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2022-23 Detroit Tigers Offseason Thread


chasfh

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58 minutes ago, chasfh said:

For all his fire, personality, and World Series heroics, Kirk Gibson was never on an All-Star team, although, asterisk, he did turn down two invites. Hey, it was the 80s.

Tony Phillips never made one, either. He might be the guy with the highest career WAR in the All-Star Game era who didn’t make one. He also got MVP votes in only one season, for us in 1993, when he finished 16th. The curse of the super-duper utility guy. He probably played more games at more non-battery positions than any player ever. No one knew just what the hell he was.

One other thing about Phillips is how late he blossomed. I drafted him for an OOTP team. I had to wait a lo-o-o-ong time for that ship to come in.

In his prime, Phillips was awesome.  Switch hitter, worked counts, had some pop, stole a few bags, could be moved around the diamond.  So fun.

There was a game in his second go around with the A's, they were playing in Detroit.  In one of the later innings, LaRussa shuffled he and another IF back and forth between 2B and 3B based on the hitter for Detroit.  It wasn't a current day shift, although the Oakland IF was shifting a bit from line to line.  Phillips and this other A were essentially swapping defensive positions during the inning.  Oh, yes, its this one.

image.png.2685bef86336be5f7bb642da82a65284.png

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11 minutes ago, casimir said:

I'm drawing a blank on who could have been the Milwaukee representative on some of those nonMolitor Brewer teams.  That might be interesting to look back at.

Sure, having Ripken as the seemingly annual starting SS takes away one slot.  And then there's never a shortage of OFs when Yount moved to the grass.

Cecil Cooper and Ben Ogilvie seem to be prominent. Throw in Ted Simmons and Dan Plesac 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Milwaukee_Brewers_award_winners_and_All-Stars

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1 hour ago, casimir said:

I'm drawing a blank on who could have been the Milwaukee representative on some of those nonMolitor Brewer teams.  That might be interesting to look back at.

Sure, having Ripken as the seemingly annual starting SS takes away one slot.  And then there's never a shortage of OFs when Yount moved to the grass.

Molitor and Plesac mostly

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31 minutes ago, Shinzaki said:

In reviewing 1984 he disses Tram 3 times.  First he sort of questions his selection as if it were something questionable... then he spells his name "Allan Trammel" or "Alan Trammel"

 

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1 hour ago, oblong said:

Phillips would be recognized a lot earlier for his versatility in today's game and the value spotted.  I still remember when the Tigers signed him.  It was the same time that ESPN got the MLB contract so it seems like they were covering the game more.  It was the winter meetings and they were talking to Gammons in a hallway.  He called it a big signing and said Phillips will do very well in Detroit.  Back in the day when you found out stuff like that from TV rather than a tweet.

 

 

I usually found out about trades listening to the radio.  They would have a re-cap of the trades each night during the winter meetings.  If it was a smaller signing, I wouldn't find out out until a day or two later in the transactiolns section of the newspaper.  When they signed Phillips, I was at a grad school dorm with no TV and poor radio reception.  I found out about it in a phone call with my father.   

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1 hour ago, casimir said:

I'm drawing a blank on who could have been the Milwaukee representative on some of those nonMolitor Brewer teams.  That might be interesting to look back at.

Sure, having Ripken as the seemingly annual starting SS takes away one slot.  And then there's never a shortage of OFs when Yount moved to the grass.

Wasn't Paul Molitor an almost automatic in...?

I didn't check...

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Another thing about Yount is he had a reputation of not being in love with the game.  Early in his career, he had a contract dispute and threarened to quit the game and become a pro golfer.  I know I always always thought of him as a rebel after that, although not really in a bad way.  If there was a perception that he didn't like the game or if he really didn't like it that much, that could have affected his number of all-star appearances.  

Edited by Tiger337
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2 hours ago, casimir said:

I'm drawing a blank on who could have been the Milwaukee representative on some of those nonMolitor Brewer teams.  That might be interesting to look back at.

Sure, having Ripken as the seemingly annual starting SS takes away one slot.  And then there's never a shortage of OFs when Yount moved to the grass.

Cecil Cooper had some big years in the early 1980s.  Maybe him?

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18 minutes ago, theroundsquare said:

Cecil Cooper had some big years in the early 1980s.  Maybe him?

No... Yount actually was an All-Star in the early 80's ('80, '82, '83) when they were good and Cecil was a dominant factor along with some other guys... (and they had multiple All-Stars each year...).

But starting in '84 when they weren't so good and only got one player in per year, it was Plesac 3 times and Molitor 4 times, Cecil and several others once each.

He got shut out by the numbers game and popular other choices... Even Dave Parker got it once in '90 as a DH?!?! Sheesh!

 

 

 

Edited by 1984Echoes
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1 hour ago, Tiger337 said:

Another thing about Yount is he had a reputation of not being in love with the game.  Early in his career, he had a contract dispute and threarened to quit the game and become a pro golfer.  I know I always always thought of him as a rebel after that, although not really in a bad way.  If there was a perception that he didn't like the game or if he really didn't like it that much, that could have affected his number of all-star appearances.  

He was also into Motorcross during the offseason. They worried the team.

 

 

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11 minutes ago, Cruzer1 said:

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/diamond-sports-groups-bankruptcy-could-rock-the-baseball-revenue-boat/

I wonder if this might have played a role in the Tigers lack of offseason...

 

I'm not saying it's likely, but I now I do wonder a bit if when the Tigers decided not to set up their own RSN, part of the reason was the possibility they could end up buying the this one at firesale prices. You don't need to be a Warren Buffet level investing guru to know that a lot LBOs end in failure.

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5 hours ago, casimir said:

In his prime, Phillips was awesome.  Switch hitter, worked counts, had some pop, stole a few bags, could be moved around the diamond.  So fun.

There was a game in his second go around with the A's, they were playing in Detroit.  In one of the later innings, LaRussa shuffled he and another IF back and forth between 2B and 3B based on the hitter for Detroit.  It wasn't a current day shift, although the Oakland IF was shifting a bit from line to line.  Phillips and this other A were essentially swapping defensive positions during the inning.  Oh, yes, its this one.

image.png.2685bef86336be5f7bb642da82a65284.png

Didn't the Mets do that a couple years ago? Was Alderson in charge of both teams? Was he the common thread?

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9 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

I'm not saying it's likely, but I now I do wonder a bit if when the Tigers decided not to set up their own RSN, part of the reason was the possibility they could end up buying the this one at firesale prices. You don't need to be a Warren Buffet level investing guru to know that a lot LBOs end in failure.

The reason is likely related but more that it was explored and they realized it was a declining business model.

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4 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

Another thing about Yount is he had a reputation of not being in love with the game.  Early in his career, he had a contract dispute and threarened to quit the game and become a pro golfer.  I know I always always thought of him as a rebel after that, although not really in a bad way.  If there was a perception that he didn't like the game or if he really didn't like it that much, that could have affected his number of all-star appearances.  

Robin Yount was the first player I saw who I thought, man, he's not all that much older than I. I'm a lot closer to major league age than I thought. I was 13 at the time.

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3 hours ago, Edman85 said:

Didn't the Mets do that a couple years ago? Was Alderson in charge of both teams? Was he the common thread?

Not sure if the Mets tried that.  Anderson was out of Oakland after the 1998 season.  The Phillips flip flop inning happened in 1999.

And I was wrong about LaRussa being the manager for Oakland for that game.  He was gone after 1995.  Art Howe was in charge in 1999.

Edited by casimir
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1 hour ago, casimir said:

Not sure if the Mets tried that.  Anderson was out of Oakland after the 1998 season.  The Phillips flip flop inning happened in 1999.

And I was wrong about LaRussa being the manager for Oakland for that game.  He was gone after 1995.  Art Howe was in charge in 1999.

Found it...

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN201708160.shtml

Mets had some injuries so they had to move Travis d'Arnaud to second base, but switched him with Asdrubal Cabrera so that Cabrera would always be on the pull side.

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