OT: Death, Taxes, and K-Rod
The depressing nature of all 3 of these things remains constant.
The Tigers rally twice, but even when he isn't the closer, K-Rod manages to lose Detroit the game. How many more appearances will he have in a Tigers uniform?
Unless they can come up with some sort of mechanics issue or an injury, I imagine that was his last outing. He is throwing a 4 seam fastball in the mid 80s with no control. Everything about that scenario says he should be cut.
I'm so fucking pissed off at the tigers. Fire everybody.
They have a great young rotation. They have some decent young position players. If this fucking joke of a team had a fucking bullpen they'd be a playoff team. Its sad.
"Great young rotation" is a serious stretch. Verlander is good but not young, and he hasn't been himself this year. Fulmer is very good, Norris is wildly inconsistent, Boyd is mediocre, Zimmermann is awful. Overall, it's a pretty average rotation.
He seems to have regained some velocity as well. Give him a few more outings and he will get locked in.
Even if this were 100% accurate, it doesn't make him young...or cheap. The fact is that JV is both past his prime and an extreme burden on the payroll.
The Tigers would be good to dump everyone save for a few key young guys and Miggy (if they dealt Miggy for prospects they would rightfully lose 50% of the fan base). Keep Fulmer, Miggy, and JD. Trade everyone else or let them walk, or cut their ass. Tigers need two things right now 1) young talent and 2) money. Get rid of everyone that a contender wants at the trade deadline and find a way to move everyone else in the offseason.
Also, just my wish list, it would be nice to have a catcher that can hit over two fucking hundred and that isn't the son of the GM (Avila won't be hitting over .250 by year's end obviously).
you realize JV was 2nd in the cy young voting last year? he ain't a burden at all at his salary if finishes top 10 in cy young voting.
They've also given up the third most walks among starting rotations. It's not a good rotation this season thus far.
After a rocky start, the bullpen has pitching well lately. The exceptions there are K-Rod and Anibal. Ausmus has given them chances to turn things around (which, given the amount of money we are paying them, is the responsible thing to do), but he has been putting them in lower and lower leverage situations, which is smart since they get shelled every time they go out. Last night, Ausmus really didn't have an option; it was either K-Rod or Anibal for that last inning. I have zero confidence that the outcome would have been any different if Anibal had gone out there.
And last night is on the offense just as much as any of the pitching staff. They had multiple opportunities to win the game and couldn't pull through. Granted, they made some great comebacks to even keep us in the game.
The sore spot on the season has been the start rotation. As Stringer Bell noted, Verlander and Fulmer are our two best starters right now, and Verlander has been average at best so far. Boyd doesn't look like he'll ever be more than an average starter at best. Norris has the potential, but he has been too inconsistent. ZImmerman has just fallen off the table. He is terrible. The rotation is more of a concern to me than the bullpen right now.
Has anyone had worse luck (or plain bad decision-making) when selecting high-priced pitchers?
Yeah, I think it's more bad luck than bad decision making, at least when looking at Sanchez and Zimmerman. They both had solid track records with their former teams, along with solid peripherals to support their production. I don't have stats to prove my point, but anecdotally, it seems that starting pitchers tend to struggle when moving from the NL to the AL. Anibal still had 2 years of solid production for Detroit, but he hasn't been the same since he started facing injuries.
In hindsight, we would have been better off ponying up to keep Porcello, and never going after Zimmerman. Their salaries are very similar. The moves to dump Price and Cespedes for the prospects we got were still very good; I still have hope that Norris can right the ship and be a productive starter.
The K-Rod signing wasn't all that bad. He was effective last year. The downside to his story is probably moreso reflective of the Tigers' alternative closer options. Rondon seemed to be the heir apparent, but he never got his control in line. Justin Wilson seems promising, but I don't see him being a long term option as a closer.
In truth, the bullpen has actually been very good, espescially in last 20 games. K Rod and Sanchez obviously have been horrid, but otherwise they've been better than well over half of AL teams.
Guy was pretty good in the 2002 playoffs with the Angels. But, yeah that doesn't help you now. I'm also been boozing for 13 innings at the Tigs game. Eat em' up!
It's hard for me to keep up with baseball living in Korea. I watched a game a couple weeks ago and thought, "Is that K-Rod? Wasn't he the best closer in the game, but like 20 years ago?" And then I watched him blow the lead and lose the game. That's still the only game I've seen this season.
Sadly then, most of the games played out just like this one. You haven't missed anything.
RIP eat em up tigers.
May James Van Horn rest in peace indeed.
Now hang up.
Hello?
I checked out on them about a week ago. The way the bullpen is going, I just can't get emotionally invested with them. Too much going on. I check periodically to see how they do, but that's about it.
Why did I know Wilson would give up the tying home run in the top of the 9th? He was so jacked by the prior strike out, I just knew he was going to groove a fast ball. I know I'm not the only one who knew it, or at least felt it, too. I really think a better manager than Ausmus would have gone out there and reminded Wilson not to groove one and to keep it low. I know, easy to second guess. Still, I think Ausmus is not in the same league as a Leyland or Gardenhire or Scioscia.
But you are right, that was a tough ass pitch to hit out.
I disagree. To me, the pitch was letter high, not in his eyes or at his shoulders. To a hitter, a fastball there--at the letters out over the plate--is easy (easier) to hit hard, like a hanging curve is easy to hit hard. A fastball low and away or hard and in are more difficult to handle for a hitter. Wilson's pitch was the perfect sweet spot for Trumbo. IMHO.
he didn't groove that.
The pitch that Trumbo hit was practically at his eyes. It was not grooved. You want a perfect example of a grooved fastball? Try the one that JD hit for his salami: center cut at the belt.
That was a groove'd fastball. It was letter high, straight (looked like a cutter that didn't cut because Wilson was jacked up and tried to throw too hard, causing his arm to lag and the ball to sail high), to a big righty power hitter. That's a homer or gapper almost every time. Why are pitchers always told to keep the ball low in the strike-zone?, because it's harder to hit. A high fastball, out over the plate, especially one at the letters, is sweet meat to a hitter. If you think a grooved fastball is a strike at the knees, that's called a great pitch. Wilson's pitch was right in Trumbo's wheelhouse, IMO. Difference in semantics, it seems.
change locations...
Speed it up, slow it down, inside, outside, high, low, straight, curve... The pitch he threw was out of the strike zone & usually results in a whiff. The high hard one is universally known to be a great strikeout pitch. Did you have the benefit of watching it on replay?
If you were at the game & only seen it once I could understand.
the tigers' bullpen is officially one of the 666 planes of hell in dante's inferno.
And sadly, as the Tiger's players lose their battles with Father Time, so does an exciting era of Tiger baseball. BTW, did Midgy get a hit? (Seriously, I haven't seen the box score). We've bemoaned the bull pen, but this season Cabrerra has been uncharacteristically terrible at the plate. That's a reason right there why they are hovering around .500 even with many of the youngsters performing well.
The bitch of it all is that the last time Detroit won a game in the World Series was Game 5 of 1984. We're a decade and counting of the Tigers being a consistent (if not every season) contender, with two World Series appearances, and getting swept both times. The Royals had two, maybe three seasons of being a contender, made the Series twice, and one the whole thing once. But, I'm not bitter <sarcasm mark>
2006 Tigers did win Game 2 of the World Series vs St. Louis to tie up the series at the time. I believe it was the Kenny Rogers game where he possibly had pine tar on the brim of his cap.
in 2006.
Miggy was on base five times last night: 2-for-4 at the plate with two walks and a HBP. You want to get mad at someone in the lineup, that's fine, but Miguel shouldn't be at the top of the list.
BTW, the Tigers weren't swept in 2006.
Several things here I don't agree with. 1) Your Avatar, cool bro! You should just get negged for that on it's own. 2) Avila has not done a bad job as the Tigers GM. Obviously his ignoring the bullpen during the off-season is now coming back to bite him, but honestly, did any of us think that Anibal and K-Rod were going to be a trash heap....? Did any of us think Wilson was going to have the stuff to potentially be a full-time closer? That's a hot take, and Al probably needs at least another full season before you can say he has done a "bad job". 3) Minor league development has not been terrible. If you are a fan of the Tigers then you would know by now that we traded away a lot of our "developed" assets to create the offense and starting pitching rotation that has been pretty solid for the better part of the last decade. Our issues are not with development, the Tigers are now just starting to pay the price for mortgaging the farm. 4) "MLB franchises develop talent in the minors and then bring up the kids when they are ready!?" Come on man, srsly?
I legit miss Todd Jones.
Pelfrey, I will give you. Lowe, had been more than serviceable before he crapped the bed, not a bad signing at the time. Zimmerman, any team would have signed him and should have when he became available. The overpayment argument is a different story than him being a bad signing at the time. Aviles, spot-duty off the bench played in 68 games and batted .210. Mahtook, one year deal for $500,000 and is batting .184 through 17 games played. Are you really going to highlight two benchmob guys who signed one year deals.....? Nobody could have predicted that Sanchez and KRod were going to fall off as bad as they did, come on bro. I get that Avila will be judged by how they panned out, but again, I don't think any of us or any GM in baseball would have predicted that Sanchez and KRod were going to be unpitchable this season.