On Sunday, FanGraphs’ David Laurila wrote in the site’s weekly notes article asking whether Detroit may offer A.J. Hinch its general manager position as successor to Al Avila in the future. Avila has been the Tigers’ general manager since 2015, a seven-year timespan over which I have graduated high school, graduated college, and started and ended a career as a teacher. To put it another way, Avila is part of a very exclusive club of general managers who have served across three U.S. presidencies, and yet Detroit has yet to make a playoff appearance since Avila took the reins. There will be few-to-no Avila apologists given the performance of his second notable crop of free big agent signings in 2022 (and remember, his first one brought in Jordan Zimmermann and Mike Pelfrey!). The jury is still out on the Eduardo Rodriguez contract, as he is set to return in the third week of August and is only in the first year of a five-year, $70 million contract, but Rodriguez has missed most of the season after suddenly leaving the team to deal with personal issues. He pitched his first rehab start on Saturday in Low-A Lakeland, and the results were encouraging: