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podcast with your hosts, Chet West and Bill Patterson.
Welcome back to Litterbox, the Detroit Tigers
podcast. I am Chet West. The gentleman across
from me here is Bill Patterson, Billy P from
the D. And we just watched our Tigers end their
2025 season in a fashion that was somewhat predictable
to a degree. I sat there at some point in the
game thinking to myself, when will the bullpen
finally relent and blow this thing? And as the
innings started to progress. I kinda thought,
are we gonna see Tommy Canley eventually? And
Bill, we got Tommy Canley in the 15th inning
of one of the longest games I think I've seen
in quite some time. And he did not disappoint.
Your thoughts? If one single game could ever
encapsulate the season that was the 25 Tigers,
it was exactly what happened last night. got
off to kind of a rough start. The Tigers are
down one, nothing. They come back with a Javi
double saw bones. Karp gets him in with a dong.
We're up to one. They tie it to two. So that's
now we're post all star break Tigers. If you're
kind of tracking where I'm going through the
season, I see where you're going. And then we
go to extras and Didn't text you because it was
late for everybody it was just we had early kids
sports you had early kids sports No excuses.
I watched the whole thing, but I just kind of
turned off my text messaging Is there anything
more befitting of this season than? Tk being
up there throwing thing nothing fit this whole
thing this whole story Had to end that way it
had to end and with general futility from the
bats along the way. It was just so perfect. It
was like we can't play to run to save our lives.
You know, in the same one or two guys were kind
of generating the offense. And then you'd get
in position and you just couldn't. It was almost
like we didn't have an approach. A lot of these
hitters got up there flailing away, especially
in the 11th, 12th, 13th, as the game started
going on. It looked like it was a people were
in survival mode of some sort. And I started
thinking to myself that, you know, like, I think
Z Mack got up there at some point in the latter
innings and had an at bat that some of these
pictures are really right over the heart of the
plate with not drastic movement, but he just
kind of looked exhausted. He looked exhausted
with the whole thing. He just didn't have an
answer at the plate. And I'm going, this is why
Z -Mac is Z -Mac, and he's not at All -Star every
year. This is why he is who he is. And then I
started thinking, like, we're going to see more
of this in the next couple innings. And sure
enough, Tommy Canley did Tommy Canley things.
I think you're picking on the wrong guy here,
though, because I could be. I mean, I could pick
out almost any of these guys, right? Well, the
one that is immune to everything hitting wise
has to be Carrie Carpenter. He went four for
five from the plate and he had two walks. He
only struck out once. He generated both runs
in terms of two RBI's. He was immune is a good
way of putting it. OK, the rest of the roster
had a disease or an ailment because Glabar is
done as far as I'm concerned. I pray the Tigers
do not know sign him into any capacity. And you
want to hey, real quick, good news, Tiger fans.
Guess what? Between his salary and Alex Cobb,
you have 30 million more to spend next year.
It's amazing. Yeah, it's amazing to look up and
down these final stats for the division series.
He was 0 for 6. Riley Green was 0 for 6. Spencer
Torkerson was 0 for 6 with 4 K's. Yeah, Spencer
had a rough go. Colt Keith 0 for 5 with 3 K's.
Yeah. Zach McKinn Street. I'm not saying he was
good, but he was one for six, which is good considering
this abysmal lineup. Dylan Dingler, two for six.
Parker Meadows went 0 for five. My prediction
was 0 for four, but I also didn't think he would
in our text exchange. Remember I said, oh, Meadows
is starting instead of Jemima Jones. Here comes
here comes 0 and four and or 0 for five. Yeah.
Well, I didn't know the game would go. I didn't
know it would go that long. Yeah. He had more
opportunities to strike out. And then my pick
to click for the game was Javi and he went one
for six. So Chet, since the All -Star break,
I know the pitching hasn't been great. This team
going into next off season and we'll talk about
who the stalwarts are going to be just briefly,
you know, who's under contract, who's arbitration
eligible that they should settle, you know, on
something fair. Meaning there's interest on both
sides this team needs to big boy at bats And
I'm not talking about the eerie guys Max Clark
They need like a real batter. I think to compete
in the regular season They've got almost enough,
but you now we have these expectations now the
postseason What are you gonna do when you get
to the postseason? And it was bore proof that
we didn't have the hitters to go up against the
good pitching We didn't have guys who put at
bats together now, you know You can look at the
Mariners lineup and they got some pretty pretty
big lemons up and down too from the division
series and Couldn't handle our pitching as well
either but they had a couple guys that really
shone through they have what the Guardians have
and yeah, and I think this is relevant even though
Stephen Kwan didn't have a really good wild card
he and Ramirez are the stalwarts of that lineup.
Yeah. And, and the guys that you can kind of
rely on to do something, they'll get a walk.
They'll take a long at bat. They'll get on base.
And I felt the same way with rally. Um, and then
there were probably a couple Mariners that you
could probably slot into that. Uh, Naylor, you
know, had a really good game last night. Polanco,
Polanco St. Nicholas, J .P. Crawford. I mean
Crawford. So where I'm saying that Like we can't
compare ourselves to the Guardians anymore. I
know that's the team we need to be in the division.
But to your point to go further, I think you
and I are saying similar things in this that
we need two big boy at bats, meaning Riley Green,
I think can thrive between now and when he turns
27, 28, but he has got to be protected better
than the production he's getting now. Well, I
think You look at a team like the Dodgers, you
look at a team like the Yankees, you look at
a team like the Mets, maybe even you look at
a team like... The Blue Jays. The Blue Jays,
you could go to... Well, I'm not even picking...
I guess the Blue Jays aren't applicable to what
I'm trying to get at here, but some of these
teams, the Padres, they're building themselves
for the postseason. They're building themselves
to be a postseason team and win in the postseason.
The idea is to get back to the World Series.
They kind of know what they need for that to
happen. Whereas then you've got the teams like
the Tigers, the Indians, the competitive teams
during the regular season, but they typically
can't get past the division series. They just
don't have the horses. These other teams have
the horses. And I'm wondering if we need to start
thinking along the lines of what do we have to
do to win in the postseason? The scary part of
that is you got to spend to do that. And I don't
know that they're going to do this. I just don't
think they're going to. I think they're fine
getting to the postseason. Maybe they get lucky
and squeak into the ALCS. You know, maybe they
pull a T Tampa Bay Devil Rays back in circa whenever
it was when Madden was their coach get into the
World Series 2009. Yeah, 2009. You know, they
just don't they aren't building for that sustained
postseason run year after year after year. It's
almost like they're kind of just trying to slap
it together and see if they can get in. And they're
doing it because they've drafted well and they
have this young talent, but they need those extra
bats, like you say, to get them over the hump.
And by the way, They don't just need bats. They
need some pitching too. That's strikeout pitching.
Let's talk about that because what I'd like to
do is talk about who we know is coming back.
The Tigers lost last night, three to two, 15
innings. If you're a Tigers fan and you listen
to this, I'm sure you stayed awake on a Friday
evening, regardless of what you had going on
this Saturday. You should have. And if you didn't
Google the highlights, record it on whatever
streaming service you have. It was as fun as
fun could possibly be. And I think that's a great
start for the Tigers. After last year's surprise
run to the playoffs, this year's really dominant,
you know, first half or first hundred games of
baseball, more is needed. I agree with you on
pitching. And it was so interesting having the
crew they had in the booth last night. It was
Adam Amin, who I respect immensely, but I think
he spread himself too thin. He does bowls games
and a ton of NBA. He does a ton of college football.
And he also does baseball, but like when he does
it, he's usually doing like a day game for the
White Sox type thing. Sure. He was out of his
depth and I'm giving this as a shout out to a
lot of our loyal listeners when they compared
the Seattle reliever to senior smoke. Yeah. Almost
had an aneurysm because there is only one there
is only one scene and his name is a really low
kind of haphazardly Through that in there after
they said it they've been calling him this many
announcers have been calling him this I'll see
they've stolen this nickname for him And then
they kind of haphazardly threw in and there was
another senior smoke or really a Lopez in the
1984 Tigers I'm going guys you'd had to do better
on that And you can't take the nickname. Anyways,
not to get hung up on that. But yeah, you think
we need some strikeout guys, though, is what
we're getting at. And they have them in Seattle.
They had those types of power pitchers in their
pen. They rolled the same guys. Spear and Brash
picked up. I felt like every game a starter would
go. And then we'd see some combination of Spear,
Spire and Brash and then Munoz. It was like boom,
boom, boom. They had the lockdown ready to go.
And it worked for the most part. It worked for
the most part. All right. So let's talk about
next season and here's why I'm not super optimistic
unless some free agent signings do happen. Sure.
I mean, it's going to be more of the same. You're
going to have Carpenter in right field, Keith,
I guess at second base, but let's just say second
base. Green in left field, torque at first, Stingler
at catcher. I've heard, even though he's not
under contract, Viraline, you've heard the same
thing. They want Matt Viraline back. He wants
to come back. I'm penciling him at third base
unless they make a free agent acquisition. I've
seen enough and I've said this, but he's young
and he's under contract. Parker Meadows will
be your starting center fielder. And then until
his contract ends, Javier Baez, Javi Baez, will
be your shortstop. Bench is going to be ZMAC.
Justin Henry -Molloy will be in the mix. I don't
know if he'll make the 26 -man or the 25 -man
or the 40 -man. And then Andi Abyañez is a shoe
-in for utility. That is your lineup right now.
So nothing's changing other than the second base
Gleyber Torres slot. You need two to three big
time at bats to balance that out. How are you
going to do that? Because who are you benching?
Parker Meadows? Parker could go and Verling could
go as far as - Are they going to be willing to
bench Parker? Are they going to trade him? I
don't know. Does he become a trade piece? I wonder
if the trade market is where we're going to seek
people. Or if they're just going to roll this
out again and say everybody's a year older and
we'll be that much better. Please don't do that
to me. Well, this is what scares me is this standing
pat. We made the playoffs. This is Bill. This
is my biggest problem with all this. You look
at what we have. They've built a lot of this
up through some of these players, these young
guys. I mean, what if you're you've got to either
get rid of some of them or. You got to hope they
get better and you keep them and you try to do
the same thing all over again next season I just
don't see where you're gonna have McGonagall
is gonna be up next season. He's gonna play I
don't I think he's gonna play second base So
Gleyber's taking care of Gleyber's gone McGonagall's
in so insert McGonagall in there Which means
you're gonna have another young hitter in there
who's going to have some Youth, you know a little
bit of he may surprise us We may love not surprise
us, but we may love what he's doing at times,
but he's also gonna have those youthful spurts
of just Garbage where he swings at everything
or he's not patient. You know, you're just gonna
have it you're gonna have growing pains So I'm
a little afraid of the fact that we are going
to very much roll out the same line up next year
Come game one after spring training and maybe
we're going to come back and talk about this
in four or five, six months. But I am terrified
of the fact that they're going to stay in patent.
They're good with what they got. You want two
big bats. I don't see where they're coming from
or where they're going to put them. OK, I don't
base. Maybe I think we're asking the wrong question.
We don't have a D .H. in there. And the fact
is. You and I both agree they need the bats.
Where to put them is, I don't want to say inconsequential.
Don't re -sign Matt Virling. Know that ZMAC is
what ZMAC is. And, you know, you're paying them
all the money in the world, Chris Illich. It
doesn't mean you have to start Javi every day.
I think you're onto something there with the
don't bring Veerling back. We have a lot of Veerling
we need more. I'm seeing a trade, a Parker Meadows
or a Spencer Torkelson trade somewhere with someone.
I could see that happening. And I hate to say
it, my boy Torque, but he ain't hitting like
a prototypical first baseman. We need a Pete
Alonso over there. We don't need a Torque. And
then you just start talking, well, will they
pay for that? Are they going to pay for an Alonso?
Are they going to pay for a, you know? That level
of first baseman. Then we go to the other side
of things, and this is where it gets interesting.
Okay. Do you, Tarek Scoobel's value will never
be higher than it will be at the winter meetings
in this off season. The second he pitches for
the Tigers next opening day, his value starts
to decline because you will be getting pennies
on the dollar. If you and Scott Boris can't figure
out something, which I don't think that's going
to happen. The Tigers have had every opportunity
to do that. Apparently they've made very fair
offers and overtures and it's being turned down
because they want to, they being scubal and Boris
want to go to the open market. So I don't know
that it's in the Tigers best interest to have
him as the opening day starter. I couldn't agree
more. I mean, I just don't know. I don't know
if you. He's gonna win a second Cy Young here.
Okay, he I can't figure out who's gonna beat
him And if he doesn't he should have so you look
at that and you say well Do we just keep him
around for this final season play it out? We're
not gonna get anything or near his value or your
chances are what one and five at the best to
resign them One and five, maybe maybe they got
no that's the highest. Yeah. Yeah What the other
thing I started thinking was, you know, he pitched
two games in this series for us. We didn't win
either one of them. At the end of the day, the
sum of the whole is more than the individual
players that we have. We needed more to win those
games than just a Tarik Scoob will start a Tarik
Scoob will start in a great lineup would have
sealed the deal. Yeah, but a Tarik Scoob will
start in the lineup. We got in doing it and.
I fear if we spent the money to sign him, that's
what we would be living with for the rest of
the time, you know? So I just don't... If he
can bring a bunch of prospects, if he can bring
a bunch of players who are ready to play now
that we have some control over, I think you've
got to trade him. But at the same time, who knows
if that happens or not. I don't know if they're
willing to go that route. They'll get skewered.
The common fan will not be happy if Tarek Skubal
is traded away before next season. I just don't
see it being a good, a good look, if you know
what I mean. So then the other thing is that
Flaherty has his own option. He can opt out of
the tiger's contract, which I think he pitched
well enough to probably do so and get more on
the open market. Okay. I know that's not going
to lose any sleep over losing Flaherty. I mean,
but now you are looking at these gentlemen is
your essentially starting pitchers for next year.
If Scoobel's gone and Flaherty's gone is what
you're saying. Or are you saying with Scoobel
even? Okay. I mean, these guys are all part of
it. Yeah. So Casey Mize is under contract. We'll
be there next year. Reese Olsen. Let's hope he's
healthy. He'll be there. Yeah. Paul Seewald is
under contract for two more years. He will be
there. All right. How you utilize him, I don't
know. Yeah. Okay. But okay. Jose Urquarty. Yeah.
Urquarty. Yeah. That's interesting because the
Tigers control that option. So they can opt out
of that. And then you've got Troy Melton. And
that's kind of your starting pitchers as I see
it. I'm not counting Jackson Jobe because I don't
expect him back at any time next year. Am I missing
anything on that? No, I do think Troy Melton,
I would love actually, if we do keep Scubal,
pairing Scubal and Melton is our one -two punch
at the top of that starting rotation. I think
Melton's got something. I think he could be a
very, very good starter for us. I'm saying it
all season. And I think everybody, you know,
on the broadcast last night, they made those
exact same words. I think it was Adam Wainwright
was like, can you imagine having a Scoobel Melton
1 -2? They might make a really good 1 -2 punch.
And I sat there and I was like, yep, yep, yep.
Give me more of that. My is Reese Olsen. I hope
Reese is back. I'm thinking he should be for
the start of next season based on what I was
reading, but maybe he won't be back. Right at
the start. Then you have Mize. You'll have Seewald
in there somewhere. You got to find a fifth.
That could be Keider Montero for a while. We
may see some combination of that. Maybe Flaherty
does resign. Maybe Flaherty resigning or picking
us. I don't know. It's, it's an option. So he
may try to test his value on the market. Like
I said, though, I'm not losing any sleep either
way. I think we have people we can fill in there
to do just fine without him. I don't know, Bill.
I mean, this team still has a lot of needs. Isn't
that odd that we can go to the ALDS, get to the
fifth game and we still have a ton of needs?
Two years in a row. Crazy that we have so many
needs yet. Yeah, yeah, no. And so then the bullpen,
really the only pieces that are under contract
that I see being brought back are Tyler Holton.
Brandt Herder, Will Vest, Kyle Finnegan. And
then I don't know what they're going to do with
two guys. Beau Briski is one. Yeah. And then
Jason Foley is the other. I think it's both injury
related. Yeah. But they're both under control
as well. So when I look at it from a numbers
standpoint, you know, just the names we just
talked about. We have Finnegan for one more year.
Before you go further, is it just one more? No,
two more years. Two more years. So next year
and then for a while. And he's not expensive
either. I think the Nationals signed him to a
pretty good deal. I think it's like five million
or something like that. So I feel good about
all that in terms of who is signed. I look at
it and I'm like, oh, there's seven starting pitchers.
Like we have so much depth. And then you think
about it and you're like, wait a second. Like
is Melton, I think you and I would both love
to be a starter. Yeah, he needs to be a starter.
No idea what Seewald is. Olsen is great, but
he's never healthy. You know, Mize could be more
consistent. And then Urquide, like, who the heck
knows? I mean, who knows what's going to happen
with him, right? So and then you lose Scoobble
or you trade Scoobble, you lose Flaherty, and
all of a sudden things aren't looking so hot.
Yep. You might have to keep scubal around I mean
might literally may not be able to trade him
and put together a rotation Depends on what you
can get out on the market. That's still taking
shape to one degree or another I don't I don't
know bill. There seem to be a lot of needs. We
have needs in the rotation We have needs in the
pen. We have needs in the lineup Core positions
like we do need to get, I love torque, but we
do need to find somebody who consistently hits
for more power to play that first base position.
Colt Keith, is he the guy? I don't know. He's
borderline for me, you know, and he's been DHing
a lot. So what do we do with Colt Keith? Do we
put him back at first? Do we shift him to second?
There's some questions there. I'd rather see
him back playing his original position at second
baseman because I don't think he's a prototypical
first baseman. We may not get that prototypical
first baseman. We may stand packed with one of
those two guys. I think third base is an opportunity
to upgrade there. I think we can go out and find
a third baseman to upgrade that spot and get
some power out of that spot. Outfield seems pretty
set if Meadows stays in the center. So we got
a lot of needs and some interesting positional
things to consider So last point before we kind
of wrap up 2026 season opens rough to the Tigers
open on the West Coast again Yeah, three in San
Diego three at Arizona. Then they come home for
a weird three game set against the Cardinals
So nine straight against the National League.
Mm -hmm. Then they go to the Twin Cities for
four games and then come home to play the Marlins.
That four games against the Twins might be the
respite they need after nine against the National
League. Yeah, but like one's going to get rained
out. One's going to get snowed out. I mean, like.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, so the other part is I don't
know that they're going to start super hot, so
it could also be the time to somewhat hit reset.
Maybe you go after one of. The big free agents,
Kyle Tucker, Alex Bregman can opt out. We could
give that another run. I don't know why we would.
Corbin Burns, Walker Bueller. So there's obviously
going to be a lot of options on the free agent
market to build this team up. But where do you
fit them? Where do they fit in our payroll? Where
do you fit them on the field based on some of
the positional challenges we have? Bill, we're
going to do another episode. We're going to cover
all that, kind of do a wrap up on the 2025 season.
We'll wrap it up a nice little bow, nice little
package for everybody. We'll preview 2026 and
that'll be our sign off for the season. But everybody
kind of just sit, let this 15 inning game marinate
a little bit and then forget about it and go
watch some football. And we'll start talking
about the future here in a couple of weeks with
our wrap up episode. Until then. Enjoy your Lions
football, enjoy your college football on Saturdays,
whomever you may be cheering for, and Go Tigers.
I don't know why I even say Go Tigers, the season's
over. Enjoy your off season. All right, that's
gonna do it for this episode of the Litterbox,
a Detroit Tigers podcast. Thanks for hanging
out with us. We're Bill and Chet, we'll be back
soon with more Tigers Talk. If you're enjoying
the show, be sure to follow or subscribe on Spotify,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
And hey, if you got a minute, leave us a quick
review. Till next time, Go Tigers!