The Tigers announced that they have parted ways with executive vice president and general manager Al Avila, effective immediately, per a press release from the team. Sam Menzin, vice president and assistant general manager, will continue as the day-to-day contact for the team, per the release. The club’s chairman and CEO Christopher Ilitch says that he will oversee the search for Avila’s replacement.
“Once I decided to make a change, I sat down with Al and thanked him for his nearly 22 years of service to our organization,” Ilitch says in the press release. “Al’s loyalty and dedication has served as an example to all during his time as a leader in our baseball operations department. I will oversee the search process for our next baseball operations leader, in collaboration with several members of our baseball and business operations executive teams.”
Avila is also quoted in the release: “For nearly 22 years, I have given my heart and soul to this franchise, and I want to thank Mr. and Mrs. Ilitch, along with Chris, for the opportunity and treating me and my family as their own,” he says. “We’ve celebrated successes and enjoyed great moments, and I’m proud to have worked with so many talented people in baseball operations and throughout the organization. I’ll cherish our friendships and the successes we all celebrated together. To Tigers fans, you’re the best and you deserve a winner. I wish the results would have been better this season but know there is a lot to look forward to in the coming years.”
Avila, 64, has been the club’s general manager for a few years now, taking over in late 2015 when Dave Dombrowski departed. The club has effectively been in a deep rebuild for the entirety of his tenure, registering a winning percentage below .400 for four straight seasons from 2017 to 2020. They showed some signs of promise last year and then acted aggressively this winter, hoping to return to contention this season. However, they’ve instead suffered a dismal campaign, compounded by various injuries, resulting in a club sporting a record of 43-68, ahead of only the A’s among American League teams. With the rebuild struggling to bear fruit, it seems the club has decided to change course and will begin looking for a new front office arrangement for the upcoming offseason.
Though Avila’s been the key front office person in Detroit for seven years now, his time with the club actually goes back much farther. He was first hired in 2002, having already accrued a decade of experience in baseball, first with the Marlins and then the Pirates. His first role with the Tigers was assistant general manager and vice president, until his promotion, which made him the first Cuban-born general manager in baseball history.
When he took over as general manager in August of 2015, the rebuild had essentially already begun, as the club traded David Price, Yoenis Cespedes and Joakim Soria prior to the trade deadline, while Dombrowski was still at the helm. The club managed to put up a winning record in 2016 but was dismal in the seasons after that. They bottomed out in 2019, going 47-114 for a winning percentage of just .292.
Of course, one benefit of poor seasons is the ability to restock the farm system, with the Tigers having a number of high profile first round draft picks in recent years. Matt Manning, Alex Faedo, Casey Mize, Riley Greene, Spencer Torkelson, Jackson Jobe and Jace Jung have been the club’s first round picks since Avila took over, with both Mize and Torkelson having been selected first overall.
With some of that group reaching the majors in recent years, the club had a decent showing in 2021. Their 77-85 record was much more palatable than previous seasons, leading the team to believe it was time to act aggressively and be done with the tanking process. The Tigers followed through by spending big, giving a $140MM contract to Javier Baez, $77MM to Eduardo Rodriguez, $13MM to Andrew Chafin and $5.5MM to Michael Pineda. The club also turned to the trade market, acquiring Tucker Barnhart from the Reds and Austin Meadows from the Rays.
Unfortunately, all of those moves have failed to work out for various reasons, which only compounded other issues on the roster. The mercurial Baez is hitting .220/.262/.372 on the season for a wRC+ of 77. Rodriguez has only made eight starts for the team due to injuries and personal issues. Chafin has pitched well but he can opt-out of the second year of his deal, which he seems likely to do. Pineda has only made ten starts due to injuries and has a 5.27 ERA on the year. Barnhart has hit .198/.258/.228 for a wRC+ of 41, while Meadows has only played 36 games due to various injuries.
In addition to the struggles of the new additions, the club’s core pieces also failed to deliver in different ways. Former first overall pick Spencer Torkelson made the Opening Day roster but struggled enough to get optioned down to the minors last month. Riley Greene missed the start of the season due to injury and has hit at a below-average level since joining the team. Matt Manning has been limited to just four starts on the year due to injuries, while Mize made just two appearances before Tommy John surgery ended his season.
Not all of that can be placed at Avila’s feet, of course, certainly not the injuries. Still, after years and years of agonizing rebuilding, the club and its fans were surely hoping for more signs of good things to come over the horizon and have found little to none of it this year.
Ilitch and the Tigers will now try to find a new leader to guide the team into its next stage. Given the club’s struggles this year, the organization will be looking ahead to another strong draft position next summer, in order to add to the talent youngsters who, despite their struggles in 2022, could still be key players in seasons to come. There’s also another important pivot point coming up over the horizon, as the last guaranteed season of Miguel Cabrera’s massive contract is 2023, which will free up both a roster spot and plenty of payroll space. The person who decides how to handle those situations in the future will be determined in the months to come.
dude did everything wrong besides drafting
Lol he drafted Spencer 0for4kelson first overall brah
I get the feeling that almost every other GM would’ve done the same that year though
The Tigers have failed miserably to develop any position players under Avila.
And a GM shouldn’t be celebrated for “finding” talent with top 5 picks every year. One, it means the big club sucks yearly. Two, any GM can “find” talented prospects with continual top five picks.
Not really. Go look at how many Top picks fail while lower round players excel. It’s not so much who you draft but how you develop them.
No the tigers haven’t developed a position player in 30 years
kcmark;
B I N G O !
Tony Clark, Chris Gomez, Curtis Granderson, Bobby Higginson, Juan Encarnacion, Gabe Kapler, Brandon Inge, Deivi Cruz, Danny Bautista, Alex Avila, James McCann, Omar Infante, Robert Fick, Ramon Santiago, Brennan Boesch…
@kcmark
Our thoughts are more aligned than you think. The heralded prospects for the Tigers have been Tork, Greene, Mize and other who were very high first round picks. Any GM can “find” highly touted prospects when picking in the top 5 continually. The Tigers have failed to develop them.
Outside of Skubal, his other draft picks outside haven’t worked out either by identifying talent properly or a failure to develop them. Anyway you slice it, Avila failed miserably.
Tigers Avila Era picks with best pick
2012 AJ Minter (didnt sign but at least had knowledge to draft him) – overall 2012 was a bust and leaned on Devon Travis who didnt pan out.
2013 (1st round) Corey Knebel/ (27rd) Joe Mantiply/ AJ Puk (another non-signee)
2014 completely a bust
2015 completely a bust so far
2016 (4th rd) Kyle Funkhouser pitiful best of draft here
2017 Another bust draft so far
2018 (1st) Casey Mize, (3) Cody Clemens, (9)Tarik Skubal
2019 (1) Riley Green
2020 (1) Torkelson
Tigers need to revamp their scouting and developing of players – this is a very sad showing.
Nice one G money !
Tork was the top pick of that draft. Are you too stupid how to get draft development, drah?
Tork is no longer going to be a guy who can carry a team.. His future is pretty well determined.
Robert Pierce;
Who ever said that Tork was “a guy who can carry a team”? Where had he ever show that. How many MLB players “carry a team”? Position players hit once every 9 times. Starters pitch once every 5 or so games.
Even that’s debatable. He picked Jobe over Mayer
Exactly the move that popped into my head.
That was one I couldn’t justify
And Simon had a terrible year and never was seen again
Don’t think him and Dombrowski are on speaking terms
Yeah don’t understand that one either, Jobe over Mayer.
Wow…a MLB scout drafting well. Too bad his top picks haven’t panned out.
Maybe, and this is just a thought, he wasn’t good at his job.
The Royals still have 20% Moore. I just don’t get it.
Have you been watching them since the trade deadline? Witt, Melendez, Pasquantino, Massey, Prato, the position players are arriving just as the pitchers are figuring it out. Singer, Lynch, Bubic….
And they still have prospects to deal for a big time bat or arm.
kcmark;
Last year at this time I read that the Royals pitchers were “figuring it out”.
And…didn’t hire the Superfife.
I don’t think he did a great job by any means but any team that loses nearly their entire starting rotation to injuries is going to struggle badly.
Other teams like the Rays still win. They had 17 on the injured list and just came through Detroit taking 3 of 4 while maintaining a wildcard spot.
The biggest problem was the historically bad offense Al assembled of which only Meadows has missed any significant time. Terrible results, undeveloped talent, atrocious FA signings and lost trades are the real reason Avila is now mercifully gone.
Odd when every decision you make turns up Snakeyes, for 7 years. Now 1 draft you made is is a sure bet. 50×7, 350 players not 1 sure thing. You’re going to lose your job
To be fair….the Dombrowski era and Avila era as Tigers GM’s are two very different era’s – Dombrowski was given authority to spend a substantial amount of money to sign draft picks and All-star caliber FA’s at the behest of Mr. Ilitch to win a WS before he died….unfortunately they came close but that didn’t happen. After Mr. Ilitch died, his son took over and moved to reduce payroll but keep a team on the field sufficient to compete. Tigers haven’t been seriously competitive since 2014. Time for new blood.
But Avila had 7 years, 350 players drafted, and a free agent period to sign players with some money. How did that work out? He failed on 2 #1 draft picks
He also traded Michael Fulmer (instead of that piece of garbage Gregory Soto) and got his usual worthless pile of garbage.
Actually, that Gipson-Long kid has had two very strong starts at Erie. Even I was surprised.
Somebody’s gonna get a boat load of desperate ownership cash to try and fix this mess lol
Perfect job for Theo Epstein to finally show everyone how overrated he is.
Epstein is good with drafting and building an organization, same with trades for the most part. Where he is awful at is with FA’s.
Detroit has had poor GM’s for a long time. Avilla put them in a position bad enough of being able to draft Torkelson and the teams have not really improved. Dombrowski was Dombrowski.. Emptying every kid he could and paying overage veterans way to much forever.
Epstein wouldn’t be bad.. As just a GM, who has someone over his head to put a stop to the rotten FA deals he always makes. Avilla was not better his short time, E-Rod wasn’t hard to spot as a bad sign, some of us Sox fans pretty much knew he was a bad deal waiting to happen.
Baez was a head-scratcher too, honestly. There’s no way that skill set ages well.
Johnsilver, you show you have no idea what you’re talking about when you call Dombrowski a bad GM. He took over the worst team in the league in Detroit and had them in the World Series in 4 seasons. And they were perennial contenders under him. He also built the Expos into contenders, and build a World Series winning team in Miami of all places, while also obviously winning one with the Red Sox. He’s made every team he’s ever run into contenders.
Sounds like the only things you know about him is what the media said about him when he was run out of Boston.
Partial agree, he is pretty good at certain aspects of building a team and identifying talent, but definitely sketchy w big FA signings – but who isn’t, those deals are often busts.
He is probably best suited to a team President type role where he isn’t the one responsible for signing contracts but can point out targets to a shrewd negotiating GM. That would be ideal.
Robert;
He seem to be doing quite well with the Phillies.
If things keep going the way they are he’s up for ‘Executive of the Year’.
Plus, dude is a free-swinger. That works in a bandbox like Wrigley, but in Detroit it a graveyard for long fly balls. Improve the defense, get some rabbits that can make contact vs striking out and turn those gappers into doubles and triples….Or, get some pitching depth and bring the fences in to encourage more homeruns (that’s a double-edged sword)
Dembrowski was a great GM in Detroit. Name all the prospect he traded away they regretted. He traded prospects for proven talent, rarely lost a trade. Even the bad signings he made he recovered from with schrewed deals. From 2006 to 2012, he did was was called a rebuild on the fly, really who does that in this day and age. He never fixed the bullpen which is why he never was a ring in Detroit, but he is a good GM
Theo Epstein is the greatest gm/team president in all of PROFESSIONAL SPORTS. He ended 2 100 year team droughts for 2 different organizations. That’s never been done be before ever, it will never happen again.
That man knows talent and how to run an organization.
The tigers farm was fools gold. Eugenio Suarez for Alfredo Simon was for sure a DD mistake though. Dombrowski did make some great trades with the tigers overall. Him and Illitch’s desire to win one before he died are the main reason the tigers are what they are now though.
I don’t think they regret the Suarez signing now, he had 3 good seasons. 2 all star type years. The rest not so good
Simon was abysmal. Suarez could have at least been a good trade chip later on. That was one trade that had me scratching head the second I heard about it. Not like Simon had much of a track record. Tigers traded for him after one good season at age 34…
Plus, while in Detroit, he had to put up with Mike Illich butting in & signing players & offering long overpriced extensions which put him at a huge disadvantage. Dave is still my favorite GM & wish he would/could come back.
He essentially pioneered tanking. Once those high draft picks were gone, he couldn’t keep it together.
Easiest way to know when someone’s analysis is off base, the term “always,” is used.
Preller will be available soon
Doubtful. He just signed a new long term deal.
Gotta be a Zep fan
Seriously? How in the hell is Theo overrated? Boston hadn’t won a WS in forever. They got three rings. How many have the Yankees and Dodgers had recently? One. He also got one with the Cubs. Lame take
Truth is he can build an organization, but he can’t figure out how to maintain it when the team is actually winning at the ML level, he couldn’t pull the trigger and trade Kris Bryant to restock the farm when he was still putting up decent numbers but the team was getting worse. He couldn’t trade Schwarber after the ‘19 season when he put up an .870 OPS, so they end up cutting him (why?!?) and got NOTHING for him.
They traded lots of talent away for rentals and could not restock the farm or develop ANY of their own pitching. None! Will always be grateful for Theo and Jed, but it was definitely time for Theo to move on, and he recognized it.
Midseason, no less.
There is 6 weeks to play
Is that not midseason?
It is, it is
The Tiger’s season has long been over.
this is what happens when the suckage flows for too long…..
DO BETTER DETROILET
As the Rock used to say: FINALLY!!!
Cora and Bloom are next.
Cora should have been fired after that 28 run loss make Jason veritek manager
Cora should have been fired when he used Hansel Robles as if the guy were Trevor Hoffman.
Cora should be fired if you only have a ten cent brain with the memory of a goldfish.
It’s funny, Cora is highly thought of by fellow managers and front office staff around the league. But I rarely hear any compliments about him from Joe Sixpack Sox Fan. He did get ya to a couple post season berths, did he not ?
A well deserved firing. Using your big contract capabilities on ERod and Baez is awful. They weren’t taking the next step with him
Saw enough of Baez when he was a Cub to wonder what the Tigers were thinking. Whether you’d call him a showboat or prima Donna, it’s hard to imagine him as a positive influence on a team trying to rebuild.
As a Cubs fan I was happy to see Baez sign anywhere except with CHC, and anyone who has seen him play regularly since he came up understands why. Not sure whose to blame for the ERod fiasco, but his 2022 season has been an expensive throwaway. Can’t recall a rebuild that has gone so wrong in so many ways for so many years. Regardless of luck and circumstances you gotta lay all of it at Avila’s feet.
The recent Phillies rebuild was just as bad….maybe worse.
I’d say the Rox too but they insist it’s not a rebuild so idk
You can blame him for signing them instead of others but it takes two to tango. It’s very possible that Rodriguez and Baez were the two best free agents who agreed to sign with Detroit. I’m not putting down the city of Detroit because it has its bright spots like all cities do but across the four major sports, Detroit has never been a city to attract marquee free agents. Aside from Brett Hull signing with the Red Wings and Pudge Rodriguez signing with the Tigers nobody comes to mind. I don’t consider Chauncey Billups to be a star the way some do and Prince Fielder unfortunately had his career cut short. Those are the top free agents Detroit has landed in the last quarter century.
Detroit is a great sports town. If you win, players will come. The Wings were considered the Yankees of hockey as they would outspend and players wanted to come here. 10 Hall of Famers on the 2002 team
The Red Wings were amazing then but how many of those Hall of Famers came to Detroit as a free agent and not through a trade or were homegrown players? Again, I’m not knocking Detroit, I just made a statement about free agency and the city of Detroit. It’s not a put down on Detroit by any means.
Hitztheball. Those late 90 early 2000s red wing teams were unreal. Good call
Yzerman and Fedorov were a sick duo
Yzerman and Fedorov were a sick duo, I still have my Redwing jersey from 1993
Lidstrom, Datsyuk, Zetterber, Kozlov, Yzerman, Federov,
We’re the same coaches there when he had a career year last year?
Were the same coaches there when he had a career year last year?
Magglio Ordonez, Kenny Rogers, Todd Jones, Torii Hunter, V Mart and Anibal Sanchez were all pretty decent free agent signings for the Tigers
Don’t forget the most important one Fernando Vina, because of him pudge came, then Magglio.
If a player thinks he’s too good for Detroit, he can go choke on himself in front of his mirror elsewhere.
Have to pay more, corea was the better option. Avila and Illitch went with the off brand, and now will pay the price for it severely
No non playoff should sign any free agents to muti year contracts. That’s the rule.
According to some on this site, only 1 way to do things around here.
“The Model”.
Playoff bound or Tank/Rebuild. All in or all out. Spend every penny to win or sell everything of value for Top Picks & The Prospects.
Nothing says an organization doesn’t have the capacity to develop their young players like The Tank. Have to get the Top Ranked guys 5-8 years straight because their ability to develop their new crop of signees doesn’t exist. Never mind teams like the Dodgers & Rays have figured out how to bring forth streams of young players regardless of their draft position. Cleveland seemingly growing Pitching.
The Tank sets the community & fans back for years waiting for the “competitive core” to come forth. Then realize The Model didn’t work. The trust of the fans is lost, so another plan is implemented.
But at least..they followed The Model.
Oh & another thing..if the MLBTR community determines you’re not a contender, you’ll not spend a dime on players of value. It’s not part of The Model.
As theRock used to say: FINALLY!!!!
Time to hire Alex Avila for the GM role now
don’t be silly– Miggy is right there and needs something to do next year where he doesn’t need to pretend that he can go through a162
don’t be silly– Miggy is right there and needs something to do next year where he doesn’t need to pretend that he can go through a 162 game schedule.
Nah! he’s going to be the manager next year.
Don’t be silly!!
Mike Schildt
Agree
Long overdue, one of the worst GMs of this era
Former Tiger GM Randy Smith would like a word. He wants his “trophy” back!
Smith may have been lousy but he made some epic trades:
With the Padres
1993: traded Gary Sheffield and Rich Rodriguez to the Marlins for Trevor Hoffman, Jose Martinez and Andres Berumam
Traded Fred McGriff to the Braves for Melvin Nieves, Donnie Elliott and Vince Moore
Traded Greg Harris and Bruce Hurst to the Rockies for Andy Ashby, Brad Ausmus and Doug Bochtler
1994: traded Derek Bell, Phil Plantier, Ricky Gutierrez, Doug Brocail, Craig Shipley and Pedro Martinez (not that Pedro Martinez) for Ken Caminiti, Steve Finley, Andujar Cedeno, Brian Williams, Roberto Petagine and Sean Fresh
1995: traded Andy Benes and Greg Keagle to the Mariners for Marc Newfield and Ron Villone
With the Tigers
1996: traded Sean Bergmann, Todd Steverson and Cade Gaspar to the Padres for Melvin Nieves, Richie Lewis and Raul Casanova
Traded John Flahery and Chris Gomez to the Padres for Brad Ausmus, Andujar Cedeno and Russ Spear
Traded Cecil Fielder to the Yankees for Ruben Sierra and Matt Drews
Traded Greg Gohr to the Angels for Damion Easley
Traded Brad Ausmus, Jose Lima, C.J. Nitkowski, Trever Miller and Daryle Ward to the Astros for Brian Hunter, Todd Jones, Orlando Miller and Doug Brocail
1997: traded Travis Fryman to the Diamondbacks for Joe Randa, Gabe Alvarez and Matt Drews
1999: traded Justin Thompson, Gabe Kapler, Frank Catalonotto, Francisco Cordero, Bill Haselman and Alan Webb to the Rangers for Juan Gonzalez, Gregg Zaun and Danny Patterson
2000: traded Brad Ausmus, Doug Brocail and Nelson Cruz (not that Nelson Cruz) to the Astros for Roger Cedeno, Chris Holt and Mitch Meluskey
2001: traded Todd Jones to the Twins for Nark Redman
Traded Juan Encarnacion and Luis Pineda to the Reds for Dmitri Young
Randy Smith suffered from heavy owner interference.
@Rsox That was an awesome swing down Memory Lane, thank you. Those were some epic trades. And it goes to show you what can happen to most prospects that GM’e (and fans) like to cling to…vast majority are total busts. Will see what happens to Volpe and Peraza lol.
Thanks! That was fun to bring those memories back!
An elite baseball scout.
If he doesn’t retire he might like to work out of the Philadelphia area.
As a Guardians fan this is a sad day
Bummer. Does this mean DET won’t be handing out albatross contracts like there’s no tomorrow?
The fruits of a long rebuild should have been visible by now. The sad truth is that it never happened. Continued calamity. Hopefully, brighter days are ahead for Detroit baseball.
They had the #10 farm system by MLB.com and #13 by ESPN before the season started. They have talent there it just needs a bit of finishing school.
You know why the farm system was ranked so high. It’s because Greene and tork was still considered highly ranked prospects. Now today Greene is barely hanging on. And tork is probably done. They have 1 player in the top 100,and he is 2 years away. So how you rank their prospects today? Avila, was quoted as saying they need to trade skubal in order to restock their depleted postion player stock. You understand Avila was open to rebuilding,from his own rebuild, why would he do that if his farm system was so good?
Greene is 21 and Torkelson is 22. They are not “done.” Most future MLB stars are still in the minors, even still in college, at those ages.
With Al’s reign mercifully ended, maybe they can finally develop talent. The Tigers haven’t produced a quality homegrown position player since what, Curtis Granderson? Certainly none under Avila.
NY GM Cashman should be next
Why?
If they hire Theo Epstein by Friday, they can still make the playoffs
LOL!!!
HAHAHAHA
Haha. My Twins sure as hell won’t be standing in there way! Doors wide open
Sell the team, pizza man!
Best thing to happen to this team outside of hiring Fetter in the past 7 years.
Actually Hinch should be bumped up to GM.
Wooooow
Bet his son doesn’t even get asked about it the next time he’s on his analyst job at MLBTV.
BEST DAY EVER FOR US TIGERS FANS
Yes. Yes it certainly is!
Good. Another garbage time GM. I could have done better.
I suspected he’d be let go when they did nothing of note at the trade deadline. I wondered if, perhaps, he was not allowed to make any moves beyond the obvious ones. That said, I had more patience with him than most, but it was time.
On a side note, I sat by him and Jim Leyland at a Mud Hens game about a year ago. They weren’t very fan friendly, even though all I did was briefly thank them for their years of service and stayed out of their hair. My impression was he didn’t get much kindness from fans. Made it hard for me to defend him after that.
I had many great times at the Mudhens and Clippers games back when I lived in Ohio. A true shame that they gave you a cold shoulder.
I agree El Dude. Great venue for games. Wonderful atmosphere.
No biggie on the cold shoulder. I’m sure people usually annoy them at games, but I didn’t ask for a handshake, picture, or autograph. I just said hi and thanks, and got a brief nod. In fairness to Leyland, he seemed to have a great deal of trouble hearing.
dmazcomp,
I had the Extreme pleasure of sitting next to Dave Dombrowski at a Salem Red Sox game when he headed up the Sox. Couldn’t have been nicer! Talked baseball with him for 9 innings interrupted only by him posing for pictures with other fans. He had completed the Chris Sale trade and he told that the white Sox really wanted Benintendi in that trade but eventually settled for Yoan Moncada. One of the the best baseball nights of my life!!!
Great story Mickey. Thanks for sharing. Wish my encounter went more like that. They were polite, but clearly not comfortable with being approached.
Tigers need a new GM and an owner willing to spend. ERod and Baez, the only two decent signings. And they both don’t want to be there.
According to the posters here……..
Everyone does.
Then every team can go to the World Series every year.
How did this take so long?
This is scary for the direction of the team. At the start of the year, everyone was hopeful and positive about the outlook for the team. Injuries have decimated the performance, unfortunately. I really would have liked to see what this team could do if healthy. Everyone expected a push to .500 this year. Now someone new will come in. I don’t want to see this roster overhauled because he wants “his” players, not Avila’s. Seen it happen too many times. 10 starting pitchers going on the IL in one year is a fluke, and not the fault of the GM. If anyone should have been fired, its the hitting coaches.
That’s what the Braves people are saying about Grossman. The Tigers’ hitting coaches screwed up his swing.
Grossman can’t really blame the hitting coaches, as they are the same ones that managed to get a career year out of him last year. My complaint is when Every player but Miggy got off to a poor start, these coaches showed no ability to get the players back on track. Baddoo, Schoop, Candelario, Grossman, Barnhart, Baez, all bad from day one. Only Haase has rebounded this year from his poor start.
How and why are so many Tigers players getting injured?! Someone needs to figure this one out.
Don’t really follow the Tigers. From the comments this is a good thing.
It’s about time. Seven years of a rebuild and we are as bad as we ever were and his trades left a lot to be desired. Instead of convincing Ilitch to wait and spend a little more and sign Correa he decides to give over 20 Million a year to Baez who has never been able to hit a slider and is a strike out machine. He did draft some good pitching but until the last few years never addressed the hitting either through the draft or trades.
Good points, but the Tiger did offer Correa far more dollars than he settled for in Minnesota.
And Correa is hitting .260 with declining power, and defense. Paying more than your own high bid would surely have been used against Avila as well.
Inability to develop young talent and inability to move pieces when they had value, riding them to zero, then terrible dump trades where the prospects never amounted to anything.
Really really poor job. Way too late, Illitch. Avila ain’t no DD and Chris isn’t Mike for damn sure…
Count me as one who thought the Tigers would take a step forward this year and was wrong. I didn’t think they’d win the division but I thought we’d see a competitive team with some youthful upside emerge.
Not a bad gig for an incoming GM. Not the best, but there’s some nice young pitching talent, Torkleson, and the end of Miggy’s contract on the horizon.
Updating my resume now to forward to Me Ilitch
Tiger fans everywhere breathe a collective sigh of relief that the Avila era has ended.
If Theo Epstein were to take another GM job it would have to be in Cleveland where he would bring home a championship, completing the trifecta of ending Baseball’s largest championship droughts and cementing himself as a Baseball god
Cleveland doesn’t need Theo……
1. They aren’t a large market team with gobs incoming revenue to make up for the awful free agent signings.
2. Their Baseball Ops guy understands pitching.
TBH Yankees GM Brian Cashman should be joining him in the unemployment category this winter if that team has another early playoff exit. It seems like for every good move he makes 2 awful ones.
Here’s to hoping the Royals do the same
Hallelujah! The sun is shining. Birds singing. Today is glorious!
Too bad. I always liked Al.
Just think they could have just hired me……sad.
Awful GM. Long overdue.
A gm needs to be good lucky. Not many are. Or work for an owner who is so rich he can buy the best players available. And even then it’s all good luck that they come together for a magic season. Agreed, time for a change. But if you don’t have good luck, baseball offers lots of bad luck.
The sea was angry that day, my friends.
Titleist
It’s about time! Nearly every move Avila made turned out to be disastrous. A very inept GM. And Chris Ilitch even more inept as the owner of daddy’s team. Never even hear from the guy. Would love to see the team sold but highly unlikely.
The only surprise here is that it didn’t happen much, much sooner.
Sad, really.
let Motor City Dan Campbell have the job man
About effing time!
’bout friggin’ time…
This cat had many more than 9 lives.
Not selecting Marcelo Mayer with the #4 pick last year was the final straw for me.
Epstein would be OK, although I would prefer someone from the Tampa Bay GM Academy.
Go Tigers!!!
You can have bloom
I think it was a combination of his drafting and letting players hit .200 with no movement of those players whatsoever.
Jackson Jobe was a bad pick. At the end of a rebuild, you don’t take a high school pitcher when time is of the essence and they are known to be high risk picks. The glaring hole was shortstop and to see the success that those shortstops are having must have irked Ilitch while seeing Jobe struggle a bit in the Florida Complex League.
And his trades. Wow. Might as well have kept Fulmer. I think that was the last straw.
Ohhhh so sad :'(
Avila lost his way… honestly I am not surprised.
The rebuild has gone wrong
@Lefty_Os_Fan: agreed. I liked their rebuild plan . Very Houston Astros like. Tank. Get high draft pickups, develop these picks to establish a young foundation with team control. Then expand payroll via signing FAs and and trading for proven league talent. Avila did all that. Unfortunately it failed. And it should fall on the head of the GM. Time for a change. And now, not later.
It isn’t known whether it failed. Injuries to Mize, Manning, Eduardo, Alexander, Pineda, Faedo, Brieske, Garcia, Wendt, Turnbull, Skubal, Rogers, Candelario, Meadows, Greene, Kreidler, Grossman, Cisnero and Funkhouse, all had something to do with this years result. If Lady Luck lets them be relatively healthy next year, and the rebuild succeeds, who gets to apologize to Al?
@stymeedone: thanks for the intel. I knew there were injury issues, but not to this degree. Ouch!
To part ways with such a loyal + valued employee of 2 plus decades had to be painful for ownership to follow through on.
@ styme
The Rays just came on to town and took 3 of 4 from the Tigers. They have 17 on the injured list including many better pitchers than the tigers.
And there’s this thing called development. No one ever needs to apologize to you Al. You failed to develop the talent.
Full list of player days on the injured list. Sort by days. spotrac.com/mlb/disabled-list/cumulative-team/
@C: Why did the Astros flourish but the Tigers train-wrecked?
IMO, they weren’t ready to come out of the rebuild just yet. They didn’t need those free agent signings just yet. The pitching was there (as their draft choices forecasted). But, the position players that lacked in those early choices obviously were absent when the rebuild was supposedly over.
There is some batting talent coming, but its a year or two away from the pitchers.
The tigers didn’t tank, they are truly terrible.
At least the Tigers figured things out
Who is next? When will Boston fire Chaim Bloom?
Soon hopefully
About 5 years too late on that one, Ilitch
James Click for GM
no 🙂
The Tigers worst GM in franchise history. The jury is still out on a lot of our top picks, Avila could wind up looking like a genius if a bunch of them develop into great players, but it looks like we are a long way off from that.
Credit where it is due, no team could win anything with Cabrera’s contract and his subpar production over the past 5 seasons. $32 million could have been going to a far superior player, and this fault lies squarely on the late Mike Illitch, who should have known better when he handed out the deal. Cabrera has become a curse, he’s the only guy on the team who can draw fans and there is no other option but to continue rostering him.
Hey, but at least he smiles a lot. There’s that
I won’t go that far. Randy Smith was terrible, but also didn’t have the money to play with that Al Avila did. That might be a toss up
All of his first round draft picks: “Matt Manning, Casey Mize, Riley Greene, Spencer Torkelson, Jackson Jobe and Jace Jung” are highly regarded. I wonder how many GMs can say that?
Anyone with a string of early first round picks…
Exactly. Easy to hit on top 10 picks. What have all his 2nd and 3rd round picks done? Nothing.
But he’s had some luck in the high 20th rounds and the 9th (Skubal).
Tarik Skubal wasn’t a first rounder.
Moniak and Randolph say hello.
Yes, they were all “highly regarded” but aren’t most every top 10 pick? I know it happens, but it’s not crazy hard to miss on consistent top picks, and an FYI, we still don’t know if he’s really “hit” with any of these guys as of yet.
About damn time. What a disappointment this “rebuild” has become. There are some good candidates out there to replace him
This is one hell of a long time coming. This article speaks of his early successes, but that was due to Dombrowski and not Avila. He has done absolutely everything wrong as a GM. He lost every trade he made (JV,JD, David Price, Cespedes, etc), he hasn’t drafted worth a damn since taking over, and every time he spent any money it failed. The fact that it took this long leads me to believe that it has added another 4-5 years onto this rebuild. There is no way Baez will opt out of this awful contract we have him playing the way he has. And who knows what is ever going to happen with Mize, Manning, Tork, etc. I truly hope whomever they decide on has the wherewithal to pick this club up and get them back to respectability. Who would have thought after the way last season ended that the Tigers would be in worse shape than the Lions, Wings or Pistons.
And yet, the media thought his signing of E-Rod was brilliant in spite of Eduardo’s history of injuries
@miltpappas
I did not see any predictions of Eduardo having personal problems and leaving the team. Never happened in the past. No one predicted it.
Geoff Luhnow gets raised from the dead.
Break out the champagne
Awesome! Should have been fired at least 4 years ago! Now we can finally start a rebuild since Al only made everything worse.
Jack Morris as GM. First move Baez in a package for Ohtani. 🙂
I disagree. Ohtani can run and that would be welcome, but Comerica is a graveyard for flyballs. You need rabbits that can run those gappers into doubles and triples…forget the 3-run homerun in that park. Improve the defense and YES dump Baez if you can. His swing is too big for that park. Should have kept Cron for a couple more years, some pop and a pretty nice average hitter. Small ball is the key in that park
Doesn’t deserve a GM shot anywhere else. Proved he’s a total failure at that position.
Didn’t Iilitch just endorse him not long ago and give him a new deal?
Hey Mr. Theo Epstein, here’s a job for you since we know you’ll never go to teams like the Pirates or Royals.
Or are you going to pull off a Phil Jackson and wait until you’ve got something like MJ, Scottie, Kobe, Shaq or the cleared payroll to add guys like that…Like Manny, Schilling, Pedro, etc?
All Avila has had a good run. Should’ve been fired years ago, but hung in there until this year. It’s good work if you can get it.
So, did he beat out Mike Hill as the best self-preservationist in MLB? I personally think Hill still holds the title.
Most Tiger fans are knowledgeable and loyal fans, but if Ilitch doesn’t hit this hire out of the park he will regret it. We have Miggy for one more year and we only have big money tied up in Rodriguez and Baez and they can move on in “24 with opt outs. Based on that I think the new GM will have the chance to spend some money on available free agents, especially to improve the offense, which is a top priority based on this years hitting disaster. And on that note, the hitting coach should have been fired in June based on some of the worst batting approaches I have ever seen. I also hope Meadows get’s better soon as I think he could be an asset when healthy.
Comerica is a GRAVEYARD for fly balls. So, you build the club for that park. Linedrive contact hitters that can run those power alley shots into doubles and triples. Improve your defense and get more pitching depth to avoid the 5.00+ ERA. Why did anyone in the front office think their team was capable of hitting HR’s consistently in that park….it like trying to hit a ball out of the Grand Canyon
It is one of the worst ballparks for fans. They build the field miles away from the fans because they felt fans would run on the field. It is a disgrace. Needs seats built on the field to provide fans a half decent view.
joefriday agree. Well stated
CheapassJoe, buy better tickets and you won’t have to sit in the nosebleed seats!
Well, before you can hit homeruns you have to be able to hit the baseball
Eveyone on the team has below league average ops.
@Phaedrus Pirsig: Rabbits usually can’t hit. So what’s the solution there??
Rabbit Maranville could hit!!! (Though mainly singles, more of a glove-first kinda guy.)
Bla bla bla
I have a feeling this is a happy day for Tiger fans.
I for one, will miss you, AL.
You should have hired me.
Four years too late…..
this was years late…….guy was ill equipped for the big boy seat.
All I can say is it’s about time illich has fired Avila hes been way over his head since he was hired as GM he was a scout under the dombrowski and that’s all he could do. he signed nothing but bad contracts Zimmerman Rodriguez it’s still out on baez i’m so glad he’s gone
All true. In that park (a graveyard for fly balls) you need excellent defense and contact hitters. When they hit the gaps those power alley line drives turn into doubles and triples. Baez was hitting HR’s in a bandbox and his “big” swing does not play well in Comerica Park. They need better defense, base runners and stealers, deeper pitching staff…OR, bring in the fences and bring on the 5.00 ERA’s
From 2006 to 2015 the ball park wasnt an issue.. I for one enjoy watching from section 147. It’s my spot in the park
I know of 3 GM savants in BU Fantasy who’d fix all Tiger-ills. They’re far better than Avila who forced early-retirement adding Javy Baez at his $$/toxicity to a rebuilding team!! #Keggers;#Awobs;#Lowlife
I can hear the Tiger’s fans cheering all the way out here in SoCal.
Notice everywhere Dombrowski goes he leaves an unfixable mess behind?
superunclea;
You misspelled Theo.
Ah, ERod was not a good signing….Baez??? Dude is a strikeout artist and hit HR’s in a bandbox so CoAmerica was not the correct destination for that swing. Let’s face facts folks….Detroit is a graveyard for fly balls. You need to build a team of rabbits who are CONTACT hitters and can run. That field is built for doubles and TRIPLES….that said you don’t need more FREE swingers trying to hit the ball out of the Grand Canyon. Two choices here. Hitters – contact hitters and base-stealing artists and forget about the 3-run homerun. Pitching. – that speaks for itself. Forget the 4.50 and 5.00 ERA’s. Get some good ground ball pitchers and improve the defense. The second choice (if you must) Bring those fences in so you can hit more HR’s, but you better have the pitching depth to counter that occurrence.
the eduardo deal never made sense, he gave up on himself and baseball after he got covid and wasnt able to return, you dont sign a guy like that at best is a number 3 starter to a 5 year deal.
He has myocarditis from the vaccine. He was diagnosed with that when he was with the Red Sox. It is inflammation of the heart. It has a life expectancy of 5 years.
Jeff Luhnow anyone? But he’s probably too busy with his soccer team.
Finally. Long overdue.
I hope this doesn’t mean seven more years of a rebuild…
If I was in charge I would hire Ben Zauzmer and ask him to trade Baez for whatever he can get. Maybe back to the Cubs. They probably need a corner outfielder and a new shortstop but otherwise I let the youth movement happen.
But why? Detroit looks like Detroit city and they haven’t won anything.
Dombrowski Hamstrung the franchise with the Cabrera contract I am not Al Avila fan
By the orders of owner illich who wanted a won now. Mlbtr tends to promote these large contracts in writing and polls
Agent owned.
He build a dynamo in Detroit and the team was just too good for its division. The word on the street is is Avila is headed to take over the Colorado Rockies and bring over a bunch of Tigers.
Huh??? If that’s supposed to be funny you missed the mark.
Literally every decision he made failed
Even ordering the kung pao.
This year was very disappointing for the Tigers: The results weren’t there, the roster looks very little encouraging on the position players’ side, the prospect pool isn’t highly regarded, IFA signings have brought very little talent and the Baez contract in particular looks bad. So Illitch made the right decision now.
Avila reacted with class, and I wish him all the best as a person. But his tenure as GM simply didn’t help the Tigers towards success. It may not have been his fault on every scale, but he is the one to blame.
This comes as some surprise. But recently, beat writers started to turn on Avila. So obviously someone knew something, I guess…
Gruß,
BSHH
I never, ever said, “Fire Al Avila”.
Alex is that you?
This is long overdue. Instead of an extension in 2019 the guy should have been shown the door or given a different role. His F.A. Signings were horrific. Pelfrey, Zim, one of the garbage lowes.
Etc..
This teams idea of “analytics ” was an abacus until as recently as 5 years ago. With all do respect instead of an extension the guy should have been let go/reassigned a few years ago.
An abacus is all you need, IF you know what you are doing….
Therefore:
Abacus=Love
No wonder the world’s falling apart…..too many calculators…..
This teams idea of “analytics ” was an abacus until as recently as 5 years ago.
Who didn’t have to look up mercurial ?
After all building a baseball team is a gamble. Who knows who becomes a good player and not get injured.
Building any pro sports team is a gamble.
I can’t believe Avila held on to the GM job for 8 years.
In 2014 the Tigers went to the playoffs for their 4th straight season. In 2015 Al Avila was promoted to GM and the Tigers prompty became the worst team in baseball. The only reason there’s hope in Detroit is because they’ve had 8 straight years of very high draft picks.
I’m sure Avila has a great baseball mind however his stint as GM was a bust. But at least he leaves the team with a well stocked farm system.
Rated 24th! That sure is…well stocked…..I hope my fridge does better this weekend….
What’s amazing, how long it took to fire him. Owners are loathe to fire their GMs, They have to get their hands dirty to find a replacement. Case in point, Shallow Hal still hasn’t fired Cashman.
He was done the moment he started talking about another rebuild.
I wonder if Wayne Krivsky is available? He did a great job with Cincinnati but it was so long ago.
I wonder if this means A.J. Hinch will be ousted next? Usually brand new GMs like to bring in their own guy and hate being stuck with the former guy’s erstwhile manager. Unless it’s paving the way for Jeff Luhnow, then AJ should be pretty safe lol.
I like Hinch. He manages the pen very well. He doesn’t deserve to be fired. I believe the Tigers owners have been involved with manager selection so I assume he will stay on if he even wants to.
I am glad Avila is gone. It is to bad we cannot fired the Owner. I love how he laid all the blame on Al. Chris seem to think he was an innocent bystander.
In all honesty Chris has no interest in this team.
He doesn’t seem involved at all
Go to consistently good franchises and hire their 1st asst. to the GM or Director of Scouting. Cardinals, Braves, Dodgers, Rays, Astros is where I’d start.
Heck, there has to be someone in the Orioles front office who knows something. They started rebuilding after the Tigers and look at them now.
Some good young assistants out there. Don’t need one of the re-treads
Agree on dumping Baez asap
Buy out Miggy and move on
Lots of good young (hurt) pitchers on the roster
It’s incredible how things changed for this franchise from the 2000’s to now. This is a cautionary tale of how tanking can backfire horribly.
All of that losing hasn’t translated into surefire talent in the draft. The Miggy contract I assume has handcuffed them to some degree as well in the spending department.
Underperforming and injured players on the big league team and underwhelming development on the farm, what a mess, Detroit. My condolences to your fans.
Most rebuilds fail…..
Always have. Always will.
It’s a numbers game. Almost all teams that are not competing as a top 10 team are in some sort of rebuild. When a rebuild is successful that team will be competitive for 4-5 years. Meanwhile sustainable contending teams such as the Astros and Dodgers compete almost every year by constantly reloading with new players. After all, MLB is competition.
Astors tanked right with the cubs to get their championship.
ac000000;
Perhaps you missed it….
The Astros have kept winning…..the Cubs long ago stopped.
The immortal Theo. Genius.
Theo end 2 100 year championship droughts with 2 different organizations. It doesn’t matter what happens now. He is a God and always will be.
Please……
The great Baseball Ops people are those that built organizations that continually competed because they refreshed the ML team.
Any decent Baseball Ops person with a large market payroll can pi** away money signing name veteran FA’s that have one or two good years but get paid for 5-7 to merge with 6-8 prospects – many of whom were drafted high over a period of 5 years – can win. The object is to keep winning, and to do that in MLB you have to develop your own players….especially pitchers. Epstein was awful at that in both Boston and Chicago. But the baseball God did the thing all cowards do – didn’t take responsibility and was forever firing his pitching coaches each year.
Tell me how come the Astros keep winning, and they even changed the GM and manger. They currently have the best record in the AL with the 8th highest payroll in MLB.
The Astros built an organization. Epstein bought 2 championships…and it was not Dombrowski that left his organizations in tatters, it was Epstein.
Epstein was not a “God”, he was a sugar high.
The owners of the franchises he worked for don’t want him back. Henry did take him back once – the situation got even worse.
Preller is next for sure. As soon as they get bounced in the first round this year (assuming they even make the playoffs) that dude is getting the boot big time. People keep saying what a genius he is while he consistently fails to even make the playoffs with one of the highest payrolls of all time….
There are going to be some tough choices for the new GM. The team was seemingly emerging from a deep rebuild.. do you continue that path or take a year (or two) to retool?
Poor Al.
He missed so many opportunities……
He couldn’t even trade Goodrum to the Pirates……….
Solve two festering problems.. hire Chris Antonetti.
Afterwards, follow the Cardinal’s model.
Hinch & Luhnow reunion?
@strodawg as smart as jeff is i don’t see him ever getting a gm/pbo job ever again, the 17 fiasco kinda of ruined his chances. in this hypothetical situation team x hires jeff as the new gm/pbo around 90%+ of mlb fans are going to say any success team x has is because of cheating. long and short jeff is a bad or move, then again mel gibson went on a career ending rant about jews and few years later has a job. so i guess anything is possible but hiring jeff would be a pr nightmare and not a move a team makes unless there absolutely desperate, and i don’t view the tiggers being that desperate but i also could be very wrong too.