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2022-23 Detroit Tigers Offseason Thread


chasfh

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1 hour ago, romad1 said:

I actually do miss them.  

When it happened I assumed Shepherd was a stop gap and that they would eventually go get a pro. Disappointing that they seem to think he is actually up to the task. Or maybe they are too cheap to land a top talent. I get the impression they have drawn the wrong conclusion from the historic success of George Kell and Al Kaline. They were not loved because they were folksy locals, although that did happed to be true, but because they did a good baseball broadcast  - even despite Al's questionable elocution.

Edited by gehringer_2
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22 minutes ago, Tenacious D said:

Didn’t see the appeal.  I’m OK with this.

He has a decent walk rate and could be a bounce back candidate, although I think acquiring Maton makes it rather redundant at this point assuming he gets a lot of ABs against righties and with other options (Kreidler, Nevin, etc.) able to pick up lefties more often.

Duvall, OTOH, I don't really see the fit with the Tigers. 

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42 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

When it happened I assumed Shepherd was a stop gap and that they would eventually go get a pro. Disappointing that they seem to think he is actually up to the task. Or maybe they are too cheap to land a top talent. I get the impression they have drawn the wrong conclusion from the historic success of George Kell and Al Kaline. They were not loved because they were folksy locals, although that did happed to be true, but because they did a good baseball broadcast  - even despite Al's questionable elocution.

It could just be something that's not a priority right now. That's my hope at least... that it's not a case of someone saying "We think they're fine...." or "we won't spend the money"

Then again who knows what goes on behind the scenes.  Maybe they see the flaws we do and he's working on it.  Does he still do other work?  I don't listen to the radio anymore.

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57 minutes ago, oblong said:

It could just be something that's not a priority right now. That's my hope at least... that it's not a case of someone saying "We think they're fine...." or "we won't spend the money"

Then again who knows what goes on behind the scenes.  Maybe they see the flaws we do and he's working on it.  Does he still do other work?  I don't listen to the radio anymore.

When Shepard was named permanent play-by-play, I thought there would be gradual improvement over the years.  Maybe with Morris out of the booth, he can be a little less stark struck and improve upon where he is?  I do think that could be part of the issue.

Then again, I'm of the age where I've heard a lot of broadcasting by guys that ranged from pretty darn good to iconic, and I think a lot of other folks around these parts fit my demographic.  Have we been spoiled?  Are we expecting too much?  Is what we get from TV similar to what happens for a lot of other MLB teams?

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27 minutes ago, casimir said:

Yes, perfectly.  It kind of makes me wonder how fans might react towards Harris if Candelario does bounce back to a 2021 type season.

I still would have looked at him as a 1-year stopgap, regardless.

So I don't think that will really be on any fans, especially casual fans, radar...

IMO: His worth if he has a real nice comeback season was still (to the Tigers) to be a trade deadline candidate.

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1 hour ago, casimir said:

Yes, perfectly.  It kind of makes me wonder how fans might react towards Harris if Candelario does bounce back to a 2021 type season.

I won't mind, I hope he does well.  I won't regret letting him go, and to me it doesn't matter if "the new thirdbaseman" doesn't do as well as Candelario does in a one-season sample.  He had an OPS+ of less than 100 in 3 out of his 5 years with the Tigers, and now he's 29.  So I agree with Harris that he isn't a cornerstone of the next playoff team.  I hope he has a good year and gets a nice contract.

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12 minutes ago, Jim Cowan said:

I won't mind, I hope he does well.  I won't regret letting him go, and to me it doesn't matter if "the new thirdbaseman" doesn't do as well as Candelario does in a one-season sample.  He had an OPS+ of less than 100 in 3 out of his 5 years with the Tigers, and now he's 29.  So I agree with Harris that he isn't a cornerstone of the next playoff team.  I hope he has a good year and gets a nice contract.

This.  Seemed like a good dude, but not bummed he’s gone.

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20 minutes ago, Jim Cowan said:

I won't mind, I hope he does well.  I won't regret letting him go, and to me it doesn't matter if "the new thirdbaseman" doesn't do as well as Candelario does in a one-season sample.  He had an OPS+ of less than 100 in 3 out of his 5 years with the Tigers, and now he's 29.  So I agree with Harris that he isn't a cornerstone of the next playoff team.  I hope he has a good year and gets a nice contract.

Same here. Although if he does well,  no douby portions of the fan base will shift into Paredes/Marcelo Mayer mode

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29 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Same here. Although if he does well,  no douby portions of the fan base will shift into Paredes/Marcelo Mayer mode

They will, but if they mention Paredes it means that they didn't examine his season very closely.  It occurs in 3 segments: (a) before June 21  (b) June 21 to July 3 (11 games), and (c) after July 3.  If you take out (b) his season was Tigeresque and the Rays did not "fix" him.  But yes some people will suggest that he became a solid every day regular, which he did not.

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2 hours ago, Jim Cowan said:

I won't mind, I hope he does well.  I won't regret letting him go, and to me it doesn't matter if "the new thirdbaseman" doesn't do as well as Candelario does in a one-season sample.  He had an OPS+ of less than 100 in 3 out of his 5 years with the Tigers, and now he's 29.  So I agree with Harris that he isn't a cornerstone of the next playoff team.  I hope he has a good year and gets a nice contract.

Candelario might not be a cornerstone for the next playoff team, but is he taking time away from a possible cornerstone of the next playoff team?  I think he’s a good candidate to bounce back.  If he does bounce back, I don’t think he’s going to get a next contract that’s expensive in years or salary.  Although now that I think about it, I didn’t expect to see Correa sign 3 deals in one off-season, so what the heck do I know?

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22 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

When it happened I assumed Shepherd was a stop gap and that they would eventually go get a pro. Disappointing that they seem to think he is actually up to the task. Or maybe they are too cheap to land a top talent. I get the impression they have drawn the wrong conclusion from the historic success of George Kell and Al Kaline. They were not loved because they were folksy locals, although that did happed to be true, but because they did a good baseball broadcast  - even despite Al's questionable elocution.

I kind of think that Baby Doc was fine not only with Shep, but also with Al Avila, as long as the money kept quietly rolling in. But once Avila embarrassed him publicly with his relentless buffoonery, that helped drop the scales from Ilitch’s eyes and has led him to more closely examine just how this Tigers property of his reflects on his reputation and family’s legacy. Every little thing, every losing season or PR issue, that goes wrong with the team reflects directly on him, which probably isn’t true of any of his non-sports properties.

Who knows, maybe that’s the circumstance that leads the Ilitch’s to finally sell the Tigers, and maybe even the Wings—they are each far too visible a property for a guy who might prefer to quietly scrimp along on the cheap and clear billions through the secret chicanery that buying property and paying off governments entails, or through the natural obfuscation the buy-a-product company like Little Caesars provides. Everyone knows the Ilitch name is attached to the Tigers and Red Wings, but who outside Detroit knows they own Little Caesars? And unless people die from eating the pizza, nothing like pizza quality or poor sales is going to make Ilitch a public pariah. But as long as the Tigers lose or behave in embarrassing fashion …

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15 hours ago, casimir said:

Yes, perfectly.  It kind of makes me wonder how fans might react towards Harris if Candelario does bounce back to a 2021 type season.

Although anything is possible and he may be actually done done at 29, I think there’s a good chance the mob with their pitchforks prevailed on this one.

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14 hours ago, Jim Cowan said:

I won't mind, I hope he does well.  I won't regret letting him go, and to me it doesn't matter if "the new thirdbaseman" doesn't do as well as Candelario does in a one-season sample.  He had an OPS+ of less than 100 in 3 out of his 5 years with the Tigers, and now he's 29.  So I agree with Harris that he isn't a cornerstone of the next playoff team.  I hope he has a good year and gets a nice contract.

I wouldn’t have minded letting Jeimer go if we’d already had the cornerstone of the next playoff team in place when we did. But if we were just planning to cycle through stopgaps for the next couple seasons anyway, the only reason it makes sense to kick Jeimer out of the door is that he is completely done and never going to be any good ever again. If that’s the case, I’m OK with it.

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14 hours ago, Jim Cowan said:

They will, but if they mention Paredes it means that they didn't examine his season very closely.  It occurs in 3 segments: (a) before June 21  (b) June 21 to July 3 (11 games), and (c) after July 3.  If you take out (b) his season was Tigeresque and the Rays did not "fix" him.  But yes some people will suggest that he became a solid every day regular, which he did not.

To be fair, Paredes did end the season with 2.2 WAR with plus-D at third base, a 114 OPS+, and he had a pretty good August.

Even so, it's asking a lot for a 23-year-old to be consistently good month after month through an entire season, especially a guy coming directly out of the frying pan of a system that has routinely failed the development of their minor leaguers and directly into the fire of a team expected to contend for a ring. I'll be interested to see how Paredes does after spending an entire winter working under their direction.

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12 hours ago, casimir said:

Candelario might not be a cornerstone for the next playoff team, but is he taking time away from a possible cornerstone of the next playoff team?  I think he’s a good candidate to bounce back.  

There's no point in relitigating it for the 80th time, but part of Scott Harris' job is making calculated risks and apparently he felt this one was worth making.

We kinda just have to see how it all plays out, but seeing how obsessing over "old friends" is a pasttime for our fanbase, we will likely be getting regular updates about Jeimer every time he has a good game in 2023, no question 

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37 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I kind of think that Baby Doc was fine not only with Shep, but also with Al Avila, as long as the money kept quietly rolling in. But once Avila embarrassed him publicly with his relentless buffoonery, that helped drop the scales from Ilitch’s eyes and has led him to more closely examine just how this Tigers property of his reflects on his reputation and family’s legacy. Every little thing, every losing season or PR issue, that goes wrong with the team reflects directly on him, which probably isn’t true of any of his non-sports properties.

I mean, it's kinda just history repeating itself... as much as the Ol' Man gets lionized around here, the dark days of 2002-2003 happened on his watch... like with Al, he hung onto Randy Smith for far too long, and it took DD four years to fix the ditch that Randy Smith left the franchise in

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4 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

I mean, it's kinda just history repeating itself... as much as the Ol' Man gets lionized around here, the dark days of 2002-2003 happened on his watch... like with Al, he hung onto Randy Smith for far too long, and it took DD four years to fix the ditch that Randy Smith left the franchise in

I can see where this makes sense. Papa Doc was famously trying to win a ring before he shed his mortal coil—not certain we can say Baby Doc is as motivated. But I can see that kind of set-it-and-forget-it approach in both.

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37 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I kind of think that Baby Doc was fine not only with Shep, but also with Al Avila, as long as the money kept quietly rolling in....

The truth is a sports org is a different animal than your normal business. You can sustain and prosper in the average business venture with a lot of average people doing average level work, you don't have to constantly churn your organization searching for only the highest performers (in fact that becomes counter productive in most orgs in most cases) as long as your business model is not too greedy (i.e. you don't wake up every morning with a new plan to conquer the world) your are fine.

But of course that's not how it works with a pro sports team if you have any interest in winning championships. It is by nature the most greedy business model. You spend your adult life on one side of that equation, could be figuring out how to run on the other side might be a matter of some trial and error.

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7 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I can see where this makes sense. Papa Doc was famously trying to win a ring before he shed his mortal coil—not certain we can say Baby Doc is as motivated. But I can see that kind of set-it-and-forget-it approach in both.

People mostly remember the later years with Pizza Sr. chasing the ring like Ahab going after the Whale, but the full picture is just more complicated.

I went to way too many games in the early 2000s to forget... went to way more than I can even do now because of geography. This situation they find themselves in today really isn't much different and, if anything, they may even be in slightly better shape today  than what DD inherited when he came aboard.

My hope is that Harris fills that DD role in this generation. And based on the moves he's made and the clear philosophy one can see in the moves, I am encouraged with what we have seen.

Edited by mtutiger
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4 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I can see where this makes sense. Papa Doc was famously trying to win a ring before he shed his mortal coil—not certain we can say Baby Doc is as motivated. But I can see that kind of set-it-and-forget-it approach in both.

I'm just over here wondering why we're calling the male Illitches "Doc".

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