Welcome to Detroit Sports Forum!

By joining our community, you'll be able to connect with fellow fans that live and breathe Detroit sports just like you!

Get Started
  • If you are no longer able to access your account since our recent switch from vBulletin to XenForo, you may need to reset your password via email. If you no longer have access to the email attached to your account, please fill out our contact form and we will assist you ASAP. Thanks for your continued support of DSF.

Spring Training

OBVIOUSLY your question is interesting to you but CLEARLY not as interesting to me. Just cause you care don't mean that I do, but I'll reply now.

They didn't do quite enough in the off season and last season they had a good year because the Tigers were absent and things often just broke their way, KC had a feeling of destiny about them. You'd watch them and things that shouldn't work did, plays that odds say are bad plays just seemed to work out, sure handed opponents made errors, etc.
I feel like KC is a team of small margins, they've got a great formula, balance, defense, hustle, etc. But, the thing about these sorts of teams is that blunt power greater talent beat them most of the time.
They over performed in 2014 (in part because the Tigers tanked in the playoffs), then over-over performed in 2015.

They remind me of the 2004 Pistons. I think that they just might miss the playoffs this year, actually. they certainly won't win 90 games.



Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but this is pretty far out. KC did not get lucky because the Tigers were bad, they were clearly the best team in the A.L. And I don't see how that has changed. I understand the Tigers fan in you wants to say the Tigers are better, or at least as good, but it would take an epic collapse (they do happen) for us to be better then KC in 2016.
 
OBVIOUSLY your question is interesting to you but CLEARLY not as interesting to me. Just cause you care don't mean that I do, but I'll reply now.

They didn't do quite enough in the off season and last season they had a good year because the Tigers were absent and things often just broke their way, KC had a feeling of destiny about them. You'd watch them and things that shouldn't work did, plays that odds say are bad plays just seemed to work out, sure handed opponents made errors, etc.
I feel like KC is a team of small margins, they've got a great formula, balance, defense, hustle, etc. But, the thing about these sorts of teams is that blunt power greater talent beat them most of the time.
They over performed in 2014 (in part because the Tigers tanked in the playoffs), then over-over performed in 2015.

They remind me of the 2004 Pistons. I think that they just might miss the playoffs this year, actually. they certainly won't win 90 games.

"Sorry KC, you just don't cut it."

2-11-eye.jpg
 
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but this is pretty far out. KC did not get lucky because the Tigers were bad, they were clearly the best team in the A.L. And I don't see how that has changed. I understand the Tigers fan in you wants to say the Tigers are better, or at least as good, but it would take an epic collapse (they do happen) for us to be better then KC in 2016.

That is cool, and we shall see, but KC is widely considered a "lucky" and good team. Luck generally runs out.

So, the Tigers record vs KC was 9-10, it should've been 5-14, KC should've destroyed the Tigers with starters like Lober, Ryan, limping Simon, shoulder strained Sanchez, etc., I mean, Rondon got two saves!:

  1. sorry that isn't impressive. Not. At. All.
  2. Healthy Tigers would've won a handful (3-5) more of those games at least with a Miggy hitting for more power, effective V-Mart, full on JV all season, with Pirce, Soria, and Cespedes not traded.
  3. KC's record would've been more like 86-76, good, but, they probably would've been neck and neck with the Tigers down the stretch and I probably would've lost the division.
  4. We could look at the players playing up on that team, the dip in pitching, we could go through their games last year (starting with the series) and find places where KC just got lucky time and time again. It was luck they made sure, and sometimes that luck did go against them, but watch KC and what you don't see is a power house. What you see is finesse. You don't see ridiculous talent, you see a scrappy team that finds ways to win. Those teams rarely have sustained multi-year runs. They do tend to have a surprising drop off.
 
2015 Kansas City DL

March Kris Medlen 60-day DL

April Luke Hochevar 15-day DL

April Tim Collins 15-day DL

April Alex Rios 15-day DL

April Greg Holland 15-day DL

May Alcides Escobar 7-day Concussion DL

May Eric Katz 15-day DL

May transferred Tim Collins from 15-day DL to 60-day DL

May Yordano Ventura 15-day DL

May Brian Flynn 60-day DL

May Jason Vargas 15-day DL

May Danny Duffy 15-day DL

June Jason Vargas (x2) 15-day DL

June Yordano Ventura (x2) 15-day DL

July Alex Gordon 15-day DL

July Jason Vargas (x3) 15-day DL

September transferred Jason Vargas from 15-day DL to 60-day DL


All teams have injuries. While losing someone like Tim Collins for the year might not mean anything outside of Kansas City, it still affected their team. Losing three to four (Ventura, Vargas, Duffy and Medlen) starting pitchers due to injuries at different points in the season wasn't helpful to the Royals either. And Cueto sucked in the regular season after being acquired from the Reds. Omar Infante played 2015 with bone chips in his elbow.

2015 Record versus AL Central Teams

KCR 44-32 .579 WPCT

DET 41-34 .547 WPCT


2015 Record against all other teams

KCR 51-35 .593 WPCT

DET 28-58 .326 WPCT


2015 Pythagorean Record

KCR 90-72 .556 WPCT
CLE 84-77 .522 WPCT
MIN 81-81 .500 WPCT
CHW 72-90 .444 WPCT
DET 69-92 .429 WPCT


Record after May 16th

KCR 72-53 .576 WPCT
CLE 67-59 .532 WPCT
MIN 62-63 .496 WPCT
CHW 60-69 .465 WPCT
DET 51-73 .411 WPCT


The difference between the DET and KCR in 2015 was about 21 wins. Did DET improve more than KCR by at least 21 games in the off season? And it isn't just KCR. They would have to leap frog over the other 3 teams as well.

In 2016, all teams will continue to have injuries. Guaranteed. What we won't know is who they will be and how they will be affected. Some teams will have replacement players fill the void, while others will have scrubs.


Volquez, Ventura and Kennedy probably are the Royals top 3 starters. They have Chris Young, Medlen, Duffy and Dillon Gee competing for the #4 and #5 starter slots. Losing Jason Vargas for most of 2015 and 2016 because of TJ surgery is unlucky for the Royals.
 
So are you saying that KC had comparable injuries to the Tigers?

V-Mart was replaced by V-Mart with one knee, and also out for an extended period.
The Tigers had ONE starter that pitched the whole season and he was supposedly nicked up and one of the worst starters in baseball. Price was only here for 4 months, JV pitched for 3 months (and the first month he was rusty), Greene for 2ish months. Even Kyle Lobstein had a DL stint. Two of the five starters at the end of the season were rookies who weren't even on the team before the deadline AND one of them had a DL sting!
Sanchez was nicked up all year and DLed for the end of the season.
Miggy was on the DL for 6 weeks and nicked up all year.
Iglesias top 3 average & OBP was on the DL for like a month
Davis was nicked up
Starting catcher DLed, then became the back up
Tigers lost their closer out of the gate.
One of the few effective relievers after Soria left, was shut down for a little while.
Their "next closer" was out for like 2 plus months and then was sent home for a mental health "DL."

Were I Al Avila I would've fired the training staff or brought in a new person to help straighten it out.

As for the 21 games. Is it 21 games? Or is your math overlooking something very important?
(Sorry to be a jerk, but you brought the nature of that question on yourself.)
My answer to your corrected question is, obviously, yes and then some.
 
Last edited:
Sometimes injuries help..

"Tigers lost their closer out of the gate." - This worked in our favor.
 
Sometimes injuries help..

"Tigers lost their closer out of the gate." - This worked in our favor.


Or Lou Gehrig might never been given an opportunity for a few more years.


A team has never not had a player put on the DL. And it usually are multiple players (not necessarily at the same time, but is rare for a team in June/July not to have at least 2 players).

Who of the 2016 Detroit Tigers will have injuries and how will that impact the team? Forecasting that no one will get hurt is illogical.
 
Not answering my point Reb.

Sure, I didn't know that no team had ever had a season without a DL stint, but anyone could easily expect that that is true without looking it up.

My claim is that the Tigers had it particularly bad last year -- the rejoinder of course is that it is age related, which is only so true. The statistical increase in DL likelihood goes up, as we've discussed, but it doesn't go up that much. Miggy's injuries, JVs issues, and V-Mart's injuries are not the norm for players in their thirties, they are just significantly less uncommon than for players 10 years younger.
Objectively, the Tigers have had a pretty bad string of luck regarding injuries, (younger players and older players out for full seasons) but more than that, they've also been built without balance and depth so that they could not absorb such injuries.

A well balanced team has a pen that can pick up a struggling rotation, an offense that can pick up a struggling pitching staff (and vice versa), defense that can scrap out a game with pitchers and hitters scuffle, and depth to make up for loss to injury.

Machado is better suited today than he was a year ago to step in for Iglesias.
Gose is a better back up for Maybin than Davis was for Gose or later Collins was for Davis and Gose. (Maybin is better than either Gose or Davis.)
Greene, if healthy, is better than Lobstein, Boyd is (I think) better than Farmer/Ryan, Fulmer is probably going to quickly prove to be better than Fulmer/Ryan or Lober.
The bull pen has the potential to fuel the biggest ERA turn around in baseball, if they perform as they showed they are able, this is a top 10 maybe top 5 in baseball pen.

The rotation is the biggest source of questions. JV is probably going to be JV, but Zimmermanis concerning, as is Pelfrey, and Norris is young.

But the offense is going to be insane. Top 5, easily if healthy.


My argument is that the Tigers are due for a year of lower end DL and injury impact, and that they have more depth at all positions than last years team did.

That is where DD always went wrong and where he went wrong in Boston this year; his stop in Boston is going to be his undoing, his rep will fall after this (but we'll see). It isn't just the WAR (cough flawed) of the starters, but the depth behind the starters. I really thought that the Tigers should've nabbed Price and went with Norris, Greene. But, that would've been a mistake, that said, I still think they should've nabbed Price but gotten someone else other than Mike Pelfrey.
 
Last edited:
I'm convinced now that this is LKP, it just has to be.
 
I'm convinced now that this is LKP, it just has to be.

The sudden use of punctuation and complete sentences is what led me to think they weren't the same but I can definitely see where the rhetoric would make someone think that. I'm on the fence.
 
Well lkp would evade the other poster's questions and answers and continue to talk his same spiel about player(s) or team.
jack cade will answer and argue in a few thousand word statements and ramblings. that's right.

I don't know if the Tigers official site comments section allowed that, and I am sure that there are some here who wish we didn't have it here.

Thousand(s) words of stats IS different than several paragraphs running together.

idk where all this is eventually going to wind up, that is up to the poster.
 
I don't know, I thought it was a conversation about baseball.

Whatever. "You talk too much."
"I am flawed in that way."

Let me ask ya'll this: What does it matter if I were this LkP or whatever?

If I've turned over a new leaf, does it matter? I always find this obsession over personal identities weird.
I'm not them.

Anyway, this person posted about football, you will never read me talking about football, I will probably never reference it at all.
Here is why: football is utterly unethical and you should be like me and never watch it or have anything to do with it. Why?

So, above all else it is a brutally stupid sport that pits force against human health for the amusement of spectators, and it is filled with show-boating antics that represent the worst of our society. Also, it is part country and part metal which is like an Elf and a Dwarf falling in love (I will never forgive Peter Jackson for that disgusting addition to The Hobbit).

Football is older, but it became truly popular in the aftermath of Vietnam as the American worker began to experience the gradual decline in economic security. The sport epitomizes a violence that after the actual war of Vietnam was culturally cathartic particularly so during the class war waged within American cities and upon rural American main streets and farms by the despicable, above the fray owners and Wall Streeters.

But this would be acceptable, and not really a reason to call for a ban on the game were it not for the fact that football is fed by an utterly corrupt system of college athletics which exploits teenagers, generally poor teenagers, by offering them an education that should be free or cheap (in most cases these are public universities) in the first place. These football programs often cost universities money and the coaches who exploit these teens are generally the highest paid public employees in their state. These student-athletes (somehow not employees even though this is a billion dollar entertainment) face injury (potentially life-long), often receive poor educations (in many cases they simply do not understand the implications of that) all so that the coach and university can have a football team to market and so that the NFL can have a free feeder organization to filter talent for the pro-game.

I have never nor will I ever watch a college football game, anymore than I'd watch a dog fighting.

Now, this still isn't the worst, this multi-billion dollar industry needs children. This enormous and utterly unethical entertainment that makes a small amount of people enormously wealthy simply because they have the wealth to be owners, and makes a slightly larger group of players wealthy with generally some significant physical cost, and of course costs many other players similar physical tolls with maybe an educational reward begins by introducing children to violence. Not just introducing them to violence but by pitting them against each other in the game, puts them in positions to hurt and be hurt (again, potentially with life-long consequences).

Highschool and younger players face hidden and not hidden injuries in what amounts to the first tier of NFL player recruitment. This is so utterly f-d up that I really can't understand how it is even allowed to continue.
If I were king of the world one of my first year acts would be to do away with football.

As for the Lions, that would be no real loss, can we really say that they are really a football team? Aren't they just a perverse joke by the Ford family on Detroiters?
 
Last edited:
Sometimes injuries help..

"Tigers lost their closer out of the gate." - This worked in our favor.


I think Nathan would've ended up as the setup guy and been pretty good at it.
He, despite his decline, would've been one of the better relievers in the pen (the pen was bad), losing him hurt.
 
I think Nathan would've ended up as the setup guy and been pretty good at it.
He, despite his decline, would've been one of the better relievers in the pen (the pen was bad), losing him hurt.

Did you not see 2014? Plus Ausmus might have kept Nathan as closer way too long.
 
I don't know, I thought it was a conversation about baseball.

Whatever. "You talk too much."
"I am flawed in that way."

Let me ask ya'll this: What does it matter if I were this LkP or whatever?

If I've turned over a new leaf, does it matter? I always find this obsession over personal identities weird.
I'm not them.

Anyway, this person posted about football, you will never read me talking about football, I will probably never reference it at all.
Here is why: football is utterly unethical and you should be like me and never watch it or have anything to do with it. Why?

So, above all else it is a brutally stupid sport that pits force against human health for the amusement of spectators, and it is filled with show-boating antics that represent the worst of our society. Also, it is part country and part metal which is like an Elf and a Dwarf falling in love (I will never forgive Peter Jackson for that disgusting addition to The Hobbit).

Football is older, but it became truly popular in the aftermath of Vietnam as the American worker began to experience the gradual decline in economic security. The sport epitomizes a violence that after the actual war of Vietnam was culturally cathartic particularly so during the class war waged within American cities and upon rural American main streets and farms by the despicable, above the fray owners and Wall Streeters.

But this would be acceptable, and not really a reason to call for a ban on the game were it not for the fact that football is fed by an utterly corrupt system of college athletics which exploits teenagers, generally poor teenagers, by offering them an education that should be free or cheap (in most cases these are public universities) in the first place. These football programs often cost universities money and the coaches who exploit these teens are generally the highest paid public employees in their state. These student-athletes (somehow not employees even though this is a billion dollar entertainment) face injury (potentially life-long), often receive poor educations (in many cases they simply do not understand the implications of that) all so that the coach and university can have a football team to market and so that the NFL can have a free feeder organization to filter talent for the pro-game.

I have never nor will I ever watch a college football game, anymore than I'd watch a dog fighting.

Now, this still isn't the worst, this multi-billion dollar industry needs children. This enormous and utterly unethical entertainment that makes a small amount of people enormously wealthy simply because they have the wealth to be owners, and makes a slightly larger group of players wealthy with generally some significant physical cost, and of course costs many other players similar physical tolls with maybe an educational reward begins by introducing children to violence. Not just introducing them to violence but by pitting them against each other in the game, puts them in positions to hurt and be hurt (again, potentially with life-long consequences).

Highschool and younger players face hidden and not hidden injuries in what amounts to the first tier of NFL player recruitment. This is so utterly f-d up that I really can't understand how it is even allowed to continue.
If I were king of the world one of my first year acts would be to do away with football.

As for the Lions, that would be no real loss, can we really say that they are really a football team? Aren't they just a perverse joke by the Ford family on Detroiters?

I agree with a lot of this post. That said...I love watching football. If people want to keep playing it I have no problem watching it.

I think MMA & boxing significantly more violent and auto racing much more dangerous. These "sports" should be shut down before football.
 
I agree with a lot of this post. That said...I love watching football. If people want to keep playing it I have no problem watching it.

I think MMA & boxing significantly more violent and auto racing much more dangerous. These "sports" should be shut down before football.

I agree, though, I don't like watching football, it began because I had other things to do on Sundays one fall so I stopped buying season tickets, then I learned stuff. Now, the above is my position.

The thing is MMA and boxing aren't as big as football and do not damage nearly as many people. Football is far more evil. But, no, MMA, etc goes in year two.:bat:
 
Last edited:
Did you not see 2014? Plus Ausmus might have kept Nathan as closer way too long.

Well, there is the Ausmus factor. I think 2015 would've been a slight adjustment year for Nathan and maybe a kind of bounce back year.
Also, my sense was that he was on a shorter leash.
 
Back
Top