The Detroit Tigers should probably undergo a massive sell-off and rebuild, effective immediately. They’re a mediocre, aging team with a bunch of huge contracts set to hurt the franchise for years if they’re not moved. In truth, Detroit probably should have begun to rebuild a year or more ago, when Miguel Cabrera and Justin Verlander might have brought a better return and required less money to go from the Tigers to another team. Detroit has already begun to sell a bit, moving pending free-agent J.D. Martinez for a few middling prospects. Reliever Justin Wilson seems likely to go. The team could and probably should move Verlander for whatever they can get and then net some prospects for Ian Kinsler, as well. All that said, there’s an argument for keeping the core of the Tigers together this year and going for it again next season, too.

The Tigers do have a sliver of hope this season, owing to how the hunt for the AL Wild Card has become a race to the bottom and not the top. That said, whatever decision Detroit makes in the coming month-plus, it won’t really concern their present, but rather their future generally. The Tigers could save some money in the near term by trading some of their long-term deals, but they’ve never hesitated to spend the money required to field a contender.

What the club really needs to consider is how long it’s willing to stomach a rebuild. Holding on to Cabrera and Kinsler and Verlander — and even Michael Fulmer — would only extend and water down any possible rebuild effort. A more effective method would probably be for Detroit to purge itself of its current roster and attempt to start over. That being said, the allure of going for it one more time does have its appeal.

The first argument for trying to contend in 2017 has little to do with the Tigers and more to do with the division of which they’re a member. Take a look at the American League Central in 2017. The Chicago White Sox have done a great job with their own rebuild, but their outlook for 2018 isn’t good. The Kansas City Royals are making one last run with their current group, but are likely to see three of their four best players depart from a team that’s already mediocre. The Minnesota Twins have a few good players in Brian Dozier and Miguel Sano, promising development from Jose Berrios, and untapped talent in Byron Buxton, but given their current level of talent and general spending habits, it seems difficult to believe the Twins are going to be a real threat for contention.

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Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric forefather Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game.

How are they calculated? Haphazardly, is how. An explanation of the components and formulae which produce these NERD scores is available here. All objections to the numbers here are probably justified, on account of how this entire endeavor is absurd.

Most Highly Rated Game
Cincinnati at New York AL | 19:05 ET
Castillo (35.0 IP, 85 xFIP-) vs. Montgomery (101.1 IP, 105 xFIP-)
The author’s haphazardly constructed algorithm appears to have selected this evening’s Reds-Yankees game as the day’s most appealing. Of particular note, it seems, is the participation of young Cincinnati right-hander Luis Castillo. Among the 203 pitchers who’ve recorded 20-plus innings as a starter this season, the 24-year-old rookie has produced the second-highest average fastball velocity — behind only Noah Syndergaard by that measure. His swinging-strike rate (13.3%), meanwhile, places in the 93rd percentile among that same group.

The involvement of the Yankees is also responsible for the game’s high score. The American’s League New York franchise currently possesses almost precisely a 50% chance of qualifying for the postseason according to the coin-flip methodology of this site’s playoff odds. The coin-flip methodology, while actually less accurate than the projection-based model, does appear to better reflect the dumb human mind’s sense of the league’s various postseason races.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Cincinnati Radio or New York AL TV.

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On Friday afternoon at Wrigley Field, with the Cardinals trailing the Cubs 3-2 heading to the seventh inning, Mike Matheny called on left-handed reliever Zach Duke to replace his starting pitcher Carlos Martinez. Duke turned around Ben Zobrist to bat right-handed, inducing a fly out to left field, before snaring a weak liner back toward the mound off the bat of Anthony Rizzo. With the right-handed hitting Willson Contreras due next, Duke was relieved by right-handed throwing Matt Bowman, who promptly recorded the third out. All told, Duke threw just six pitches, three for strikes.

On its own, Duke’s appearance doesn’t appear noteworthy. Nothing spectacular happened, and Duke has pitched in a lot of games. In fact, over the past three full major-league seasons, Duke was about as likely as anyone in the league to make an appearance on the mound in a game.

So what made Duke’s appearance special? To understand that, it’s necessary to begin with the fact that this was his first appearance in an MLB game in 2017. As the regular season ended last season in early October, the Cardinals reported that Duke had undergone Tommy John surgery while also having a flexor muscle repaired in this left arm.

Tommy John surgery has become something with which all baseball fans are familiar. At this point, it’s no longer shocking to hear that a pitcher has torn a UCL in his throwing elbow. By my calculations, over 26% of pitchers who appeared in an MLB game last season have had this type of procedure.

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What follows is an excerpt from Chapter 6 — “The War on WAR” — of Jay Jaffe’s new book, The Cooperstown Casebook, which is out in stores today. You can also read Paul Swydan’s review of the book over at The Hardball Times.

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Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: The Royals are overachieving. They’d probably consider that an insult — I imagine they’d say they’re properly achieving — but the Royals have a winning record to go with a negative run differential, and right now they cling ever so barely to a would-be playoff spot. It’s a crowded race, to be sure, and the Royals could fall out of position any day, but they are very much in it. In what’s assumed to be the final ride with the current core, the Royals are again gunning for the playoffs, and they’re even within easy distance of the inarguably underachieving first-place Indians.

The Royals don’t have major young pieces to subtract. Nor do they have the budget flexibility to take on someone expensive. Yet, like any other team, the Royals have been looking to improve. Monday, they’ve done that. They just had to go to the Padres, and they’ve come away with a pretty fascinating stretch-run asset.

Royals get:

• Trevor Cahill
• Ryan Buchter
• Brandon Maurer

Padres get:

• Matt Strahm
• Travis Wood
• Esteury Ruiz

This is a package that includes several semi-familiar names, and Esteury Ruiz. Every single player is individually interesting, but it’s Cahill who most captures my attention. He’s a risk and a rental, but he could provide a jolt for the Kansas City starting staff.

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