Mize

[Tiger337]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

Tigers have tried that and failed with it in more than one era. The Tigers teams that have gone to WS were all pitching-centric. Lolich/McLain/Wilson, Morris, Petry, Wilcox, Verlander, Rodgers/Verlander/Scherzer etc.

The 68 and 84 teams were not pitching centric.  They were very well balanced home grown teams with strong pitching and offense.  You say that the pitching came together in 68 which may be true, although Lolich certainly didn't have his best year.  Their hitting also came together with several hitters having their best seasons.  The Dombrowski era teams were indeed pitching centric.  

The only hitting centric team that failed to win was the early 90s team and they were at least entertaining.  The Tigers usually fail when they are re-building with neither good offense or pitching which has been far too often.  

 

Edited May 15, 2022 by Tiger337

[Tiger337]

30 minutes ago, buddha said:

the 84 team was NOT pitching centric.  neither was the 68 team.  those teams were built around hitting.

in fact, the tigers' history is one of great hitters and above average but not great pitching (probably due a lot to their stadium).  its when they can pair their hitting with great seasons from their above average pitching that they won.

 

Put together a Tigers all-time allstar team and the hitting is pretty impressive, the pitching not so much. 

[Tiger337]

1 hour ago, buddha said:

arent they just as likely to blow out their arms in the minors?  how long do you keep them out of the big leagues because they might get hurt?  

that's the risk for all pitchers.  (which is why you should build around hitters)

If pitchers are ready, you bring them up BEFORE they get hurt.  Never work about team years of control with pitchers.  

[Tiger337]

I think the best way to have a consistent contender is to build around position players long-term and build pitching for the short-term hoping it all comes together one year.  

[buddha]

15 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I think the best way to have a consistent contender is to build around position players long-term and build pitching for the short-term hoping it all comes together one year.  

or trade/sign pitching that isnt injury prone and is a proven commodity.

[gkelly]

16 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

Pretty ironic that the big knock on Scherzer early was that almost no-one believed he would be durable. Still, give me a guy that throws  FB, change, curve and keeps his slider %low and I'm going to feel better about his future. JV had never thrown more than 30% sliders in a year until the year before his UCL gave out. Just sayin'.

In fact Scherzer, despite a reputation as a slider pitcher, actually  throws it < 20% of the time.

There is something about that.  Nolan Ryan never had arm problems.  He threw 90% fastballs.  

I think organizations are better off when their guys blow their arms out in the minors.  That way they can keep control of the pitchers without having them go through basically 2 years before they are ready to pitch again.  Keep them in the minors until they are 25 and let them walk as a free agent.  Who knows?  I certainly don't, and I'm certain Al Avila has no clue either. 

Maybe have a few guys that don't throw as hard but can change speeds well and have great control?  Would Greg Maddux even get a shot nowadays?

 

 

Edited May 15, 2022 by gkelly

[Sports_Freak]

16 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

In the old days, they had no surgeries to fix arms.  Guys would get sore arms, maybe rest for a while, then try to pitch through it and eventually disappear.  You wouldn't hear about it so much  because they didn't have anyway to fix it.  It probably seems like guys get hurt more because so many get TJ surgery.

Milt Wilcox in 1984. Multiple cortisone shots.

[gehringer_2]

33 minutes ago, gkelly said:

There is something about that.  Nolan Ryan never had arm problems.  He threw 90% fastballs. 

Well, he did eventually blow his UCL - at  46 and 5300IP !?!

Edited May 15, 2022 by gehringer_2

[Tiger337]

57 minutes ago, buddha said:

or trade/sign pitching that isnt injury prone and is a proven commodity.

That is how I would do it.  A lot of people say the opposite, but I think building around pitching has too high a probably of leading to heart ache.  

[gehringer_2]

31 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

That is how I would do it.  A lot of people say the opposite, but I think building around pitching has too high a probably of leading to heart ache.  

"There is no joy without sorrow" - LaoTze

[Edman85]

There is a slight chance there wasn't a elbow set back... Unless we hear otherwise.  Hear me out:

There's a 30 day limit for a rehab. Given Mize was so bad and may have things to work on, it makes sense so you don't have to rush him back to the big leagues.

 

Having said that the "Trust us: it's just precautionary" fluff from the Tigers was easier to see through than saran wrap.

Edited May 15, 2022 by Edman85

[Edman85]

1 hour ago, buddha said:

or trade/sign pitching that isnt injury prone and is a proven commodity.

Mize had known elbow issues in college.

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, Edman85 said:

There is a slight chance there wasn't a elbow set back... Unless we hear otherwise.  Hear me out:

There's a 30 day limit for a rehab. Given Mize was so bad and may have things to work on, it makes sense so you don't have to rush him back to the big leagues.

 

Having said that the "Trust us: it's just precautionary" fluff from the Tigers was easier to see through than saran wrap.

I see rehab limits are 30 for pitchers but 20 for hitters, were they same in the past? I had thought 20 was the limit with all those episodes with Dontrelle Willis.

Edited May 15, 2022 by gehringer_2

[Edman85]

I don't know when/if it changed.

[mtutiger]

2 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

That is how I would do it.  A lot of people say the opposite, but I think building around pitching has too high a probably of leading to heart ache.  

I guess it depends on what "building around" means... are we talking about just not focusing on pitching in the first couple of rounds or just primarily not drafting much pitching at all?

[Tiger337]

1 hour ago, mtutiger said:

I guess it depends on what "building around" means... are we talking about just not focusing on pitching in the first couple of rounds or just primarily not drafting much pitching at all?

Always take the best player available.  If it's close go with the hitter.  e.g Mayer over Jobe.  I would rather see them draft top position players along with lots of pitching depth.  

[mtutiger]

30 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

Always take the best player available.  If it's close go with the hitter.  e.g Mayer over Jobe.  I would rather see them draft top position players along with lots of pitching depth.  

The Jobe pick was risky, I would have went a different direction as well.

I just sort of think this conversation about not building around pitching gets too distilled down to "dont draft pitching in the first round". But depending on how your board looks, maybe you have to in some cases.

[Hart]

Mize may end up a bust but at least the pick was justifiable.  If Jobe busts, that is going to look really bad since most teams would not have taken him three.  And Mayer looked like the obvious pick.  

[Tiger337]

1 minute ago, mtutiger said:

The Jobe pick was risky, I would have went a different direction as well.

I just sort of think this conversation about not building around pitching gets too distilled down to "dont draft pitching in the first round". But depending on how your board looks, maybe you have to in some cases.

There are also trades and international signings.  There are lots of different ways to build and I prefer a balanced approach, but I would lean towards position players as the foundation.  

[Hart]

Even with the Mize situation (and to a lesser extent Manning), I do feel overall fortunate with the progress of young pitching in the organization.  Skubal is turning into a bonafide ace.  Brieske looks like a good bet to be a mid rotation starter.  We are finally getting something out of Faedo and even if he doesn't make it as a starter, I would guess it is better than 50-50 he ends up a good bullpen arm.  And it seems like outside of Jobe, who it is really way too early to even make a judgement on, our top pitching prospects in the minors are performing as expected or better than expected and have raised expectations of their ceiling from what was previously thought.  

[mtutiger]

15 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

There are also trades and international signings.  There are lots of different ways to build and I prefer a balanced approach, but I would lean towards position players as the foundation.  

They have done the trade approach as well... the Brewers trading Reese Olson for Daniel Norris comes to mind. (Still blows my mind that they got anything of value for Norris, let alone an above average pitching prospect)

[Hart]

9 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

They have done the trade approach as well... the Brewers trading Reese Olson for Daniel Norris comes to mind. (Still blows my mind that they got anything of value for Norris, let alone an above average pitching prospect)

Olson had a great start today.  5 innings, 0 runs, 1 hit, 10 k's. 

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, Tiger337 said:

Always take the best player available.  If it's close go with the hitter.  e.g Mayer over Jobe.  I would rather see them draft top position players along with lots of pitching depth.  

I also would guess they thought Mayer was(is) going to end up at 3rd and if they took him 1st it had to be to stay at SS. They also made big SS signings with Santana and Osorio.

In fact as you note, you have to count internationals. TBF, they've gone after a lot of position players internationally (as above), and considering that's where something like 30% of players are coming from, it's incomplete to just look at the domestic draft and say they are necessarily overly pitcher centric.

Pitchers are half the roster in today's game, in the long run that equates to half the picks.

Edited May 16, 2022 by gehringer_2

[Jim Cowan]

2 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

There are also trades and international signings.  There are lots of different ways to build and I prefer a balanced approach, but I would lean towards position players as the foundation.  

So would I and for decades the org preached the exact opposite.  You draft pitching first, and then you trade the excess good ones later for hitting.  It's stupid and it never worked, not even once.

[gehringer_2]

25 minutes ago, Jim Cowan said:

So would I and for decades the org preached the exact opposite.  You draft pitching first, and then you trade the excess good ones later for hitting.  It's stupid and it never worked, not even once.

you need enough pitching to survive exactly what they are going through now, but I agree, collecting pitching with the idea of trading it doesn't work well because you can neither showcase nor sit on starting pitchers, they have to be in your rotation or not - there is no way to platoon them until you make a deal,  and you can't be sure of a AAA pitcher's value until he pitches in the majors if you trade the major leaguers in front of him. It's not really a squarable circle.

What you can do is fill in with guys like Pineda who you can move at the deadline (assuming they stay healthy) to make room for your guys as they come up and recover some assets that way.

Edited May 16, 2022 by gehringer_2