00:00All right, so the Tigers just signed Kevin McGonigal eight years,
00:05$150 million deal averages out to about a little under $9 million per year.
00:12I want to ask this question to the listeners out there, 248-539-9797.
00:17Look, let's just go ahead and remove the floor.
00:20We all know who probably is the worst GM in this city.
00:24I want to ask this question.
00:26Did this move make Scott Harris the best GM in the city of Detroit?
00:33Did this move of locking up your guy early, along with other things that he did in the offseason,
00:39when you look at the other three, let's just general manager between him, Scott Harris, Trajan Langdon,
00:45did this set Scott Harris apart amongst the other two?
00:50Because I'm going to say it did.
00:52I'm going to say I now feel like the Tigers are trending in that direction where they're actually seeing a
00:59need
00:59or they're actually seeing something and they're getting it done.
01:02Now, yes, do they need to add a bat?
01:03They do.
01:05But they just locked up their guy for eight years.
01:09And then along with everything that Scott Harris did, he went in six days.
01:13It looked like it was going to be a disaster.
01:14In six days, right before the whole school board arbitration thing, I wouldn't have said this.
01:19I would have said, hey, man, Scott Harris is trending down.
01:22But in that six days, he gets Frambois Valdez.
01:26He then goes out there.
01:28They lose to Scuba, but that's okay.
01:30And it's like, okay.
01:31And then they even bring in Justin Verlander.
01:32Now, he hasn't done anything.
01:34But it was like, damn, that was a hell of a six days for Scott Harris.
01:38Now you look at this.
01:40To me, I think the Tigers are going to be active when it comes to the trade deadline.
01:44Of the three general managers out there, the three decision makers for the team, I'm ranking Scott Harris one right
01:53now, ahead of Trajan Langdon and ahead of Brad Holmes.
01:58Langdon is a close second because he went out there.
02:03He got his head coach.
02:04He got a head coach that flipped this thing around.
02:07He went out there and got a coach who actually wanted to be here in Detroit, who actually gave a
02:11damn.
02:12And he's got this team fired up that they went wire to wire.
02:16He's a close second.
02:17I got Brad Holmes as third for me.
02:19I've got Brad Holmes as third.
02:21And think about where we were a couple years ago.
02:25Brad Holmes would have been, oh, there's no one else even in the conversation.
02:29What are you talking about?
02:30Oh, you don't like Terry and Arnold?
02:32Let Brad cook.
02:33Do you not watch what he's doing?
02:34I have exactly the reverse of what you do, but also by a very slim margin.
02:39I have Trajan one and I have Scott Harris two, but I do think I could be persuaded to put
02:47them in a dead heat for this reason.
02:50The word was that the Tigers were not going to go above 180, 190 million.
02:56That was the word.
02:58That was the feeling about the salary for a long time.
03:00I imagine if you're getting the boss man to do something that the boss man has been reticent to do,
03:06that involves some convincing.
03:08Yes.
03:09That involves some selling.
03:11Yes.
03:11That was a hell of a successful sales job that he did because the Tigers payroll is now at 230
03:17million.
03:18The other thing that really ticks me off is when people say, oh, he's just doing it with Al Avila's
03:24players.
03:25It's just Al.
03:25Well, let me tell you something about that.
03:27Al Avila might get credit for picking five star ingredients.
03:34You got to make the meal.
03:35How many chefs do you know of?
03:38Not Rico.
03:39Best barbecue I ever had.
03:40But how many chefs do you know of that take elite ingredients and can't make a five star meal out
03:46of it?
03:47It's one thing to draft the player.
03:49What are you doing to develop the player, to develop the talent?
03:53He's doing it with the drafting.
03:55He's doing it with the developing.
03:57And now he's doing it with the retention of the players.
04:01And I predict the people of Detroit are going to have a hard time admitting this simply because the vast
04:08majority of them were dead wrong.
04:10Two, four, eight, five, three, nine, nine, seven, nine, seven.
04:14Who's the best GM in this town?
04:16Who's the best decision maker in this town?
04:19Did this move make Scott Harris that person?
04:22David.
04:24Yeah, we got some text communication here.
04:27Someone says, so happy the Tigers made this deal.
04:29Kevin is legit.
04:31Also, please, Mark, stop singing.
04:34My ears hurt now.
04:37Another one says, might be too soon to sign Kevin.
04:40What if he starts to play terribly?
04:43Another one says, wonder what Green, Tork, and Carpenter are thinking right now.
04:47That is Dennis and Fort Myers.
04:50I think Green, Tork, and Carpenter can all see, like, this kid's pretty good.
04:55This kid is good.
04:57And, you know, I don't think that they're going to be upset that he made his money because he came
05:03out.
05:04Now, like the other ticket texters, I mean, the other text communication person said, what if he's bad?
05:10That's a chance you take when you sign this deal.
05:13But I think there's more upside to the Tigers doing this.
05:17As I say, I would have waited a little bit longer, but Scott Harris saw what he needed to see,
05:21and he got him out there.
05:23So that's why we're asking the question, hey, of the three, between Scott Harris, Trajan Langdon, and Brad Holmes, how
05:29do you rank them?
05:30Is Scott Harris the best GM as of right now?
05:33Because, as you said, a couple years ago, this was a no-brainer.
05:37It was Brad Holmes.
05:39Run away with a victory.
05:42Now, I got him as third.
05:44And really, the draft, I need to see some.
05:47Here's my scale of 1 to 10.
05:50We've got Langdon, 9.5.
05:54I've got Harris, 9.0.
05:57I've got Holmes, 7.0.
06:00And we're going to choose to follow the golden rule today.
06:02Okay.
06:03Okay?
06:03Yeah.
06:04So there you go.
06:05Well, let me give you some of the text communication people on the text were saying.
06:08Someone says no for Scott Harris.
06:10Brad built the best Lions teams we've ever seen, and Trajan has made the Pistons the beast in the East.
06:16Scott has had as many missteps as positive moves.
06:20Another one says this move does not even move the needle when it comes to Scott Harris.
06:25Based on what he has accomplished during this time, he is still underperforming at all levels as a general manager.
06:32All levels?
06:33Consider where they were before he got here.
06:37And consider where they are now.
06:39Now, we all can be annoyed that they finished one run away from the ALCS, and the team they lost
06:46to finished one run away from the World Series, and then the Blue Jays finished one run away from winning
06:51the World Series.
06:52We all can be bent about how close they were, but you'd have to be incredibly blind to miss where
07:00they were relative to where they are now.
07:01Now, I'm with you, but continue, David.
07:07Imagine if they go out and get the best bat available at the deadline.
07:11I will be beyond punked, they say.
07:15Someone else says, I am just happy they are at least apparently willing to spin for the future.
07:22Just hoping we are not talking about this in four years, saying, quote, remember the McGonagall deal, when does that
07:29garbage decision come off the book?
07:31That is from John.
07:32Yeah, I think a lot of people may be holding their breath saying the same thing.
07:35248-539-9797 asking the people, who do you rank?
07:40Does this make Scott Harris the best?
07:42Or who do you have of the people in Detroit?
07:45248-539-9797.
07:47Or, you know what, waiting to see.
07:51We'll just take the text communications.
07:53But I look at this.
07:54We don't have that luxury.
07:55You and I don't get to wait and see.
07:56No, but I don't.
07:57We got a mic on.
07:58It's time for us to know whether this is the right or wrong.
08:00I look at this and I see, yeah, this, I look at the Tigers.
08:07This is not the end-all be-all.
08:09They can still do more.
08:11I think they still need to add a bat at the trade deadline.
08:15But, yeah, I like where Scott Harris is going with this.
08:19Now, as far as Trajan Langdon, you went out there and you got a coach.
08:22And that was the biggest thing.
08:23It wasn't necessarily a free agent pickup.
08:25It was you got a guy in Bickerstaff who can motivate this team.
08:29You got a guy in Bickerstaff who has this team believing in themselves that right here, right now, they got
08:36swag.
08:37Every time they win.
08:38They just don't win.
08:39They let you know that they won.
08:41It's not even like, I can't believe we won this game.
08:43It was like, yeah, we knew we were going to win this game.
08:46We knew we were going to win this thing.
08:48And, yeah, you should just be lucky to be on the same court as us.
08:51Now, I don't know if this will take them to the NBA Finals or not.
08:54But their attitude tells me it's a whole – we talk about culture.
09:00Bickerstaff has brought a culture, and that's through Trajan Langdon.
09:03So that's why I have him slightly behind.
09:06I need to see some success.
09:08The Tigers have won playoff series.
09:10Pistons have not.
09:12I'll tell you what.
09:12That's the difference maker to me.
09:14I'll give you a 60-second Langdon story before his first year, last year.
09:18Went up to him, and I said, Trajan, can I just ask you, when you were in free agency, your
09:24first Detroit Pistons free agency,
09:25how many phones did you get hung up in your face?
09:28And he laughed.
09:30And he said, you have no idea.
09:32And then I said, well, how do you overcome that?
09:35And he said, look, there's nothing I can do about it being cold and gray in February in Detroit,
09:41but there's everything I can do about ensuring that these players have every single resource at their disposal
09:48to make them as successful and to make them the most money they possibly can.
09:53He said, players talk amongst each other.
09:55When they talk, we want them talking about the family, the culture, the equipment that they want for nothing
10:03when they step through these doors.
10:05And guess what?
10:06That's exactly with that cool-handed approach that everything's going to be okay.
10:11We've seen that with the Detroit Pistons through two years at Trajan Light.
10:162, 4, 8, 5, 3, 9, 9, 7, 9, 7.
10:20I think we know who's at the bottom of the list.
10:22We don't need to talk about that person.
10:24Let's talk about the other three.
10:26Who do you have?
10:27Who's your one?
10:28Who's your two?
10:29Who's your three?
10:3197.
10:3197.
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