2022 DETROIT TIGERS REGULAR SEASON THREAD

[Tenacious D]

I hate that some of you have put me in the position to defend Avila, but I think most here gave him pretty high marks for this past offseason, including myself.  All of the players he acquired through trades and free agency had a track record, including pretty good seasons in 2021.  There was reason to be optimistic around our 3 young starters, who had shown promise last year.  ERod’s signing was hailed by national writers as one of the best of the offseason (prior to the shutdown).  

Two things have happened to put the team in their current despair.  The first is an unusual number of injuries to players we had counted on to significantly contribute.  The second, which is inexplicable to me, is all of our hitters struggling for an extended period of time with no signs of improvement.  Austin Meadows and Robbie Grossman do not have a HR between them in over 280 AB’s—they each hit over 20 last year. Is this the front office’s fault?

it would be very easy to blame Avila for this, but I also think it would be wrong.  I don’t see what firing him at this point will accomplish, except to appease fans who want blood.

signed, 

Mrs. Avila

[Jim Cowan]

5 hours ago, mtutiger said:

Yep, the Angels would be an appealing job. 

Yes, and that's why he will never get it.  You're the GM, you go to the owner and you say we need to hire...this guy?  With his resume?  Never in a million years.  There is only one Chris Ilitch.

[Tiger337]

50 minutes ago, Tenacious D said:

I hate that some of you have put me in the position to defend Avila, but I think most here gave him pretty high marks for this past offseason, including myself.  All of the players he acquired through trades and free agency had a track record, including pretty good seasons in 2021.  There was reason to be optimistic around our 3 young starters, who had shown promise last year.  ERod’s signing was hailed by national writers as one of the best of the offseason (prior to the shutdown).  

Two things have happened to put the team in their current despair.  The first is an unusual number of injuries to players we had counted on to significantly contribute.  The second, which is inexplicable to me, is all of our hitters struggling for an extended period of time with no signs of improvement.  Austin Meadows and Robbie Grossman do not have a HR between them in over 280 AB’s—they each hit over 20 last year. Is this the front office’s fault?

it would be very easy to blame Avila for this, but I also think it would be wrong.  I don’t see what firing him at this point will accomplish, except to appease fans who want blood.

signed, 

Mrs. Avila

I don't think he is Randy Smith level bad, but I think it's time to move on.  

[Jim Cowan]

3 hours ago, buddha said:

that's the thing, the twinkies got him on a perfecr deal and were stuck with baez's decline years for the next half decade.

i can understand not wanting correa for 10 years, but for what the twins paid?  its a no brainer.

Wait...didn't the Tigers offer Correa 10 years?  I thought that I heard that that was the only serious offer that he got, and he turned it down because it didn't have Lindor's AAV, which he wasn't ever going to get because of his injury history.  So, what's all this about not wanting him  for 10 years?  Where is that coming from?  Isn't that exactly what they offered him?

[Jim Cowan]

2 hours ago, buddha said:

the tigers wanted correa, they didnt get him, instead their rivals got him, but somehow that means avila did a good job?

They wanted him but not at Lindor money, that's crazy, he doesn't play often enough.

[Jim Cowan]

1 hour ago, Tenacious D said:

I hate that some of you have put me in the position to defend Avila, but I think most here gave him pretty high marks for this past offseason, including myself.  All of the players he acquired through trades and free agency had a track record, including pretty good seasons in 2021.  There was reason to be optimistic around our 3 young starters, who had shown promise last year.  ERod’s signing was hailed by national writers as one of the best of the offseason (prior to the shutdown).  

Two things have happened to put the team in their current despair.  The first is an unusual number of injuries to players we had counted on to significantly contribute.  The second, which is inexplicable to me, is all of our hitters struggling for an extended period of time with no signs of improvement.  Austin Meadows and Robbie Grossman do not have a HR between them in over 280 AB’s—they each hit over 20 last year. Is this the front office’s fault?

it would be very easy to blame Avila for this, but I also think it would be wrong.  I don’t see what firing him at this point will accomplish, except to appease fans who want blood.

signed, 

Mrs. Avila

Good thoughts and I too would not fire him now, what's the point, but I would do it on November 1 for sure, along with Hinch and the entire coaching staff, yes Fetters and Lombard, they are welcome to re-apply to the new GM.

Never happen, Chris isn't  interested in W/L.

[SoCalTiger]

I don't think anyone could have imagined how bad this year has gone. I also thought Al Avila had a successful off season after underperforming , sometimes terribly, prior. So while I can't blame Al for this prior off season the totality of his work shows poor judgment in talent evaluation which is the core of his job. So he has to go and if you don't trust him drafting then he needs to go now. Some other poster in some other thread, sorry I do not recall who, suggested "promoting" Al to some "position' to maintain fluidity with the recent hires while bringing someone else in for the GM job. I support this action.  I would keep AJ ,unless he has truly "lost" the team which is a concern, and give Fretter a raise tomorrow to keep him from UofM. I would look at low to mid budget teams like the Rays, Indians, Giants etc for a bright GM who can properly value talent. What's the associated $$ for that players skill set. That's what the Rays did in the Meadows for Paredas/ draft pick deal. They knew the $ value for Meadows depreciating defense and power, especially without the lively ball that most knew was coming, was lower than his salary and future earnings. Al Avila did not and never ever will. As others have said he is a scout and probably a damn good one. He found Reyes, Badoo and Garcia in the Rude 5 dumpster file. Serviceable players. But he doesn't know the percentages are low for High school pitchers in the draft so he took Jobe instead of Mayer because "pitching is 90 % of the game" stereotype simplicity entrenched in his thinking. Evolve or die. We are dying and need to evolve in our player procurement process and development. 

As for Correa we were never getting him with Al because Al does not have the patience to play the long game in free agency and Correa was always going to be a long game gamble. Minnesota got lucky when the dance chairs ran out which is where  275 might have worked.Not out of the gate. But again I do believe Baez is much much better than he has shown and will be much much better.

[HeyAbbott]

Ownership has tried to sell the fan base on the concept that the current performance problem is injury related. What this appears to be is a problem with many adverse factors contributing. Start tackling the ones that can be addressed.

To fix this, first make changes on the margins. Send Tork down. Are Schoop and Grossman part of next year's attempt to be better? If not get them out of here. There probably is a need for more talent through trades, maybe some of the pitching needs to go for position talent.

In the organization, whether responsible or not, make Al president of some face-saving vision thing and move on. Make AJ your acting GM and make lombard your interim manager. I am not opposed to letting a hitting coach go. Maybe there is a role for additional roving instructor, either Coolbaugh or Hessmann could fill that role.

Something new has to be done right now to emphasize to the Front Office, on field management, and the players that there is a cost to be paid for failure. And yes, it may not be fair,  but as all should benefit and enjoy the fruits of success, all also should endure the penalties for failure.

[romad1]

I think this team needs to get them some of the Demarini composite bats that my daughter's softball team uses. 

[casimir]

Loss.

[Jim Cowan]

29 minutes ago, casimir said:

Loss.

I continue to be mystified by the idea that somehow Hinch is qualified to be a GM.  There isn't a shred of evidence to support it.

[casimir]

3 minutes ago, Jim Cowan said:

I continue to be mystified by the idea that somehow Hinch is qualified to be a GM.  There isn't a shred of evidence to support it.

I don't understand it either.  Maybe he would do well, I don't know.  But I don't see how he is qualified at this point in time.

[1776]

16 minutes ago, Jim Cowan said:

I continue to be mystified by the idea that somehow Hinch is qualified to be a GM.  There isn't a shred of evidence to support it.

I totally agree and said as much yesterday. He has done everything possible to prove himself a failure at his job and is more secure than most of his peers. Very frustrating as a fan.

[chasfh]

10 hours ago, Motown Bombers said:

Seems to me the guy that was expected to sign for the largest contract and ended up being the last one to sign for the least money is the one who misread the market.

Or maybe it’s a gamble that will end up being a genius move. Correa and Boras are gambling on the idea that instead of taking a guarantee of far less than he wanted, simply because it was the best offered at that particular time, he can reset the market for himself this season so that next winter they can meet or or exceed the Lindor contract, which is still the 10-year benchmark they pinned themselves to.

Correa was never going to sign a long-term deal for 275 because he was on record saying Linder money or else, which was 340. So the Tigers must have known he was not going to accept it when they offered it, right? Especially since this was back in November when the market was still wide open. What would have been the compelling reason for him to cave then? I don’t think there was any. So I gotta believe the Tigers knew what they were doing and what would happen.

And you’re right that at the end, no one offered him three-anything this winter, let alone Linder money, and that 275 was the highest guaranteed money he was offered. But that doesn’t mean that would have been the best contract situation he could have signed for. Correa has that goal—Lindor money for the next ten years—and he wasn’t going to go down defeated just yet.

So he signs with the Twins for the 3/105, which sets the AAV for his next contract if he does well. If Correa is a 6 win player this year, I think he will get his 10/360 this winter (which would make it all end up as a de facto 11/395, BTW). If Correa falls short this year but is a 6-win player in 2023, he’ll probably get something like 9/330 the following winter. If he’s hurt or falters the next two years but puts up 6 wins in 2024, he’ll may well get 8/300 after all. 

The gamble here is that Correa is so good that as long as he can stay healthy at least one of the next three years and performs to his capability, he’ll get the money he’s been coveting, instead of having to settle early for a lowball 10/275.

This could all totally backfire on Correa. That’s why it’s a gamble. But the reasonable worst case I can envision is that he’s gimpy for three years with Minnesota, signs with someone taking a flyer on him for a few years after that, he never gets back fully on the horse, he retires in his early 30s because he’s hurt all the time, and he ends up making something like 150, maybe 200 million for six or seven years. Or maybe he hangs around to play out the string for ten more gimpy, underwhelming (in Correa terms) years and nets 200 to 250 million for that. That’s not a total of 275 million, but would be a hell of a consolation prize for a failed gamble. And instead of kicking himself for taking the lowball money early and then killing it for cheap, he can blame the stars for preventing him from reaching his full playing and earning potential.

Edited June 16, 2022 by chasfh

[kdog]

Quote

Of the 157 qualified batters, Báez's wRC+ (47) ranks last. He is the worst offensive player in baseball. But it's not just Báez. The Tigers don't have a single qualified player above 100, considered league-average: Báez, Miguel Cabrera (99), Spencer Torkelson (70), Jeimer Candelario (58) and Jonathan Schoop (51). Candelario and Schoop lead the team with five home runs. Robbie Grossman and Austin Meadows, who had 23 and 27 homers last year, respectively, are still searching for their first of 2022.

https://www.freep.com/story/sports/mlb/tigers/2022/06/15/detroit-tigers-postgame-meeting-yields-few-solutions-offense/7640547001/

[Motown Bombers]

4 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Or maybe it’s a gamble that will end up being a genius move. Correa and Boras are gambling on the idea that instead of taking a guarantee of far less than he wanted, simply because it was the best offered at that particular time, he can reset the market for himself this season so that next winter they can meet or or exceed the Lindor contract, which is still the 10-year benchmark they pinned themselves to.

Correa was never going to sign a long-term deal for 275 because he was on record saying Linder money or else, which was 340. So the Tigers must have known he was not going to accept it when they offered it, right? Especially since this was back in November when the market was still wide open. What would have been the compelling reason for him to cave then? I don’t think there was any. So I gotta believe the Tigers knew what they were doing and what would happen.

And you’re right that at the end, no one offered him three-anything this winter, let alone Linder money, and that 275 was the highest guaranteed money he was offered. But that doesn’t mean that would have been the best contract situation he could have signed for. Correa has that goal—Lindor money for the next ten years—and he wasn’t going to go down defeated just yet.

So he signs with the Twins for the 3/105, which sets the AAV for his next contract if he does well. If Correa is a 6 win player this year, I think he will get his 10/360 this winter (which would make it all end up as a de facto 11/395, BTW). If Correa falls short this year but is a 6-win player in 2023, he’ll probably get something like 9/330 the following winter. If he’s hurt or falters the next two years but puts up 6 wins in 2024, he’ll may well get 8/300 after all. 

The gamble here is that Correa is so good that as long as he can stay healthy at least one of the next three years and performs to his capability, he’ll get the money he’s been coveting, instead of having to settle early for a lowball 10/275.

This could all totally backfire on Correa. That’s why it’s a gamble. But the reasonable worst case I can envision is that he’s gimpy for three years with Minnesota, signs with someone taking a flyer on him for a few years after that, he never gets back fully on the horse, he retires in his early 30s because he’s hurt all the time, and he ends up making something like 150, maybe 200 million for six or seven years. Or maybe he hangs around to play out the string for ten more gimpy, underwhelming (in Correa terms) years and nets 200 to 250 million for that. That’s not a total of 275 million, but would be a hell of a consolation prize for a failed gamble.

I understand why Correa signed the deal he signed. The point was Avila simultaneously misread the market and lowballed him while offering more money than anyone else. As you have outlined, Avila knew the market. Why should Avila bid against himself and go up over $300 million when no other team would? So we can complain that Avila way overpaid when no other team was offering him similar money? Are we supposed to pretend that Minnesota is some genius organization that knew the market would collapse for Correa and he would sign effectively a one year deal? What would be the point of signing Correa for one year anyways? I'm not even sure the contract he did sign with Minnesota would make sense for Detroit. 

[1984Echoes]

11 hours ago, kdog said:

The Tigers wanted to get cost certainty before the lockout. That's why they got Baez. Before the lockout, Correa was asking for over $300 million and settled for peanuts afterwards.

If you want to kill the Tigers for not reading how things would look after the lockout, that's fair.

No, that's NOT fair.

That's 20/20 hindsight... which is a BS (unfair) way to evaluate a decision.

[1984Echoes]

11 hours ago, buddha said:

because the tigers could have waited and then signed him to a similar deal the twins got him for, in theory....

There's no guarantee that Correa gets stuck waiting the market because no one else wanted to give him his $300+MM.

20/20 hindsight. He could have as easily gotten his $300MM+, Baez sign elsewhere, and we sign Iglesias.

And then everyone on here would be whining about how Al "didn't read the market" and got stuck with Iglesias instead of bagging Correa or at least Baez.

This criticism is complete and total horseshit.

[1984Echoes]

11 hours ago, chasfh said:

I agree with you, Correa would have done the same deal with the Tigers if we'd come to him with it first.

Correa didn't want the guaranteed money if it was going to be only 275, or whatever it was, for basically the rest of his career.  It was well-known months in advance he was expecting way into the threes, at least, and he would never have gotten that with the Tigers. The Tigers not only lowballed him—I bet the Tigers knew they were lowballing him and were hoping to either luck into a yes, or hoping he'd say no so they could be seen as making an effort without spending a penny. I honestly don't know which.

The Twins deal is great for Correa because he has now established a baseline of $35 million a year. That means, if he has a good year—and he is having a good year, on his way to 6+ WAR—a team is going to have to come at him with $36MM AAV, minimum. Since he's going into his age 28 season, I think his fair minimum asking will be 10/360. And if he has an uncharacteristically healthy year, he could exceed that pretty handily.

In other words:

Avila read the market correctly.

IE: He and Ilitch did NOT want to have a $35/36MM AAV contract on the books, and certainly not a 10-freaking-year $36MM AAV contract on the books. Ergo: Baez. And all the warts that he comes with.

[kdog]

In the grand scheme of things, the Baez contract is not the biggest issue with Avila. It's all player development before 2021(before the overhaul).

They claimed that a development machine was being built to produce young players that could seamlessly come in and contribute to the major league club. But all they did was tank and try to get high draft picks. From 2018-2021, I said that the biggest games in the organization were in the minors. We would see if they could produce players outisde of the top 10 draft picks.

They didn't and we are stuck with the Castros, Reyes, and overcooked players like Grossman and Schoop as a core of a major league team. They clearly need more time to develop players. I don't want Al steering that ship and trying to extract value out of this terrible roster.

[1984Echoes]

10 hours ago, Aar000n said:

My only question is why can't the Tigers spend more? When the Wings had no cap they spent money. 

This team needs to be "on the cusp" before they spend more.

And they're just not quite "there" yet.

[Stanley70]

The Tigers HAD to have one of those shortstops and were not willing to wait the market out and get the best deal, opening up the possibility that none of them signed with Detroit. Correa didn't accept the the deal they offered, which he probably should have since no one else offered more, and wound up having to accept a lesser deal.

The failure on the Tigers approach was they were basically in desperation mode and were afraid to wait the market out. You can blame that on ownership for demanding a big name signing, AA for putting  a crap team on the field for 5 years and being forced into having to sign someone, or the development staff for not developing enough young talent.

[1984Echoes]

12 hours ago, casimir said:

Bullshit.  How many more losing season are necessary to determine that Avila is not the person to build a winner?

And I think Avila IS the person to build a winner.

So... there's that.

[1984Echoes]

One other point for everyone whining about Avila signing Baez instead of Correa:

This is not an AVILA problem. Your criticism of Avila is NOT correct because it is not an Avila problem but an...

ILITCH problem.

ILITCH didn't want to go to 10 years/ $350MM.

ILITCH put a cap on what kind of contract/ team's annual salary he would allow.

ILITCH agreed to the Baez contract, but NOT a Correa contract exceeding what Avila offered (under ILITCH's direction/ approval).

The criticism of Avila is completely and totally UNWARRANTED.

IMO.

[bobrob2004]

11 hours ago, chasfh said:

Hinch has a ring. Owners and GMs respect that.

Tell that to Joe Girardi and Joe Maddon.