2022-23 Detroit Tigers Offseason Thread

[Longgone]

4 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Part of Torkelson's bad luck was he didn't get enough elevation on a lot of the balls he hit the hardest. That always makes me wonder if a guy is trying too hard to lift the ball and as a result is chronically missing a bit and hitting the bottom half. His swing path gave him plenty of elevation on the way up through college and the minors so I hope he didn't feel he needed to start overdoing it.

His luck will stabilize over time.

[SoCalTiger]

The issue with Torkelson is his inability to hit middle middle fastballs. Until he does that he’s toast. 

[Longgone]

7 minutes ago, SoCalTiger said:

The issue with Torkelson is his inability to hit middle middle fastballs. Until he does that he’s toast. 

It's not an exciting trend, but there's not enough data to be determinative.

[mtutiger]

53 minutes ago, Longgone said:

Torkelson suffered poor luck compared to Greene, and any discussion of production stats like WAR and OPS+ that don't acknowledge that are disingenuous. BABIP will stabilize over time. Both will have career BABIP a bit over .300, Greenes should be higher, but not that much.

This is good context, but it really doesn't change the upshot: one player was significantly better and was closer to meeting expectations than the other last year.

That doesn't mean that Tork is a bust or will wash out or that Greene will even be a better player than Tork over the course of their careers, the results from 2022 just kinda speak for themselves. Even factoring in luck.

Edited January 29, 2023 by mtutiger

[gehringer_2]

21 minutes ago, SoCalTiger said:

The issue with Torkelson is his inability to hit middle middle fastballs. Until he does that he’s toast. 

which is the wierd part. Watching him he just looked late, but I don't think it's because he doesn't have the bat speed, my guess is it's between his ears - you wonder if it isn't just a matter of reaching a comfort level where he can relax, grip it and rip it. Other's have commented that Tork seems to have to adjust at each level and for whatever reason he got out of sync out of the gate in Det in April and it didn't happen.  It was notable it only took him a couple of weeks at Toledo to pick it up again. And one of the yhings that left me a little puzzled with Hinch. At one point his comment about Tork was "there are too many people in his ear." Well isn't it one of a manager's jobs to try to manage who is in his ear? I suppose he could have been talking about advice coming from outside the org, but in any case I thought it was odd at the time.

Edited January 29, 2023 by gehringer_2

[gehringer_2]

3 hours ago, casimir said:

I think one of the things to keep in mind regarding Greene and Torkelson is how awful the Tigers' offense

Agree. I think this is also an underrated aspect. The old saw about hitting being 'contagious' has a certain kernel of truth to it. It's a lot easier to face pitchers that are stressed, have thrown a lot of pitches in an inning, and are working out of the stretch with men on base. The tigers O managed to fall to a point so low it became synergistically worse for everyone on the team collectively.

[mtutiger]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

Barrel's are great but it at some point it has to translate to making fewer outs. Maybe he's was getting there and the results are just lagging because of noise. Just saying I don't think he got enough AB to prove much in that regard at the end of last season.

Incidentally, you could argue the same for at least Greene, who was above average barreling balls and probably didn't produce enough to show for it.

Edited January 29, 2023 by mtutiger

[Tigermojo]

Is there a way to tell if the umpires made bad calls during Tork's ABs? He seems like he has a good eye but would be easily frustrated if the umpire missed a call. It may just be a matter of him maturing and learning to control his emotions while dismissing things he has no control over.

[Tenacious D]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

Agree. I think this is also an underrated aspect. The old saw about hitting being 'contagious' has a certain kernel of truth to it. It's a lot easier to face pitchers that are stressed, have thrown a lot of pitches in an inning, and are working out of the stretch with men on base. The tigers O managed to fall to a point so low it became synergistically worse for everyone on the team collectively.

Basically the same lineup coming back, so hopefully we’ll see improvements from Baez, Meadows and Schoop. Agree that better collective performance from the lineup will help them.

[1984Echoes]

13 hours ago, buddha said:

you question aj hinch but youre all in on al avila?  come on 84...

Are you telling me that because I supported Avila I'm NOT ALLOWED to question Hinch...

like, ever?

That seems like some kind of draconian punishment that I am receiving here...

[SoCalTiger]

1 hour ago, Longgone said:

It's not an exciting trend, but there's not enough data to be determinative.

Good point but Dan Dickerson and his Booth mates all echoed this endlessly last summer and it remains  the key issue going into 2023 so the data will build and I hope the result is far different. Tork and Greene remain the two most important parts of our future success. Without them we are indeed back to a rebuild. 

[SoCalTiger]

Just now, 1984Echoes said:

Are you telling me that because I supported Avila I'm NOT ALLOWED to question Hinch...

like, ever?

That seems like some kind of draconian punishment that I am receiving here...

nah Hinch is squarely back to needing to prove himself in 2023 because last year was way worse than the success he had in 2021. He's a manager and they LIVE in the frying pan.

[1984Echoes]

The only point I was making was that managers in general and Hinch in 2022 in particular, tend to favor veterans over kids because they are hunting wins more than anything else.

It's a normal thing for the position.

I actually think Hinch will do great under the new management/ philosophy of making certain kids get playing time/ development. My only reservation was that I said I wanted to see it on the field this year, and hope he isn't feeling pressure (self-inflicted or otherwise) to chase wins instead of development.

I believe that's a reasonable (and very minor) concern.

Just my 2 cents...

 

[casimir]

4 minutes ago, SoCalTiger said:

Good point but Dan Dickerson and his Booth mates all echoed this endlessly last summer and it remains  the key issue going into 2023 so the data will build and I hope the result is far different. Tork and Greene remain the two most important parts of our future success. Without them we are indeed back to a rebuild. 

Yup.  They don’t need to be all stars next season.  Just drive down on the weaknesses (SO% for instance) at the plate, maintain good defense.  Be solid everyday players in 2023.  They’ll still have growing pains, but be competitive, don’t be outmatched.

[casimir]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

Agree. I think this is also an underrated aspect. The old saw about hitting being 'contagious' has a certain kernel of truth to it. It's a lot easier to face pitchers that are stressed, have thrown a lot of pitches in an inning, and are working out of the stretch with men on base. The tigers O managed to fall to a point so low it became synergistically worse for everyone on the team collectively.

That’s a good point about making opposing pitchers work.

[chasfh]

On 1/28/2023 at 1:13 PM, mtutiger said:

Greene is particularly odd to group in... he played less than 100 games and really showed flashes of greatness at times. He looked better than his baseball card stats overall.

This may or may not mean anything, but Cameron Maybin had Riley Greene among his top ten center fielders on MLB Network’s top ten right now show.

[chasfh]

4 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

And one of the yhings that left me a little puzzled with Hinch. At one point his comment about Tork was "there are too many people in his ear." Well isn't it one of a manager's jobs to try to manage who is in his ear?

Sure, if he’s in control of the coaching situation. But since it’s likely that it as Avila was hired Coolbaugh and imposed him on Hinch, it’s hard to control the direct report who has the ear of your boss.

[chasfh]

FWIW, Fangraphs did an article a few years ago about at which point various stats attain enough stablization to basically call it a skill and not just luck. Here’s where they came out on that back then:

“Stabilization” Points for Offense Statistics:

• 60 PA: Strikeout rate
• 120 PA: Walk rate
• 240 PA: HBP rate
• 290 PA: Single rate
• 1610 PA: XBH rate
• 170 PA: HR rate

• 910 AB: AVG
• 460 PA: OBP
• 320 AB: SLG
• 160 AB: ISO

• 80 BIP: GB rate
• 80 BIP: FB rate
• 600 BIP: LD rate
• 50 FBs: HR per FB
• 820 BIP: BABIP

“Stabilization” Points for Pitching Statistics:

• 70 BF: Strikeout rate
• 170 BF: Walk rate
• 640 BF: HBP rate
• 670 BF: Single rate
• 1450 BF: XBH rate
• 1320 BF: HR rate

• 630 BF: AVG
• 540 BF: OBP
• 550 AB: SLG
• 630 AB: ISO

• 70 BIP: GB rate
• 70 BIP: FB rate
• 650 BIP: LD rate
• 400 FB: HR per FB
• 2000 BIP: BABIP

This is from 2015 but I would guess the numbers are pretty similar now.

I would also think that barrels would be similar to fly ball rate on stabilization.

Edited January 29, 2023 by chasfh

[gehringer_2]

14 minutes ago, chasfh said:

FWIW, Fangraphs did an article..

yes - you definitely want to keep a sense of the ranges given there in mind when trying to decide if you need to believe what you are seeing.

[casimir]

3 hours ago, chasfh said:

Sure, if he’s in control of the coaching situation. But since it’s likely that it as Avila was hired Coolbaugh and imposed him on Hinch, it’s hard to control the direct report who has the ear of your boss.

Hinch was named Tiger manager on October 30, 2020.  Scott Coolbaugh was named hitting coach on November 7, 2020.

Are you suggesting Hinch took the job and had no say as to who would be on the coaching staff?

[chasfh]

Just now, casimir said:

Hinch was named Tiger manager on October 30, 2020.  Scott Coolbaugh was named hitting coach on November 7, 2020.

Are you suggesting Hinch took the job and had no say as to who would be on the coaching staff?

I think Avila was behind the hiring of Scott Coolbaugh (and Jose Cruz Jr.), and Hinch led the hiring of George Lombard.

[casimir]

1 minute ago, chasfh said:

I think Avila was behind the hiring of Scott Coolbaugh (and Jose Cruz Jr.), and Hinch led the hiring of George Lombard.

Man, I remember in 2021 somebody theorized that Hinch had his hands all over the organization, much more so than as the field manager.  Why he gave up some of that power to Avila after the success of 2021, I just cannot imagine,

[chasfh]

14 minutes ago, casimir said:

Man, I remember in 2021 somebody theorized that Hinch had his hands all over the organization, much more so than as the field manager.  Why he gave up some of that power to Avila after the success of 2021, I just cannot imagine,

Why are you upset?

Edited January 30, 2023 by chasfh

[casimir]

39 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Why are you upset?

Upset?

[RedRamage]

On 1/24/2023 at 4:09 PM, mtutiger said:

Talk about an easy decision...

I wonder if Ausmus might not make a decent GM. Obviously he wasn't a great manager, but GM is obviously a very different position to that of the guy on the field.  He was always supposed to have good baseball smarts, what's he?  Maybe it just didn't translate well on the field.
 

That said I don't think he has real extensive experience in the front office.  I'd be a little reluctant to hand him the keys with out more of a track record.

According to wikipedia:
2011-2013: "field executive" for Padres
2018: Special Assistant to general manager for the Angels