2022-23 Detroit Tigers Offseason Thread

[RandyMarsh]

5 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Has any team ever traded a 1/1 pick for MLB-ready players while the 1/1 was still marinating? Honest question, I don't know.

Dbacks trading Swanson to Atlanta for Shelby Miller? Not perfect comp since unlike Tork Swanson had no MLB experience at the time of the trade but that's the closest I can think of off the top of my head. 

[RandyMarsh]

1 minute ago, RandyMarsh said:

Dbacks trading Swanson to Atlanta for Shelby Miller? Not perfect comp since unlike Tork Swanson had no MLB experience at the time of the trade but that's the closest I can think of off the top of my head. 

Maybe a better comp would be the Rays trading Elmn to the Twins for Matt Garza. Young underperformed for 2 years for the Rays and that was enough for them to cut bait on him. 

[Stanley70]

I am not sure what else Harris is supposed to do. This team has ZERO building blocks in place that are healthy and performing in the bigs. They have a couple who look like they could be, but aren't sure things yet. Between young pitching injuries and almost all of the hitters having down seasons it's impossible to know what to expect next year.

How many of the young starters are going to come back and be average or better? Do we have any front of the rotation guys?

Why did all of the hitters underperform last year? Were they Coolbaughed? Was it the cavernous stadium? 

I expect a number of those questions to be answered this year and for Harris to be much more active next offseason.

Edited December 30, 2022 by Stanley70

[RatkoVarda]

Longoria to AZ. 

[Tenacious D]

2 minutes ago, RatkoVarda said:

Longoria to AZ. 

<ducks>

[chasfh]

2 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

all Harris (and us) can hope for the near term is that there is more talent in the org than was being properly exploited - i.e. that better coaching and development management can unlock some value that was latent and do it pretty quickly (Kreidler, Perez, Keith etc). At the major league level that means mostly getting Meadow, Rodriguez, Schoop, and Baez on track. But the paradox or contradiction at the ML level is that if these players are or should have been or turns out to be better than they played last season, what does mean about Hinch? Or was Hinch ready to make coaching or data system changes that Al wouldn't support?

I know how the prevailing idea here for months now has been how A.J. Hinch should bear harsh culpability for the hiring of Scott Coolbaugh and for holding onto him for the entire disastrous second year, but I'm coming around to the idea that hiring Scott Coolbaugh and Jose Cruz, Jr. as hitting coaches may not have been Hinch's idea.

When Hinch was interviewed by MLB Network shortly after the hire, he said "didn’t know Coolbaugh personally aside from as opponents on the field", and he then talked mostly about the topline resume things he knew about Coolbaugh. The article also touted how Coolbaugh was hired for his experience, something Al Avila is known to have valued highly. By contrast, Hinch said he'd known George Lombard for a long time, and had a great deal of personal experiential details he could relate about George in the interview. This contrast in tone when discussing the two strikes me as a clue.

I have even stronger conviction that Jose Cruz, Jr. was also imposed on Hinch by Al Avila. In this Free press article, Hinch's reaction to the hire came in a statement released by the Tigers that was very bland and not too specific. Al Avila, on the other hand, was interviewed live about the hire, saying very directly, “we identified Jose as someone who would be a great fit for AJ and his coaching staff ... over the years I’ve watched (Cruz) as a player and know him to be a leader both on the field and in the clubhouse." All this sure doesn't make the hire sound anything like A.J.'s idea.

Both Coolbaugh and Cruz are now gone—in fact, Cruz bolted two months into the 2021 season for the head baseball coaching job at Rice, which he led to a 17-39 record in 2022 and a ranking of #204 out of 301 schools by the NCAA.

George Lombard is still around.

So, my new working hypothesis is that A.J. Hinch probably wasn't the guy who hired Scott Coolbaugh as hitting coach of the Tigers. If that's true—if Coolbaugh was hired by Al Avila instead—then no wonder Coolbaugh didn't get fired early in the season when it would have made sense. By the time Avila was shit-canned, shoving Coolbaugh out the door right after him wouldn't have mattered to the team's season, and I think the organization realized it would have looked chaotic if they were to start firing people up and down the line within days of firing Al.

 

[Edman85]

From a personnel standpoint, I don't blame Harris and company for relatively standing pat. Upgrade the infrastructure, training staff, scouting staff, hitting staff. Give the advanced player dev side bigger reigns. See if you can't improve what you have, and get that development machine rolling. I expected a few more trades, but the one significant trade was one that I fully endorse.

[chasfh]

19 minutes ago, Edman85 said:

From a personnel standpoint, I don't blame Harris and company for relatively standing pat. Upgrade the infrastructure, training staff, scouting staff, hitting staff. Give the advanced player dev side bigger reigns. See if you can't improve what you have, and get that development machine rolling. I expected a few more trades, but the one significant trade was one that I fully endorse.

I wouldn't be mad if they ended up winning only 70 games, although truth be told, I'd be a little disappointed, because I think as currently constructed, they're probably a 75-win team. But, like you, I did not expect any major free agent signings, although it's a little sad to see we can't even get any one-year guys beyond Boyd and Lorenzen. I can see why most players want nothing to do with coming to the Tigers, though. We're not going to win anytime soon, and I do believe our reputation among players in general is that we're messy to play for (TenaciousD, I will continue to agree to disagree with you on this), so who among the better players who are ready to win would want to come here? We have to show and prove first before that happens.

[mtutiger]

19 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I wouldn't be mad if they ended up winning only 70 games, although truth be told, I'd be a little disappointed, because I think as currently constructed, they're probably a 75-win team. But, like you, I did not expect any major free agent signings, although it's a little sad to see we can't even get any one-year guys beyond Boyd and Lorenzen. I can see why most players want nothing to do with coming to the Tigers, though. We're not going to win anytime soon, and I do believe our reputation among players in general is that we're messy to play for (TenaciousD, I will continue to agree to disagree with you on this), so who among the better players who are ready to win would want to come here? We have to show and prove first before that happens.

I think you are largely right on where this team lies... it's closer to a 75 win ballclub than a 65 win ballclub, the combination of injuries (Greene, Meadows, the pitchers), sub-par rookie performances (Torkelson), and vets shitting the bed (Baez, Schoop, etc.) did a number on their record. Maybe some performances will be replicated in 2023, but they have a decent amount of upside going into next year. 

The difficulty for the Tigers isn't just about money or Chris Ilitch, it's that when you are a 66 win ballclub, there is a massive gap to close. Individual free agents may be worth a couple of games on average, so how many big splashy signings do you need to make to close that gap realistically?

Maybe they will overperform expectations, win 80 games and leave us wishing they had done more this offseason. But realistically, not landing Jean Segura or Brandon Drury on a 2 year deal isn't gonna make a huge difference with this team. Certainly not more than better individual performances from vets already on contracts and younger players.

Edited December 30, 2022 by mtutiger

[gehringer_2]

53 minutes ago, chasfh said:

So, my new working hypothesis i

yeah - we pretty much have to hope that was the case.

[gehringer_2]

19 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I do believe our reputation among players in general is that we're messy to play for

I think there are two sides to this. The converse is that I do think the Tigers have a rep as an org that treats their players well, has a pliant press, and a generous fan base. You have players out there who have a more workman like view of their careers, and those guys are probably willing to come here for a fair offer. What you won't get are guys who only want to win. Aye there's the rub because if you don't at least have some of those guys you are going to end up with a team with no fire and no sense of urgency. But you don't need every guy in the clubhouse to be a hard core. So I think the Tigers can still add by FA, but the leadership core is going to have to be internally generated to get off the ground.

[buddha]

6 hours ago, mtutiger said:

I do think the article does correctly ascertain the outfield as an area of relative strength for the Tigers on the position player side (especially if they can add a righty OF bat in free agency), but they conflate that with depth. There are wayyy too many question marks among the "depth" to be trading away someone like Austin Meadows, who if healthy is likely to be one if their best offensive performers.

At least with respect to position players, the Tigers just don't have the kind of organizational depth to be handing away players of that caliber at their lowest value.

i dont think the tigers have any organizational strengths.  that's the product of being mismanaged for a decade.

put all your eggs in a young pitching basket and sometimes you get justin verlander, but more likely you get kenny baugh, matt drews, kyle sleeth, and seth greisinger.

[chasfh]

2 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

I think you are largely right on where this team lies... it's closer to a 75 win ballclub than a 65 win ballclub, the combination of injuries (Greene, Meadows, the pitchers), sub-par rookie performances (Torkelson), and vets shitting the bed (Baez, Schoop, etc.) did a number on their record. Maybe some performances will be replicated in 2023, but they have a decent amount of upside going into next year. 

The difficulty for the Tigers isn't just about money or Chris Ilitch, it's that when you are a 66 win ballclub, there is a massive gap to close. Individual free agents may be worth a couple of games on average, so how many big splashy signings do you need to make to close that gap realistically?

Maybe they will overperform expectations, win 80 games and leave us wishing they had done more this offseason. But realistically, not landing Jean Segura or Brandon Drury on a 2 year deal isn't gonna make a huge difference with this team. It just isnt.

Major league free agents are a key part of any winning team. Sure, you can't free agent your way to a consistent winner, but you can't rely only on guys coming out of your system, either. Good teams need both players who are there by choice and players who are there by team control. Even the Rays have at least half a dozen or so free agents on their roster in any given season.

So while it would not have made sense to go into the market this winter with both wallets blazing and overpay for an entire starting lineup, at some point we will have to be ready to go in and make smart signings, and to do that, we have to reasonably have our pick of talent, which we don't have now, and may not next winter, either.

But it wouldn't surprise me to learn that the plan is to be in that position by 2025, after word has gotten out that things in Detroit have changed, the Tigers are serious about putting good teams on the field consistently, and perhaps most importantly, current Tigers are eager to evangelize to players on other teams about what a great organization this has become to play for—like night and day, man. When that happens, then we should be able to sign all the first division regulars we're gonna need to round out our roster and starting playing baseball on October instead of golf.

 

[buddha]

dombrowski traded two top 10 picks to get miguel cabrera.  that worked out ok.

if harris were to take the dombrowski road, this would be the year of "you try and trade em."  the only players who might bring something substantial back are greene and tork based on reputation.  i doubt harris is dealing either.

so let it play out a year and hope they improve enough to the point where we can trade them for the next miguel cabrera.

[mtutiger]

8 minutes ago, buddha said:

i dont think the tigers have any organizational strengths. 

Hence the use of the term "relative"

[buddha]

if free agents are so overly concerned with the tigers' supposed poor reputation for disorganization, then why did baez and erod sign here?  

im not buying that.  free agents go where the money is for the most part.  baseball teams are not the usual corporate structures when it comes to attracting a talented workforce.  free agents are going to go where they can play and where they can get paid.  the idea that they are really concerned with the structure of an organization is far fetched, imo.

that's offseason slow news day talk.

[RandyMarsh]

2 minutes ago, buddha said:

i dont think the tigers have any organizational strengths.  that's the product of being mismanaged for a decade.

put all your eggs in a young pitching basket and sometimes you get justin verlander, but more likely you get kenny baugh, matt drews, kyle sleeth, and seth greisinger.

I agree they have no real strengths but I don't think they put too much resources in SP necessarily, probably no more than other teams though even though that is the general feelings. Yeah you can question the Jobe pick but outside of that I think you can justify using a 1st on Manning, Faedo and Mize.  Faedo was considered a steal at the time we drafted him and somebody that would be hard to pass up on and Mize was the consensus number 1. Aside from that they've used plenty of early picks on bats but unfortunately they were either dumb picks to begin with(Rivera) or just haven't panned out atleast as of yet. 

 

[Longgone]

1 hour ago, Edman85 said:

From a personnel standpoint, I don't blame Harris and company for relatively standing pat. Upgrade the infrastructure, training staff, scouting staff, hitting staff. Give the advanced player dev side bigger reigns. See if you can't improve what you have, and get that development machine rolling. I expected a few more trades, but the one significant trade was one that I fully endorse.

I don’t expect Harris to stand pat. All we really know is he hasn’t done much, yet.

[buddha]

Just now, mtutiger said:

Hence the use of the term "relative"

it wasnt a criticism and i saw you posted that later.

i just wanted my chance to post that the tigers have no organizational strengths.  🙂

[RandyMarsh]

Admittedly I haven't paid much attention to other team's systems and rosters the past year or so but I would have to imagine there aren't very many teams in worse shape top to bottom than us right now. That could change if we get some breakout guys and guys like Tork, Greene, Manning and Skubal(when he comes back) perform to expectations but as of now things look pretty bleak. 

[chasfh]

7 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

I think there are two sides to this. The converse is that I do think the Tigers have a rep as an org that treats their players well, has a pliant press, and a generous fan base. You have players out there who have a more workman like view of their careers, and those guys are probably willing to come here for a fair offer. What you won't get are guys who only want to win. Aye there's the rub because if you don't at least have some of those guys you are going to end up with a team with no fire and no sense of urgency. But you don't need every guy in the clubhouse to be a hard core. So I think the Tigers can still add by FA, but the leadership core is going to have to be internally generated to get off the ground.

Sure, there are players who are not driven to win or else—I think Mike Trout is one of those guys. If it's not about winning, then it has to be about something else: team culture, the city, close to offseason home, more money than anywhere else, even backed into a corner to make the decision (like Pudge in 2004). Different people have different reasons. But I do believe that a high percentage of players, probably the majority, would rather play for a winner in a nice climate and/or an amazing city, for even a little less money, than to play for a organization that's perceived to be going nowhere in a city that's perceived as dying or even dead.

As for whether the Tigers have a rep for treating their players well, what do you base that on? We may not be thinking of the same thing.

 

[chasfh]

5 minutes ago, buddha said:

if free agents are so overly concerned with the tigers' supposed poor reputation for disorganization, then why did baez and erod sign here?  

im not buying that.  free agents go where the money is for the most part.  baseball teams are not the usual corporate structures when it comes to attracting a talented workforce.  free agents are going to go where they can play and where they can get paid.  the idea that they are really concerned with the structure of an organization is far fetched, imo.

that's offseason slow news day talk.

I think Baez and Rodriguez didn't get offers from anyone else even close to what they got from us.

Edited December 30, 2022 by chasfh

[buddha]

1 minute ago, RandyMarsh said:

I agree they have no real strengths but I don't think they put too much resources in SP necessarily, probably no more than other teams though even though that is the general feelings. Yeah you can question the Jobe pick but outside of that I think you can justify using a 1st on Manning, Faedo and Mize.  Faedo was considered a steal at the time we drafted him and somebody that would be hard to pass up on and Mize was the consensus number 1. Aside from that they've used plenty of early picks on bats but unfortunately they were either dumb picks to begin with(Rivera) or just haven't panned out atleast as of yet. 

 

i still have high hopes for manning.

mize was "consensus" #1 in the press, but avila is paid to know better than what's reported on mlb.com.  

faedo dropped for a reason.  that's what i remember reading at the time.

jobe is a complete head scratcher for me.  mayer was sitting right there and you took a right handed high school pitcher, the most injury prone of any position available, who could allegedly "spin" the ball well.  it strikes me as avila learning about "spin rate" last year and then applying his newfound knowledge in the draft the next year.

he might turn out to be great, but because he was selected by avila, i doubt it.

all this reminds me of the randy smith era.  once it became painfully obvious that he was a bad judge of talent, every hyped up prospect became suspect.  encarnacion, kapler, munson, drews, etc.  all were top prospects with tremendous hype and "prospect rankings."  and they all failed to be amything more than average to below average players.  after awhile a pattern emerges.  the same thing has happened with avila.  until proven otherwise, i am going to assume all his picks will not pan out and if harris trades them all, so be it.

[Tiger337]

1 minute ago, buddha said:

i still have high hopes for manning.

mize was "consensus" #1 in the press, but avila is paid to know better than what's reported on mlb.com.  

faedo dropped for a reason.  that's what i remember reading at the time.

jobe is a complete head scratcher for me.  mayer was sitting right there and you took a right handed high school pitcher, the most injury prone of any position available, who could allegedly "spin" the ball well.  it strikes me as avila learning about "spin rate" last year and then applying his newfound knowledge in the draft the next year.

he might turn out to be great, but because he was selected by avila, i doubt it.

all this reminds me of the randy smith era.  once it became painfully obvious that he was a bad judge of talent, every hyped up prospect became suspect.  encarnacion, kapler, munson, drews, etc.  all were top prospects with tremendous hype and "prospect rankings."  and they all failed to be amything more than average to below average players.  after awhile a pattern emerges.  the same thing has happened with avila.  until proven otherwise, i am going to assume all his picks will not pan out and if harris trades them all, so be it.

While am skeptical of the Tigers prospects, I do think amateuir scouting has advanced a lot since the Smith era, thus increasing the chances that a weak organization can draft the right guys based on consensus.   

[Edman85]

10 minutes ago, Longgone said:

I don’t expect Harris to stand pat. All we really know is he hasn’t done much, yet.

I didn't really mean stand pat, but yes, some marginal regulars were cut loose, it's not like Meadows, Baez, Rodriguez, etc. have been traded. Obviously, it's not a good time to sell low on a lot of players.