2019-2020 OFFSEASON DISCUSSION THREAD

[Gehringer_2 3,253]

16 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I very seriously doubt that Avila was a closet cutting edge analytically-inclined talent evaluator who was thwarted in his attempt to get resources. He has a type he likes: big, toolsy guys (and famous, too, I guess we know now) who are athletes now and we can teach them the baseball stuff later. How many years did we waste our hopes and dreams on guys like this, and for nothing? Jacob Turner? Ryan Perry? Andy Oliver? Casey Crosby? Bruce Rondon? Derek Hill? Steven Moya? Joe Jiminez? All big guys with big tools, none of them worth a darn on the diamond. 

I respect the idea behind what you say here, but I can't believe that Avila couldn't properly evaluate talent because he didn't have a guy on staff who knew how to do R. He's wedded to a certain type of talent evaluation, and we are reaping what he sows.

And yet - just to play devils advocate - it that what are seeing in recent drafts? Mize's and Faedo's calling cards less tools than polish. Is Greene more 'athlete' or 'hitter?' I think Meadows fit's the bill you are talking about. Don't know enough about say - Quintana or Lipcius. 2017 was pretty much a total washout other than Faedo - you can certainly call Avila on that one. It's zero position players from that draft that is a big reason for the empty cupboard this year.

[chasfh 1,729]

12 minutes ago, Gehringer_2 said:

And yet - just to play devils advocate - it that what are seeing in recent drafts? Mize's and Faedo's calling cards less tools than polish. Is Greene more 'athlete' or 'ball player?' I think Meadows fit's the bill you are talking about. Don't know enough about say - Quintana or Lipcius. 2017 was pretty much a total washout other than Faedo - you can certainly call Avila on that one.

Mize was the (famous) consensus #1. No one was going miss on that one.

Did Faedo not have tools? I thought he was considered to have them but regressed after being picked. At 6-5 and 230 I know he's the kind of big guy Avila doesn't have to be talked into.

Wasn't Riley Greene famous for being the best high school bat in the draft? He's a big guy, too. But yes, he was pretty polished which does go to your point of "baseball player now" and not just "athlete now".

There may be some turning around of the scouting tanker going on with Avila, but he's late to the party, and I fear by the time he gets the program up to state of the art circa 2015, everyone else will have moved on to the next thing, and we'll be playing catch-up on that.

****'s gotta get blown up.

[sabretooth 295]

This is a "best-case" scenario:

- they draft Tork and he is a 3+ WAR player by 2023

- Greene is a 3+ WAR player by 2023 and somehow he and Tork can find spaces on the field without hurting team defense

- Mize and Manning kill it and are 3+ WAR players by 2021, and one of them becomes a top-level pitcher (5+ WAR) by 2023

So by 2023 they have two positional players who are giving them a total of 7+ WAR, and two pitchers who are giving them 9+ WAR, let's be generous and say that these four give them 17 WAR in 2023.  

That's 6.5 more WAR than the sum of the top four players on the team THIS YEAR (Boyd 3.7, Norris 2.9, Turnbull 2.3, and Shane Greene 1.7).  Even if they replaced the 5 worst players (who collectively cost the team -5 WAR), they would net 22 wins.  That's nice, but.....

Add 22 wins to the 2019 team and they STILL would struggle to reach 70 wins. 

Even if they have ANOTHER 110+ loss season in 2020 followed by ANOTHER top-5 pick "victory" in the draft in 2021 to add the the above four picks (assuming that the other four picks above blossom into on-field ML plus players, which is NO certain thing)....the 2021 top pick could add another couple of wins to the 5th best player slot on the team.....and with this year's roster you'd STILL need to improve by another 20 WINS to reach 90 wins.

Even if Paredes and one of the Castros work out as solid starters and Boyd and Turnbull and Norris are decent enough for a couple of years, it's not going to get them anywhere close to winning.

If we are counting on tanking/losing/drafting high and getting great front line players out of those top draft picks (which is the ONLY eventual/potential on-field benefit of tanking), we STILL need people in the front office who have talent and processes and tools to draft and develop beyond the top 5 picks, and who know how to build a Major League team, and who have an owner that actually is willing to spend the $$ to make it work.

I'll say it again, with Chris I and AA in charge: never.gonna.work.

[RandyMarsh 666]

The scary thing is that the White Sox definitely have more young talent than us, the Twins are way better than us now plus have a damn good system themselves and the Indians have some equity to trade from as well. 

I'd feel better about our chances if those teams had aging cores and bad systems but that's not the case.  We're definitely gonna need to spend in FA, draft well the next could years  and hope we get a breakout prospect, I'm still holding out hope that Meadows could be that guy.     

[TigerNation 84]

4 hours ago, RandyMarsh said:

From Law's chat today.  

What the **** does he mean by famous?

[TigerNation 84]

1 hour ago, RandyMarsh said:

The scary thing is that the White Sox definitely have more young talent than us, the Twins are way better than us now plus have a damn good system themselves and the Indians have some equity to trade from as well. 

I'd feel better about our chances if those teams had aging cores and bad systems but that's not the case.  We're definitely gonna need to spend in FA, draft well the next could years  and hope we get a breakout prospect, I'm still holding out hope that Meadows could be that guy.     

Not really scary until they actually have a team that doesn't suck.

[RandyMarsh 666]

17 minutes ago, TigerNation said:

What the **** does he mean by famous?

Honestly not sure, Clemens comes to mind but other than that I can't think of anybody that you could possibly speculate was drafted based off of their fame or preconceived reputation.  Atleast not early in the draft.  

[TigerNation 84]

6 minutes ago, RandyMarsh said:

Honestly not sure, Clemens comes to mind but other than that I can't think of anybody that you could possibly speculate was drafted based off of their fame or preconceived reputation.  Atleast not early in the draft.  

Yeah Clemens and Manning both have pro athlete dads, but it's a little ridiculous to say they target famous people based on two such picks in three drafts. 

[IdahoBert 1,289]

I’m glad that starting the offseason discussion thread earlier than usual worked out. I was worried it might be an unwarranted intrusion but my suspicion was that the future was vastly more compelling than the present and I guess that turned out to be true since we are not unjustifiably discussing traffic patterns in the regular season discussion thread. 

[LooseGoose 680]

3 hours ago, Gehringer_2 said:

Color me unimpressed. Why is he waiting for the off-season? He could have gotten himself a cook and started working on his body the day he decided he needed to do it. I just can't take the man seriously at this point. Any diet change you are not starting on until 'tomorrow' is one that has already failed.

I agree.  He should have/could have been doing this all along.

[Gehringer_2 3,253]

2 hours ago, RandyMarsh said:

Honestly not sure, Clemens comes to mind but other than that I can't think of anybody that you could possibly speculate was drafted based off of their fame or preconceived reputation.  Atleast not early in the draft.  

I'm pretty sure that statistically it would bear out that children of MLB players have a higher incidence of success in the majors than other draftees so they are a perfectly defensible choice to draft. Considering the absolutely tiny fraction of the population that make it to MLB, the relatively larger proportion of children of major leaguer's that get there seems clear enough. 

[LooseGoose 680]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

Mize was the (famous) consensus #1. No one was going miss on that one.

So they were right to take the best player in the draft?

[LooseGoose 680]

3 hours ago, IdahoBert said:

I don’t want him to be a pretty boy. I want the manager to be an ugly old man that frightens me. Just on a visceral level, Leyland and Gardenhire seem like people you need to obey. Ausmus seemed like a fraternity brother you can ignore.   

Joe Maddon.  His Cubs deal is up.

[HeyAbbott 23]

1 hour ago, LooseGoose said:

Joe Maddon.  His Cubs deal is up.

With the shape this franchise seems to be in ,(although I sincerely hope it is better than it seems to me) do we really care who the manager is? We need some honest-to-goodness major league players before this becomes a concern.

We have some pitching in Erie that will be MLB ready maybe by 2021.We have maybe 2 position players in the Minors who might be average MLB players someday, probably 2022. That leaves us very short of being anything resembling a .500 team for a long time without a couple of FA signings.

It may be time to question a number of things, given that the franchise seems a long way from a meager modicum of respectability.

 

[Motor City Sonics 1,064]

1 hour ago, LooseGoose said:

Joe Maddon.  His Cubs deal is up.

Joe may be going across town or to Philly next year. 

[chasfh 1,729]

2 hours ago, LooseGoose said:

So they were right to take the best player in the draft?

That year, yes. Mize was the consensus #1, so it would have been too risky not to have taken him. In high risk professions such as major league baseball, it’s acceptable to fail doing the expected, but a disaster to fail doing something unexpected. But they really should focus on top position players this time.

[chasfh 1,729]

2 hours ago, Gehringer_2 said:

I'm pretty sure that statistically it would bear out that children of MLB players have a higher incidence of success in the majors than other draftees so they are a perfectly defensible choice to draft. Considering the absolutely tiny fraction of the population that make it to MLB, the relatively larger proportion of children of major leaguer's that get there seems clear enough. 

Particularly the children of recent major leaguers of the big money era, who have the resources (and likely the time) to put into maximizing their boys’ potential. 

[chasfh 1,729]

40 minutes ago, Motor City Sonics said:

Joe may be going across town or to Philly next year. 

I wouldn’t doubt if Joe went to Anaheim and they cut Brad loose there.

[cruzer1 188]

6 hours ago, TigerNation said:

What the **** does he mean by famous?

A famous prospect is one who's been followed/scouted throughout high school and summer showcases like perfect game, etc. by most of baseball.

[Casimir 1,544]

11 hours ago, sabretooth said:

This is a "best-case" scenario:

- they draft Tork and he is a 3+ WAR player by 2023

- Greene is a 3+ WAR player by 2023 and somehow he and Tork can find spaces on the field without hurting team defense

- Mize and Manning kill it and are 3+ WAR players by 2021, and one of them becomes a top-level pitcher (5+ WAR) by 2023

So by 2023 they have two positional players who are giving them a total of 7+ WAR, and two pitchers who are giving them 9+ WAR, let's be generous and say that these four give them 17 WAR in 2023.  

That's 6.5 more WAR than the sum of the top four players on the team THIS YEAR (Boyd 3.7, Norris 2.9, Turnbull 2.3, and Shane Greene 1.7).  Even if they replaced the 5 worst players (who collectively cost the team -5 WAR), they would net 22 wins.  That's nice, but.....

Add 22 wins to the 2019 team and they STILL would struggle to reach 70 wins. 

Even if they have ANOTHER 110+ loss season in 2020 followed by ANOTHER top-5 pick "victory" in the draft in 2021 to add the the above four picks (assuming that the other four picks above blossom into on-field ML plus players, which is NO certain thing)....the 2021 top pick could add another couple of wins to the 5th best player slot on the team.....and with this year's roster you'd STILL need to improve by another 20 WINS to reach 90 wins.

Even if Paredes and one of the Castros work out as solid starters and Boyd and Turnbull and Norris are decent enough for a couple of years, it's not going to get them anywhere close to winning.

If we are counting on tanking/losing/drafting high and getting great front line players out of those top draft picks (which is the ONLY eventual/potential on-field benefit of tanking), we STILL need people in the front office who have talent and processes and tools to draft and develop beyond the top 5 picks, and who know how to build a Major League team, and who have an owner that actually is willing to spend the $$ to make it work.

I'll say it again, with Chris I and AA in charge: never.gonna.work.

I don't think anyone is arguing that they won't need to spend some money somewhere along the line.

And in addition to the major prospect pieces that you listed above, they are also going to need to find some other pieces in the draft after the first round or via international scouting or waivers or however else.  

[Casimir 1,544]

12 hours ago, chasfh said:

Mize was the (famous) consensus #1. No one was going miss on that one.

Hey chas, there's a phone call for you on line one, the guy says he's Mark Appel.

[Casimir 1,544]

14 hours ago, Motor City Sonics said:

Can we just please release JZ?    Just give him his money.   I can't take anymore.   I know it's slim pickens for next year's rotation, but I can't stand seeing a guy get paid to be that bad.  Worst Tiger Free Agent Signing EVER. 

He's on contract for next season.  The Tigers need innings pitched next season.  Might as well use him up for whatever he can offer.

[cmu97 27]

8 hours ago, chasfh said:

I wouldn’t doubt if Joe went to Anaheim and they cut Brad loose there.

I am pretty sure that ship has sailed. He didn't do well his first two stints as Manager of the Angels, and it took him 7 years to get another Managerial job after the Angels cut him loose the second time. Granted that was 20 years ago and times have changed, but I can't think of a manager who has ever had a third opportunity with the same club.

[LooseGoose 680]

15 minutes ago, cmu97 said:

I am pretty sure that ship has sailed. He didn't do well his first two stints as Manager of the Angels, and it took him 7 years to get another Managerial job after the Angels cut him loose the second time. Granted that was 20 years ago and times have changed, but I can't think of a manager who has ever had a third opportunity with the same club.

See Martin, Billy

[Tenacious D 373]

11 hours ago, TigerNation said:

Yeah Clemens and Manning both have pro athlete dads, but it's a little ridiculous to say they target famous people based on two such picks in three drafts. 

Meadows, too.  Still, a ridiculous comment.