Bless You Boys

Raj Mehta-USA TODAY Sports Sometimes we get attached... We all know we shouldn’t get too attached to players, but when you watch 162 games a season it can be difficult to follow that advice. You see the same guys day in and day out, you learn their personalities through how they deal with victory and defeat on the field, you get a sense through interviews of who they are: funny, serious, smart, sarcastic, goofy. All this can create a parasocial bond that makes us like certain players more than others. It’s the reason that people buy jerseys for players who aren’t...

Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/ The Tigers also finalized Hinch’s coaching staff for 2024. The sample size was small, and of course pre-selected for the wisest and most knowledgeable fans of the Detroit Tigers fans by virtue of it being a Bless You Boys poll, but by and large opinions of manager AJ Hinch proved very positive in our recent polling. That’s good, because he’s here for the long haul. On Monday evening, the Detroit Tigers announced that they had signed Hinch to a long-term contract extension. His previous deal ran through 2025, and as reported by Cody...

Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports The draft lottery and the Rule 5 draft are the two main events on tap for the Tigers. The Detroit Tigers aren’t likely to see much national attention as MLB’s Winter Meetings take place this week in Nashville. The annual tradeshow and meet and greet hasn’t had quite the same intensity the past few years, as the biggest deals have tended to come later in the offseason. That will be different this year, as the free agency of Shohei Ohtani remains one of the biggest stories in the sports world, a rarity for baseball. With most of the...

Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports The Contemporary Era committee made the former Tigers’ skipper their choice for the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Good news emerged on the first day of MLB’s Winter Meetings in Nashville, Tennessee on Sunday night. Long-time Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame by the Contemporary Era committee. He becomes the first manager added to the Hall since 2013 when Tony La Russa, Joe Torre, and Bobby Cox were all unanimously elected. The ballot consisted of Leyland on his first ballot, along...

Kirthmon F. Dozier / USA TODAY NETWORK Hinch has been the driving force behind a lot of organizational change in his three years as manager. Are you still confident in his leadership? AJ Hinch arrived in Detroit on October 30, 2020. In a little over three years as manager of the Detroit Tigers, he’s undoubtedly been the key driver in the effort to remake themselves into a cutting edge organization. However, on the field things have proceeded in fits and starts, leading to a 221-265 record over those three seasons. Based on the talent he had to work with, that’s not...

Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports After managing the Toledo Mud Hens in 2023, Iapoco will take over from Alfredo Amezaga on AJ Hinch’s coaching staff in 2024. Veteran hitting coach Anthony Iapoce made a good impression with the Detroit Tigers organization in his first year as manager of the Toledo Mud Hens. Lynn Henning of the Detroit News reports that the veteran hitting coach, formerly major league hitting coach for both the Texas Rangers and the Chicago Cubs, will join AJ Hinch’s coaching staff in Detroit this season as their first base coach. It was announced in...

Photo by Ronald Martinez/ Let’s pretend we own the team. It’s probably safe to say none of us are billionaires who own baseball teams, and therefore do not have the means or ability to buy up free agent contracts whenever and wherever we choose, but for the sake of today’s open thread, let’s pretend we are! It’s hot stove season, winter meetings start on Sunday, and that means we’re going to start to see a lot of movement and potentially some record-breaking contracts being signed. The Tigers have already started to bolster their roster with some late-fall...

Katie Stratman-USA TODAY Sports Multiple reports confirm that the 35-year-old starting pitcher is coming to Detroit pending a physical. Another key piece of the Detroit Tigers’ offseason came together on Sunday evening, as Jon Heyman reported that the club will ink RHP Kenta Maeda to a two-year contract worth $24 million on Monday, pending a physical. Multiple national writers confirm Heyman’s lead report. The Tigers and the 35-year-old Japanese starting pitcher have been linked all throughout the past week. However, the Baltimore Orioles and the Minnesota Twins...

Photo by Carmen Mandato/ Most of the big boys are still on the board, other than Aaron Nola, but the depth starters are starting to move. Player acquisition is at the forefront of everyone’s mind this time of year, and as GMs around the league are stirring, the Tigers have yet to make their first strike in free agency. All of Detroit fandom is doing their best to manifest a deal with Japanese superstar pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, but Tigers boss Scott Harris has been rummaging around in a less glamorous tier of free agency. They were first linked to Seth Lugo, who...

Photo by Bob Levey/ The Tigers have serious interest in the 35-year-old former Dodgers and Twins rotation piece. A report from Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press emerged on Tuesday evening, suggesting that the Detroit Tigers have “serious” interest in veteran Japanese starting pitcher Kenta Maeda. The 35-year-old right-hander is familiar to most Tigers fans from his four seasons in the Minnesota Twins organization. Prior to that he spent four years with the Los Angeles Dodgers after dominating the NPB in his mid-20’s and eventually getting posted for free...

Photo by Mark Cunningham/MLB Photos via Hernandez put together one of the all-time great seasons by a reliever in 1984. There is unhappy news for Detroit Tigers fans, and baseball generally, on Tuesday morning. Guillermo “Willie” Hernandez, legendary reliever for the 1984 World Series champion Tigers has passed away at the age of 69. MLB Insider reporter Hector Gomez was first with the sad news. Hernandez is best remembered for his incredible 1984 campaign. With the right-handed Aurelio Lopez as his superb setup man, Hernandez was Sparky Anderson’s weapon to...

Photo by John E. Moore III/ The Tigers have the opportunity to add a pitcher who suits their developmental strengths in next month’s draft. Friday afternoon was the final date to tender contracts to arbitration eligible players or release then. Teams had already added their prospects to their 40-man rosters to protect them from December’s Rule 5 draft. So, rosters are pretty well set for the draft, apart from whatever additions teams might make in the interim via trades or free agency. The Tigers handled their roster setting as expected. In terms of prospects, they...

Sam Greene/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK Jonathan India could be the answer to the Tigers revolving door at second base, if he can be had for the right price. As we move into the busy part of the offseason, it is seemingly becoming more likely that the Reds are going to trade starting second baseman Jonathan India. While Nick Krall, the president of baseball operations for Cincinnati, has stated that they aren’t motivated to move him, his name continues to pop up among baseball’s most respected beat writers, and where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Enter the...

Photo by Luis Gutiérrez/ Norte Photo/ We’re leaving pitchers out of this one... Baseball can sometimes look like an easy game to play. As many non-fans will point out, there is quite a lot of standing around being done at any given point. But I think baseball devotees recognize that there is an inherent level of difficulty associated with each position on the field. For today’s open thread, I want to debate the topic of which position player role is the most difficult. The job of a pitcher is, without question a tough one—I certainly can’t throw 95mph—but to...

Photo by Steven King/Icon Sportswire via We’d be surprised if the Tigers landed a top free agent arm, so let’s sift their other options for finding an above average starter in free agency. Eduardo Rodriguez is gone to free agency, and as expected the Tigers now have a real problem to solve. Pitching was the club’s relative strength in 2023, and while they made a very nice move to swoop in on Mark Canha already this offseason, few expect the Tigers’ offense to be much more than an average unit without further reinforcement. If the Tigers aren’t going to pursue...