2022-23 Detroit Tigers Offseason Thread

[Tenacious D]

are you really willing to fall on your sword for Candelario?  You might want to go back and look at last year's offensive and defensive contributions and revisit your position. I appreciate that Harris is looking to improve there, even though it's a pretty low bar.

[Sports_Freak]

15 hours ago, Longgone said:

If you are expecting a young pitcher to show positive results stats, while harnessing his stuff and learning his craft, you are expecting a lot. 

The only reason he even pitched in the Majors last season was because most of our starting pitchers got injured. And then the Toledo arms we brought up got injured. What did we end up using, something like 15 different starting pitchers? And it wasn't even our pitching that lost us so many games, it was a lack of offense. Pretty amazing.

[Sports_Freak]

4 minutes ago, Tenacious D said:

are you really willing to fall on your sword for Candelario?  You might want to go back and look at last year's offensive and defensive contributions and revisit your position. I appreciate that Harris is looking to improve there, even though it's a pretty low bar.

Yes, an improvement would be nice. But at what cost? I really think the Tigers will miss Candy. Yes, he had a bad 2022 but so did several other hitters. Candelario was only released because of financial reasons, a bad reason to let a starting player go when there's limited in-house or free agent options.

[gehringer_2]

4 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

Candelario was only released because of financial reasons,

TBF, we don't know what the internal reports were about Candelario. Their decision will either be justified or not depending on what he does next season

[mtutiger]

4 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

TBF, we don't know what the internal reports were about Candelario. Their decision will either be justified or not depending on what he does next season

My understanding is that they offered him a contract at a lower number and he refused. 

I know why the Tigers did it, I think most other teams would have done the same thing in that situation as well, all things equal. And you have to be willing to walk away in a negotiation, which they did.

Wish Candy the best, but there was nothing wrong in trying to pay him fair market value and being willing to walk away.

[chasfh]

Anyone willing to admit they're rooting for an injury here, too? 😅

 

[chasfh]

27 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

My understanding is that they offered him a contract at a lower number and he refused. 

I know why the Tigers did it, I think most other teams would have done the same thing in that situation as well, all things equal. And you have to be willing to walk away in a negotiation, which they did.

Wish Candy the best, but there was nothing wrong in trying to pay him fair market value and being willing to walk away.

Whatever the Tigers offered him—let's pretend for this post that it was half of his projected arb—is fair market value only if they believe he is going to be worth only half a win above replacement in 2023. And if that's the case, were the Tigers perfectly fine with running a half-a-win player out there all year, just because the price was right? is that all they want out of third base? I have my doubts about that.

I think that, for whatever reason, they felt they just needed to be rid of Candelario altogether, regardless of what his projected production was going to be. That suggests to me that the decision was about something other than his expected performance.

Edited December 2, 2022 by chasfh

[mtutiger]

3 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Whatever the Tigers offered him—let's pretend for this post that it was half of his projected arb—is fair market value only if they believe he is going to be worth only half a win above replacement in 2023.

Don't know how exactly the ratio works out, but the contract that Candy agreed to with the Nationals suggests that the market doesn't think much more of Candy's value than the Tigers do imo

[chasfh]

2 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Don't know how exactly the ratio works out, but the contract that Candy agreed to with the Nationals suggests that the market doesn't think much more of Candy's value than the Tigers do imo

I don't believe that's necessarily true as stated. I don't think that they believe his value is objectively less than seven million. I would counter that, if they believe he is better than a one-win player, then they know that level of production is worth seven million, at least.

But we also know that markets are about more than simply an objective measure of worth—it's also about the perception of the asset as a whole, and the perception of Jeimer is that he is damaged goods, in part because of last year's anomalous output, one who will accept less than what his expected production is objectively worth. It's why he's regarded as a buy-low bet with high upside potential, versus someone playing out a string who's got maybe one year of 140+ games left in him.

[RatkoVarda]

not franchise altering, but holding onto Chafin because he misread the market and Chafin's decision, perfectly demonstrates the failures of Avila

The Tigers’ situation with Chafin was particularly difficult. Detroit shopped him as a reliever contenders could have for a season and a half thanks to the two-year contract he signed as a free agent last March. However, many teams viewed him as a rental due to the opt-out clause in his contract. Detroit decided to keep Chafin at the Deadline, believing they could hold onto him for 2023. Instead, Chafin opted out, hoping to take advantage of a thin free-agent relief market, leaving the Tigers with nothing in return.

[HeyAbbott]

34 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Whatever the Tigers offered him—let's pretend for this post that it was half of his projected arb—is fair market value only if they believe he is going to be worth only half a win above replacement in 2023. And if that's the case, were the Tigers perfectly fine with running a half-a-win player out there all year, just because the price was right? is that all they want out of third base? I have my doubts about that.

I think that, for whatever reason, they felt they just needed to be rid of Candelario altogether, regardless of what his projected production was going to be. That suggests to me that the decision was about something other than his expected performance.

Candelario is a sub mediocre player. That's all one needs to know. That's my 2 cents.

[mtutiger]

23 minutes ago, chasfh said:

But we also know that markets are about more than simply an objective measure of worth—it's also about the perception of the asset as a whole, and the perception of Jeimer is that he is damaged goods, in part because of last year's anomalous output, one who will accept less than what his expected production is objectively worth.

Maybe the Tigers also perceive Jeimer as damaged goods and value him accordingly as well?

[gehringer_2]

34 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I don't believe that's necessarily true as stated. I don't think that they believe his value is objectively less than seven million. I would counter that, if they believe he is better than a one-win player, then they know that level of production is worth seven million, at least.

 

except you can't really use the numbers that way for most teams. A team of repleacement level players is good for 40-50 wins? That is 40-50 wins over replacement to get to 90, but only *maybe* LA has been close to a 40-50x$7M payroll (280-350 million). The Tigers are not going to be any time soon.

[chasfh]

31 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Maybe the Tigers also perceive Jeimer as damaged goods and value him accordingly as well?

I agree with this.

I don't think anyone has suggested anything along these lines here, but beyond dumping Jeimer because of some hidden injury issue, or to appease fans, it's also possible that Jeimer is a clubhouse cancer. Maybe the other guys hate him, or he's a factionalizer, or he's uncoachable, or it's just an oil-and-water personality situation, and the organization decided they simply couldn't deal with him anymore. This is a baseless speculation which if true we would probably never see reported, especially by Detroit beat media, under the principle that this kind of thing stays in the clubhouse. But we all know there are players like that, and it's certainly well within the range of possibilities. I'm definitely not saying I believe this is why he was non-tendered. I'm just offering up another possible reason that hadn't come up yet for consideration.

OK, so, if this is true, why would anyone sign Jeimer? Why would Washington throw five million plus incentives at him if he's such a bad guy? Well, maybe it's because they think he can fix his clubhouse issues. Or maybe they think their coaches will mesh better with him than ours did. Maybe they want the production and don't care about his clubhouse persona, or perhaps they don't even know about his clubhouse issues at all because the story of that has been so well-hidden. Could be a bunch of reasons. But just because he got signed at all doesn't de facto disprove the baseless speculation.

The one thing I am pretty sure of is that the Tigers simply didn't want Jeimer around anymore, at any price, including the one they offered him and knew he would never accept.

Edited December 2, 2022 by chasfh

[chasfh]

6 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

except you can't really use the numbers that way for most teams. A team of repleacement level players is good for 40-50 wins? That is 40-50 wins over replacement to get to 90, but only *maybe* LA has been close to a 40-50x$7M payroll (280-350 million). The Tigers are not going to be any time soon.

I believe the concept is not that of overall roster value of a win above replacement, but one of the marginal value of a win above replacement added through free agent signing.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/what-are-teams-paying-per-war-in-free-agency/

This is probably closer to a 101 on the topic:

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/is-the-cost-of-a-win-in-free-agency-still-linear/

[chasfh]

31 minutes ago, HeyAbbott said:

Candelario is a sub mediocre player. That's all one needs to know. That's my 2 cents.

Depends on how you define mediocre. How would you define it?

[SoCalTiger]

8 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I agree with this.

I don't think anyone has suggested anything along these lines here, but beyond dumping Jeimer because of some hidden injury issue to appease fans, it's also possible that Jeimer is a clubhouse cancer. Maybe the other guys hate him, or he's a factionalizer, or he's uncoachable, or it's just an oil-and-water personality situation, and the organization decided they simply couldn't deal with him anymore. This is a baseless speculation which if true we would probably never see reported, especially by Detroit beat media, under the principle of this kind of thing stays in the clubhouse. But we all know there are players like this, and it's certainly well within the range of possibilities. I'm definitely not saying I believe this is why. I'm just offering up another possible reason that hadn't come up yet for consideration.

OK, so, if this is true, why would anyone sign Jeimer? Why would Washington throw five million plus incentives at him if he's such a bad guy? Well, maybe it's because they think he can fix his clubhouse issues. Or maybe they think their coaches will mesh better with him than ours did. Maybe they want the production and don't care about his clubhouse persona, or perhaps they don't even know about his clubhouse issues at all because the story of that has been so well-hidden. Could be a bunch of reasons. But just because he got signed at all doesn't de facto disprove the baseless speculation.

The one thing I am pretty sure of is that the Tigers simply didn't want Jeimer around anymore, at any price, including the one they offered and knew he would never accept.

Or maybe because he got cut its the wake up call that motivates him to straighten up ? Perhaps there is a bit of this in all "change of scenery " situations ? 

[SoCalTiger]

Let's play "what if". Say Candelerio returns to 2021 level of production next year in Washington motivated by his walk season. Would anybody here offer him the 4 yr/50 million, or thereabouts, in free agency he would command and risk him turning into a pumpkin again?

[chasfh]

1 minute ago, SoCalTiger said:

Let's play "what if". Say Candelerio returns to 2021 level of production next year in Washington motivated by his walk season. Would anybody here offer him the 4 yr/50 million, or thereabouts, in free agency he would command and risk him turning into a pumpkin again?

If he puts up a four-win season on 2023, thus proving he can do so on a reasonably consistent basis, I bet someone will give him $50 million, if not four years.

It definitely won't be us.

[chasfh]

6 minutes ago, SoCalTiger said:

Or maybe because he got cut its the wake up call that motivates him to straighten up ? Perhaps there is a bit of this in all "change of scenery " situations ? 

There's something to this.

[gehringer_2]

16 minutes ago, chasfh said:

but one of the marginal value of a win above replacement added through free agent signing.

right - the value goes up at the margin for a winning team - but the Tigers aren't at that margin yet - unless we believe Harris really is going to work some miracles in the next 12 weeks!  🤣

[chasfh]

2 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

right - the value goes up at the margin for a winning team - but the Tigers aren't at that margin yet - unless we believe Harris really is going to work some miracles in the next 12 weeks!  🤣

I continue to maintain that if we're talking only about Jeimer's projected performance, absent any other market consideration, that is well worth the $7 million.

That said, I will shelve this hobby horse if Harris obtains a third baseman who is projected to do better than Jeimer, and I don't care at what price. I'm interested only in the production.

[gehringer_2]

40 minutes ago, chasfh said:

OK, so, if this is true, why would anyone sign Jeimer?

The history is that different managements - different owners, have wildly varying opionions on what a clubhouse needs to look like. I would go so far to say that there are sports managements for whom being too *nice* a guy in the clubhouse could create a negative bias (I only want guys with fire in their belly!--etc) . So in general, it's a good point  that other factors beside the two objective ones of money and performance can go into roster decisions and that in the main, we will never see the effect of that other than in a few extreme cases where a player ends up in public trouble.

Edited December 2, 2022 by gehringer_2

[alex]

31 minutes ago, SoCalTiger said:

Or maybe because he got cut its the wake up call that motivates him to straighten up ? Perhaps there is a bit of this in all "change of scenery " situations ? 

There may be much to this, especially when it happens for the first time. If repeated or also by other means (trades, FA, etc.) then a player can adjust/cope more accordingly. Yes, I do know Candy was traded here - but apx 5 yrs since.

Perhaps there may have simply been an 'air' in the clubhouse where too many players just wanted  'to be in the big leagues and play' mentality was there. That winning baseball (along with how they were all coached and the quantity of players thereof) simply did not mesh with a new idea and a bit of a changing approach (ex 'control the strike zone') moving forward. That and the organization as a whole simply needs better hands on development (coaching, new habit's) and more talented players.

Edited December 2, 2022 by alex

[Edman85]

16 hours ago, mtutiger said:

Players market baby

Man, Eflin was a guy I thought was worth targeting. Very underrated.