Team Canada lost to the Blue Jays today. The Jays have 7 guys on WBC rosters that didn’t play and Canada still couldn’t beat them. That’s how bad they are. Gonna get pounded in the WBC
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McGonigle with another hit. He should probably join team USA already
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3 for 3, 1 HR, 3 RBI’s, 1 Walk, 3 runs scored against the All Stars from the Dominican. I’d say it looks like the Tigers found their big time bat this off-season
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Jumanji Jones has 0 minor league options lefr, so make the club or get exposed to waivers.
McGonigle looks like Pedroia with Pop!
Eating $24m on Javy is a lot of indigestion
Zach McKinstry IS AN ALL STAR FFS!
Matt Vierling is right handed and can play infield a bit.
Wenceel is a switch hitter.
Bad time for Parker Meadows bat to be in Park.
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Meadow’s has options, he loses initially.
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This, is great news.
Even just 5 more Benetti less broadcasts is a win for me!!
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Yes, I know the payment didn’t go through…not sure it’s worth subscribing if archive has everything anyways…
Good read on JV and changes for him as a SP as he’s gotten older, the games evolves analytically etc.
# Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander’s relentless pursuit of greatness unabated by time
full article at link
At age 43, with his Hall-of-Fame résumé all but complete, he is still evolving as a pitcher.
“You have to,” Verlander said Tuesday morning before heading out to throw a bullpen on the backfields at Joker Marchant Stadium. “Look, I’m not as dynamic as I once was. And these guys are really good as hitters. Last year, I was hard on myself. I could get to two strikes. I could get myself there.
“But it was hard to put guys away.”
This is the game’s active strikeout leader (3,553) talking. But this is also the guy who saw the put-away rate on his slider gradually drop from 27% in 2019 to 19% last year. It’s a guy who, as recently as 2022, carried an average velocity of 95 mph on his four-seamer, who sat at 93 mph for most of last season.
“The margins are smaller,” he said. “And as the hitters get better, the margins get so razor thin, I had to be so frickin’ dialed to get the results I wanted. It really stuck out to me just how hard it was to put guys away, and I had to adjust.”
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I’m excited to get off the mound in a game,” he said. “I think I can use the adrenaline. Also facing your hitters (in live bullpens), it’s a little different. Like I haven’t gone inside on right-handed hitters. You don’t want to hurt anybody in spring training. I do feel on the backfields you can get a lot out of it. … But you need to turn on the compete button.”
Verlander has thrown two live sessions this spring and the last, against lefty Zach McKinstry and righty Matt Vierling, was quite informative for him. Especially his at-bats against McKinstry who consistently was able to see and lay off Verlander’s slider.
“Yeah, the slider,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s been an issue for the last couple of years. It was one of the best pitches in baseball a few years back. Now it’s kind of slowly gone down.”
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It is a bit comforting that he regained his mastery of the slider late season. He expects to lock it back in sooner this year. Not that he is taking that for granted.
“Every year is different,” he said. “The ball changes a little bit every year.”
Verlander throws a tight slider, a gyro slider as it’s called. In 2019, he was getting over 2,600 rpms of spin on it. Last year, he didn’t get to 2,500 rpm until later in the season.
“It’s not going to fool you with the movement,” he said. “That’s not the point of the pitch. The pitch fools you because you think it’s a fastball. And anything I do to deviate from that, they’re picking up on it and it makes it hard for me to get outs with it.”
That’s why the McKinstry at-bats were so important for Verlander to see, though he gave himself a little grace on that.
“Zach is one of the best in baseball in not swinging at spin,” Verlander said. “He recognizes spin really well. That’s something else I need to take into account. Some hitters are naturally better at some things than others.”
With the slider inconsistency last year, Verlander finally broke down and added a sweeper to his mix.
“I finally joined the young guns,” he said, laughing. “I stayed away from throwing it for so long. But I was just scratching and clawing for anything I could be successful with last year.”
He avoided it for two reasons: When he was right, he didn’t need it. But also, he didn’t want to throw it if it altered his arm slot or mechanics.
“It was like, OK, we looked at all the ball mechanics on how I spun my curveball,” Verlander said. “Can I make a sweeper out of how I throw my curveball. Because I don’t want to change my arm or wrist. And we found a way to do it just using the seams on the ball. I can throw it very similar to how I throw my curveball and that makes me more comfortable using it.”
He threw it about 8% of the time last year and hitters were 3-for-57 against it with 19 strikeouts. His 20% put-away rate was the best out of any of his pitches.
In a bit of a stunner, Keider Montero, who pitched three scoreless innings today, has been optioned to Triple-A Toledo.
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Gotta go with Skubal for me.
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Two from the Freep:
Detroit Tigers 2026 roster prediction 2.0: Is Kevin McGonigle ready?
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Good talk about baseball in the DR is different, in a good way with the fans and love of the game at awhole other level. Plus McGonigle
# How Kevin McGonigle got a critical education in Dominican Republic
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McGonigle continues to impress his teammates.
“He’s got the talent, he’s got the ability, but he’s got it upstairs too, and that’s really what it takes at this level,” Torkelson said. “He’s handling it perfectly.”
Yes, not long ago, everybody was fixated on Greene and Torkelson, wondering when they would be called up.
But now, they are the wise, old veterans, who can offer him advice.
“It’s awesome, seeing all the incredible things he’s doing,” Greene said. “He’s a great dude, super good human being. Loves the game, and, you know, loves to compete and loves to win.”
In many ways, this trip was an educational experience.
An education for McGonigle, on all kinds of levels.
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After the Tigers were introduced, McGonigle stood next to Hinch on the first-base line, taking in the wild scene. McGonigle had never been out of the country. Never experienced anything like this. “I just looked around,” McGonigle said. “I was like, ‘this is insane.’”
Then, the Dominican players were introduced, and it was like an All-Star game: Fernando Tatis Jr., Juan Soto, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Manny Machado. On and on.
“I mean, unbelievable,” McGonigle said. “I grew up watching all those guys play, and to be able to share the field with them and compete against them is really, really special.”
That moment was a subtle but important part of McGonigle’s education. It’s one thing to look at McGonigle’s batting average and say he’s ready for the big leagues. But there is so much more to it. And Hinch is trying to get McGonigle comfortable in the presence of players he once idolized. Trying to knock the natural awe off.
So, Hinch stood next to McGonigle, as the introductions continued, and pointed out how none of these superstars was perfect. Everybody has flaws. Everybody struggles. Everybody is human. And everybody goes through it.
“We were talking about that out on the line for the ceremony,” McGonigle said. “I mean, it’s the game of baseball, a game of failure. We all know that, but they’re really good at staying committed to their plan. So, if they struggle with the low and away fastball, they’re not going to chase it, they’re going to wait until the pitcher makes a mistake. And that’s kind of the way I like to think, is stay committed to my plan, wait till they make a mistake and don’t miss it.”
I mean, that’s great coaching. To take a moment like that and turn it into a lesson for this young prospect.
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Jack Flaherty has been sharp all spring.
3 IP
2 H
0 R
0 BB
3 K
38 pitches
25 strikes
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Im going with Jack Morris or Denny Mclain over Verlander as SP.
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My preference is that he opens with The Tigers and that they go ahead and sign him to a long term deal similar to the one they did with Colt Keith.
This eliminates the whole extra year of control thing and makes everyone happy.
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LAKELAND, FL – Detroit Tigers prospect Josue Briceño will miss time while recovering from right wrist surgery.
Briceño – the Tigers’ consensus No. 4 prospect – underwent surgery Wednesday, March 4, in Philadelphia, according to multiple people with knowledge of the situation. The 21-year-old catcher/first baseman ranks as the No. 40 prospect in baseball, according to MLB Pipeline.