The Tigers have fired Al Avila

[chasfh]

8 hours ago, Longgone said:

TBF, he's only had those responsibilities for a short time. Hard to load much blame on him.

I agree with you. I would not be surprised to learn that there was tension regarding player analysis between Avila/the old guard and Sartori-Menzin/the new wave.

[mtutiger]

6 hours ago, Scottwood said:

If Hinch is going to be heavily involved, then maybe it will be Pete Putila from the Astros.

https://theathletic.com/1146049/2019/08/19/35-under-35-how-pete-putila-deals-with-the-pressure-of-keeping-the-astros-at-the-top-of-the-heap?source=user-shared-article

For those with Athletic subscriptions, this is a pretty good read on Putila...

There are other good candidates for sure. But he seems like a pretty good fit... especially with his experience in player development and the likely familiarity between him and the manager.

[chasfh]

7 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

There are only 30 of these jobs... only a handful of which are open in any given offseason. Its not even clear there will be more than 1 of the jobs open in this offseason as well.

I suspect there won't be a lack of interest from candidates if they get a call from the Tigers.

They could probably get almost any GM candidate with little experience and modest qualifications and who's currently on the beach for just about any price they want. It may be harder and more expensive to pry a rising star who has a future in a functional top-tier organization, if they want, to come to a mess where the owner publicly throws his former employees under the bus.

[mtutiger]

Just now, chasfh said:

They could probably get almost any GM candidate with little experience and modest qualifications and who's currently on the beach for just about any price they want. It may be harder and more expensive to pry a rising star who has a future in a functional top-tier organization, if they want, to come to a mess where the owner publicly throws his former employees under the bus.

Sorry. But I dont think his comments matter much in the grand scheme of things.

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, RandyMarsh said:

I think right now my top choice would be Randy Flores scouting director of the Cardinals. 

I like the fact he comes from a winning organization, is a former MLB player with obvious scouting experience but also has a Masters of Science degree and is extremely tech and analytic savvy. 

Of course he doesnt have GM experience and there are certain skills that takes that he hasnt shown yet but from what I read about him and from what I seen of him when he did TV work I think he could handle and hopefully excel at the job. 

We've already gone the ex-scout route. I think I'd like to try someone with more broad-based executive decision-making on their resume.

[RandyMarsh]

3 minutes ago, chasfh said:

They could probably get almost any GM candidate with little experience and modest qualifications and who's currently on the beach for just about any price they want. It may be harder and more expensive to pry a rising star who has a future in a functional top-tier organization, if they want, to come to a mess where the owner publicly throws his former employees under the bus.

While that last part is true and not a good look I think the fact that the owner also gave the previous guy over 7 years of destruction before finally firing him offsets that. It has to be attractive to a new GM that you're not going to get canned at the first sign of adversity or if you make a couple mistakes. 

Edited August 11, 2022 by RandyMarsh

[chasfh]

1 minute ago, mtutiger said:

Sorry. But I dont think his comments matter much in the grand scheme of things.

Maybe not. But maybe. Everything is a people business.

[RandyMarsh]

1 minute ago, chasfh said:

We've already gone the ex-scout route. I think I'd like to try someone with more broad-based executive decision-making on their resume.

I would have to look around the rest of the league and see in general how the ex scout fairs in the GM role before coming to the conclusion that you need to go a different avenue. Just cause Avila was a putz doesn't mean they all are.

[casimir]

18 minutes ago, chasfh said:

It's a new day ...

And dammit, I have hope now.

Nice area.

[mtutiger]

1 minute ago, RandyMarsh said:

While that last part is true and not a good look I think the fact that the owner also gave the previous guy over 7 years of destruction before finally firing him offsets that. It has to be attractive to a new GM that you're not going to get canned at the first sign of adversity or if you make a couple mistakes. 

Good point.

And the fact that Al Avila sucked at his job isn't really a polarizing opinion or one limited to Detroit sports fans. All of these guys leaguewide know it... for all we know, maybe the Tigers will end up interviewing one of these "longtime executives" that spoke on the condition of anonymity to Ken Rosenthal about Al's tenure. 

Chris' comment is impolitic, and it elides his responsibility for not acting sooner on the GM. And extending him as well. But it really wasn't inaccurate... the responsibility for the trade is on the GM. And I dont think other MLB Execs think it's inaccurate either.

[chasfh]

15 minutes ago, RandyMarsh said:

While that last part is true and not a good look I think the fact that the owner also gave the previous guy over 7 years of destruction before finally firing him offsets that. It has to be attractive to a new GM that you're not going to get canned at the first sign of adversity or if you make a couple mistakes. 

I've been wondering about that. The Tigers are a family-run organization that values loyalty highly and promotes from within to maintain a tight circle of decision-makers across decades, so I wonder how effectively someone can come in from the outside and change everything from top to bottom, turning everything upside down even in the service to bringing the organization up to current snuff. Tightly-run organizations tend to resist big fast change. It will all depend on how much of a taste for breaking things Chris Ilitch has.

Edited August 11, 2022 by chasfh

[oblong]

8 hours ago, mtutiger said:

Craig Paquette... now there was a beauty. Also loved how they were paying millions of dollars to the corpses of Dean Palmer and Bobby Higginson at the end of their contracts. 

That era was so bad, and it was only because Mike I got the next hire right that we kinda forget how bad it was.

"We need to trade Travis Fryman, can't afford to pay that much for a 3rd baseman"

next off season

"Let's sign Dean Palmer"

Randy Smith traded both Travis Fryman and Cecil Fielder for Matt Drews.

[gehringer_2]

7 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I've been wondering about that. The Tigers are a family-run organization that values loyalty highly and promotes from within to maintain a tight circle of decision-makers across decades, so I wonder how effectively someone can come in from the outside and change everything from top to bottom, turning everything upside down even in the service to bringing the organization up to current snuff. Tightly-run organizations tend to resist big fast change. It will all depend on how much of a taste for breaking things Chris Ilitch has.

OTOH, it’s not like Avila wasn’t able to make major changes to the org because of resistance from ownership. Al’s problem wasn’t dealing with organizational stiffness- he changed the org a lot, it was poor talent and trade decisions. 

[RandyMarsh]

I also think just the overall state of the organization could be attractive to a potential GM.

Here me out, yeah we have been a disappointment and our system is ranked in the bottom 3rd by most pundits but if you don't believe Tork is broken you have two potential young studs in him and Greene. Got a young frontline starter in Skubal, are a year away from freeing up 30 million dollars and overall are in a fine shape salary wise and are likely going to get a top 5 pick again this year. 

Its not a complete barren wasteland despite Avila's best efforts to try to make it that. 

 

[romad1]

 

[kdog]

Quote

As Avila’s final act as general manager, the deadline silence was an uncomfortably fitting end to his seven years running the Detroit Tigers. While teams around the league looked to get better now or for the future, the Tigers just flipped two players headed for free agency anyway for minimal return and called it good. The message has been pretty clear for a half-decade now, and it was reiterated in Avila’s comments. He rarely made trades unless he had to, and when pressed claimed there were no deals available that would really improve the team. Hence the problem.

A general manager’s job is fundamentally to evaluate and value players more effectively than most of the other 30 general managers around the game. We can certainly talk about his failures in building good player development and amateur scouting departments. Those two issues go hand in hand. But again and again, Avila failed to maximize the value of his own players in trade and was unable to pluck a single unseen gem from a rival GM in seven years running the Detroit Tigers. Avila never showed any confidence that he could beat other general managers in trades, and rarely tried, sticking to an incredibly conservative approach that prolonged the Tigers' effort to tear down and build a winner from the ashes. The apparent self-assessment hidden in that lack of trading aggression quickly became difficult to refute as Avila’s tenure progressed.

https://www.blessyouboys.com/2022/8/10/23291518/detroit-tigers-al-avila-firing-chris-ilitch-aj-hinch

[mtutiger]

17 minutes ago, RandyMarsh said:

I also think just the overall state of the organization could be attractive to a potential GM.

Here me out, yeah we have been a disappointment and our system is ranked in the bottom 3rd by most pundits but if you don't believe Tork is broken you have two potential young studs in him and Greene. Got a young frontline starter in Skubal, are a year away from freeing up 30 million dollars and overall are in a fine shape salary wise and are likely going to get a top 5 pick again this year. 

Its not a complete barren wasteland despite Avila's best efforts to try to make it that. 

 

The hosts on one of The Athletic Baseball podcasts a few weeks ago were talking about a hypothetical Avila firing and said they thought it would be pretty attractive opening, in part for some of the reasons you mention.

In general, I think Tiger fans have a more negative view of the state of this org than people nationally do. Not that national folks think this org is in great shape (obviously not if the GM is being fired), but rather that there tends to be a little more perspective when comparing against all 30 teams.

[John_Brian_K]

14 hours ago, RandyMarsh said:

Is Chris just throwing Al under the bus or did we wrongly assume all these years that it was Chris that didn't want to pay the salaries which essentially forced Al to trade them away?  

Hard to tell IMO.  It may be a little of both.  For some reason I think it highly unlikely Al would trade JV without talking to the boss first, but maybe Chris gave him carte blanche....which is what a good owner does IMO, but looks like they had the wrong guy making all the wrong moves.

Did Al really just trade JV without consulting the owner?  I mean, JHC.  Miggy and JV...those were 2 guys who were going to hit HUGE milestones in the next few years...who were the best at their positions.  I was never in favor of trading either guy.  I get giving the gm full control, but you would think Chris would also say something like "if you are thinking about trading either of these guys let me know first."  They sold tickets at the LEAST.

Something just does not smell right.

[John_Brian_K]

14 hours ago, chasfh said:

This public statement will do wonders for recruiting. 😐

Jackass.

I am in favor of telling the truth and let things fall where they may.  Not a fan of politic-ing or double speak.  I favor this in ALL areas of life, even business.

[Tiger337]

9 hours ago, buddha said:

jeff weaver?  brandon inge?  cody ross?

rob fick?!?!?!?

But those guys weren't the new Lou Whitaker and Lance Parrish.  

[1776]

25 minutes ago, kdog said:

https://www.blessyouboys.com/2022/8/10/23291518/detroit-tigers-al-avila-firing-chris-ilitch-aj-hinch

For the past several years now I have firmly believed that Avila thought he could draft this team into playoff contention without having to be active in the trade market. I think on the way out the door he still believed that. I think he knew, better than anyone else, that he would be on the losing end more often than not in straight up deals with other GMs across the league. With that mindset, he stood pat.

[Edman85]

Will share later, but I put a list of all front office members in baseball operations at the director level or above at all 30 teams, omitting special assistants, secretaries, trainers.

[kdog]

He thought that the passage of time(inertia) and getting high draft picks would eventually lead to success. It was never going to work.

[RatkoVarda]

10 minutes ago, 1776 said:

For the past several years now I have firmly believed that Avila thought he could draft this team into playoff contention without having to be active in the trade market. I think on the way out the door he still believed that. I think he knew, better than anyone else, that he would be on the losing end more often than not in straight up deals with other GMs across the league. With that mindset, he stood pat.

the amount of trade value that he just let wither away is shocking. he was always waiting for a desperate team to overpay for decent players. waiting for someone else to fail rather than having his own success. and when that never happened, he sold when players were at their lowest value. with Boyd he never pulled the trigger. as you say he was never going to outsmart anyone, but he could have just settled on market value and gotten solid returns. or maybe he could not even do that.

[Jim Cowan]

Will Chris Ilitch eat 3 years of Hinch's contract?  I don't think so.  So, the new GM doesn't get to pick his own manager.  That's an obstacle.  Ilitch must be fuming about letting Avila offer a 5 year contract to a guy that would otherwise have been unemployed, but it's his own fault.