FanPost

I don’t understand Al Avila’s line of thinking

I was originally going to post this as a comment on Wednesday’s game recap, but I feel like a FanPost would be a better idea.

Remember August 11 when the tigers had just beaten the mighty colorless foot garments to win their fourth game in as many days? We had a 32.8% chance (fangraphs) to make the playoffs, most likely our best chance at the playoffs since the final game of the 2016 season. (I’m too lazy to check this for accuracy). C. J. Cron had just injured his knee and was to be out for a undetermined amount of time. Why not call up Isaac Parades? Both the extra year of service time and the ‘super two’ deadlines had passed. Instead, they called up Willi Castro. (To be fair, he has done a pretty good job). At this point, the rotation contained the struggling Boyd and Nova, Ful-Nor, and Tyler Alexander, all of whom were probably worse than Skubal or Mize at that time. They also could have added the non-stretched-out Skubal to Ful-Nor, in order to give the bullpen a break. Fast forward to August 15, and the Tigers have dropped the final two games to the colorless foot garments, and the first game to the Cleveland Native Americans, soon to be renamed the arachnids. Ivan Nova has injured his triceps, and to replace him, Al goes with the obvious choice, Anthony Castro. He hasn’t even pitched since then! Couldn’t he at least called up Chiang, Blackwood, McKay, or one of his fresh, more talented, arms a forty minute drive down I-75! The Tigers proceed to get swept by the Arachnids/Native Americans and now have playoff odds of 14.6%, dropping below the KC Monarchy for lowest odds in the division. Sometime Sunday, either while the tigers hitters were striking out 3 times an inning, instead of their usual 4, good ol’ Al had the genius idea to bring up the organization’s best players to replace its worst. But of course, he had to do it against the Tim Andersons, I mean the colorless foot garments, in the division’s smallest ballpark. So despite Paredes, Skubal, and Mize having debuts ranging from ok to great, the untalented lineup Al carefully built scored a grand total of nine runs, which the colorless foot garments topped in game two alone. Two of those runs were courtesy of Paredes, and Jeimer Candelario, who Paredes is supposed to eventually replace, had three others. Three games later, the losing streak has extended to eight, the playoff chances to only 8%, and today’s game doesn’t exactly look like a win. Al needs to start being a good GM.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of the <em>Bless You Boys</em> writing staff.