2022-23 Detroit Tigers Offseason Thread

[SoCalTiger]

Harris picking up Palacios hopefully demonstrates that defense does matter and he will not tolerate players who are poor defenders. The days of moving the Lugo, Goodrums, Castros etc from position to position hoping they hit while butchering balls in the field I think and hope are gone. Thats progress. Which is why I suspect Badoo has a tall order making the team because he simply can not throw a baseball and teams take full advantage of that. He has to get on base at a high percentage to compensate for all the bases he gives up. He could DH but .....

[Edman85]

Palacios is an arbitrage opportunity, nothing more. Wayyyyyy too much is being read into this. This doesn't indicate anything about the plans for the Castros or even Short. This is a guy on waivers they wanted to take a shot on. It wouldn't shock me if they try to slip him through waivers later this offseason.

[bobrob2004]

1 hour ago, casimir said:

I don't know.  He might fetch a snack size bag of Cheetos, but Cheetos are awful.  No way he fetches a family size bag of Doritos.

The 11 losses is a telling stat, considering he finishes most of the games he enters.  He had the most losses of any reliever in 2022.  

A more advanced stat is win probability added (WPA).  Soto was a -0.74, 24th worst by any reliever.  (What's interesting is that he wasn't the worst of any closer, Tanner Scott, Taylor Rogers and Craig Kimbrel had worst WPA). 

Soto should have been removed from the closer's position before the season ended, and that's 100 percent on A.J. Hinch.

Edited October 12, 2022 by bobrob2004

[bobrob2004]

1 hour ago, Jim Cowan said:

Palacios isn't a switch hitter.  The Tigers like switch hitting utility infielders who can't hit lefthanded.  You can play them and their .620 OPS in a corner outfield spot.  So, Palacios isn't staying.

We can't predict what Harris will do based on Avila's philosophies.  

[Tenacious D]

23 minutes ago, Edman85 said:

Palacios is an arbitrage opportunity, nothing more. Wayyyyyy too much is being read into this. This doesn't indicate anything about the plans for the Castros or even Short. This is a guy on waivers they wanted to take a shot on. It wouldn't shock me if they try to slip him through waivers later this offseason.

Agree.  This guy is unlikely to see any significant playing time and not worthy of this much speculation.  He will only be notable as the answer to a future trivia question—who was Harris’ first acquisition?

Edited October 12, 2022 by Tenacious D

[KL2]

3 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

Dombrowski did that before 2004.  

lol no he didn't. 

Fernando vina and Troy Percival don't count. I and Saber were both referring to the mega signings and you know that. 

[casimir]

34 minutes ago, bobrob2004 said:

The 11 losses is a telling stat, considering he finishes most of the games he enters.  He had the most losses of any reliever in 2022.  

A more advanced stat is win probability added (WPA).  Soto was a -0.74, 24th worst by any reliever.  (What's interesting is that he wasn't the worst of any closer, Tanner Scott, Taylor Rogers and Craig Kimbrel had worst WPA). 

Soto should have been removed from the closer's position before the season ended, and that's 100 percent on A.J. Hinch.

What's telling are his save vs non save splits.

I'm not a believer in bullpen roles.  If a pitcher gets the ball, the role is to get outs.  Soto allowed more baserunners in non save situations than in save situations.  Why is that?  Don't know.  Don't care.

Bottom line is that he walks too many guys and hasn't shown much improvement on that over the years.  I want more effective pitchers on the roster.

[1984Echoes]

3 hours ago, casimir said:

...  Maybe I'm just being lazy because Short and Palacios are both RHH IFs with reputations of defense.

None of these guys are proven to be "the answer" as a utility IF'er due to one deficiency or another (experience, glove, bat...):

W Castro, H Castro, Short, Kreidler, Palacios

But...

The very first guy I show the door is Short. There's just not enough there...

Second guy has to be Willi. It might be a tough debate for some between Willi and Harold... but no, show Willi the door. Next comes Harold.

[bobrob2004]

1 hour ago, KL2 said:

lol no he didn't. 

Fernando vina and Troy Percival don't count. I and Saber were both referring to the mega signings and you know that. 

Does Ivan Rodriguez count?  

[bobrob2004]

1 hour ago, casimir said:

What's telling are his save vs non save splits.

I'm not a believer in bullpen roles.  If a pitcher gets the ball, the role is to get outs.  Soto allowed more baserunners in non save situations than in save situations.  Why is that?  Don't know.  Don't care.

Bottom line is that he walks too many guys and hasn't shown much improvement on that over the years.  I want more effective pitchers on the roster.

A lot of those "non-save situations" were when he was brought in a tie-game.  He gave up 11 runs in 15 games when the game was tied and a .378 batting average against.  

Sure, I don't much much stock in bullpen roles either, but Hinch continued to use him in high leverage games when he shouldn't have. 

[SoCalTiger]

2 hours ago, bobrob2004 said:

We can't predict what Harris will do based on Avila's philosophies.  

I think that might have been sarcasm ?

[Jim Cowan]

1 hour ago, SoCalTiger said:

I think that might have been sarcasm ?

Ha ha not obvious enough I guess.

[theroundsquare]

1 hour ago, SoCalTiger said:

I think that might have been sarcasm ?

no, no, there's a special font for that

[casimir]

4 hours ago, bobrob2004 said:

A lot of those "non-save situations" were when he was brought in a tie-game.  He gave up 11 runs in 15 games when the game was tied and a .378 batting average against.  

Sure, I don't much much stock in bullpen roles either, but Hinch continued to use him in high leverage games when he shouldn't have. 

Sure, Hinch can be wrong with some of that usage.  And Soto can be an ineffective pitcher.  Both can be true.

[casimir]

2 hours ago, theroundsquare said:

no, no, there's a special font for that

The comic sans seems to be out.  Supply chain issues.

[romad1]

What is David Chadd's hold over this team? 

[SoCalTiger]

7 hours ago, Jim Cowan said:

Ha ha not obvious enough I guess.

I’m not as clever as you but then again  I am half Canadian 🍁

[Tiger337]

20 hours ago, KL2 said:

lol no he didn't. 

Fernando vina and Troy Percival don't count. I and Saber were both referring to the mega signings and you know that. 

Pudge Rodriguez.  

[pyrotigers]

Pudge is in the best shape of his life 

[RandyMarsh]

To be fair in regards to the Pudge signing that was at a time before teams and metrics did a better job of analyzing just how much value a particular player can add to the team. 

In those days I think teams overvalued a singular players worth and that's why you would see bad teams sign players in hopes that he would be the guy to turn it around. 

In recent memory the only mediocre teams I can think of that signed big money players were the Rangers last year and the Mariners when they signed Cano and even in the Ms case it coincided with a bunch of highly touted prospects coming up so there was some hope, kinda like us this past season when we signed Baez and ERod.

[RatkoVarda]

FWIW, Athletic predicts Candy will not be back; same analysis pro/con that is seen here

[chasfh]

The main thing I remember about the Pudge signing was that he went on record going into the offseason that he would not sign for less than four years and $40 million. The Tigers were the only organization to offer him that much, and of course exactly that. It worked out pretty well, for a couple years, anyway.

[chasfh]

2 minutes ago, RatkoVarda said:

FWIW, Athletic predicts Candy will not be back; same analysis pro/con that is seen here

Jeimer was the one I was the most unsure about, but I do think he will stay, although the popular buzz out there is that he will go.

[oblong]

8 minutes ago, chasfh said:

The main thing I remember about the Pudge signing was that he went on record going into the offseason that he would not sign for less than four years and $40 million. The Tigers were the only organization to offer him that much, and of course exactly that. It worked out pretty well, for a couple years, anyway.

I believe nobody offered him more than 1 year.  Tigers gave him 4 plus options.  Then he was portrayed as some hero for daring to come here and rescue the franchise, while disrespecting his manager, a Tigers legend, and according to reports physically going after him after being denied time away from the team for a booty call.

Because of that I reserve the name Pudge for Carlton Fisk.

 

[gehringer_2]

22 hours ago, bobrob2004 said:

A lot of those "non-save situations" were when he was brought in a tie-game.  He gave up 11 runs in 15 games when the game was tied and a .378 batting average against.  

Sure, I don't much much stock in bullpen roles either, but Hinch continued to use him in high leverage games when he shouldn't have. 

Soto was bad in tie game situations even before he lost his slider. So you have your anointed closer with both an apparent psychological blockage around performing in non-save situations, and an apparent mechanical problem that has made his abiity to change speeds questionable. Otherwise no problems.