OT - Avila Fired

About time. I couldn't take it any longer.

Start raiding the Cardinals organization. Then start peeking into Tampa.

The reason I'm so damn high on the Cards organization is this: The Cards seem to sit around 10th-13th in payroll in MLB on a regular basis (a few years where they're a bit higher), but they're not what any sane person would consider a "big payroll" team. They never burn the franchise to the ground. They haven't had a 90-loss season since 1990, and have 3 90-loss seasons since the end of World War I. They haven't lost 100 in a season since Ty Cobb was playing CF in Detroit...early in his career. And yet....they're in the thick of things in late September far more often than not. 

If the Tigers lose 100 this year, they will have as many 100-loss seasons in this century (4) as the Cardinals have had in their entire history, and they've been playing ball since 1882.

Didn't like the choice when Dave was canned. But gave him the benefit of the doubt on the JV trade. It looked promising enough (Perez was a 19 yr old pitcher with great stuff and good results in the minors). A flashy CF with a MLB dad (Cameron), and a strong defensive catcher (Rogers) who could be another Molina. Instead the pitcher will never see the bigs (injuries), the CF can't hit over 200, and the C is somehow out with Tommy John surgery.

More than bad trades, no organization has this much BAD LUCK with injuries - something in the player development and physical training is awry. Clean the damn house all the way down to scouting.

TB produces players and wins far more than a team without any money or fans. That's the place to find the next GM. 

Al's biggest FE signings:

1. Zimmerman (who was supposed to replace Mad Max) - 25 and 41 over 5 years with an ERA of around 5.50. 

2. Baez - who will give us .230 with some power and shoddy fielding (makes errors in the most critical situations)

3. Head case Rodriguez who gave us 8 starts and 1 win. Supposedly coming back soon but with a 5 year deal worth $77MM. He can just show up and throw 3-4 innings per start and be out of shape while collecting guaranteed money.

4. Meadows is a guy who seemed to be destroyed (27 HR last year - 0 this year). Injuries explain some of the problem but he was crap before the vertigo.

I'm for giving AJ another year and perhaps a longer deal. He isn't to blame for the full mess. Look at the crap he has to pencil in for the every day lineup. 

Spencer is hitting 197 in Toledo, same as Detroit. 

Baez was overrated and can't even handle the boos from sparse crowds.

Greene and the Castros and Haase are the only guys who might be able to carry the team for a few games. 

I liked his moves last year (suicide squeeze to win at least a few games) and aggressive play. 

Not sure why they waited until after the trade deadline...but about time!

I don't follow the Tigers all that closely anymore but Avila seemed like a guy who did a halfway-decent job drafting but otherwise was a mess.  Hopefully they pick up a better GM because this team should be better than it has been for the past 5-6 years.

Title says it well.

now get out there and hire Theo Epstein..  

Bye, Al.

This is bad news for Al’s trade partners.  

Long overdue. I don't know what Ilitch was thinking, except the same thing Avila was -- "do nothing, cross your fingers, and hope the team plays above its head to make you look good."

Good God, so many years of terrible results ... and the farm system is still almost empty. If I squint hard, I can see one possible path towards a good year (Meadows gets healthy, Greene, Baez, and Torkelson play up to expectations, everyone else hits close to their career best, and the pitching staff stays off the DL), but ... even then I don't see that as sustainable, or, frankly, likely.

I still can't believe that we had a pitching staff with Verlander, Scherzer (and another future Cy Young winner, Porcello), not to mention J.D. Martinez, Castellano, Upton, and on and on, all of which were traded or left for peanuts. How is that possible? How can you lose all those players for nothing? And it's not just in hindsight; even at the time I thought I must be missing something.

This needed to happen, but it'll probably be at least four years before we can hope for an actual good team. We have to start all over.

The Tigers have utilized the draft for years to load up on pitching.  Only in the last few years have they used top picks on position players.

Someone has to get on base and score runs...

In comparison to Dave he's been a disaster. To trade away so much talent for basically nothing is soul crushing. Boy do I miss the days of Dombrowski completely fleecing someone in a trade. Injuries have had a huge impact on this season, so that's out of his control, but not a single signing has worked out. Of course Baez is a bum, Parades is smashing homers, Meadows is in a complete career free fall, Rodriguez is on some vision quest, Tork forgot how to hit a baseball, the whole rotation has missed almost the whole season, and the guys that overachieved last year came back to earth this year. What a year of crap luck. It was not meant to be, yet.