RAPID FIRE

By:  Holly Horning & Kurt Snyder

The off-season is a time when hires are made and potential rosters start to take shape. It’s a season of hope and often what happens behind the scenes is just as important as the changes we’ll be seeing on the field.

Today, Holly and Kurt take over as the Tigers’ GM. What moves would they make to improve the team? Each will make their own introductory statement explaining their rationale. And then, only 4 moves each, ranked in order of priority. All done with a maximum of 10 sentences to make it interesting.

The one thing they can’t change? The owner and GM. They stay.

As always, their answers aren’t shared until publication. Let’s see what they have to say….

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HOLLY

I subscribe to the same theory as Theo Epstein – change the culture/change the team as well as having the same decision-makers together for 10 years or more is no longer effective. It doesn’t matter what level of talent you have if you don’t have the right support system and keen brains behind it which is why I’m ignoring the roster altogether and I’m digging into the organization itself.

1. OVERHAUL THE MINOR LEAGUE LEADERSHIP

According to the latest studies just released, the Tigers rank #26 in maximizing their minor league talent which is just horrible and inexcusable considering how they purposely tanked for years in order to get those #1 draft picks. They’ve brought back all the old people to coach AAA, including Tom Prince, who played for Jim Leyland, is a FoJL and was hired to replace Doug Mientkiewicz on Leyland’s recommendation after he was fired from Pittsburgh. (See also #4.)

2. REFRESH THE FRONT OFFICE

Everyone in the Tigers’ Front Office comes from the same couple of organizations whose glory years were decades ago and their ways of doing business are just as old. Mixing in youth and a variety of viewpoints are must-haves and this team desperately needs to go out and poach talent from the top contenders (instead of hiring those who have been sitting in the unemployment line) like the Rays, Yankees, Dodgers, Cardinals and Cubs, just to name a few.

3. UPDATE AND MODERNIZE TRAINING AND CONDITIONING

There is absolutely no excuse to keep teaching old-school exercises and emphasize weight training as the be-all-and-end-all, while ignoring core strength, flexibility and overall conditioning that disciplines such as yoga and Pilates bring to the table and are being taught in every other organization. It’s ridiculous – and rather symbolic – to see a head trainer, the only one in MLB, struggling to climb a short flight of dugout stairs when every other team has a lean, chiseled trainer who sprints up the stairs and effortlessly jogs out to check on his injured players.

4. BREAK UP THE CLIQUE

Too many of the big decision-makers in the Front Office, along with “special advisors”, go back together 20-30+ years between their work with the Marlins, Pirates, decades with the Tigers – and even Montreal -, resulting in the oldest collective Front Office in MLB. Scott Bream should stay but Dave Littlefield has been a failure (Pittsburgh’s worst GM according to many reports) and needs to go, especially since he oversees the minor league system (VP Player Development) for Detroit.

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KURT

This franchise is 6 years into this rebuild and it may be time to shake things up, despite the fear of spending. Yes, conservative might be the way to go once again, but I don’t get to be GM very often, so let’s move the needle.

1. DEVELOP CULTURE AND RUN WITH IT

Continue the conversation that AJ has started in addressing the overall culture of the team. I think what he has described is pretty eye-opening and the Tigers must make sure it finds its way to every corner of the organization.

2. FIX PLAYER DEVELOPMENT ISSUES

Player development is lacking in the minor leagues and it needs to be addressed. Begin to evaluate every level of the minors and start clearing out what’s not working.

3. OVERHAUL TRAINING STAFF

Sit down with AJ and figure out what he needs in a training staff and clear out the rest. Once that is done, look at the rest of the organization and mirror the changes that have been made at the major league level.

4. MAKE A SPLASH

The top of the free agent class is still out there, and since 2015, we have watched this organization head downhill. Given the issues at catcher, let’s develop what we have but go sign the best and inject some talent and enthusiasm into this team and this city; make a short term offer to J.T. Realmuto.

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