The Tigers Should Give Scott Harris A Lifetime Contract If He Finds A Way To Dump Javier Baez

I am incredibly hyperbolic regarding my opinions on the Tigers. They say not to get too high or too low, but I do. That's the cross I bare, but at the end of the day, while it's essential to me, I can acknowledge that it is just baseball. I don't have any contempt in my heart for any Detroit Tigers. These are my boys. Javier Baez is the exception. Javy Baez makes me feel like a bad person. My contempt for him runs so deep that we're a few more strikeouts away from him being brought up in my next therapy session. My feelings toward him are irrational. I have to acknowledge that. I've started to believe my galaxy brain conspiracy that his numbers were made up from 2016-2019. I think if someone did a deep dive and looked at every single at-bat, I don't think he ever had an OPS above .650, and if he did, then his existence is that episode of "South Park" where every team was trying to lose so they were literally throwing pitches off of hitter's bats. I'm a Detroit Tigers fan, and I've seen some horrendous nonsense since this stupid rebuild began in 2017. No one bothers me more than Javier Baez. I pay attention to the metrics and know he grades out to be an elite shortstop. I don't care. The trade deadline is rapidly approaching, and I will worship the ground that Scott Harris walks on if he figures out a way to dump Javier Baez.

I'm aware of the money Detroit is paying him. I don't care. Pour gasoline on it and light the contract on fire if you have to. Trade him for a bucket of balls and eat the entire deal. I don't want him here. The organization can't be successful with him on the roster. Scott Harris has preached how much he wants to acquire players dominating the strike zone. Baez goes out of his way to do the opposite. And it's the same shit OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER again. A fastball up by his forehead? He's swinging at it. A slider five fucking feet off the plate? He's chasing. Some players adjust and struggle, while others don't attempt to adjust. I can't have the latter on my baseball team. And given my ability to reverse jinx everything, this blog will probably lead to one of those two-week hot streaks where Javy faces pitchers with head injures gets hot and people talk about how he's "turned a corner." I don't care. Get him off the team. Last year, as annoying as it was, everyone was bad. There was no leadership. It was a rudderless ship. The 2023 Tigers aren't good, but they have professionals. It is a damn shame that some of the most professional hitters on this team are in their first or second years in the big leagues. At least Miguel Cabrera, at 40 years old, is still grinding out at-bats. Yeah, he's a shell of himself but approaches his plate appearances like a professional. He doesn't decide before the game which pitches he will swing at.

Would dumping Baez make the current Tigers better? Ehhhh, I would argue yes, but my contempt blinds me. It's not about being better in 2023. It's about culture. He doesn't fit. And I'm sure his numbers would increase if Baez got shipped to the Dodgers. He'd bat 8th in a deep lineup and start hitting for pop. Again, I don't care. He's not going to do that here. GMs and owners love to give guys who make a lot of money as long a leash as possible. I understand why in certain instances, but not this one. If you watched this guy's at-bats without knowing how much he was making, you'd assume he would be mopping the floor at a Pizza Hut in two months. I'd accept it as a bad contract if it were just as simple as underperformance. I'm not in that clubhouse, so I don't know the goings-on, but Javy Baez plays baseball like someone who never had any interest in playing for the Tigers. I think he expected that Jed Hoyer and the Cubs would come crawling by or that Steve Cohen would resign after 2021, so he and his boy Lindor could be a double-play combo. But because both men were more interested in signing good players, they kicked Javy to the curb before Al Avila called.

I can't adequately express to you how traumatic it is watching a player swing at the same dog shit pitches every single at bat. He plays for my team, but it's reached a point where I'm not even that excited when he gets a hit. He's not capable of good at-bats. He just faces stupid pitchers sometimes who don't know who they're facing. And I'm going off about this now because even if the Tigers ate most of his contract, you could still ship him for SOMETHING. A lifetime supply of Big League Chew would suffice. At least he's still a name (for some reason). A year from now, no one would touch him, even if you took on the entire contract. You have just to accept that this was a failure made by a previous GM. Eat it and move on for the sake of our sanity.