LGRW_9 said:

Who's available? I suppose Gibby or Trammel come to mind. What about Lance Parrish? Haven't heard how he's done at AA level. What experienced managers are available outside the organization?

Fair or not, this team needs a change.

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I mentioned this the other day for those who want Leyland back or Gibson.
Leyland is older and has said repeatedly he was done managing. Although he might return for the rest of this year only if they asked him. I could se that scenario. Gibby might be comfortable enough with his new gig and the Parkinson health problem could be a deterrent.
Need someone new for sure.

I don't think firing Ausmus makes this team any better but we have a bunch of experienced managers and good candidates in house. I'd think we'd give a shot to Omar or Lloyd

If he gets fired it will be Lloyd. That's the reason they hired him.

I suspect if he does get canned, whoever takes his place will get canned after the season. But I don't think Avila and/or Ilitch has the same thoughts about Brad as we do.

Firing Ausmus does not change the talent, but it certainly holds someone accountable. The deck hands maybe the ones that causes a ship to go aground, but it is the captain that is held accountable.

Does anyone think the team would continue to make boneheaded baserunning mistakes if someone like Gibby was manager?

Rebbiv said:

Firing Ausmus does not change the talent, but it certainly holds someone accountable. The deck hands maybe the ones that causes a ship to go aground, but it is the captain that is held accountable.

Does anyone think the team would continue to make boneheaded baserunning mistakes if someone like Gibby was manager?

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Miggy is the main culprit and he was awful under leyland, awful under Ausmus and he'd be awful under the next manager.

Also, shouldn't we credit or blame the 1st base and 3rd base coaches more than the managers?

Sbee said:

Miggy is the main culprit and he was awful under leyland, awful under Ausmus and he'd be awful under the next manager.

Also, shouldn't we credit or blame the 1st base and 3rd base coaches more than the managers?

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I remember when we had a 3rd base coach that was so bad that we promoted him to bench coach

Sbee said:

Miggy is the main culprit and he was awful under leyland, awful under Ausmus and he'd be awful under the next manager.

Also, shouldn't we credit or blame the 1st base and 3rd base coaches more than the managers?

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The manager sets the standards and is the arbitrator of how those standards are enforced (or not enforced). I was just using baserunning as one facet of this team where the players are failing miserably, and yet coaches/manager do not appear to be correcting or addressing the issue.

Back in the day, players would hold a kangaroo court to address these things. I don't think the Tigers hold such a thing.

And I disagree with Miggy being the main culprit. At times, it appears that Iggy is the one getting thrown out the most.

Bottom line here is that while I agree to some extent that a manager has little to do with the talent, he is responsible for the climate. Aumus, IMHO, isn't even an average in game manager. He is near the bottom of probably most lists. And while replacing him with someone like McClendon doesn't improve the talent, it can send a message to the players.

In 2010, Buck Showalter took over a 32-73 .305 WPCT Orioles team and finished 34-23 .596 WPCT. Did he change the talent?

Rebbiv said:

The manager sets the standards and is the arbitrator of how those standards are enforced (or not enforced). I was just using baserunning as one facet of this team where the players are failing miserably, and yet coaches/manager do not appear to be correcting or addressing the issue.

Back in the day, players would hold a kangaroo court to address these things. I don't think the Tigers hold such a thing.

And I disagree with Miggy being the main culprit. At times, it appears that Iggy is the one getting thrown out the most.

Bottom line here is that while I agree to some extent that a manager has little to do with the talent, he is responsible for the climate. Aumus, IMHO, isn't even an average in game manager. He is near the bottom of probably most lists. And while replacing him with someone like McClendon doesn't improve the talent, it can send a message to the players.

In 2010, Buck Showalter took over a 32-73 .305 WPCT Orioles team and finished 34-23 .596 WPCT. Did he change the talent?

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I get the Showalter reference but who knows what happened with that team? Talent does change from time to time with getting injured players back or bringing someone up from the minors. Maybe the talent changed, maybe it didn't but I assume there are countless examples of teams that fired their manager mid season and continued to suck throughout the year.

We could put an orange traffic barrel in the dugout to replace Brad, and it would would be an upgrade.

kingofdetroit57 said:

We could put an orange traffic barrel in the dugout to replace Brad, and it would would be an upgrade.

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I agree, anyone else would make Upton, JD, and Cabrera start to hit around their historical averages and lower the team ERA by half of a run

Sbee said:

I agree, anyone else would make Upton, JD, and Cabrera start to hit around their historical averages and lower the team ERA by half of a run

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The players are their own problem. Ausmus hasn't shown me anything to say he's a good MLB manager. That debacle last week against Washington (the game where we lost by walk-off HR) where he burned three bench players to do nothing was a shining example of his incompetence. The national announcers went on for a while about how stupid those moves were.

Sbee said:

I agree, anyone else would make Upton, JD, and Cabrera start to hit around their historical averages and lower the team ERA by half of a run

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So you are completely satisfied with Ausmus as the manager?

And how do you explain that most all the Tigers are under-performing? Bad luck?

Personally, I never bought into the hype for this team and most of the recent acquisitions. I do not fault Ausmus for that, that is on the GM/GMs. And some of the performance issues can be traced to the Hitting and/or Pitching coaches. It also is a reflection of the organizational philosophies (i.e. Aggressive hitting).

Sometimes a dramatic move wakes the players up. I think they believe they can just play there way out of what is going on. I don't think they can, without somehow being held accountable. Ausmus getting fired might actually do that. Managers have been fired for far worse.

And now that Freddie Gonzalez is available...

Rebbiv said:

So you are completely satisfied with Ausmus as the manager?

And how do you explain that most all the Tigers are under-performing? Bad luck?

Personally, I never bought into the hype for this team and most of the recent acquisitions. I do not fault Ausmus for that, that is on the GM/GMs. And some of the performance issues can be traced to the Hitting and/or Pitching coaches. It also is a reflection of the organizational philosophies (i.e. Aggressive hitting).

Sometimes a dramatic move wakes the players up. I think they believe they can just play there way out of what is going on. I don't think they can, without somehow being held accountable. Ausmus getting fired might actually do that. Managers have been fired for far worse.

And now that Freddie Gonzalez is available...

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Satisfied with Ausmus? I guess so, as long as he doesn't lose the clubhouse and follows basic strategy I'm ok with him.

There are a ton of reasons why this team is underperforming, mainly the fact that we have one starting pitcher who's performing well and he's ahead of his career averages, the other 4/5 of the rotation has been awful. That's the most glaring weakness the team has. I don't hear a lot of people clamoring for Rick Dubee to be fired though.

The offense has it's own problems, there are two hitters that are greatly exceeding expectations in Castellanos and Victor Martinez, you could throw Kinsler in there to a lesser extent. The rest of the lineup is either underperforming (JD, Miggy, Upton) or downright awful to begin with but worse than expected (Iglesias, McCan't, Gose). The team is 13th in the majors in runs scored, not terrible but to win with the pitching we have they need to be closer to top 5.

The bullpen has been a bit of a mess but i blame the starters for that, if the starters routinely go 6+ the bullpen will be fine. As the starters go, so goes the bullpen for the most part.

My point about Ausmus is that he really doesn't matter, I think so much of the talk on this board and sports radio being dedicated to him is pointless. He isn't the worlds best but that's hard to quantify. He's really the least of the tigers problems but he's what's on everyone's mind, it was the same with Leyland for a while, there was also a fascination with the last guy on the roster like Inge, Raburn, Kelly, etc. I don't know if it's just Tigers fans but we seem to have a laser focus on the insignificant problems.

If you're advocating making a change for the sake of change, ok, whatever. I don't think it will make any significant change in this teams performance. they may play better after he's fired, they likely will but I think that's a result of players returning to their historical averages. To think that a batter pitcher matchup is going to greatly change because of who's in the dugout is naive at best, I actually expect more from you Rebbiv since you're great with tangible matters. Any real improvement after Ausmus will be a more of a correlation vs causation IMO.

Ausmus has continually demonstrated his lack of imagination and knowledge about his players, their limitations and how to use them. His "inning-guy" philosophy for relievers is lazy and reactive. Ignoring or discounting simple metrics about the difference in pitcher performance based on who is catching; the 2014 botching of Sanchez in the ALDS and the saving of Price for G3 in that series, the "we need him for extra-innings", and the recent mistakes vs. Wash ... it's a pattern that indicates he has no idea what he's doing much of the time.

byco42 said:

Ausmus has continually demonstrated his lack of imagination and knowledge about his players, their limitations and how to use them. His "inning-guy" philosophy for relievers is lazy and reactive. Ignoring or discounting simple metrics about the difference in pitcher performance based on who is catching; the 2014 botching of Sanchez in the ALDS and the saving of Price for G3 in that series, the "we need him for extra-innings", and the recent mistakes vs. Wash ... it's a pattern that indicates he has no idea what he's doing much of the time.

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The "inning guy" strategy is rampant around baseball unfortunately and it's dictated by agents as much as anything else. I hate the idea of using your closer with a 3 run lead with 6-7-8 coming up but everyone does it. I agree on using relievers in different roles but that's not going to change unless you plan on hiring Joe Maddon from the Cubs.

You can always second guess and find managerial decisions that don't work, I get that, I remember having these same discussions with you after the ACLS against Boston as well. In the end, when the team wins, the players get the credit, when they lose the manager gets the blame, it's the mob mentality we're dealing with now. I just figured that knowledgeable baseball fans would be immune to this. You can cite a few tactical moves that backfired but of course I can come up with many more relevant reasons why the team has failed.

Laser focus on the insignificant

I think the main issue with this team has been an ongoing issue, lack of a leader (player). Someone to bang some heads. VMart s too nice, Miggy doesn't care enough (too happy). McCann hasn't been around long enough and can't hit so no one will listen to him. Salty is more like a salt substitute. Iggy irrates me more than anyone, including Upton. He is a crappy base runner, lazy, and immature.

Manager? Ausmus is horrible, he doesn't identify with the players and comes off as arrogant. I don't think the players respect him. I would broom all of them, none of Leyland's regime at all, including Lloyd. I would call Ron Washington and see if he has got his personal act together because that guy can manage. He would never put up with this crap. Other than him, I would have to do some research.

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jdeb said:

I think the main issue with this team has been an ongoing issue, lack of a leader (player). Someone to bang some heads. VMart s too nice, Miggy doesn't care enough (too happy). McCann hasn't been around long enough and can't hit so no one will listen to him. Salty is more like a salt substitute. Iggy irrates me more than anyone, including Upton. He is a crappy base runner, lazy, and immature.

Manager? Ausmus is horrible, he doesn't identify with the players and comes off as arrogant. I don't think the players respect him. I would broom all of them, none of Leyland's regime at all, including Lloyd. I would call Ron Washington and see if he has got his personal act together because that guy can manage. He would never put up with this crap. Other than him, I would have to do some research.

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the main issue with this team has been horrible starting pitching, we're 24th in ERA but we have 3 starters making about 72 million combined. That is simply not acceptable and I don't think that having someone in the clubhouse get in their face is going to change that. When your starters ERA's are 2.55, 4.71, 5.80, 5.91 and 6.28 you could have Jesus Christ himself manage this team and you'd be below .500

Sbee said:

The "inning guy" strategy is rampant around baseball unfortunately and it's dictated by agents as much as anything else. I hate the idea of using your closer with a 3 run lead with 6-7-8 coming up but everyone does it. I agree on using relievers in different roles but that's not going to change unless you plan on hiring Joe Maddon from the Cubs.

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Or learning from a guy like Maddon. Or from Sparky Anderson, who hated advanced stats, but managed to apply them in principle, especially when it came to using relievers.

You can always second guess and find managerial decisions that don't work, I get that, I remember having these same discussions with you after the ACLS against Boston as well. In the end, when the team wins, the players get the credit, when they lose the manager gets the blame, it's the mob mentality we're dealing with now. I just figured that knowledgeable baseball fans would be immune to this. You can cite a few tactical moves that backfired but of course I can come up with many more relevant reasons why the team has failed.

Laser focus on the insignificant

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I don't second guess; I make opinions as circumstances change. Pulling Sanchez after 30 pitches and two 1-2-3 innings was ill-advised. Not making Price the G2 starter was plain dumb. Not knowing that Al Al who Ausmus said was "a sixth-inning guy and occasionally the seventh" during the ALDS had actually these splits in 2014: 6th - 7.2 innings, 7th - 20.2, 8th - 15.1, 9th - 10.2.

“Usually when we use Alby, it’s earlier in the game, sixth inning, occasionally seventh inning,” Ausmus said.

Agreed that players make a manager look better or worse, but Ausmus is not suited to manage at this level. These decisions likely cost the Tigers a playoff-round win. Nothing insignificant about them.