2022-23 Detroit Tigers Offseason Thread

[Jim Cowan]

4 hours ago, chasfh said:

LOL! Good one!

No, seriously. Which young developmental players are you referring to?

Obviously, you were nodding your head with a benevolent smile every day when Grossman's name appeared in the lineup.  Not everyone agreed.

[Shinzaki]

1 hour ago, KL2 said:

I wouldn't read too much into it yet. They are heavily in debt and this might just be a chance to get out of some of the terrible debt for pennies. 

McClatchy recently did it after it bought Knight-Ridder and then the bottom fell out of newspapers like the next week. It just spun off into a new company and left a chunk of the debt behind. 

After the mortgage crisis stabilized you had a lot of "Good Bank/Bad Bank"  scenarios...one got to keep a cleaner balance sheet for business moving forward, the other ate the 15lbs of poo on the original bank's books

[mtutiger]

Grossman got playing time with the idea of showcasing a trade, for better or worse...

Was Kris Anglin worth not getting Baddoo more time last year and/or calling up Kerry C earlier? I'd lean toward No

[Jim Cowan]

17 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Grossman got playing time with the idea of showcasing a trade, for better or worse...

 

Yes that's absolutely the reason, the ridiculous notion that they could get anything useful.  I was ripping my hair out.

[Tenacious D]

22 minutes ago, Jim Cowan said:

Yes that's absolutely the reason, the ridiculous notion that they could get anything useful.  I was ripping my hair out.

I don’t think this will happen this season, with Schoop and Miggy being the particular suspects. Harris has made it clear he wants the kids getting the playing time.

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, Jim Cowan said:

Obviously, you were nodding your head with a benevolent smile every day when Grossman's name appeared in the lineup.  Not everyone agreed.

OK, so, nothing? All right, then.

[chasfh]

3 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

Not really, but Baddoo is a better prospect than LOL.  Unlike Clemens, he is young and still has potential.  

I wasn't lol'ing the idea of Akil Baddoo being a prospect. I was lol'ing the idea that A.J. Hinch was obviously screwing Baddoo by keeping him on the bench and playing Robbie Grossman instead, which is what Jim Cowens was basically claiming. After his first game back from the minors, Baddoo went 1-for-23, far worse than even Grossman was doing. He kept himself out of the lineup because he had stuff he had to work on so he could get back in it. I was also lol'ing the idea that Kody Clemens was an actual left field prospect, and was being blocked by Robbie Grossman. After Grossman left, Clemens never started in left field again.

Edited January 26, 2023 by chasfh

[Jim Cowan]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

I wasn't lol'ing the idea of Akil Baddoo being a prospect. I was lol'ing the idea that A.J. Hinch was obviously screwing Baddoo by keeping him on the bench and playing Robbie Grossman instead, which is what Jim Cowens was basically claiming. After his first game back from the minors, Baddoo went 1-for-23, far worse than even Grossman was doing. He kept himself out of the lineup because he had stuff he had to work on so he could get back in it. I was also lol'ing the idea that Kody Clemens was an actual left field prospect, and was being blocked by Robbie Grossman. After Grossman left, Clemens never started in left field again.

You were total agreement with Grossman's playing time, correct?

[chasfh]

7 minutes ago, Jim Cowan said:

You were total agreement with Grossman's playing time, correct?

To the degree that he might have helped his trade value along and we had no other viable candidates for the position, sure. As terrible as he was, Grossman was still the best guy we had to throw out there. Baddoo had gone to the minors, then came back in July and sucked worse than Grossman. Baddoo was broken, and there were literally no other candidates available for that LF slot, so it would have made no sense to sit Grossman if we didn't have someone who was not better at all, so might as well throw him out there and cross our fingers he was going to have a decent enough run to trade him on. I believe that was Hinch's, and Avila's, calculation.

If Baddoo 2022 were Baddoo 2021, Grossman might have been DFA'ed before the deadline, and that would have been fine, because he was just terrible. But Baddoo wasn't, and Grossman was the best option at the time, and we were highlighting him for a trade, so yes, I was in total agreement with the approach of playing him to get whatever we could for him.

What's your opinion on this? What would you have done, and why?

[1984Echoes]

Trayce Thompson through 6/19/22 with Toledo (bandaid player but Grossman was atrocious):

.299/ .352/ .639 = .991 OPS

 

2022 Kerry Carpenter at:

Erie - .304/ .359/ .646 = 1.005 OPS, promoted to Toledo 6/25 (after Thompson went to LA)

Toledo - .331/ .420/ .644 = 1.044 OPS, promoted to Detroit 8/10 (after Grossman was traded to the Braves)

Detroit - .252/ .310/ .485 = .795 OPS

 

Kerry in particular looks reactive, not proactive.

[chasfh]

Yeah, I'm not sure what the deal with Trayce Thompson was. He kicked ass in Toledo and we never did bring him up, and in fact sold him off to the Dodgers for "cash considerations." I don't know, that just smells funny to me.

[casimir]

49 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Yeah, I'm not sure what the deal with Trayce Thompson was. He kicked ass in Toledo and we never did bring him up, and in fact sold him off to the Dodgers for "cash considerations." I don't know, that just smells funny to me.

“Cash considerations” is probably the going rate for a 31 year old OF with a career WAR through that date of 0 and OPS+ of around 95.

[casimir]

11 hours ago, Hongbit said:

This randomly popped up in my feed and made me go hmm.

 

I listened to a podcast with Roy Face as the guest the other day.  Supposedly he got into a game as a relief pitcher and picked the runner off of 2B and then the runner off of 1B before throwing a pitch.  Then he retired the hitter on one pitch.  Three outs, one pitch, no double play, no triple play.  That seems rare to me.

[mtutiger]

58 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Yeah, I'm not sure what the deal with Trayce Thompson was. He kicked ass in Toledo and we never did bring him up, and in fact sold him off to the Dodgers for "cash considerations." I don't know, that just smells funny to me.

I seem to recall at the time that he may have had an opt-out that would have been exercised had he not been traded. Can't recall for sure tho.

Either way, I just think its weird that they signed the guy (while the season was ongoing) and never bothered to avail themselves of his services. With their outfield situations while Robbie was injured, it would have been justified, if not the right thing to do, to have made the move and they (presumably Avila) just didn't.

[Edman85]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

Yeah, I'm not sure what the deal with Trayce Thompson was. He kicked ass in Toledo and we never did bring him up, and in fact sold him off to the Dodgers for "cash considerations." I don't know, that just smells funny to me.

Cash considerations was because he had an opt out and was going to use it. I've brought him up because I think the new regime would give him a shot instead of giving him away for free, not afraid to churn the Reyeses/Castros of the world.

[CMRivdogs]

Roy Face, 5'9" master of the forkball. He won 18 games in relief in 1959. One of my favorites in my pre teens, a couple of lifetimes ago.

[casimir]

5 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

Roy Face, 5'9" master of the forkball. He won 18 games in relief in 1959. One of my favorites in my pre teens, a couple of lifetimes ago.

Lost Ballparks is the podcast.  Face still has his wits about him at 94 years young.

[gehringer_2]

6 hours ago, KL2 said:

I wouldn't read too much into it yet. They are heavily in debt and this might just be a chance to get out of some of the terrible debt for pennies. 

McClatchy recently did it after it bought Knight-Ridder and then the bottom fell out of newspapers like the next week. It just spun off into a new company and left a chunk of the debt behind. 

MLB network already has the infrastructure to stream all the games since they already do  - except in local markets where a Bally RSN has rights. If Bally collapses or if MLB somehow reclaims local broadcast right because Sinclair's reorg plan does get through, then you buy an MLB gameday subscription and you get your local games? Doesn't seem too impossible an outcome, but still seems likely the teams are going to end up with less revenue one way or the other.

[chasfh]

54 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

I seem to recall at the time that he may have had an opt-out that would have been exercised had he not been traded. Can't recall for sure tho.

Either way, I just think its weird that they signed the guy (while the season was ongoing) and never bothered to avail themselves of his services. With their outfield situations while Robbie was injured, it would have been justified, if not the right thing to do, to have made the move and they (presumably Avila) just didn't.

I don’t recall this from at the time. So he wouldn’t have played for the Tigers even if we tried to call him up? if true what a weird situation that is. 

[mtutiger]

7 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I don’t recall this from at the time. So he wouldn’t have played for the Tigers even if we tried to call him up? if true what a weird situation that is. 

Ed would know more, but he could have played for the Tigers, the issue is that he had to be called up by a specific date or else be granted free agency. And the Tigers do not appear like they were ever going to bring him up, hence the trade to get some value in return.

Chase Anderson was a similar situation from last year's team... he was granted free agency after a certain point contractually because he wasn't called up. Had the Tigers not found a trading partner with LA, they would have had to do the same with Thompson.

Edited January 27, 2023 by mtutiger

[Edman85]

Opt outs tend to be of the form where a player can declare free agency if they aren't on the MLB roster by a certain date.

[chasfh]

So we could have called him up, he could have raked for us, we could have flipped him at the deadline to a contender and gotten a decent return for him, but instead we took "cash considerations" for him and got basically nothing in terms of roster improvement? That almost sounds like professional malpractice on Al Avila's part. Am I missing something here?

[casimir]

Avila was a bad GM, ain’t no doubt about it.  But the whining and bemoaning about what could have been with Trayce Thompson is comical hindsight.

[Longgone]

2 hours ago, mtutiger said:

I seem to recall at the time that he may have had an opt-out that would have been exercised had he not been traded. Can't recall for sure tho.

Either way, I just think its weird that they signed the guy (while the season was ongoing) and never bothered to avail themselves of his services. With their outfield situations while Robbie was injured, it would have been justified, if not the right thing to do, to have made the move and they (presumably Avila) just didn't.

Trayce Thompson had a long track record, and was not considered to be anything more than a fringe player by anyone. The Dodgers acquired him basically as a temporary bandaid who ended up outplaying that role. Grossman was coming off a very solid year, and like most of the team went into an inexplicable funk. It was not unreasonable to think he could play his way out of it.

I swear you guys obsess about the goofiest stuff.

[chasfh]

Trayce Thompson earned a shot to play in Detroit, instead was shipped off to LA where he put up two wins in less than half a season with a .268/.364/.537 line, consistent with how he did in Toledo, and we got nothing out of it. It's comical how some people think that's a big nothing.