sabretooth

Never saw him play, moved to Michigan in 1975 at the age of 5 and didn't attend a Tiger game until 1977....but he was on Channel 4 WDIV's broadcast with Kell for the roaring 80's....and he was a great ambassador in the Tigers front office....he was in many ways the face of the Tigers for me despite having missed his playing career. Requiescat in pace, Mr. Kaline.

Gotta flush this out.

I could see this coming down the pipe.

That's a helluva rotation at Toledo

He did not "owe everything" to MI's wallet, that's a crock. He was a shrewd evaluator of major league talent and knew how to make a deal, and he built a winning team **well before** the big spending started. There is zero evidence that the 2014 extension of Cabrera had anything at all to do with DD's ability to trade for him in 2008, that's just ridiculous to assert that. They made it to the WS in 2006 because Ilitch and DD worked well as a team, drafting and acquiring good players with a solid above-average payroll but nothing huge like you are suggesting. Even with Pudge and Ordonez the 2006 Tigers had a $82M team payroll, in the middle of the league, $15-20M less than #2 - #6 teams, and only $20M higher than the frugal Twins and A's in the low $60M range. They were a very good team in 2007 with basically the same cast + the absolute steal of Gary Sheffield for basically nobody, and who was having an all-universe season before he dove and hurt his leg mid-season. After an unsuccessful run in 2008 - 09, which included a mysterious bloated contract for Dontrelle Willis, they re-tooled and made it back to the Playoffs in 2011 with a payroll that was still #10, but was about the same as model franchises St. Louis and Minnesota, and way less than the top 5 spenders which included the White Sox. The payroll vaulted into the top 5 again after Hunter was signed (who was a very reasonable $13M spend for a 3 WAR player in 2013), but the driver of course was the Prince signing, a last-second necessity due to VMart's knee blowout in ST. That was a huge spend and gamble, but it did payoff on-field despite the overspend in two strong post-season runs and a good trade for Ian Kinsler who did very well for a few years. The extension to JV (2013) helped them in 2013 and 2014 to reach the playoffs. The contracts prior to 2014 (with the exception of Willis) served their purposes. There is really no argument against that IMHO. Then came 2014.....the 2014 contracts to Miggy and Vmart did not serve a winning purpose...however, the failure of those contracts (or others) to "work out" don't really serve your (off) point that DD *succeeded* only because of Ilitch's wallet.

lolwut

Yeah. I love how some Detroit fans are trying to pretend to feel sorry for Boston 🙄

I agree that he failed to build a good farm system but I think you have failed to explain the causal link between their focus on winning and their failure in drafting and development. Both were true to an extent but there was **no real connection between the two**. Thought experiment: if DD had hired someone other than Avila to be his assistant GM, let's say someone who had a clue about how to build a modern technology/data driven minor league system and to draft and develop young talent accordingly, and that assistant was tasked with making that happen, would they have succeeded both at winning and developing? I sure think so. Bottom line is that winning, payroll and drafting/development are not necessarily at odds with each other, and DD didn't put them at odds with each other, despite the unfounded claims of many that he sacrificed one for the other. DD simply did not focus or succeed at building a modern/effective farm system, and that is his fault. But he still succeeded at leveraging winning value from his minor league system through great trades, and complimented it with enough FA talent to make it playoff competitive for 10 years. That may not put him in the HoF as a GM but it puts him way above the pack.

Sounds about right....I didn't mean to imply that the talent that he drafted performed well, but he was surely exceptional in capitalizing on them. The first part is naturally an indictment, the second part is of course redemptive.

They produced enough internal talent to build a winning team for 10 years, at least indirectly through a handful of great trades (Guillen, Cabrera, Peralta, etc).

Other than Suarez, what examples of traded "seed corn" for wins now are you referring to?

Nobody including myself really **liked** the Suarez trade, but I re-read the thread about that trade, and **nobody** here said anything about Suarez becoming a great or even above average young player. He was not a highly regarded prospect. Suarez was a really unlucky event that proves that you should avoid trading decent young position players for pitchers. Overall I reject this notion that DD gutted the Tigers' farm system. He traded away good young players for Cabrera, nobody argues with that trade.....he made two bad trades with Jurrjens and Knebel, and while they would have helped versus the guys he traded for, they only had a couple of seasons each over 1 WAR, so it's not like he traded away guys who because core youngsters anywhere other than Suarez. Otherwise, the guys he traded away did nothing anywhere, unless I'm forgetting something (I am turning 50 this year).

They still have all of those players except for Betts, and now have Verdugo, plus they have Chavez, JD and Pillar. They have mediocre pitching left over since Sale's injury, but they still have a very good set of generally young cost-controlled position players. They had three very successful seasons before 2019, which was still a winning season, and are in waaaaaayyyy better overall shape and still have a better group of younger players than the Tigers have after 4 years of Avila.

Sounds like me!

cuz he's Dre