change may not be made, but I don't think it's hard at all to see why one hasn't been. Remove the fan emotion and it's easy to make a rational case for why Avila has kept his job - the organization has moved miles. It may not be the case we agree with but it's not an irrational case.

The reality is the fans think Avila is dumb because he is not glib. Well sure he could be, but again, we have zero real idea because glibness and solid management/organizational skills do not have overlapping Venn diagrams. The lack of polish is easy to see, what the organization looks like internally is unknown to most.

i think ive heard avila speak once.  i dont think he's dumb, i think he's bad at the job of acquiring talented players.

i dispute the idea that the organization has moved miles.  i think they have moved from 0 to 10.  now, 10 seems like a lot when you started at 0, but its still a long way away from 100.

and let's not forget, avila was a part of the organization that put them at 0 in the first place.

[gehringer_2]

6 hours ago, bobrob2004 said:

Do we still like the Baez signing?  Barnhart?  Rodriguez?  Baddoo?  

If Avila hasn't made any bad moves in 2 years, why do so many people want him fired?  

Every Tiger starter's bat is in the tank since May 1 except Cabrera, Candelario, Hill and W Castro, and the last one is only because they've been able to get him in against some LHP, he still doesn't do anything as a LHB. So that is basically two bats going into a game against a RHP because they still won't just give the CF to Hill. Incredible.

[AlaskanTigersFan]

10 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

Daniel Cabrera?  Can we say "told you so" after he is released?

Yes.

 

I still think there's more too it. His Barrel % and Hard hit rates are above league average. His BABIP is .225. I think there's some more to it. But yes, I'll eat crow if he's not gonna live up to expectations. I still think he can be a solid contributor batting close to .290/.350/.475 type line. I'll take that with average defense which I think he can do. Just a hunch though.

I like him, Gage Workman, and Colt Keith quite a bit. Hopefully some of them pan out. But we won't know for a while. Keep your eye on Cabrera though. I don't think he's "done" just yet..... 

[AlaskanTigersFan]

6 hours ago, bobrob2004 said:

Do we still like the Baez signing?  Barnhart?  Rodriguez?  Baddoo?  

If Avila hasn't made any bad moves in 2 years, why do so many people want him fired?  

Baez will be fine. We picked up Barnhart for essentially nothing. Rodriguez isn't a bonafide Ace like everyone hailed him to be but he is a decent #2/#3 starter. He'll work it out.

Baddoo had a career year last year. I still believe that. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I am on that......

[Scottwood]

It's time to fire Avila at this point. He tried to create a modern MLB organization, but it took him so long to make obvious moves (Littlefield never should have been in charge of player development), that the Tigers are constantly playing catch up. They really need someone from one of these modern MLB orgs that actually knows what they are doing and is innovative. The Tigers under Avila mostly just copy whatever other orgs do but years after those other orgs have figured something out.

Its way too early to evaluate the 2021 draft, but part of my concern with that draft was the Tigers seemed like they just took pitchers with high spin rates because that became the "it" thing that organizations looked at. But, teams like Houston and TB were on to that in 2016 and are beyond that now and that is just one piece of the puzzle.