MONDAY MUSINGS

/ totallytigersblog

by Holly Horning

Today, it’s about quick hits – bits of news that catch my radar during the week as well as connecting the dots re ongoing stories.  Even the quirky.

So let’s get to it!  Here are the most interesting topics that hit my radar over the past week………..

Chris Ilitch can’t seem to get a break.  I get the dislike that many fans have for him but I don’t think the full story has been written on him yet. I’m reserving judgement for another year or two to see what he does once this team rebuilds a little more. 

In most cases, every owner is going have their good and bad points. It’s a love-hate relationship that fans have with them.

Take for example the universal social media comment that he is “cheap” and won’t spend on free agents.  They ignore the fact that he’s spent millions on improving, upgrading and expanding the entire franchise and finally hiring top people to oversee the development and coaching of players.

Nor do they remember that Ilitch spent $243 mill back in 2022 on free agents.  The Tigers shelled out the 4th highest contract amounts that year.

Potentially, Ilitch is hesitant to pay big bucks because he’s afraid of getting burned again.  Maybe he wants to see more of Scott Harris’ track record before committing.  Or maybe Harris has told him this team needs so much development – that the lineup is simply one big question mark at this point.

But let’s also include the common fan post about how Chris isn’t interested in baseball.  Would someone spend all that money improving the overall organization if he wasn’t?

Ilitch has also been traveling to a number of away games.  At some of them, he is sitting with Ryan Garko, now Assistant GM.  Last week, he was in Atlanta.

It was explained several times (just a tad suspicious) that he was there visiting a friend, but really, was this a coincidence?  And the fact that he took in several games between the Tigers and Braves while there.

We’ve come to know that Ilitch is not at all like his dad but he plays his cards very close to his vest.  What many consider him being aloof is maybe simply good business sense.  Or that he prefers to be in the shadows or seen as an enigma.  Quite frankly, it’s a good business strategy. Keep ’em guessing.

The fact that he’s going to other stadiums with Front Office execs to watch the Tigers indicates that there is something going on.  And if he’s traveling to watch his team, one can also assume that he’s also taking in games at home.  Just not advertising his presence.

Personal feelings about someone are fine but let’s not ignore the possible facts, explanations or scenarios that may explain someone’s behavior.

A national survey that polled sports writers recently came out about the new City Connect uniforms.  All – save for 2 teams that are not wearing them – have now been introduced.

And ranked.

You may not be shocked to know that the Tigers’ uniforms came in #27 out of 28 teams.

The most often heard comments were about the tire marks running up the jerseys.  That the players appeared to have been run over by cars.  Some may say rather symbolic of where this organization has been.

Others said there was too much car stuff plastered everywhere.  Several writers stated that all that was missing was a license plate logo on the jersey backs with each player’s name.

It’s official – the Tigers are now recognized as having historically the worst group of shortstops every year going back to 2016.  Their bWAR production has failed to be positive in any of those years. 

This year is particularly bad.  Even the White Sox are better than the Tigers.  Detroit is sitting at the very bottom with a stat that is twice as worse as the next closest team, the Marlins.

To make it worse, their SS’s collective offense is close to setting an MLB record.  Using sOPS+, the SSs score 31 with the MLB average sitting at 100.  What this means is that the collective group of Tiger SSs are producing less than one-third of what the average MLB team is doing.  No other oganization is even close.

Javier Baez is responsible for the vast majority of it.  His OPS ranks dead last in all of MLB – not just SSs.

Can the Tigers possibly keep him next year?  If they did, it would send a very bad message.  Very bad.

The obstacle to overcome is that the Tigers have no one near ready to take over.  Gage Workman is considered to be the closest but he’s not expected to arrive until 2026 – and only if all goes well.

How the Tigers handle this significant problem is going to tell us a lot about their sense of urgency to become competitive.

Which one of these stories resonated the most with you?

It’s a tie!

from Denny S.: “It pains me to watch the Tigers right now, yet I am not throwing in the towel and jumping on wild trades hoping we see immediate improvement. What if Torkelson had continued to hit this year as he had last year and Carpenter was not injured. Take any club and remove their two best hitters and ask yourself how would that team be doing. Excellent starting pitching is very rare and the Tigers have three pretty strong starters. A good starter can win every five days. Can a good hitter give you a win once in five days, if we have mediocre pitching.”

from ToledoBandito: “I voted for Keith to 1 B and Bring up Jung for 2B, But only if this is the long term plan for the future. If Keith cannot eventually hit MLB pitching, or if Jung cannot learn to hit MLB pitching, the Tigers are in trouble. From Whizz Wisnewski, “Maybe if Hinch had MLB quality players, shuffling them around to create minor advantages wouldn’t need to happen”! “

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31 thoughts on “MONDAY MUSINGS”

  1. Wow, who would have thought we would be yearning for the days of offensive weapons such as Brinkman, Oyler, Gutierrez, and Veryzer? Thank our lucky stars Gage Workman is on the way and should his predicted arrival date be accurate, he’ll only be 26 turning 27 years of age shortly after arrival! I say we should consider an immediate contract extension at such time as it will probably be his ‘walk’ year!

    Liked by 1 person

    • Hi, Andy – Great question. I’m going by what the majority of analysts are saying and I think they are picking the long-term solution in Workman. The scouting on Navigato is that he has no “stand out” tools and he’s profiling more as potential utility. He also doesn’t appear in the top prospects lists. But never say never – there have been a number of players who have come out of nowhere and are doing well in Detroit. – Holly

      Liked by 3 people

  3. I think it’s fair to ask whether the Tigers are hurting their essential brand equity by wearing City Connects so often. Ours is a well-established look that’s been driving hundreds of millions, maybe even billions, of dollars in merchandise sales over the years. By wearing City Connects practically every game, are they not basically repudiating the look that they have spent more than a century cultivating?

    Liked by 2 people

    • The mantra was to wear them only on Friday night home games. But when they saw victory in them, they let the next days pitcher decide if they would continue while on winning streak. So only on a streak from a Friday home win, will you see them on consecutive days.

      Liked by 1 person

  4. Ilitch may not be cheap and may not even be disinterested, but his problem, and therefore ours, is he lacks the passion to win that is required in sports. 

    Liked by 6 people

  5. I stand by all my previous comments including Illitch doesn’t like baseball, which was told to me by a former Detroit Tiger. That Illitch is cheap as evidenced by our lowly $103M team salary, $60M below league average and that the tire track unis represent 10 years of getting run over. In those 10 years, San Fran and Baltimore have been tore down and rebuilt while we have had the 5th worst winning percentage.

    Liked by 5 people

    • Hi, All – This isn’t a defense of Ilitch but I have to play Devil’s Advocate here about payroll. (For the record, the Tigers’ payroll is $107 mill and the MLB average payroll is $110 mill.) It’s important that apples be compared to apples because a team’s roster situation can vary and thus the payroll would vary, too.)

      If a team states it is building from within by developing players, isn’t it impossible to have a high payroll if the roster is mostly young and under team control? A full 19 out of the 35 players who have seen Detroit this year are making MLB minimum. When the Astros won the World Series, they did so with a low payroll because the majority of their roster was young and under team control.

      When you have these conditions, the only way you are going to raise payroll is by signing free agents. And that is the dilemma. When a team doesn’t have a core of players, how do you know what free agents to sign? Is the Tigers payroll a creation by owner or is it the result of rebuilding a roster with players under team control? – Holly

      Liked by 5 people

      • The declaration that we weren’t going to sign anyone that would block a young player’s development was a smokescreen to not spending money. The young players we were to develop are either getting platooned with veterans or sent down. We could’ve easily signed Matt Chapman for third, JD Martinez to DH and drafted Wyatt Langford instead of Urshela, Canha and Clark.

        Liked by 6 people

        • I am not sure “easily” is a word I would associate with signing Chapman and JD. The Tigers surely missed on Langford, but signing Clark below slot supposedly allowed them to sign McGonigle.

          Liked by 2 people

    • The Tigers are number uno with MLB’s worst winning percentage since 2015 according to Statmuse and are virtually assured of maintaining our lofty status through the at least the end of the 2025 MLB season should the ineptitude continue.

      Liked by 5 people

      • Hi Phil. not sure if you saw a post of mine before, but I looked back 40 years and found that the Tigers have worse W/L records against every team in our division except KC, yet KC won a WS in 2015. This isn’t just a 10 year issue.

        Liked by 5 people

  6. Chris said WCF owner of the lions from 1962 to a few years ago, not his father, was his roll mode for Detroit market ownership. Watching Chris and Steve’s wings over the last decade tells us everything. And the wings are a large market hockey franchise.

    Liked by 3 people

  7. I don’t think Ilitch has earned the trust and patience of the fans. No other team is in year 7 or 8 of a rebuild talking about maybe signing free agents in 2026. That is expecting a lot from fans.

    Liked by 11 people

  8. Continuously fielding losing teams that play bad baseball is the main reason fans disrespect Illitch, and presiding over the tear down / tanking made it worse. For me it was holding onto Avila far too long then throwing him under the bus at the presser after he terminated him. I am not confident he passionately follows the team as closely as the average poster on this site, let alone Holly.

    Liked by 5 people

    • Hi, All – Again, the purpose of the Chris Ilitch post was not one of defense but an invitation to consider multiple explanations for his actions. What we see on the surface may in fact be due to situations created by others.

      For example, to reiterate, Chris does not own the team. It is owned by a trust that includes multiple family members who all have a say in how the team is run. It is believed that the beneficiary of the trust is his mom, Marian, who cannot run the team because of her casino ownership. Chris is simply the figurehead and it is also believed that he enacts what the family votes for and wants. Simply, this is not all coming from him.

      For example, why did the Tigers hang onto Al Avila for so long? Potentially it is because Mr. I loved Al and treated him like one of his own sons. It was said that Avila was often at their home and he was favored over Dave Dombrowski by the Ilitches. There was a very close connection between the family and Avila. Potentially it was the family, not Chris, who didn’t want him fired for personal, not professional reasons.

      As I mentioned in the blog, yes, Ilitch has baggage with the fans but I believe the story about his stewardship is not yet fully written. Digging the Tigers out of the red due to his father’s overspending, righting an outdated franchise and the complications caused by Covid have certainly done their damage but the next couple of years may just tell the real story. – Holly

      Liked by 6 people

    • Holding onto Avila who was in way over his head to do the rebuild was a horrible decision and set this team back at least 5 years. We got nothing for our veterans in trade and didn’t do a good job developing the players we got in trade or drafted. Add bad free agent signings and here we are.

      Liked by 5 people

  10. Mike Ilitch bought the Tigers in 1992. When did they start to get better? I think it was a least a decade later. I don’t think it was because we had a bunch of home grown talent. I think that his son has been more involved then his dad ever was.

    Liked by 1 person

  11. Holly’s analysis of CI seems objectively correct. To me, CI’s biggest mistake was believing in Avila, including the $242M spent on poor free agent deals. CI then hired the “anti-Avila” when selecting Harris.

    Liked by 5 people

    • Jim, a sizeable amount of that $243M was not ever “spent” because ERod and Chafin thankfully opted out. That’s why I look at annual payroll which Chris has hacked way down from his dad’s win at any cost years. We never see the team’s actual bottom line of course.

      Liked by 1 person

  12. Holly, appreciate you reminding us of just how much Illitch has been investing into the facilities – operations – support personnel side of the ballclub. When you see what is going on on the field we too easily forget. However, there is another take that it best prepares the club for sale, kind of like improvements on upgrades to make a house more attractive to potential buyers… just saying (mostly wishing)

    Liked by 4 people

  13. I think Cleveland is the blueprint that Chris would like to follow – keep payroll in the bottom third of the league and develop young talent. The biggest frustration is seeing teams like Cleveland and Baltimore having stellar seasons with talent blossoming all over the roster while the Tigers scuffle along. The fact he kept Al Avila around as long as he did does make me question his acumen as a MLB owner.

    Liked by 3 people

  14. Chris Ilitch was probably in Atlanta checking out “Battery Park” aka “The Battery Atlanta”. It’s a big area surrounding the ballpark with hotels, shopping, dining etc. Good to see him sitting with Garko, everyone can learn something from him.

    Liked by 4 people

    • I think your explanation for the trip is very plausible. Watching the game with Garko was probably more of a “while I’m down here” sort of thing, but we don’t know.

      Like

  15. Traditionally, building a championship (the guys here wouldn’t let me say competitive) team starts with above average players up the middle. Shortstop, catcher, and Centerfield especially. The Tigers have no one for either of the 3 positions and Colt Keith seemingly for 2B. 😳

    Liked by 2 people

  16. I find myself wondering if Chris only really started paying close attention around 2021, beginning with his approval of Bream’s managerial choice, and followed by Hinch’s complaints about poor player development that, imo, led to Littlefield’s demotion and Garko’s hiring. That may also be when he started to doubt the family’s trust in Avila, which led to a rude awakening, and the firing of Al, in 2022. I agree with Holly – that Chris’ story with the Tigers has yet to play out, and that he may actually be trying to fix a mess that was years, even decades, in the making.

    Liked by 3 people

    • The average fan spends little time considering what strides the organization has made beyond the roster. Its not sexy enough. Scott Harris now has the difficult task of working for an owner who not too long ago got seriously burned by an incompetent GM who he trusted with his money.

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