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2021-22 Tigers Hot Stove League


RatkoVarda

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10 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I hope the Reyes optimists are right but I still don't see it.  Much like Cabrera, if he hits the way he does on one of his hot streaks for the whole season, he'll be good.  

I think the difference is that we know Victor's floor with the bat is at least a 700 OPS, and he can run the bases. He'll be at least replacement level and if we get lucky and the bat is better now, the deviation from that will be be to the upside. So he's not going to kill them. Cabrera OTOH, could give us another really terrible stretch like the first 5 wks last season, and that really would hurt - again. (and interesting how much of a pass Miguel has gotten over his very significant contribution to the terrible start last season. It all gets blamed on time for Hinch to put in his system and the clean-up hitter hitting 100 gets ignored - I suppose it's not worth talking about since there is nothing anyone could have done about it!)

Edited by gehringer_2
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18 minutes ago, SoCalTiger said:

Bummer. And Hill is broken AGAIN so we can't even give him a long look. I guess we will find out for sure how much game Victor Reyes has. I actually am fairly..kind of..sorta..optimistic about Victor "hit like VMART - Run like Rickey" Reyes. 

Can we put Baddoo in CF and use Haase in RF?  Or move Grossman to RF and use Haase in LF?  

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1 minute ago, Tiger337 said:

Reyes was an absolute black hole through July last year and his stats don't suggest he is a plus fielder, so he was killing them when he played.  Of course, unlike Cabrera, if he hits like that again he'll be benched quickly.  

true - his april 21 was as bad as Cabrera's, but TBF,  he is ~700 (681) ops over his career and that includes his terrible rule 5 season. To me the question is which is more likely to have another terrible slump - I'd guess Miguel just because his physical condition is so precarious. Maybe it's gotten to the point where they will be more willing to sit him down, but I find that doubtful.

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2 minutes ago, bobrob2004 said:

They forgot to factor in for A.J. Hinch.  He's worth 10 wins all on his own, right? 

Only if Hinch's managerial skills can enhance performance by 10 wins.  It is certainly podssible that Hinch and the coaching can improve players significantly.  I would look at player projections as a baseline and see which players you think can do better and add wins to the team total accordingly.  Of course, if they do improve, we won't know whether they did it themselves or were aided by coaching.  I think the only place where a manager can actually affect a team's win total without players actually improving is through bullpen management and I think that has a cap of maybe five games.  

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5 minutes ago, bobrob2004 said:

Can we put Baddoo in CF and use Haase in RF?  Or move Grossman to RF and use Haase in LF?  

it sucks because Haase, Reyes, W. Castro are all worse against RHP, they really need a bat that is better against RHP. I guess that will end up being Harold Castro.

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19 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

Only if Hinch's managerial skills can enhance performance by 10 wins.  It is certainly podssible that Hinch and the coaching can improve players significantly.  I would look at player projections as a baseline and see which players you think can do better and add wins to the team total accordingly.  Of course, if they do improve, we won't know whether they did it themselves or were aided by coaching.  I think the only place where a manager can actually affect a team's win total without players actually improving is through bullpen management and I think that has a cap of maybe five games.  

My comment was more tongue in cheek.  I think at times people give Hinch way too much credit just like I thought people gave Ausmus too much criticism.  Personally I don't think managers make that much of a difference.  

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26 minutes ago, bobrob2004 said:

My comment was more tongue in cheek.  I think at times people give Hinch way too much credit just like I thought people gave Ausmus too much criticism.  Personally I don't think managers make that much of a difference.  

I agree with that.  Unless it shows up in player performance (and there is no way of knowing whether the manager had anything to do with it), then it doesn't matter.  As I said, the only exception is bullpen management and I think even that is limited.  

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1 hour ago, Tiger337 said:

PECOTA has them pegged for 67 wins.  Even Conforto can't save them!  😆

https://www.baseballprospectus.com/standings/

Rotation just looks too good to be in that range. Rodriguez seems solid. Mize and Skubal may not be aces, but they will mostly keep us in their starts. How often, even when we had Verander and Scherzer, did we ever go into a season with the 4th and 5th starters as well set as they are now with Alexander, Manning and Pineda? Depth in the BP still looks pretty sketch, but the back end led by Soto is not bad.

They have the luxury of having enough position depth that if guys slump there are guys behind them that can pick up more ABs but I do wonder how they will cope with an extended slump by Cabrera.

Edited by gehringer_2
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1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

I think the difference is that we know Victor's floor with the bat is at least a 700 OPS, and he can run the bases. He'll be at least replacement level and if we get lucky and the bat is better now, the deviation from that will be be to the upside. So he's not going to kill them. Cabrera OTOH, could give us another really terrible stretch like the first 5 wks last season, and that really would hurt - again. (and interesting how much of a pass Miguel has gotten over his very significant contribution to the terrible start last season. It all gets blamed on time for Hinch to put in his system and the clean-up hitter hitting 100 gets ignored - I suppose it's not worth talking about since there is nothing anyone could have done about it!)

 

How can his floor OPS exceed his career OPS by .019?

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Just now, Edman85 said:

 

How can his floor OPS exceed his career OPS by .019?

when I wrote the post I was estimating - i was off by the -019 and added that after. But honestly, he was pretty screwed up in his rule 5 year, so I would take his floor as his career since then which is pretty much right at 700.

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1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

You know, with Hill and Riley both gimpy, that opens to door for W Castro to start the season in Detroit. :classic_laugh:

I think your right Willie may be the biggest benefactor to Riley’s and Hills injury. He’s probably on the team. If he hits who knows. Just hope Riley Greene isn’t channeling Walt Dropo. 

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Sucks that Hill is injured too because I was kind of excited about him but it's hard to be good without everyday at-bats.  Hopefully, he is not out too long and can get quite a few at-bats before Greene comes back to see if he has improved at all.  

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34 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Rotation just looks too good to be in that range. Rodriguez seems solid. Mize and Skubal may not be aces, but they will mostly keep us in their starts. How often, even when we had Verander and Scherzer, did we ever go into a season with the 4th and 5th starters as well set as they are now with Alexander, Manning and Pineda? Depth in the BP still looks pretty sketch, but the back end led by Soto is not bad.

They have the luxury of having enough position depth that if guys slump there are guys behind them that can pick up more ABs but I do wonder how they will cope with an extended slump by Cabrera.

I don't have access to PECOTA's individual projections, so I can't see why they have them with so few wins.  Most projections are not optimistic about the Tigers, but 67 looks way too low.  I can see things going bad for this team if the young players are not ready, but I think a lot of things would have to go bad to have just 67 wins.  

I am less optimistic about this team than most here. I feel like they are a much better team with fewer holes than they have had going into any recent seasons, but strangely there is no hitter nor pitcher who can I say with confidence is going to have a really good season.  The good thing is that there are lot of players with strong potential which is something they haven't had in a while, although having arguably the best one starting the season on the IL is not a good start.  

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I probably should go back and double check before saying this but IIRC the Tigers pitchers out pitched their peripherals by quite a bit, something like a half a run or so.  Now that could be a product of improved scouting and defensive positioning, location on pitches to induce weaker contact or just flat out luck. If it's the latter and their run prevention regresses to what their peripherals suggested that is going to hurt us in a big way.  You're talking about an 80 run difference over the course of the season so I think that is the main reason why projections are down on the team.  

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5 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

, but strangely there is no hitter nor pitcher who can I say with confidence is going to have a really good season.  The good thing is that there are lot of players with strong potential which is something they haven't had in a while, 

yeah - Greene or Tork or one of the young pitchers may become a star, but for now it is ironic that Avila seems intent on going with the philosophy of "win with 9 good players" instead of 3 stars, 3 ordinary Joes and 3 bums. At some point I think we need to put to rest the persistent idea the what the Tigers did under Dombrowski was somehow all Al Avila except for Dave's trades. It seems at every point Al has attempted to run a completely different operation and build a very different type of team.

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2 minutes ago, RandyMarsh said:

I probably should go back and double check before saying this but IIRC the Tigers pitchers out pitched their peripherals by quite a bit, something like a half a run or so.  Now that could be a product of improved scouting and defensive positioning, location on pitches to induce weaker contact or just flat out luck. If it's the latter and their run prevention regresses to what their peripherals suggested that is going to hurt us in a big way.  You're talking about an 80 run difference over the course of the season so I think that is the main reason why projections are down on the team.  

You are right which is probably why they don't project well as a team despite making improvements.  It's really hard to project young players.  Torkelson or Greene when he gets back could have a big rookie year and any of their young pitchers could improve a lot which would add a lot of wins.  If they aren't ready to take a step up though, things could get ugly.  I don't have a lot expectations, but I have a lot of hope which is something I haven't been able to say about this team in a while.  

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29 minutes ago, RandyMarsh said:

I probably should go back and double check before saying this but IIRC the Tigers pitchers out pitched their peripherals by quite a bit, something like a half a run or so.  Now that could be a product of improved scouting and defensive positioning, location on pitches to induce weaker contact or just flat out luck. If it's the latter and their run prevention regresses to what their peripherals suggested that is going to hurt us in a big way.  You're talking about an 80 run difference over the course of the season so I think that is the main reason why projections are down on the team.  

I'm sure that was in part Peralta, who way out pitched his, but how many innings will we see from him? With young pitchers you sort of expect them to out pitch their peripherals, in particular their walks will fall and their K's go up as they learn hitters and umpires and sequencing and repetition sharpens command, but that doesn't mean they didn't have the good stuff to get out of trouble to begin with.  Which I would say amounts to what Lee says is 'taking the next step'

Edited by gehringer_2
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4 hours ago, bobrob2004 said:

My comment was more tongue in cheek.  I think at times people give Hinch way too much credit just like I thought people gave Ausmus too much criticism.  Personally I don't think managers make that much of a difference.  

What was it Sparky said, something about managers being responsible for about 5 games a season...

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