Detroit Tigers News: Brad Ausmus’ job in ‘no imminent danger’

So this is what winning feels like. After what felt like an eternity of losing, the Tigers finally snapped the skid with a win over the San Diego Padres on Sunday. They closed out another wretched West Coast swing, and now the team returns to Detroit where they will face the Kansas City Royals. Monday is, mercifully, an off day. There has been a noticeable amount of speculation around the fate of this team in recent days, and maybe today will bring some clarification on some of the hotter issues.

The heat is on

Whether it is factual or perceived, one of the current hot topics is manager Brad Ausmus and if he’s long for his job at the helm of the Tigers. He maintains that he isn’t overly concerned about the issue, and he continues to hold the support of general manager Al Avila. That said, he doesn’t have a contract for next year and every manager has the support of his GM right up until the day he doesn’t.

Detroit News writer Lynn Henning says there is no threat.

We will have to wait and see if that day is around the corner.

Future’s so bright

Things aren’t too hot with the big club. If you’re finding yourself less than inspired by the state of Tigers baseball, maybe you should try looking to the lower levels of the organization. For the first time in some years, there is some legitimate promise threatening to break through.

Detroit’s first round pick, Alex Faedo, has yet to sign with the team, and this is because he’s too busy making college players look foolish. Facing the TCU Horned Frogs for the second time in the College World Series on Saturday night, Faedo had his way with them. He pitched 7 ¹⁄₃ innings, striking out 11, and shutting out the Frogs. Faedo has had an amazing run in the CWS, and with every new outing is making the Tigers pick of him at the 18 spot look more and more like a smart decision.

Here’s an interesting article on the recent “struggles” of eighth-round pick, left-handed pitcher Max Green. It should be interesting to see how his career progresses.

If you’re interested in what’s going on with some guys already in the system, here’s a nice little breakdown of pitcher Gerson Moreno’s outing in the FSL All-Star game. The high-90s fastball with late tailing movement sounds quite nice.

Sellers market

The talk of the Tigers turning into sellers has been out there for some time now, and with most media outlets suggesting it’s a good idea, Al Avila recently confirmed that they were indeed prepared to listen to trade offers the speculation on what pieces might move has increased. Last week I linked to an MLB Trade Rumors article that put two Tigers on the top-50 list. Now that number has jumped to six.

Baseball is awesome

I gotta give it up for Monte Harrison taking the bat flip to the next level with his home run in the MWL All-Star game.

For those of you who want to bang the drum for the good ol’ days when they had respect for the game and played it the right way, I’d like to point you in the direction of one Jimmy Piersall who, upon hitting his 100th home run, proceeded to run the bases backwards. Not in a meaningless All-Star Game, and not in 2017. It was 1963. People have been doing silly stuff to make baseball entertaining for a long time, and I’m always going to appreciate it.

For your free time

Analytics hasn’t ruined baseball. The relationship between baseball and suicide. Robert Osuna is struggling with anxiety issues, something that has to be extremely difficult. Ichiro becomes the oldest man to start in center field. Tim Tebow is moving on up, because nothing says promote me like a .222 average.