Dr. Baseball is in – open wide & say, ‘strike!’

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1984-Topps-Traded-Baseball-Dwight-Gooden

By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@GMail.com
November 13, 2014

Good morning. It’s Dr. Baseball here to answer your hardball questions. I will hold office hours each week, right here in this rent-free space. First question?

Why are you called “Dr. Baseball?”

For an explanation, you should click here and here.

Why are you starting this after the baseball season has ended?

I have a quota of articles to write this year and I am getting perilously close to not fulfilling that obligation so I have to write brainless columns like this to appease the real owner of the DetroitSportsRag.com.

satan

What did you think of the Devon Travis for Anthony Gose trade?

I am not a fan of the deal and it has nothing to do with trading away Travis … who, coincidentally enough, was named the team’s #1 prospect by Baseball America earlier in the day — which is like being labeled the most sober Kennedy at a Hyannis Port family function.

Travis may or may not pan out (and based on Dave Dombrowski’s history of developing position players, he won’t) plus the team does have a plethora of young middle infielders — if you believe Jose Iglesias’s shins will heal and Eugenio Suarez and Hernan Perez can develop into serviceable major leaguers.

No, what bothers me about the acquisition of Gose from the Blue Jays is this seems to be the Tigers’ answer to their centerfield problem, if the words of “Divot Chin Dave” from Wednesday night are to be believed:

“We think he’s a guy that has a chance to be our everyday centerfielder, or close to it. That’s why we brought him on board.”

Based on everything we have seen from Gose in his minor league career (2008-2014), he averaged a Don Kelly-esque .715 OPS; combined with his offensive numbers over 552 career MLB at-bats, the dude projects as a fourth outfielder.

Seriously, the team’s farm system is a decimated wasteland. They just traded away a guy who is considered their best farmhand by a legitimate publication for a rich man’s Terrance Gore. What an indictment of the Dombrowski regime that he couldn’t develop someone like Gose INTERNALLY.

The 2015 Tigers were absolutely primed to acquire a lefty centerfielder who could strictly platoon with Rajai Davis (.939 OPS vs. southpaws in 2014) and the best the front-office could come up with is a light-hitting bust of a prospect who actually had a reverse platoon split last season ……. in BUFFALO ….. of the INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE.

Yep, in AAA Gose had an anemic OPS of .609 vs. righties and .722 vs. lefties. Facing the Kyle Lobsteins and Duane Belows of the world.

If the Tigers head to camp with an outfield combination of Davis, Gose, Tyler Collins and J.D. Martinez we are one clock striking midnight at the ball™ (Cinderella) away from having one of the worst outfields ever assembled. That’s a hell of a lot of pressure on a dude who is one year removed from being Rule 5 eligible and a DFA.

Oh well, at least Gose is adept defensively. So I am going to focus on the positive aspect of this trade …….

Do you know where I can get some good cocaine near the old Shea Stadium?

I’m Dr. Baseball, not Doc Gooden.

Why are you so down on Gose’s hitting abilities? Tigers’ hitting coach Wally Joyner sees a lot of potential there.

Yeah, and infield coach Omar Vizquel thought Alex Gonzalez still had plenty left in the tank to play shortstop last spring. How the fuck did that work out for ya?

So what did you think about the Victor Martinez signing?

I’ve got nothing earth shattering to say here as ESPN and Fangraph’s contributor Dan Szymborski summed it up perfectly …..

Here is my problem with the current Tigers business model. EVERYONE in the world acknowledges that this team is going to be awful in a few years when they are paying Justin Verlander $28 million at age 35 and Miguel Cabrera and V-Mart $48 million combined. That’s probably not a great idea unless Rob Manfred institutes an extra DH in the American League sometime soon.

Seriously, Miggy is still fairly young and he has had to play through severe pain only to have fairly major medical procedures in the last two offseasons. At some point — probably in the very near future — he is going to have to DH.

The only problem is you just gave $68 million over four years to a 36-year-old player who can only DH!!!! And the nearly unanimous response by EVERYONE  is the Tigers had no choice but to re-sign V-Mart.

The entire baseball world keeps saying the Tigers need to go all-in because of the number of bad contracts they are already on the hook for over the next half decade. The only problem is giving Victor that contract isn’t pushing all of your chips to the middle of the table.

Going all-in would’ve entailed firing stubborn imbecile Brad Ausmus when Joe Maddon became available.

Going all-in would mean never trading Doug Fister for three pieces off the discount table at Big Lots. And if you didn’t think that deal could look much worse, Baseball America listed Robbie Ray as the team’s SEVENTH best prospect.

SEVENTH. In this organization. The one that just traded #1 for Anthony Gose!!!!!

Yep, Robbie Ray is actually behind something called “Domingo Leyba,” which up until yesterday, I thought was a part of the female genitalia.

And Ian Krol didn’t even make the list!!!!!

Going all-in would mean re-signing Max Scherzer (why not, you’ve already gone THIS far); inking Melky Cabrera or Colby Rasmus; and adding Andrew Miller and Pat Neshek.

Or better yet, not getting outbid by the Orioles at the trade deadline for Miller’s services in the FIRST PLACE!!!!

The Tigers are not going all-in. What they are doing is keeping enough of the team’s popular players in tow so they can continue to hover around the three million mark in attendance while enjoying league-best local television ratings.

It’s an absolute recipe for disaster. Baseball writers and pontificators continue to compare Detroit’s eventual implosion in 2018 or sooner to the current predicament of the Philadelphia Phillies.

Except for one thing …. the Phillies won the god-damn World Series first!!!!! On this continued trajectory, we are going to be in store for years of awful baseball without the money shot.

Seriously, Dr. Baseball, I really need some blow and I am in Queens right now….

Knock it off, Darryl Strawberry.

Dr. Baseball — Do you think it is possible that a change of scenery can help Anthony Gose in the same way it helped J.D. Martinez? Going to hold off on judging this trade. — Brian Manzullo, Detroit Free Press Web Sports Editor

Between all of his minor league and Major League designations, the Tigers will be his ninth team since 2008 and his fourth organization. (Although he never even played a game in the Astros’ system.) The dude has had more changes of scenery than Act I of Les Miserables.

Dr. Baseball, you are 1,200 words in and not one AWFUL and forced reset of the Beatles yet? You aren’t doing this right. — Frodo Albom

Shouldn’t you be baking some chocolate chip cookies with walnuts in a treehouse somewhere?

What do you think of the Freep replacing John Lowe with Anthony Fenech?

More awful news. Do you know how often we get a new Tigers beat writer in this town? Lowe and Tom Gage have been covering the team since the fucking Roosevelt administration.

TEDDY’S!

Anyway, we FINALLY get some new blood…and the paper hires Fenech on the cheap. Loyal DSR Reader “LeslieInFortLee” put it best on Twitter:

This is the equivalent of an awful Supreme Court confirmation; we are probably stuck with Fenech through 2052.

And what is Fenech’s resume?

Well, he used to screen calls for Mike Valenti and Terry Foster. That should disqualify a candidate from serving Cement Mixers at Culver’s let alone covering a baseball team for a major daily.

While working at 97.1, it came out that Fenech was a Michigan FOOTBALL fan and a Michigan State BASKETBALL fan. There should be a special place in hell for someone who has those loyalties. I mean, Doug Karsch and LeBron James puked in their own mouths upon first hearing that.

Seriously, what kind of front-running bullshit is THAT? Dude should be tried in the World Court for crimes against humanity then publicly stoned in a town square.

This imbecile suggested that Ausmus move Torii Hunter back to the number two hole in the lineup when the relic outfielder had an ON BASE PERCENTAGE of .288!!!!

Then this hipster fuckbag wrote an article suggesting the Tigers bring Hunter back in 2015. Because he is a winner.

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A winning player? What does that even MEAN? The guy has as many championship rings as Charles Barkley. Although the Senate candidate in Alabama that Hunter endorsed because the conservative lunatic was against same-sex marriage did WIN so maybe that’s what Fenech is talking about.

Based on this asinine theory, maybe the Tigers can get Robert Horry to platoon with Steven Moya in right field.

And if you follow Fenech on Twitter, I am guessing you should be prepared for more Tweets like this in the near future considering baseball beat writers have A LOT of time on their hands during long road trips ……

But at least the guy clearly knows his baseball. This Tweet was from July 25th. Of this year ….

Hey Dr. Baseball, having read this article, do you have Dr. Kevorkian’s number?

He’s dead, ya dummy.

Hey, wait a second …. I just had a great idea for a new book. Someone get Hank Azaria’s agent on the horn.