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2021-22 Tigers Hot Stove League


RatkoVarda

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Just now, Sports_Freak said:

And the NL west had 2 teams with over 100 wins. This is going to be a very interesting season. 

I've been told repeatedly that there's no such thing as tanking.

Also, I wouldn't be surprised to see five teams win 100 games and five others lose 100.

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6 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

All the projections have them playing below  .500.  It's a function of having a young team with a lot of question marks.  Lots of potential, not a lot of certainty.  What they did in their last 120 games last year is not part of the algorithm.  Beware of the plexiglasss principle!  What matters is what they are expected to do in 2022.  I wouldn't look at the 74-88 record though.  I would look at each player's individual projection and see where I think they can be better.  

IIRC, their ZIPS projection piece on the Tigers after the winter absolutely hated the Tigers pen. I didn't read all 30 teams, but their combined value has to be lower than most other BPs.

As you suggest, this is a function of having young and relatively inexperienced talent potentially in high leverage roles. Just as we wish Tork/Greene successful seasons that involve chasing AL ROY (which, if happens, in all likelihood means they are much better than 74-88), we don't know that until we see them in the majors. Not to mention the starters and young relievers who (outside of ERod) are all still trying to prove themselves.

More questions than answers, but they have a lot of promise. I still feel pretty good going into next year.

Edited by mtutiger
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2 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I've been told repeatedly that there's no such thing as tanking.

Also, I wouldn't be surprised to see five teams win 100 games and five others lose 100.

Tanking in baseball probably happens less than in every other sport. Draft picks don't usually make an immediate impact.

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34 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

IIRC, their ZIPS projection piece on the Tigers after the winter absolutely hated the Tigers pen. I didn't read all 30 teams, but their combined value has to be lower than most other BPs.

As you suggest, this is a function of having young and relatively inexperienced talent potentially in high leverage roles. Just as we wish Tork/Greene successful seasons that involve chasing AL ROY (which, if happens, in all likelihood means they are much better than 74-88), we don't know that until we see them in the majors. Not to mention the starters and young relievers who (outside of ERod) are all still trying to prove themselves.

More questions than answers, but they have a lot of promise. I still feel pretty good going into next year.

My guess is Fulmer and Soto will be fine if they stay healthy, but you have a big swing around Cisnero. He has a long high walk history and you could see that whatever magic pill was behind his new found command, it was never too far away from abandoning him again. CIsnero throwing strikes is a huge plus, but I'm not all that confident that is the Cisnero we will get. Not really all that much different than Funkhouser in that regard except Funkhouser hasn't shown Cisnero's upside so won't be as much of a loss if he turns back into a pumkin.

Edited by gehringer_2
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24 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

My guess is Fulmer and Soto will be fine if they stay healthy, but you have a big swing around Cisnero. He has a long high walk history and you could see that whatever magic pill was behind his new found command, it was never too far away from abandoning him again. CIsnero throwing strikes is a huge plus, but I'm not all that confident that is the Cisnero we will get. Not really all that much different than Funkhouser in that regard except Funkhouser hasn't shown Cisnero's upside so won't be as much of a loss if he turns back into a pumkin.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2022-zips-projections-detroit-tigers/

This was the piece I was referencing... the bullpen as a whole gets very low marks.

Aside from Cisnero and Funkhouser being more consistent strike throwers, they really need Alex Lange to be better this year. He started to show some promise in September, especially with the curveball. He needs to continue improving 

Edited by mtutiger
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49 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2022-zips-projections-detroit-tigers/

This was the piece I was referencing... the bullpen as a whole gets very low marks.

Aside from Cisnero and Funkhouser being more consistent strike throwers, they really need Alex Lange to be better this year. He started to show some promise in September, especially with the curveball. He needs to continue improving 

The BP may be less exposed with the young pitchers off the leash and allowed to go deeper into games. We sure don't want to condition our SP to only go 5 or 6 innings consistently. 

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8 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

What would be the other reasons? To get a change in management? Or to not sell tickets? 😅

A bigger pool of money for international free agents is one.  

I think indirect tanking is more likely where teams primarily want to save money but still reap the reward of draft picks.   

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2 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

What would be the other reasons? To get a change in management? Or to not sell tickets? 😅

I think one big reason is that even when they put the cheapest team on the field possible, backed by the cheapest resources they can manage to keep the enterprise afloat, they can still make money hand over fist from all the revenue sources all big league organizations enjoy. Perhaps not all tanking organizations do so for that reason—some might still be doing it for the future draft picks, such as they are—but I do think some organizations are skimping on the product and still clearing big profits.

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47 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

A bigger pool of money for international free agents is one.  

I think indirect tanking is more likely where teams primarily want to save money but still reap the reward of draft picks.   

 

47 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I think one big reason is that even when they put the cheapest team on the field possible, backed by the cheapest resources they can manage to keep the enterprise afloat, they can still make money hand over fist from all the revenue sources all big league organizations enjoy. Perhaps not all tanking organizations do so for that reason—some might still be doing it for the future draft picks, such as they are—but I do think some organizations are skimping on the product and still clearing big profits.

I  never thought of these reasons. I guess I never gave tanking much thought, other than draft position.

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12 minutes ago, buddha said:

reliever performance is very volatile.  you're likely to get as good of a performance out of your own guys than plunking down $5 - $10 million on a guy who performed well for another organization last year.

True and the Tigers relievers who had good seasons last year could easily be bad this year.  That is where I am hoping more modern coaching can help.    

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33 minutes ago, oblong said:

Good bullpens happen by accident.  You don't develop one.  Strength in numbers and coaching and you'll find a couple of good ones, milk them, then discard.  Short shelf life.

 

I agree with everything but the accident part, as least as far as "good" bullpens go.  It takes a lot of luck to go have a **great** bullpen like the 2006 Tigers, but they had a pretty good bullpen after 2006 because they did a pretty good job drafting/scouting/developing/trading/releasing guys, better than they did before 2006.

My point is that if the Tigers want to win, they need to do more than grab castoffs, chant the name of Chris Fetter, and pray for luck.

And just because FA relievers are more risky than position players, doesn't mean that they are not needed/worth it (they are needed, to some extent), or that some of them aren't reliable (some of them are).

We should aspire to become the Rays and Cards and Astros, who do a really good job at developing bullpens without spending much $$....but unless we become one of them (we might, but I really doubt it with AA at the helm), we are going to need to acquire a reliable FA reliever or maybe two in order to become a winning team.

Edited by sabretooth
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35 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

True and the Tigers relievers who had good seasons last year could easily be bad this year.  That is where I am hoping more modern coaching can help.    

there's been a general shift in the sabr community from "stop throwing good money after bad just to increase your win total by 1.3 wins" to "the owners are so cheap and trying to lose they wont even throw money at trying to increase their win total by 1.3 wins."

its been interesting to watch from afar.

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1 minute ago, buddha said:

there's been a general shift in the sabr community from "stop throwing good money after bad just to increase your win total by 1.3 wins" to "the owners are so cheap and trying to lose they wont even throw money at trying to increase their win total by 1.3 wins."

its been interesting to watch from afar.

I think it's more accurate to say there has been a shift in the saber community from sabermetrics to left-wing politics.  

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