2022 DETROIT TIGERS REGULAR SEASON THREAD

[oblong]

why do the Tigers always play Boston at home very early in the season?

[Jim Cowan]

2 hours ago, mtutiger said:

"Another" doing a lotta work here given his struggles at the dish recently 

Yes, he had 13 home runs on July 2, and now he has 15, and his 120 AB's since then have been as bad as any that the Tigers ever experienced from him.   The genius Rays have him completely screwed up now.  His OPS is still deceptively high in the mid 700s because he hit 8 home runs in 11 games a long long time ago.  It's a shame, it looked for a moment there like he might be starting a nice career.

[Tigermojo]

I'll take the new schedule over the sux, royals, Twinkies and guardians anytime.

[SoCalTiger]

7 hours ago, mtutiger said:

"Another" doing a lotta work here given his struggles at the dish recently 

I wager if he were still a Tiger we would be pretty happy with his year so far considering its his first year with consistent playing time and he is only 23. 

[sabretooth]

See the Game Thread.  I have been promoting Baez's resurgence since June, but he has fallen apart again.

Every way I look at it he appears to be falling off a cliff.  I think it's reasonable to assume that he will have an OPS+ below 100 and poor defense to boot.  5 more years and $115M more salary for basically peak Niko Goodrum.

My goodness, this team seems very deeply f'd in terms of positional talent and pitching injuries.

What other than Fetters ability to make something out of trash pitching-wise do we have on our side? 

A new GM and more high draft picks I guess, though the new system possibly diminishes that.

[sabretooth]

Despite my opposition to Avila and my sense that Chris didn't have the heart for building a winner, I was happy with the change in trajectory last year and going into 2022, although I wasn't thrilled with Baez (I wanted Story, who I realize hasn't been great but at least he's been OK with the bat and glove this year overall), I liked the combination of Baez, Meadows, Tork, Greene, along with E. Rod and Pineda, and I thought we were on track to have a decent 500 team this year (as did the professional projection systems), and maybe we could luck into the playoffs this year or next.

Despite the horrible start, I stuck to my guns against my friends and family that the players were slumping and skill levels would assert themselves for people like Tork, Schoop, Candy, Baez, and once Meadows, Manning, and others were healthy, we'd be on our way to at least 75 wins and probably more like 80+. 

After the horrible 9-23 start, we had a stretch of 15-11, even with a ton of injuries and with a bunch of hitters still underperforming....then after June 11, we have been playing .350 ball (24-43), and despite miraculous pitching and generally good defense, the hitting has just been beyond horrible.  

I really want to see signs of hope with the hitting but.....Greene is fun to watch but still puts up terrible numbers.  Tork continues to suck at AAA.  Meadows is a medical morass. 

I'd like to see what the other prospects can do, but we can't seriously count on these guys for 2023.

I'm very open-minded to positive analysis, I would like to be a lot more hopeful about things; it's ridiculous and basically inexplicable that players with established skill levels should all crash and burn like this at the same time. 

I've never seen this in my 45 years of watching the Tigers, even the bad Randy Smith teams didn't have this kind of stink about them.

[Tenacious D]

Baez will be an overpaid 2B, who hopefully can rebound and get closer to his typical numbers.  Having Correa playing next to him in the field and lineup might get him going.

[SoCalTiger]

9 hours ago, Tenacious D said:

Baez will be an overpaid 2B, who hopefully can rebound and get closer to his typical numbers.  Having Correa playing next to him in the field and lineup might get him going.

It does seem that Baez is miscast as the star of the team instead of a supporting  actor.

[chasfh]

22 hours ago, mtutiger said:

"Another" doing a lotta work here given his struggles at the dish recently 

"Struggles" doing a lotta work here given Paredes's slash line since August 5 is .250/.308/.396, good for a 107 wRC+ that, by itself, would be third-best on our team since then, behind only Willi (118 wRC+) and Victor (111 wRC+).

If we were looking at WAR, Paredes would be tied for best with Willi at 0.3.

[mtutiger]

3 minutes ago, chasfh said:

"Struggles" doing a lotta work here given Paredes's slash line since August 5 is .250/.308/.396, good for a 107 wRC+ that, by itself, would be third-best on our team since then, behind only Willi (118 wRC+) and Victor (111 wRC+).

If we were looking at WAR, Paredes would be tied for best with Willi at 0.3.

Extend that range back to July 5 and get back to me.

[pyrotigers]

12 minutes ago, chasfh said:

"Struggles" doing a lotta work here given Paredes's slash line since August 5 is .250/.308/.396, good for a 107 wRC+ that, by itself, would be third-best on our team since then, behind only Willi (118 wRC+) and Victor (111 wRC+).

If we were looking at WAR, Paredes would be tied for best with Willi at 0.3.

The Tigers need a second Willi Castro like I need to watch the first Willi Castro play 

Edited August 25, 2022 by pyrotigers

[chasfh]

Just now, mtutiger said:

Extend that range back to July 5 and get back to me.

Or you could just look at July 5 through August 4 and that would really make your point! 😅

[chasfh]

5 minutes ago, pyrotigers said:

The Tigers need a second Willi Castro like I need to watch the first Willi Castro play 

Hey, fun fact about Willi Castro: He's at +2 DRS for right field, +1 DRS for left field, and he is flat (at zero) for Outs Above Average at all three outfield positions.

Of course, he's also at -2 DRS for center field, so, good thing we don't need him there anymore.

I don't want Willi on the team any more than you do, but hey—pretty wild, huh? Whoda thunk it?

[chasfh]

I should probably modify my statement some: it's not that I wouldn't want Willi Castro on the team at all, ever again. I just don't want to have to hand him 400 or more at bats as an everyday starter. Make him your primary utility guy, limit him to 250 at bats across an entire season, and I could see him doing pretty well in that role for a first-division team.

[sabretooth]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

I should probably modify my statement some: it's not that I wouldn't want Willi Castro on the team at all, ever again. I just don't want to have to hand him 400 or more at bats as an everyday starter. Make him your primary utility guy, limit him to 250 at bats across an entire season, and I could see him doing pretty well in that role for a first-division team.

Yeah, that sounds about right.  Hes the new Jeff Smith.

[mtutiger]

The argument that they will need another catcher on the roster is obviously compelling, but I remain mystified at what Barnhart gives you that can't be supplemented by Dustin Garneau or Ali Sanchez at this point.

[gehringer_2]

23 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

The argument that they will need another catcher on the roster is obviously compelling, but I remain mystified at what Barnhart gives you that can't be supplemented by Dustin Garneau or Ali Sanchez at this point.

TBH, I wouldn't count on Rogers either. His throwing was one of his best attributes and who knows how much of that he gets back. Garneau is 34 so there is high probability he will fall off the same cliff batting wise that Barnhart has. Sanchez is young, has no power....what kind of receiver is he? Dingler is 23, you really wanted to see his bat start making some strides this year but he's been so-so at best. Crouch is too far away.

I can't believe there would be much competition for his services so if you end up eating a couple of million, tough cookies. So I don't see it would do any great harm to not make a final decision on him until after a trade, FA signing or lacking either of those, the end of Spring Training. The only possible silver lining for Barnhart that might be out there is that he has wondered whether he messed himself up trying to switch hit this year. If he came back next year just concentrating on his LH hitting, maybe the bat recovers some, but you sure don't want to pin any hope on that either.

Edited August 26, 2022 by gehringer_2

[casimir]

43 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

The argument that they will need another catcher on the roster is obviously compelling, but I remain mystified at what Barnhart gives you that can't be supplemented by Dustin Garneau or Ali Sanchez at this point.

They don't need to consider resigning him at this point.  Why tie up a 40 man spot for him before the rule 5?

[mtutiger]

42 minutes ago, casimir said:

They don't need to consider resigning him at this point.  Why tie up a 40 man spot for him before the rule 5?

This comment extends beyond Barnhart and to the roster in general, but without a GM in place, it's hard to get a read on what or who they should sign without knowing the philosophy of the incoming person.

Maybe the new person comes in and brings someone like Barnhart back, but ultimately Barnhart was an Al acquisition and they aren't necessarily going to have the same loyalty or inclination to bring him back that Al might have had if he were still here. Same goes for Candelario as well, although there may be more upside and replacing a 3B may be harder.

[buddha]

you can easily find a tucker barnhart any offseason.

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, mtutiger said:

The argument that they will need another catcher on the roster is obviously compelling, but I remain mystified at what Barnhart gives you that can't be supplemented by Dustin Garneau or Ali Sanchez at this point.

Maybe Barnhart is a good quote for McCosky?

Otherwise, looks like there some veteran backstop bias at work here. It's hard to get a fix on how much Barnhart may have contributed to pitchers improving so much this year, but it does fit an old school narrative quite nicely.

[mtutiger]

21 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Maybe Barnhart is a good quote for McCosky?

Otherwise, looks like there some veteran backstop bias at work here. It's hard to get a fix on how much Barnhart may have contributed to pitchers improving so much this year, but it does fit an old school narrative quite nicely.

From the article:

Quote

You want names of catchers expected to be free agents this winter? Wilson Contreras and Christian Vazquez will probably be the big-ticket options. The rest include Austin Hedges, Omar Narvaez, Gary Sanchez, Mike Zunino, Jason Castro, Curt Casali, Kevin Plawecki, Roberto Perez, Sandy Leon — pretty much the usual suspects, all over 30.

He dismisses all these guys as being "the usual suspects, all over 30", yet is there anyone on this list that Barnhart is leaps and bounds better than in the grand scheme of things?

Probably wouldn't want Gary Sanchez because of his defense, but other than that I don't know that he compares significantly much more favorable than anyone else on the list.

[casimir]

1 hour ago, mtutiger said:

This comment extends beyond Barnhart and to the roster in general, but without a GM in place, it's hard to get a read on what or who they should sign without knowing the philosophy of the incoming person.

Maybe the new person comes in and brings someone like Barnhart back, but ultimately Barnhart was an Al acquisition and they aren't necessarily going to have the same loyalty or inclination to bring him back that Al might have had if he were still here. Same goes for Candelario as well, although there may be more upside and replacing a 3B may be harder.

If the next GM extends Barnhart, I think we know we're ready for the next next GM.

[1984Echoes]

I'm on board with waiting until the end of Spring Training to see what fleshes out...

Barnhart was a 1-year stopgap/ bandaid who has turned into a scrap heap catcher. We can pick up any scrap heap catcher floating around at the end of ST. We already have a few of our own.

I expect Rogers to start until Dingler or Crouch steal the starting catcher position, if they can. And that most likely doesn't happen for Dingler until the very end of 2023, at the earliest...

But even so, if Rogers struggles and no one else in the system is ready... we're still in the same boat of filling in with bandaids until it's no longer recommended to do so... and for 2023, just like 2022, I recommend bandaids.

Now, if Rogers shows he's got his arm back, and can hit .240-ish and pop 10-15 HR's... he's the stopgap.

[Tiger337]

6 hours ago, mtutiger said:

From the article:

He dismisses all these guys as being "the usual suspects, all over 30", yet is there anyone on this list that Barnhart is leaps and bounds better than in the grand scheme of things?

Probably wouldn't want Gary Sanchez because of his defense, but other than that I don't know that he compares significantly much more favorable than anyone else on the list.

Jason Castro would be a good fit for the Tigers.