Here we go.

Tiger Territory host and the athletic beat reporter on the Tigers, Cody staven Hagen joining us right now.

Cody, do the Tigers have a pulse?

I think they have a pulse, but it's getting lighter by the day, right.

I mean, this has gotten bad.

I've never seen anything like it.

I don't really know how to describe it.

I don't have a lot else to say.

It has been a very bad stretch of baseball.

They're not getting any breaks, their rosters turned into a mess.

Now they're fighting for their lives.

Before we get into like the team and the issues and the problems and the questions, is this the worst off day that you can remember for this team in a sense that they have to wake up today and not play a game, staring at the fact that they've been one to nine in their last ten or is this the best off day possible?

Regroup, everybody's ready to go, and it's a fresh day tomorrow with your ace on the hill.

That's kind of a good question.

Eric I asked Spencer turkles In that after the game yesterday, like you have an off day, are you gonna think about baseball?

Are you gonna totally unplug.

Somewhere in between, he said, I'm totally unplugging.

He said, we're all just disconnecting, not thinking about baseball.

I kind of hope that's what these guys do.

I think they're spending their off day in Cleveland, So, you know, Zach Meisel, my colleague, wrote, wrote some funny lines.

Are they going to go up to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and play a little garage band?

Are they gonna go out to the zoo?

They should do something like that, because the more you press, the more you worry about baseball, the more you worry and dive into the numbers and the scouting reports.

Doesn't seem like that stuff has been working for him.

So I hope they're having a nice time and maybe can come back freshened up tomorrow.

Isn't that what happened at the All Star break?

Cody?

And then I think they had a really bad start to the second half of the season.

So are they sure they want to do a reset where you just float away and have a nice boat days.

That's a fair question.

They had sick at the All Star Game, because remember they were really good in the first half, so I don't know.

Maybe those were the guys who needed to float away on the boat somewhere.

Okay, so take me to the trade deadline, because we were discussing this, were the Tigers smashed enough for doing a quantity over quality trade deadline?

As I saw you retweet yesterday.

I'm forgetting the name, but we can show the tweet again at some point here.

How many pictures were brought in and how many pitchers are now not on the roster anymore.

So, like when you add up all of the trade deadline, what did they actually get and how much did they miss out on going after big boys.

Yeah, they've been crushed a lot for the trade deadline, both at the time and especially now.

They got Kyle Finigan, who had an aisle stint that's been really good.

He's only allowed one run.

Rafael Montero, one of these project guys.

It was like, Okay, really he's been pretty good.

They've helped him get better.

They really needed to add swing and mister to their bullpen.

Those two guys have actually done a decent job helping.

I think if you were to ask the Tigers and be like, well, why didn't you get a closer they'd be like, well, what he wants to get Ryan Helsley, He's been awful, And I think that is the thinking that led to this approach.

Let's get a bunch of guys, throw it at the wall, hope a couple of them stick.

Kind of a risky approach in itself, though, Is that really a better approach than just going and getting a couple of dudes who throw one hundred and are really hard to hit.

I think that's the big question here.

But the worst thing they did was go get two starters.

Charlie Morton and Chris Paddock both came relatively inexpensive, and Morton's no longer on the team.

Chris Paddock's been demoted to the bullpen.

He's hanging on by a thread.

I was one of few banging the drum for like, you need to reinforce this rotation.

You're an injury away from being in a bad spot.

Reese Alsen got hurt.

You got two guys.

One of them was forty one came to you with an ERA around six.

The other Chris Paddock, just hadn't really been that good for a couple of years.

Now they have failed spectacle and the Tigers have tried to kind of do the cute thing where they cycle in and out a bunch of different pitchers, turn the roster, turn the bullpen every series.

They did that last year and it worked.

They're showing why that's not necessarily the most sustainable approach because it hasn't worked this time around.

Now you're entering the biggest series of the year with some relievers stuck in the option cycle and with a bullpen that just doesn't look very good beyond one or two guys.

Did this happen quick?

To the to the clubhouse, the vibe when you walked in there, Did it happen quick?

Where they're like, whatever, we got this, we got this?

Holy crap, we don't got it?

Or has it been like a slow build here through these last ten games slash two weeks.

I think it's been kind of quick.

I mean, you can go back to June and the Tigers were playing closer to five hundred ball than being the team they were in May.

But they had such a big game in a big lead in the Ale Central it never really felt like it.

They lost twelve to thirteen at one point in July and it wasn't great, But you look at the standings and be like, Okay, well there's baseball.

They're gonna snap out of it.

And I think that was kind of the mentality, and they lost a couple of games.

I was with the team in Miami and I was like, it feels oddly tense in here.

And since then, maybe it's been slower since then, but the last ten days it's like every day feels a little worse, a little tighter, a little more quiet, and now you look up and you're fighting for their lives.

So one of those things that happened gradually and then suddenly kind of all at the same time.

Cody, how much of this, though, do you think was a lack And I've said this, I thought they would turn around once they got it back in their division.

Is a lack of I don't want to say focus because that's not the right thing, but lack of you know, immediacy and like we have to go now, because they're like, oh we have a ten game lead.

Oh we still have a seven game lead, we still have a five game lead.

And they never were able to get that urgency and ready to go and the fire back, and now they have to try and find it and a lot of times.

What you see happen is once you lose it, it's really hard to get it back.

For most teams, can they do that?

Yeah?

Right, that's the big question.

I don't know.

I'm not trying to question the competitive character of those guys, and I don't envy them having to stand in front of the cameras every day and try to explain this when they're the ones on the field kind of getting their teeth kicked in right now, but they're being tested.

That's the huge question.

Can you turn this around?

I do think there must have been some element of not coasting, but it's just different when you're up ten, twelve, fourteen games.

You're not playing with that pressure.

You're also not playing with urgency.

I think that must have set in subconsciously.

And then you wonder too, when your front office doesn't really go get you some real horses at the trade deadline, what message does that send to the team When your front office and you know, the coaching staff, they're bumping guys back to build an extra rest, they're kind of giving these retread pitchers tryouts because hey, we have a ten game division lead, we can do this.

What kind of message does that send to the players and then all this builds up and suddenly you're in a really really bad spot on the verge of a historic collapse.

To me, I would kind of buck against that.

It sends confidence, Hey, we don't need that many people.

We think what you guys are doing, even though they are all above everybody's norms for their career or their last like three or four years, we believe in you.

So I would kind of buck against that that.

If a front office can back the current players on the field, that gives them a vote of confidence.

But now you're in the case where a guy like Colt Keith goes down he wasn't producing to like this MVP level.

Do they not have enough depth to fill that in?

And along with that depth, you knew howve Bayas was going to come down from where he was if the team was in another situation.

Would Hovey Bias have played himself out of a position for the postseason in the way that he's played in asked two and a half months.

The funny thing about that, Eric is I've kind of been advocating for Hobby Bias to play more because the guy who's been playing over him, Tray Sweeney has a WRC plus of one in the second half.

He's given you equal to worse production than Hobby at the plate.

And there's still some small things Hobby Bias does in the field during the game that can be complete difference makers.

Hobby Bias has had a terrible second half.

He's playing like the guy who we weren't sure if he was gonna be brought back on the roster.

But to your point, Eric, like the alternative might be worse, and the alternative beyond Tray Sweeney in the organization, at least on the forty man roster, is nothing.

They have gotten in a weird spot where especially left handed bats on the farm, they don't really have anything other than Kevin McGonagall, who's in double A, and it doesn't seem like they want to bring up And I don't necessarily blame him for not one to throw McGonagall into that situation, but yeah, the depth is thinned out.

You had a guy in Jase Young who's on this roster, replaced Keith time Prospect a couple of years ago.

They oh, they didn't want to block him whatever, his development has really tapered off.

It's funny how I think every team probably enters the season thinking they have depth, and then you get to August September, you look up and your depth can evaporate pretty quickly based on injuries, based on underperformance.

I think that's certainly happened, where now you kind of have two short stops who might not be on a lot of other rosters or on playoff rosters, but you have nowhere else here.

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Okay, so let's bring everyone in for a moment.

I'm putting my dukes up for a sec.

To what Kratz said, AJ chime in.

If at the trade deadline, you don't bring in a big boy, like if you're the Tigers and you don't go for a Duran or we talked about even a bat because they had flexibility at Ginosuirez or something like that.

Are you telling your team, hey, we believe in you, we don't need anything.

Are you telling your team we don't want to trade any prospects' on the ten year plan?

How do I know you?

Look, if you were in the clubhouse and you're the Tigers, Well, if.

You're in the clubmost you don't care about the prospect because you want to win now, so you take care.

So you're like, all right, Well, they must think we're good.

But at the same time, trust me, there are people that were complaining in the clubhouse that they didn't go out and make a bigger move.

Because even if you think you're really good, like you don't think you need any help in the playoffs, you don't think you need another big boy in the bullpen or it's another back.

Definitely guys complaining about it.

I promise you there was guys playing why.

Didn't we do more?

Yeah?

How did you feel at the time, Cody that the clubhouse reacted to the trade deadline?

It's hard to get a sense for it.

I think it's been a reminder that this is a pretty young team.

This is a lot of guys who are still trying to establish their careers, trying to stay in line.

If they had a problem with the organization, they weren't going to be saying that to me or anyone in the media.

I did say at the time, like, maybe this is a vote of confidence in the guys in the group, But then yeah, like to your point, these guys want to win, they want to win the World Series, and I think they would know they would feel better if they they got another big horse in that room.

One thing I want to point out, and it's not really a defensive of the Tigers, but there's so much focus on the trade deadline, and there are a lot of other teams that would like the Mets, that were more aggressive and it didn't work out.

But the Tigers are getting blasted for the trade deadline in part because of other bad decisions they've made along the way.

Alex Cobb Kin Tamaiita.

They spent twenty five million on those two pitchers, they got nothing out of them.

They signed John Brebia, they dfa'd him before the All Star break.

You add in a couple injuries, they didn't close the door, or they didn't get the Alex Bregman deal done.

They didn't go after a guy like Hasung Kim, who is available again mid season.

Some of the waiver claims victories they've had on the margins over the past couple of years haven't really been any of those this year.

So then when you don't have that depth, when you have needs in the rotation and elsewhere, and you don't do it at the trade deadline, everyone's pointing to the deadline saying, hey, why didn't you do more.

In a way, it's a function of bigger and smaller decisions for the past ten twelve months.

Yeah, part of it to me is I do think front offices look at their biggest wins as those pickups like Kyle Fitigain.

You can make a case for right not highly coveted, and then it comes over here.

They're like, hey, throw away more splitters.

Oh look look what we did, and you can kind of brag about it.

It's not as easy to.

Pull off when you're convincing your owner for more money and we're trading more prospects.

So, Cody, do you feel like this front office is digging too deep into, you know, bargain hunting versus going for a big fish when clearly they had that ability, right they went for Alex Bregman.

They just weren't able to close it.

I mean, yeah, that's been their approach.

Bregman's really the only big guy they have pursued in a serious manner under this current regime.

And look, a couple of years ago, you're still building up.

You're trying to see what young guys you have that makes sense.

You're coming off a playoff run and you added Tommy Kinley and Alex Cobb and John Breber.

Yet Labor Tourists was a pretty nice signing, had a great first half as tapered off in the second half.

But it's a one year deal.

They like their one year deals, They like their flexibility.

Look, I know long term deals are scary, right, there's some risk built in there, but I think the second half has shown that, Like, hey, the matchups, the mixing and the matching, all that is great.

There's a reason a lot of teams prefer to still just go get really good players.

Sometimes that's the more reliable way to win games.

All right, Cody, we got to remember they control their own destiny.

Take us to this week.

They have Scooble going twice.

It seems like I think they face Viby, but it's not Cleveland's horses, their hottest pitchers.

Right now, how does this week play out to me?

And we talked about earlier.

Looks like it's a Tiger's advantage because they have Scooble going twice.

It doesn't look great for the playoffs, but they got to get in first.

Yeah, I think in an ideal world you don't have scoopol going twice because you win some games and you push them off that last day in Boston.

Trek Scouoble is this team's great equalizer.

They're great trump card.

He's the best thing this organization has going.

And you're gonna give him the ball in a big game and hope he can give you, you know, seven shutty or something to that effect, help you get off the schneide, and then hey, maybe you steal one more in Cleveland.

Maybe you're feeling a little better about yourself.

We'll see.

You don't want to lose that Schooble start.

They've lost three of their past five Trek Scougle starts.

But if there's anything to make you feel better, I think you're right.

I think it's Schoogle.

All right, I messed up.

I thought Gavin Williams just pitched.

So the Guardians do have their two best going.

They have Gavin Williams and Tanner Biby.

I thought he pitched on Sunday.

I was mistaken.

So Tigers are cooked.

My bad.

Well, they're getting a Guardians team that I mean is historically good in the last few weeks in run prevention, So goody.

The rest of the way here, it's three against the Guardians and then scoreboard watching gets really weird because at one point not long ago, it looked like the Red Sox were just gonna kind of be firmly in one of those wild card spots.

They're not.

They have to finish strong, so we might get to that final series of the year where the Tigers need to win and oh wait, the Red Sox are on Cruis in either so that's their last three games of the year in Boston.

So how daunting is this schedule here for them?

It's not ideal, but it's gonna be some fun baseball.

It's gonna be some real atmosphere, some tense, tight atmospheres.

The Tigers and Guardians play each other, you know, fighting tooth and nail all the time.

You're gonna go into what could also be a big series in Boston with Alex Bregman playing third base for the other team.

Yeah.

I don't know if it's what you want.

You'd probably rather face the White Sox or the Rockies right here, But this is what you got.

It'll be fun.

Last year I covered a team that over cane zero point two percent playoff odds and had a historic run.

This year, I'm covering a team that is on the verge of blowing ninety nine point nine percent playoff odds and having a historic collapse.

So I'm so far out of the prediction business.

Tigers went on go five and one down the stretch and go to the World Series and wouldn't shock me.

But also watching this team for the past month, it wouldn't shock me if they end up being toasted.

Yeah, it's crazy.

I mean you look at the run for Cleveland.

They're doing this without Emmanuel Class, They're doing this without Louis Ortiz to a lesser extent, but still they traded away Shane Biebert, a crazy story that we did not expect to be covering this way.

Cody, good stuff.

Enjoy covering the week as a writer, It's fun to cover chaos, So enjoy that.

We'll be watching, we'll be looking at the articles, and we'll be listening and watching Tiger Territory.

Thanks for joining us.

Man, Hey, thanks guys, appreciate it.

Tiger Territory is going to be a rollercoaster this week.

Kieran, Cody, some Austin Jackson.

Go check it out wherever you get your podcasts, or of course on YouTube.