2022-23 Detroit Tigers Offseason Thread

[Tiger337]

17 hours ago, buddha said:

the idea that chris illitch somehow told harris to let candy go to save a few million is silly, imo.

if anything, the analytics people had candy worth X amount of dollars and it wasnt his arb number and he wasnt willing to accept a contract for that amount so he left.

a month ago we all said how candy sucks and there should be other alternatives to try.  now were pining away for him and want to give him $7 million just to spite an owner we think is cheap?  illitch bashing for candy leaving is just anti ownership boogeyman wishcasting.  

Not all of us.  He sucked in 2022, but he didn't suck in 2020-2021 and seems like a good candidate to bounce back.   

[mtutiger]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

Of course, but the underlying conversation is less about his expected contract value—even I knew he was more likely to be cut than get $7 million in arb—and whether his career is basically done. I don't think it is, unless, again, there is some chronic health problem we don't know about that will prevent his bounceback.

Got it. I'm not of the belief he's necessarily done as well.

[gehringer_2]

27 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Got it. I'm not of the belief he's necessarily done as well.

The question for Harris is not so much whether he can bounce back, but how the odds of that compare to his confidence he can fill the position with an alternative. At this point Harris is the devil we don't know. Maybe he lands Drury or Anderson and makes us feel silly that we worried about whether we would have 3B covered. Or he doesn't and then we log the new guy's first failure....

I sort of take the attitude that until proven otherwise, I'm going to assume Harris is a star in the making and he's going to prove it to us by pulling rabbits out of hats that Avila didn't even know he had in his closet.

[Tenacious D]

11 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

The question for Harris is not so much whether he can bounce back, but how the odds of that compare to his confidence he can fill the position with an alternative. At this point Harris is the devil we don't know. Maybe he lands Drury or Anderson and makes us feel silly that we worried about whether we would have 3B covered. Or he doesn't and then we log the new guy's first failure....

I sort of take the attitude that until proven otherwise, I'm going to assume Harris is a star in the making and he's going to prove it to us by pulling rabbits out of hats that Avila didn't even know he had in his closet.

too lazy to look, but if Candelario's splits hitting LH were not great, Harris has gone on record as saying he wants to find a LH bat for our infield.  If you believe that Tork, Schoop and Baez are relatively set, then 3B is where you address that. 

Of course, I think Schoop could easily slide over to 3B.  I believe he's played there before, has a very strong and acccurate arm and with the new rule outlawing the shift, his mobility (or lack of) might be better suited at 3B.  Of course, he could also become a super-sub, too.

 

[gehringer_2]

4 minutes ago, Tenacious D said:

too lazy to look, but if Candelario's splits hitting LH were not great,

 

career his OPS is 60 pts better as a RHB, which was about what the differential was last season.  616 OPS as a LHB last season - so indeed, not great.

[mtutiger]

30 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

The question for Harris is not so much whether he can bounce back, but how the odds of that compare to his confidence he can fill the position with an alternative. At this point Harris is the devil we don't know. Maybe he lands Drury or Anderson and makes us feel silly that we worried about whether we would have 3B covered. Or he doesn't and then we log the new guy's first failure....

Harris will need to do something to replace Candelario, it would be a failure if absolutely nothing happened. But as far as I'm concerned, the book is closed on Candelario... what he does or doesn't do in someone else's uniform isn't gonna change the fact that the Tigers should not have just tendered him a contract for $7mil because of the risk of getting little or nothing to replace. And if Candelario wasn't gonna accept a lower number from the Tigers (as it was reported the Tigers were seeking), they didn't have much choice but to let him go.

That's just never gonna be a failure or a mistake imo.... in a negotiation, you have to be willing to walk away from the table, and that's what he did. I can't fault him for that.

Edited November 22, 2022 by mtutiger

[Dan Gilmore]

Can we stop treating 2020 performance as if it was a normal, full season? 

[RandyMarsh]

I was looking at some of Candy's more advanced splits last week to see if there is anything there that would indicate a bounce back and I found nothing of substance.

I even looked at his splits against the shift in hopes that he lost alot of production to it and there just wasn't much there. This doesnt mean he can't or won't bounce back but nothing from his batted ball or advanced splits indicated that he was unlucky or anything. 

[1984Echoes]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

Past performance is one of the factors that leads to projections for the future. It's not the only one. If Candelario has the kind of chronic injury that makes any performance better than last year really unlikely, then I agree the Tigers made the right move. I'm coming around to thinking that might be the case. Otherwise, it makes no sense, to me anyway, that a 28-year-old has a bad season after two good ones, and the conclusion is he's done done at 29. That's not the typical outcome.

This (bolded) can NOT be the case.

They already attempted to bring him back next year, at a lower cost. That means they made some kind of monetary offer to him for next year, even if they couldn't agree on his value. That immediately moots the possibility that they think his chronic injury is a problem. No one is going to try and bring back a player they are certain will deteriorate, off of a recent terrible performance year... at any cost.

[1984Echoes]

4 minutes ago, RandyMarsh said:

I was looking at some of Candy's more advanced splits last week to see if there is anything there that would indicate a bounce back and I found nothing of substance.

I even looked at his splits against the shift in hopes that he lost alot of production to it and there just wasn't much there. This doesnt mean he can't or won't bounce back but nothing from his batted ball or advanced splits indicated that he was unlucky or anything. 

Maybe just...

motivation?

[chasfh]

2 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said:

This (bolded) can NOT be the case.

They already attempted to bring him back next year, at a lower cost. That means they made some kind of monetary offer to him for next year, even if they couldn't agree on his value. That immediately moots the possibility that they think his chronic injury is a problem. No one is going to try and bring back a player they are certain will deteriorate, off of a recent terrible performance year... at any cost.

If that’s the case, the only remaining explanation is that they believe Jeimer is 2022 or worse, and nowhere near 2021, which is worth more than $7 million; and furthermore, they were fine with another 2022 from him, as long as he was cheap. Maybe as a trade chip, maybe as a placeholder for the unhatched chicken. 

[casimir]

6 minutes ago, RandyMarsh said:

I was looking at some of Candy's more advanced splits last week to see if there is anything there that would indicate a bounce back and I found nothing of substance.

I even looked at his splits against the shift in hopes that he lost alot of production to it and there just wasn't much there. This doesnt mean he can't or won't bounce back but nothing from his batted ball or advanced splits indicated that he was unlucky or anything. 

BB% & HardH% were low.  BAbip low as well, probably because of the HardH%.

I hope for his sake he bounces back.  It wouldn't be out of the question for him to rebound a bit.  Maybe he'll benefit from a different environment.  Or maybe he's just done.

[mtutiger]

21 minutes ago, casimir said:

I hope for his sake he bounces back.  It wouldn't be out of the question for him to rebound a bit.  Maybe he'll benefit from a different environment.  Or maybe he's just done.

It definitely could be an environment thing for him.... iirc there were a couple of stretches during 2022 where he was just held out of games for multiple games at a time. Maybe mentally was in the wrong place?

Edited November 22, 2022 by mtutiger

[chasfh]

Jeimer’s hard hit tool took a big dip this past season, but even with his below average EV, his max EV and barrel percent numbers were both above average. That tells me his issue was probably a swing that just got out of sorts, and there was no one knowledgeable around to help him fix it.

You may remember that during the All-Star break, Jeimer went for some swing instruction and had a good little stretch for maybe a week coming out of the break, only to go back into a funk that, once more, no one around the Tigers could help him with.

I think if he ends up in a system with good batting coaching, he’ll get back closer to his old self and smack the ball around pretty good this year.

 

[chasfh]

"Change of scenery" usually means change of people, coaching, system. We've changed people, coaching, and system here, but not soon enough to try to salvage Jeimer for ourselves, I guess.

I kind of hope he does come back for cheaper, unless Harris gets a better 3B in trade or something, in which case, happy trails, Jeimer.

[Stanley70]

Maybe the Tigers just want to be bad with different players this year.

 

[Tiger337]

1 hour ago, Stanley70 said:

Maybe the Tigers just want to be bad with different players this year.

 

The devils they don't know.  

[chasfh]

I guess one other possibility with Jeimer, if he’s not hurt and he’s a decent bounceback candidate, might be that he’s not a good clubhouse guy. Maybe one of the things they really want to clean up is the team culture and Jeimer is a net negative when it comes to that? I know nothing about it one way or another, this is just a possibility I just now considered. 

[RatkoVarda]

controlling the strike zone probably means more than just high BB and low K, but here are some of those guys

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/11/trying-to-find-hidden-gems-with-bb-k-2022-23-edition.html

[alex]

4 hours ago, chasfh said:

 

...You may remember that during the All-Star break, Jeimer went for some swing instruction and had a good little stretch for maybe a week coming out of the break, only to go back into a funk that, once more, no one around the Tigers could help him with.

I think if he ends up in a system with good batting coaching, he’ll get back closer to his old self and smack the ball around pretty good this year.

 

I in fact do remember that. He got some time with another instructor (perhaps his personal instructor or a previous coach I thought I heard?).

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

... Maybe one of the things they really want to clean up is the team culture and Jeimer is a net negative when it comes to that? I know nothing about it one way or another, this is just a possibility I just now considered. 

This is perhaps another part of it. The team has been losing for so long with many of the same faces and perhaps it might be best for both sides really.

There are some options out there and I am sure they are looking at many things from signing a younger type vet ex ERios (or JVolser of SF AAA) or a mid age vet BAnderson to an older FA JTurner or ELongoria or even a deal for a vet to help another team trim salary (and we get a prospect to go along with) ex JDonaldson, ARendon, etc.

It is obvious there will soon be some additions in the next 60 days or so. 😉  Let us hope for a competitive team (+) once again. 🙂

[KL2]

7 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

Not all of us.  He sucked in 2022, but he didn't suck in 2020-2021 and seems like a good candidate to bounce back.   

Can we stop saying he was good. His ops in 2021 was below .800 

[Tenacious D]

9 minutes ago, KL2 said:

Can we stop saying he was good. His ops in 2021 was below .800 

Somebody’s “hangry”

[chasfh]

9 minutes ago, KL2 said:

Can we stop saying he was good. His ops in 2021 was below .800 

Jeimer’s OPS in 2021 was .795. League OPS was .731. Jeimer’s OPS was well above average.

He was good. 

[Useful Idiot]

8 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

Not all of us.  He sucked in 2022, but he didn't suck in 2020-2021 and seems like a good candidate to bounce back.   

From the Tiger's website:

While the Tigers were cognizant that Candelario could turn it around in what looms as his final season before free agency, they didn’t want to buy into a rebound at arbitration-level prices. 

https://www.mlb.com/tigers/news/jeimer-candelario-non-tendered-by-tigers

Considering the off year Candy just had, I can't imagine that he'd have much leverage for raising his price.

It's (the braintrust's strategy)  obviously about "cheap and controllable" and anyone who thinks otherwise is smoking themselves.

If Harris signs any "ready for prime time" players, I'll be shocked. 

[Useful Idiot]

3 hours ago, chasfh said:

 Maybe one of the things they really want to clean up is the team culture and Jeimer is a net negative when it comes to that? I know nothing about it one way or another, this is just a possibility I just now considered. 

I think it's mostly a matter of Harris needing to deliver change, and in order to do that he needed  to create some holes to fill in the roster. There NEEDED TO BE casualties.

What direction he goes in filling these slots will telltale what we might expect from him.  I'm pretty worn out on hamburger, time to see a steak on the table.