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Ashley MacLennan's worlds collide in a first ever Bless You Boys/D Rays Bay mashup podcast. It's been a heck of a busy couple weeks getting prepped for the season, so for once, we kept a podcast to a half hour format. We may try to do these short, targeted pods a little more often this year, but our real jobs and running the blogs keep us busy, and I've learned not to make too many promises.
On this one, Brett Rutherford from the DRaysBay podcast network joins Ashley, who writes and edits for both sites, among a million other gigs, and BYB managing editor Brandon Day for a chat about Austin Meadows, Isaac Paredes, and the Rays chances this year in the always tough AL East. Thanks as always for joining us, for reading Bless You Boys, and for being part of the fantastic Tigers' fanbase. We're going to have a fun year, come what may...
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Well it certainly looked bleak the past few weeks, but we got there in the end. Major League Baseball and the MLBPA union have a new collective bargaining agreement, and baseball is back on the menu. Ashley MacLennan joins Brandon Day for a quick reaction pod to the day's events. We'll look back at the contentious negotiations, the tactics and mistakes that led us to the brink of losing part of the season, and the deal that finally emerged as we and our baseball writing brethren and the fans followed along in real time on social media. We'll conclude with a look at where the Tigers stand as free agency re-opens, and consider what work remains to put a real contender on the field in April. Thanks for hanging in there, and thanks for joining us for a little chat after a day that left us both elated and drained.
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Trevor Hooth writes for Prospects Live, one of the best public scouting sites available, as well as for Bless You Boys. He returns to the podcast this week in the wake of our new top 30 ranking of the Tigers' farm system.
This is a fairly long one, as Trevor and I haven't talked other than via chat for quite a while. There is a lot to to discuss. The Tigers system is going to fall off hard when Riley Greene, our number one for the Tigers, and Spencer Torkelson reach the major leagues. However, there are still some talented players with upside, led by 2021 first round pick Jackson Jobe, and then a much better quality of depth pieces than this system has seen in forever. The top shelf prospects may be few and far between if the Tigers can't draft well outside the top ten, but there remains a pretty good supporting cast if the upgrades to the player development leadership and coaches goes as hoped.
We spent the first 40 minutes talking about the league and then the Tigers improved circumstances, overhauled player development system, and recent draft history. Then we get into the Tigers farm system specifically, starting with Riley Greene and Spencer Torkelson, at the 50:00 mark. Our individual profiles of Tigers prospects will continue until mid-February, when, with luck and a new CBA, we'll still get a semi-normal spring training.
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Thanks for joining us again. Brandon Day and Ashley MacLennan return to talk Javy Báez, what he means for the Detroit Tigers' future, and how to separate the player from what his contract says about Chris Ilitch and Al Avila's plans. We'll also look at where the Tigers' stand as far as potential playoff contention and why they've arguably had the best offseason of any team. From there, we'll move to far less entertaining matters and talk labor strife between players and owners, the bad blood between the parties after a lot of league shenanigans in recent years, and why these negotiations will look and be reported far differently than the last major battle in 1994.
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Welcome back folks. We're firing up the pod again as the season winds down in preparation for a busy offseason, and we've got some big questions to answer. We got a lot of responses to our call for questions, but four main themes emerged. So rather than going question by question, we're just grouping it all under four main questions, and host Brandon Day will take them all on in turn.
Who is Ryan Garko, the Tigers new VP of Player Development, and does this feel like a good hire?
Who are the Tigers likely to send to the Arizona Fall League in October?
Were the Tigers lucky this year, or just pretty good? Are there players who seem ripe for regression? In short, how stable is this 2021 foundation to build on?
What should the Tigers attitude be toward free agency this offseason, and how would you go about ranking positions of need and then filling them?
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SB Nation’s all-star cast (Sam Wilson, John Stolnis, Eric Stephen and guest Jeremy Brener) breaks down everything that happened in the 1st round of the 2021 MLB Draft!
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SB Nation welcomes you to it’s coverage of the 2021 MLB All-Star Week, powered by T-Mobile!
On today’s episode, Sam Wilson, John Stolnis, and Brady Klopfer break down the rosters, set the state of the league, discuss trade rumors PLUS Talking Chop's Demetrius Bell joins the show to talk about the move from Georgia to Colorado!
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With the draft less than two weeks away, it's time to check in again with another of our favorite sources of draft info. Keanan Lamb, Senior MLB Draft Writer for Baseball Prospectus joins me for a look at the 2021 draft from a Detroit Tigers' perspective.
We'll hit on most of the big names at the top of the draft in this one, but we also step back to look at the unique conditions of this particular draft after college players spent most of 2020 on the shelf. Either way, it's a fascinating draft with an awful lot of good prep talent, and even so close to the draft, not much certainty at all.
You can follow Keanan on Twitter @keananlamb. You should always consider a subscription to the wonderful Baseball Prospectus. And you can also find a ton of quality scouting video on Keanan's YouTube channel as well.
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This is always a pretty fun podcast with two of my favorite people to talk baseball with. We've got a bit of a yearly tradition going around the draft, and hopefully we'll get back for a post-draft special as well.
Your host for this one is actually Mark Gorosh of the Don't Call it a Rebuild podcast. Mark and I split these occasionally and he's the lead on this one. Since our podcast has been quiet lately, I thought I'd put this up for those interested.
Our guest, is Mr. Brian Sakowski, the national scouting director for Perfect Game USA. From his vantage point, Sakowski has seen everyone in this draft, and many of them from the time they were young juniors, giving him a lot of perspective of their trajectories beyond his pure scouting acumen. He's also an assistant coach for Orchard Lake-St. Mary's high school in the Detroit area, who recently won a state championship. We'll chat about that a bit as well.
Thanks so much for joining us. Hope you enjoy the conversation.
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Thanks for all the good questions yesterday. We appreciate the response, and this may become a more regular feature of the podcast going forward.
Managing editor Brandon Day talks about the sudden outrage burning through Detroit media and the Tigers fanbase over the team’s rough start. While putting GM Al Avila on the hot seat is well and good with us considering we’ve already had him there for years, let’s remember what is important, and what isn’t, in regard to the Tigers 2021 season. As the team has struggled, too much of the emphasis has been placed on Miguel Cabrera as scapegoat, or the miserable offensive performances from Jonathan Schoop, JaCoby Jones, and Victor Reyes. Let’s try to remember that what matters are players who can be traded, and players who might still be around to help in 2023 and beyond.
For all the hot take theater going on out there, it will only take a brief stretch of winning for all these Johnny-come-lately’s to turn right around and start preaching unending patience once again. Over the last five years, Tigers fans have been patient enough waiting for evidence these are the guys to build a World Series champion in the near future. Still don’t see it.
Beyond that, we’ll get into reader questions ranging from the prospects to A.J. Hinch’s managerial stylings. Thanks for participating, and thanks as always for reading and commenting here at Bless You Boys.
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We're back with a look at a whole lot of fun action, and a few sour notes, from MLB's opening week. We'll start with Tigers talk. Miggy in the snow. The legend of Akil Baddoo. A pretty good first six outings for the rotation. Michael Fulmer as reliever. And then we'll get into the new brand of baseball A.J. Hinch is preaching, and whether he'll stick to his guns, and fold after a few mistakes the way Brad Ausmus and Ron Gardenhire did.
Then we'll take the second half to look around the league at the many, many interesting stories we've already gotten out of the young 2021 season. We'll take Nick Castellanos and his quest to become swag incarnate. Jose Iglesias' ludicrous highlight reel so far with the Angels. The glory of two-way Shohei Ohtani, and much more, before our attention finally turns to Trevor Bauer, as it so often does. We'll discuss MLB seizing Bauer's sticky balls, the whole concept of making this illegal, and why Bauer may have simply dug his own grave and then handed Rob Manfred the shovel here.
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We're joined by an old friend on this edition of the Bless You Boys podcast. Kenon Carter, who runs the Detroit Tigers Minor League Tracker accounts on social media joins us for an in depth dive into the Tigers spring training roster battles. Most of you will remember Kenon from his work covering the Tigers farm system for Bless You Boys for a few seasons. In this episode we'll unpack the Tigers training camp with under two weeks left to Opening Day.
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With Grapefruit League action underway, and the long awaited return of Dan Dickerson's dulcet tones to the airwaves--many of us are still waiting for MLB to actually permit us to watch our favorite teams--the spring ritual has arrived. In that spirit, we're joined on this episode by David Laurila of FanGraphs.com. Laurila has written for Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus in the past, so his work at FanGraphs completes the baseball writer trifecta. He is a frequent contributor as a host for FanGraphs Audio, and his articles and interviews are a weekly staple for the site.
In this episode, we'll consider the Tigers offseason, contrasting a more patient approach from Laurila to we Tigers fans here at Bless You Boys. We'll consider the Tigers approach to free agency and some of the interesting young veterans they signed this offseason. The chat touches on A.J. Hinch and the Tigers new coaching staff, and the development of the club's top prospects. Throughout, Laurila deploys an ample supply of interviews and anecdotes collected over the years with which to spice the conversation. We ultimately get to a key reason why they didn't do much more as the conversation ends with us somewhat bleakly considering the breakdown in relations between the league and the players as a next CBA looms over all of MLB's endeavors this year. But we hate that topic, so let's just learn one of the key lessons of the past year and take it one game at a time for now.
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With spring camp underway and Mr. Stavenhagen, the Tigers reporter for The Athletic Detroit, days away from a flight to lovely Lakeland Florida to cover them, he joins us for a preseason conversation about the 2021 Detroit Tigers.
This is a pretty wide-ranging, state-of-the-organization conversation, but we start off discussing some of the interesting small scale additions like Nomar Mazara and Julio Teheran while also lamenting the lack of any major moves this offseason. The 2021 Tigers do feel different as AJ Hinch and his coaching staff make their presence felt, and Cody talks about the contrasts with Ron Gardenhire's staff, but we appear set for another year in a holding pattern hoping for a lot of player development. We talk through the pitching staff and what constitutes progress in another season where the team is largely treading water. The need for the young pitching prospects to start establishing themselves is very clear as well. Finally, we consider the farm system and the meager depth in mid-tier prospects, particularly on the pitching side, that informed the Tigers collection of veterans they'll invite to camp on minor league deals. Finally we discuss a few key players and our hopes for a farm system that needs to show major improvement in 2021.
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Welcome back Tigers fans. We didn't get the big deal we were hoping for this offseason, but as the yearly scramble for odds and ends hits high gear, Al Avila and the Tigers have added some interesting names that will at least be interesting projects for the new coaching staff. We'll talk Jonathan Schoop, Renato Núñez, and Nomar Mazara, and how the roster is shaping up overall. Finally, we'll talk about MLB's attempt to de-juice the baseball, and offer wise alternatives to make the game a more watchable product on the field, as well as a few ridiculous ones. We're just days away from pitchers and catchers reporting, so while it's still frigid in the northern realms, we can feel the first faint rays of sunshine as the 2021 baseball season gets underway.
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We are back with another overdue episode of the Bless You Boys podcast. Brandon Day and Ashley MacLennan return with an overview of the quiet offseason to date, and what may lie ahead. First we'll catch up on some of the signings and news from around the league. Then, we'll discuss the new coaching staff, the signings so far, and what the Tigers may do in the month remaining until pitchers and catchers are supposed to report to Lakeland.
And, since we're regularly asked to do a segment after the baseball portion of the podcast on what we're reading, watching, or listening to, particularly in this year of the quarantine, there's a whole bonus segment past the 52:00 mark in which we'll dive into some of the best movies and shows we've seen over the past year.
This exercise is almost entirely an excuse to obsess over our mutual favorite obsession of 2020-2021, the actress Anya Taylor-Joy. With the Queen's Gambit breakout star as the centerpiece, we'll talk about her career, some of her co-stars, and follow that chain into some of non-Anya Taylor-Joy work we've been most impressed by over the past year. Tom Hardy, Johnny Flynn, and Aubrey Plaza will all be name-checked along the way. Next time out, we'll include a segment on what we've been reading. Once again, this is totally self-indulgent on our part, and if you're here for baseball alone, the 52:00 mark is going to be your stopping point.
As always, thanks for reading and commenting at BlessYouBoys.com. One more month and we'll all be in the best shape of our lives once again. It can't come soon enough.
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