Holton closing? Committee w Brieske and Vest too?
Gonna be a lot of mileage on 75 between CoPa and Toledo
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From today’s DetNews on Foley:
“When I talked to (Foley), that was a hard conversation for him and a harsh reality that he does have some things to work on,” Hinch said. “And we need him to do it because we need him. Our best pen can be configured a lot of different ways, but, being honest, we need a good Jason Foley.
“He can be a dominant reliever and he’s pitched at the back end of games.”
Even though he saved 13 games in 14 opportunities from August on last season and allowed four runs in 22.2 innings, Foley was not used in the ALDS last October. His primary weapon, the power sinker, had lost some of its bite last year, and it was slow to come around this spring.
“I go back to best stuff and best execution,” Hinch said. “He had a hard time getting that going this spring and he finds himself starting in Toledo to work on those things — finding his location better and finding his best stuff.
“We believe in him and we believe in the things he can do. But a couple of the guys we’ve been debating over are throwing the ball a little better and we’re going to take a hotter hand into the season.”
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On the OF choices:
It’s about that D
When the Tigers came to camp last month, Harris thought he had assembled one of the premier defensive outfields in the game.
But injuries to Parker Meadows (nerve issue in upper arm), Matt Vierling (rotator cuff strain) and Wenceel Pérez (back) — the first three center fielders on the team’s depth chart — changed that in a hurry.
As a result, when it came to making the final decisions on the position-player side, defense won out.
“Outfield defense is a really important ingredient in how we win games here,” Harris said. “I’ve been talking about it since the day I got to Detroit. We want to have a strong outfield defense, especially in Comerica Park. But when you go through as many injuries as we’ve gone through this spring, you are faced with a number of tradeoffs when setting the roster.”
Malloy hit .314 this spring with an on-base percentage just under .400 with three doubles and a homer. But Malloy, who started the spring transitioning to first base, doesn’t play center field.
Jones, who also had a productive spring, is more of a corner outfielder. The best defensive centerfielder, as it turned out, was a shortstop — Kreidler, who was initially optioned to Toledo before Pérez’s injury and then called back.
“The more we talked about our roster, the more we realized we need to keep the priority on defense,” Harris said. “We need to keep protecting our pitching and we need to prioritize versatility and Kreidler helps us do that. Kreidler in center will continue to make one of our strengths a strength.
“He’s going to protect our pitching and help us build around what I believe is the strength and backbone of our team — the pitching.”
Another factor that made optioning Malloy’s right-handed bat to Toledo more palatable was Spencer Torkelson’s blistering camp. He will be counted on to provide the right-handed bench thump that Malloy would’ve, getting his at-bats as a designated hitter, back-up first baseman and occasional right-fielder.
“He earned his way and he earned his at-bats,” Hinch said. “We issued him a pretty big challenge at the start of camp to win a job. He’s important to us and we believe in him and look what happened. He took it very seriously. He made a ton of subtle adjustments that turned into a pretty athletic swing with damage and with more consistency about how he’s going about it.
“I’m proud of Tork because I feel there have been portions of our time together where he’s had the weight of the world on his shoulders. This is a great hat-tip to Tork. He crashed his way into the opening day lineup.”
I really hope we see Harris deal from our relief and corner OF depth in the minors to upgrade the hitting.
Baez is an old dog with bad baaaaaad habits.
Torres had a down year in his walk year. Yikes.
Tork is one mind forking away from RobotSwing Redux.
3b is a mess.
This team is best when Vierling is Brandon Inge-ian and plugging in days off and matchups and Ibanez is a PH/platoon guy. Bregman was gow thatw as gonna happen…go get some answers, Chris and Scott.
Lotsa trade chippies to spend.
You got the wrong Foley…
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Big signing.
Shit, sorry….boned that one.