Detroit Tigers Links: Year of the Tiger

Hello BYB family! You’re going to find a slightly new format to Links going forward, at least for the time being, with new Links posts coming 1-2 times a week. We hope you like this new set-up, and we’ll be fine-tuning it as the season gets going (uh, when the season gets going... eventually), but it will be a mix of Tigers news and more general interest news as well, and maybe some things that are a bit of random fun. Any links we share that are behind a paywall will be marked with a ($).

Let’s talk about the lockout in the room to start things off. Of course with it being February, we’d traditionally be counting down the days until pitchers and catchers report (usually right around Valentine’s Day), but to date movement in the discussions between MLB and the MLBPA have been sluggish to put it mildly and glacial to put it accurately.

On Tuesday the two parties met again, but over the course of a “heated” 90 minute discussion they did not manage to come to an agreement, and so we will continue to wait. In the meantime, let’s dip our toe into some fun social content from the Tigers, and some noteworthy links you might be interested in reading offsite.

• Evan Petzold spoke to new Tigers catcher Tucker Barnhart, the team’s union rep, about how the negotiations are going, and if time is running out to get things done for a full season. ($)
• Chris Brown at Motor City Bengals forces us to relive the 6 worst drafts in Tigers history.
• Michael Critchley tries to predict the Opening Day lineup.
• There will be a whopping SEVEN former Tigers on next year’s Hall of Fame ballot, but Ryan Ford wonders if any of them have a shot of getting in. ($)
• In MiLB news, it looks like minor league umpires will see an increase in their pay this coming season. If only the same were true for the players. Reporting by J.J. Cooper.
• Sam Blum gives us Shohei Ohtani’s reaction to his MLB The Show ‘22 cover, and how he feels about his skyrocketing fame. ($)
• Here’s a look at some of the up-and-coming players who just missed Keith Law’s annual top 100 list. ($)
• Cody Stavenhagen looks to the future of Tigers’ prospect Jackson Jobe. ($)
• Stavenhagen also has a really interesting look at how the Ty Cobb Museum continues to grow as more is learned about the complicated Tigers legend. ($)

Tigers birthdays today: Matthew Boyd; Adam Everett; Zeb Eaton; and Ray Demmitt.

On this day: New Amsterdam, later to become New York, is incorporated (1653); the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, later just the National League, is formed (1876); the first Groundhog Day is observed (1887); Ulysses by James Joyce is published (1922), it also happens to be Joyce’s birthday; and the bonkers and bizarre Dyatlov Pass incident occurs in the Ural Mountains (1959).

Tiger of the Day: