2022 DETROIT TIGERS REGULAR SEASON THREAD

[mtutiger]

7 minutes ago, Stanley70 said:

The Tigers won't be a consistent over 500 team until they start producing homegrown, cost controlled, first division position players. Supposedly they are integrating a bunch of analytics and technology in the minors that will start yielding results, but even that will take time. 

I'm not sure how Avila gets credit for these changes when he is about 10 years behind the rest of MLB.  

He shouldn't get credit for it.

[gehringer_2]

48 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I don't think a managers job is so much risk analysis or game theory.  The analysts can figure that out better than a manager.  It just requires more detailed analysis than we are used to seeing.  I think a manager's job is less risk analysis and game theory and more trying to figure out when a given player is not up to performing as expected in a given situation.    

it more than more a matter of detailed, it's a matter of unavailable. I guess I am more over sensitized to this issue, but I spent most of my career in a particular engineering field that is full of 'one-offs' being grilled by management types that had been through 6-sigma classes taught by mass production manufacturing engineers bitching at us about why we couldn't give then certainty about what was going to happen in their particular process that didn't even exist anywhere else in the world or had never been in the particular state it was in. You can't do that kind of analysis when the data don't exist and in baseball there are enough situations that don't happen often enough to gather reliable statistics, and that is always going to be the case.

 

Edited May 9, 2022 by gehringer_2

[Tiger337]

14 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

it more than more a matter of detailed, it's a matter of unavailable. I guess I am more over sensitized to this issue, but I spent most of my career in a particular engineering field that is full of 'one-offs' being grilled by management types that had been through 6-sigma classes taught by mass production manufacturing engineers bitching at us about why we couldn't give then certainty about what was going to happen in their particular process that didn't even exist anywhere else in the world or had never been in the particular state it was in. You can't do that kind of analysis when the data don't exist and in baseball there are enough situations that don't happen often enough to gather reliable statistics, and that is always going to be the case.

 

If something has never happened before, I think a manager can only guess what's going to work though and how many wins is that going to amount to in a season?  

Edited May 9, 2022 by Tiger337

[mtutiger]

14 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

it more than more a matter of detailed, it's a matter of unavailable. I guess I am more over sensitized to this issue, but I spent most of my career in a particular engineering field that is full of 'one-offs' being grilled by management types that had been through 6-sigma classes taught by mass production manufacturing engineers bitching at us about why we couldn't give then certainty about what was going to happen in their particular process that didn't even exist anywhere else in the world or had never been in the particular state it was in. You can't do that kind of analysis when the data don't exist and in baseball there are enough situations that don't happen often enough to gather reliable statistics, and that is always going to be the case.

 

Matches my experience as well. And even in well established practices, every project is different, there are differing variables that have to be taken into account. And you aren't gonna be able to spreadsheet your way into an answer in every instance.... engineering judgment is involved. No different with baseball, one can imagine.

But at the end of the day, quantitative data is great, especially when you have easy access to it (as MLB managers / front offices have, and even fans for that matter with Baseball Savant). But it's far more useful when synthesized with qualitative analysis as well... the eye test still matters.

Edited May 9, 2022 by mtutiger

[Tiger337]

The eyes matter as far as knowing which players are struggling/thriving at a given moment and thus likely to perform different from their averages.  I don't know how much insight a manager can have in detailing with a situation has never happened before though.  

[gehringer_2]

22 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

If something has never happened before, I think a manager can only guess what's going to work though and how many wins is that going to amount to in a season?  

right, but that why some guys are going to get lucky and be thought of as great strategists and some will suffer bad luck and be dinged unfairly for it! 

>how many wins is that going to amount to in a season?  

And that is one of the properties of baseball - 5 wins is a lot in the standings even after 162 games because so many teams cluster so near 500. I've posted before that I believe it's the high level of randomizing inputs that keep baseball that way and I do think it's possible that in the general drive toward never letting  'mistakes' happen, whether calls in the field or ball and strikes, we might end up losing enough the that property to change things in a direction I don't know if will I like in the end.' Hopefully the basic nature of the bat, the ball and the weather is enough, though we are losing the last one some as well.

[buddha]

1 hour ago, Stanley70 said:

The Tigers won't be a consistent over 500 team until they start producing homegrown, cost controlled, first division position players. Supposedly they are integrating a bunch of analytics and technology in the minors that will start yielding results, but even that will take time. 

I'm not sure how Avila gets credit for these changes when he is about 10 years behind the rest of MLB.  

exactly.  why is it some badge of honor that he came to the party five years after everyone else?  

i mean, its good that they are finally on the bandwagon, but he doesnt deserve praise for it.  

i think most of that praise comes from beat writers who need/want access.

[RandyMarsh]

To be fair Avila talked about making these changes when he took over for Dombrowski.  Perhaps they didn't come to fruition cause Mike didn't believe in it so it took his death for the organization to fully embrace it?

[1776]

As a comparison of teams, I look at the Giants. In 2019 the team was in decline. Bochy was moving on after a great run. To this day, I have no doubt that the driver in his decision was the team, under Farhan Zaidi, was going all in on analytics. Bochy saw this and retired, can’t blame him from his vantage point. What else was there to prove. In hindsight I hated seeing Bumgarner leave but that was a good move on the organizations part. 
To my point, the Giants pretty much undertook an organizational restart in 2020. In 2020 they missed the playoffs on the last day of the season. Last year they had the best regular season record in baseball. This year they replaced Gausman who was huge last year with Carlos Rodon and replaced  Cueto with Alex Cobb. Every team in their division has a winning record currently! Zaidi & Company are very good at seeing opportunity. Mike Yastremski is a good example.
I just don’t believe the Tigers have the baseball acumen to identify and get players that aren’t playing at levels they’re capable of and capitalizing on their talent. The Giants took a risk of sorts with Rodon based on last years second half fall off in innings pitched. Things can change but as of today he’s one of the better starting pitchers in the game in 2022. The Giants spend, but they don’t waste their money like a lot of teams do. The Giants aren’t alone in this.
The Tigers have had ample time to produce a winning team since going total tank. It’s five years in and they’re dead last in the AL and second worst overall. There is no excuse for this but ineptness in the system. I don’t even know where the problems are but five years of futility makes my point. It is inexcusable. 

 

 

[mtutiger]

Is there anyone here who actually believes or who is arguing that Avila has done a good job as GM? 

The conversation overall about the failures of player development for the Tigers is an interesting one, but it also feels like we're taking baseball bats to Strawmen here.

[Tigermojo]

Cabrera, Schoop, Baez, Candelario, Meadows and Grossman are getting paid millions to hit the ball over the fence and they aren't doing it. That's where the blame should lie right now.

[1776]

12 minutes ago, Tigermojo said:

Cabrera, Schoop, Baez, Candelario, Meadows and Grossman are getting paid millions to hit the ball over the fence and they aren't doing it. That's where the blame should lie right now.

So, the question is why aren’t they hitting home runs up to expectations? We know they don’t come to the park hoping to fail. So, what is the problem? 

Edited May 9, 2022 by 1776

[1776]

23 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Is there anyone here who actually believes or who is arguing that Avila has done a good job as GM? 

The conversation overall about the failures of player development for the Tigers is an interesting one, but it also feels like we're taking baseball bats to Strawmen here.

I admit, I don’t know where the problem(s) exist that are causing this organization to continually struggle. That’s not my pay grade and I won’t pretend it is. I can say, without reservation, this organization is failing. They have had five years to turn this turd around and aren’t going in the right direction. As a fan, that’s all I can know. Everyone on this board has taken a crack at identifying the problem(s). I imagine there are several.

 

Edited May 9, 2022 by 1776

[RandyMarsh]

I feel like Avila's thought process was in the right place for many of his moves but unfortunately for him virtually none of them panned out aside from maybe getting Candy and Paredes(which in turn brought in Meadows) for Wilson.

Even that though wasn't exactly a major home run yet unless Candy can bounce back to where he was last year. 

Then as far as the draft goes,  Jobe was a questionable pick but aside from him I thought the last few drafts looked good at the time of the draft but again the vast majority haven't taken any steps forward so in turn it hasnt worked out. 

So the question is are the Tigers and Avila bad at identifying talent or how to project them or are they just bad at improving and developing the talent? 

[Tigeraholic1]

Baddoo down, Ronny Garcia up.

[Motor City Sonics]

13 minutes ago, RandyMarsh said:

So the question is are the Tigers and Avila bad at identifying talent or how to project them or are they just bad at improving and developing the talent? 

It's both

[1776]

6 minutes ago, RandyMarsh said:

 

So the question is are the Tigers and Avila bad at identifying talent or how to project them or are they just bad at improving and developing the talent? 

Frankly, until something changes, I believe both scenarios are true. I just can’t get over how long this organization has been in the rebuild mode and are currently as bad as they are. 

[Motor City Sonics]

Just now, Tigeraholic1 said:

Baddoo down, Ronny Garcia up.

that'll fix everything.   What, are we going to end up with 10 position players and 16 pitchers?  

[mtutiger]

7 minutes ago, 1776 said:

I admit, I don’t know where the problem(s) exist that are causing this organization to continually struggle. That’s not my pay grade and I won’t pretend it is. I can say, without reservation, this organization is failing. They have had five years to turn this turd around and aren’t going in the right direction. As a fan, that’s all I can know. Everyone on this board has taken a crack at identifying the problem(s). I imagine there are several.

 

I get it, just thinking more about how this conversation got started within the context of blame/credit that AJ Hinch gets when things are going well or poorly with this team. To me, it's one of these situations where Al, clearly, has done a bad job running this organization *and* AJ Hinch, while a successful manager that the organization is lucky to have, is also human and makes mistakes within the context of his job. Both of these things can be concurrently true and are not necessarily contradictory.

In terms of this organization, just purely looking at it, I don't know that its the worst farm system in MLB and is probably closer to middle of pack than the worst. The problem is that, aside from the high draft picks, the talent that they have in the upper levels tends to be pitching. And yeah, I believe that's real.... there's a question of how successful some of these guys will ultimately be, but Manning, Brieske, Faedo, Olson, Garrett Hill, etc., all these guys are capable of being major leaguers imo.  And some of the individual drafts returns have been Godawful, 2017 being one of the better examples where the grand sum of major league talent produced outside of Round 1 is Will Vest (iirc). Maybe that's gotten better over time (we'll see, they did produce Skubal and Brieske and Colt Keith looks like he could be something), but after five years of a rebuild, it's seems unthinkable to have a farm system that is so lacking from a position player perspective.. when you look on the infield and outfield, there's just not much depth. Fans have every right to be angry about that.

Where they go from here, IDK.... I did mention in the other thread that I was skeptical that they would do the kind of reorg that they did if they were parting company with Avila, but nonetheless I have no choice but to see if some of the folks that they have hired and systems they have implemented can at least help turn things around or even help some players that are currently in the system. As much as I would love to, this is the team I grew up rooting for and I'm gonna continue to do so.... as much as I sometimes wish I grew up a Dodger fan lol.

[casimir]

58 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

but it also feels like we're taking baseball bats to Strawmen here.

What's our exit velocity?

[mtutiger]

26 minutes ago, RandyMarsh said:

I feel like Avila's thought process was in the right place for many of his moves but unfortunately for him virtually none of them panned out aside from maybe getting Candy and Paredes(which in turn brought in Meadows) for Wilson.

Even that though wasn't exactly a major home run yet unless Candy can bounce back to where he was last year. 

Then as far as the draft goes,  Jobe was a questionable pick but aside from him I thought the last few drafts looked good at the time of the draft but again the vast majority haven't taken any steps forward so in turn it hasnt worked out. 

So the question is are the Tigers and Avila bad at identifying talent or how to project them or are they just bad at improving and developing the talent? 

"Why not both" is probably the easy answer. But if I had to pick one, probably that they aren't great at improving and developing the talent they draft.

[casimir]

13 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

Baddoo down, Ronny Garcia up.

Awesome.  Short on position players.  Position player down, pitcher up.

Now if Hinch puts CastroW out in the OF, its tougher to blame him given the roster composition.  But it should be Grossman, Hill, and Meadows.

[mtutiger]

2 minutes ago, casimir said:

Awesome.  Short on position players.  Position player down, pitcher up.

Now if Hinch puts CastroW out in the OF, its tougher to blame him given the roster composition.  But it should be Grossman, Hill, and Meadows.

I hope this doesn't mean that Rony Garcia gets the start for a Wednesday bullpen game.

[Tigeraholic1]

1 minute ago, mtutiger said:

I hope this doesn't mean that Rony Garcia gets the start for a Wednesday bullpen game.

Double header tomorrow so who knows.

[casimir]

17 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

I hope this doesn't mean that Rony Garcia gets the start for a Wednesday bullpen game.

 

15 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

Double header tomorrow so who knows.

Then pull Garcia up tomorrow as the extra player.  They've taken a poorly constructed roster and made it more poorly constructed.