Bullpen was overperforming.
Kahnle was a legit candidate to make the all star team.
I will agree with @HSVLion , if Skubal dominates and we pull out a win the 1st game, I think we win the series.
Ever since the playoffs expanded, the team thatâs won Game 1 has almost always won these wild card series.
We had a lot of guys that were playing way over their heads at that time. Guys like Mckinstry and Javy on offense.
Our pitching was much more stable at that time also. Both starting and relief. Having pitchers that lack real quality âstuffâ can work for a while but big league pitchers eventually figure them out.
We didnât have Chris Paddack and Charlie Morton on our roster.
Instead we had Reese Olson and Keider Montero.
I havenât got pissed at this new regime very often but this deadline definitely had me furious.
If we did absolutely nothing it would have been better than the guys we added.
In fact, a team so far has never come back after being down 1-0.
Very small sample size of course (3 yearsâŚ6 total series)
Literally.
Charlie Morton was acquired to be an âinnings eater,â and was then pulled from a 6-0 game after 45 pitches in the 2nd inning in his last Tigers start.
Yeah, thereâs the 41 year old worst qualified starting pitcher in baseball. Letâs get that guy!!
Also letâs hope that PAUL SEWALD, who we were apparently counting on at the deadline, doesnât â â â â â â â suck in the postseason like he did at the end of the regular season.
So we win. The series vs Cleveland.
Do we pitch Skubal game 2 @ Seattle ? On 4 days rest
I think so
Which means we would have 2 home games then Skubal game 5 @ Seattle
Just like Cleveland series last year ALDS
You set yourself up for as many possible Skubal playoff starts as you can.
Itâs a shame future Tiger Edwin Diaz canât just play for us in the playoffs this year.
Itâs setting up nicely for the Tigers to catch 
and get some momentum. Starts Tuesday with our ace.
The one week I have meetings all day every day and they do this⌠on to next season for watching games..
Im sure you will be able to watch us in The World Series. Regardless of start time.
Same. Iâll be mostly driving on Thursday afternoon if the series goes that far.
Well, I do have mlb tv so I may have the game while driving⌠perhaps
Not saying I agree with him but figured this would get some blood pressures goingâŚ
# Tigers abandon a berserk season for an anything-goes playoff invite
Full article at link
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How did a team that on Aug. 23 was 78-53 go 9-22 in those next 31 games, concluding with Sundayâs regular-season farewell at Fenway Park?
Roster check
Itâs an analysis as elusive as any part of this often-irrational baseball year in Detroit. But here are two overarching thoughts:
1. The team wasnât overly-talented, despite its All-Stars. You can say, with a certain degree of admiration, the Tigers overachieved down the stretch in 2024 when they shocked everyone with one of the more improbable playoff runs in modern MLB annals. They continued their quasi-mystic ways during this yearâs first half. They did it the way they closed â24 â with an amazing blend of optimized pitching, hitting, defense, and baserunning. It was extraordinary cohesion MLBâs unforgiving game doesnât typically allow, but somehow the Tigers hit on all cylinders with stunning regularity. Until they didnât.
2. The team was young. Really young compared with most playoff-bound contenders. This point cannot be overstated. Riley Greene on Sunday turned 25. Parker Meadows and Wenceel Perez are 25, Colt Keith is 24, Spencer Torkelson last month hit 26, Dillon Dingler is a rookie at 27, and Kerry Carpenter is the grizzled guy at 28.
Compare with the Tigersâ last two championship teams. The â84 Tigers lineup was filled with splendid â and mature â players aged 26-29. The â68 Tigers, likewise, were 26 and older, with a guy named Al Kaline all of 33.
Those more recent Tigers contenders, the gang skippered by Jim Leyland (and Brad Ausmus) that played in two World Series and six times from 2006-14 made the postseason: Their average age was closer to 30 and older.
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All of which fans will concede â to a point. Many are still ticked that Harris didnât add more weaponry at the July trade deadline, believing here is where the Tigers blew it. Here, they insist, is where a struggling team that had been in first place since April could easily have transformed itself into a well-armored machine ready to win a World Series.
And itâs the biggest heap of fairy-tale bunk this side of a Disney movie.
1. Game-changers werenât much in supply at Julyâs deadline. Everyone wanted Eugenio Suarez at third base, forgetting perhaps that the Tigers owned him before trading in 2014 one of those shoulder-shrugging âjust a prospectâ guys for a pitcher named Alfredo Simon.
Suarez went on to hit 300 home runs and at the deadline was grabbed by Seattle, which gave the grateful Diamondbacks three top-20 prospects. Suarez since joining the Mariners has hit .193 with a .696 OPS. Not sure he would have been an answer for Hinchâs lineup, forget the retail Detroit would have been asked to fork over.
2. Without knowing precise names or precise trade demands, itâs impossible to speculate accurately about what the Tigers might have done or failed to do. But even the price for getting Chris Paddack and Randy Dobnak from the Twins was one the Tigers might regret: Enrique Jimenez, 19, a switch-hitting catcher and one of the Tigersâ more expensive Latin signings, who in 23 games after joining the Twinsâ low-A club ripped six home runs and had a .934 OPS.
3. Harris added bulk pitching at the deadline, hoping a quorum might shake out, and itâs been pretty much a bare minimum: Kyle Finnegan and perhaps Rafael Montero. Not much else to show for it, which more than any ineptitude on Harrisâ part showed that whatever inventory was available on July 31 was priced higher than perhaps most fans acknowledged. (Check with the Diamondbacks, as one example, in a couple of years to see if theyâre grinning about dealing Suarez.)
4. Wanting it now is human. Wanting it now can be the right approach for a team that might be one or two players from a World Series. The Tigers are not yet at that elevation. What they stood instead to do at the deadline was waste terrific gains they have made at the one area of most acute need in this organization and the biggest reason that for 41 years they havenât had a World Series parade: drafting. They avoided in July giving away too much talent from MLBâs best collection of minor-league teams. They didnât squander players who will be core roster-pieces into the next decade for what probably would have ended up as an expensive investment in rentals â players headed for November free agency. That, by the way, too often was the rationale in those years when the Tigers were trying to win it all for owner Mike Ilitch and ended up on the back end with a 10-year playoff exile.
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Trading any of the hotshots other clubs were insisting upon in any deals with Detroit would have been a potential double-whammy for the Tigers: not getting adequate talent to make much of a difference in their 2025 run; and weakening their future rosters at a point this team is moving on a steadily upward arc toward being competitive indefinitely.
. Same. Most of the driving is on the expressway so I can take an occasional glance down at the screen. Perhaps.