When it’s time to talk Motown sports and the history of everything Michigan, we turn to venerable Tigers historian and columnist Lynn Henning of The Detroit News to talk pitching, young talent and why the Orioles are flailing with Nestor. He also talks about the window last summer where Tarik Skubal was being shopped and the rumors of a Jackson Holliday swap that lingered.
Nestor Aparicio discusses the Baltimore Orioles’ and Detroit Tigers’ current baseball seasons with Lynn Henning, a long-time Detroit sports journalist. Henning highlights the Orioles’ struggles with starting pitching and the missed opportunity to trade for Tyler Scott, who could have provided a foundational piece for their rotation. He praises the Tigers’ GM, Scott Harris, for building a deep pitching staff and developing homegrown talent. Henning also notes the Orioles’ recent improvements and the potential for future success, emphasizing the importance of patience and strategic trades. Both agree on the significance of good pitching and the impact of ownership and management on team performance.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Detroit Tigers, Baltimore Orioles, pitching, young talent, Nestor Aparicio, Lynn Henning, Mike Elias, Scott Harris, starting pitching, trade deadline, minor league system, free agent market, homegrown talent, Camden Yards, Tiger Stadium.
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Lynn Henning
8
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S T am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive. This is baseball season and an n, f L draft weekend, but it’s crab cake week. Wednesday, we will be at Cooper’s north. I’ll have the Back to the Future Marilyn lottery scratch offs to give away. We’ll also be at Cocos on the 30th and then off to red brick station in White Marsh on the seventh of May. Really looking forward to that one. It is a big month. We thought we’d have more quality baseball around here than maybe we’ve had. We’re going to see the Detroit Tigers this weekend after a couple games with the Washington Nationals. I thought it’d be a good opportunity. You know, back in my day, in the sports day, I would line up every Detroit sportswriter I could find, anyone with any connection to the Tigers. I try to find al K line, I try to find everybody. But now I just try to just dabble in and maybe do one piece on Tigers Orioles this weekend. This guy has been covering baseball and sports in the Detroit area since right before the Doug descent, says home run against the Tigers Memorial Stadium that launched orial magic in the summer of 1979 he is now in semi retirement. I hope he said the golf ball. I think everybody does in st Simons Island, Georgia, but I don’t think there’s anybody that could write the walls in the history of the Lindell AC quite the way. Lynn, heading hood from the Detroit News. Lynn, how are you? And much like all of my former you know, friends and young old timers, as Steadman would say, How’s that retirement going for you? Man, yeah. I mean, it’s,
Lynn Henning 01:33
it’s an alleged retirement Nestor, I went down and had two stints in Lakeland covering spring training got down your way once, and everything is really almost routine in terms of the way it was for a lot of years. And then I cover the Tigers minor leagues for them throughout the year, and I still dabble a little bit in on the help side, as the minor league system, of course, interweaves with the big league club. So in that respect, it feels like there’s not been a lot of detachment here in this alleged retirement. But it works out just nicely because I get to do it kind of on my terms, and it’s been extremely comfortable to stay attached to baseball and a chance to talk with my old friends in Baltimore, one of my favorite stops at my favorite ballpark.
Nestor Aparicio 02:26
Well, I you went to 33rd street back in the day. I don’t know if you were at the sense ace home run game, but when I bring on sage people like you, and when we talk about eras of ownership, and every time I think of Lakeland Florida, I think is seeing Sparky Anderson sitting there eating off of off a paper plate after a game, and giving me spitting, spitting all sorts of things, including wisdom at me through all of it. What do you make of the Baltimore baseball circumstance and situation in regard to all the rest of it, and really being an expatriate guy now living down in Georgia, following your team from afar. But we have a new owner here. I don’t need to tell you what a dumpster fire. It’s been here for three decades. And what the new owner here finds, because I always think of the Detroit situation for baseballs, having had a sugar daddy there, that the Tigers fans probably had it a little better than they might have if somebody was managing beans around there for their baseball program over the last 25 or 30
Lynn Henning 03:26
8years. Yeah, my view on that is that it’s usually the general manager that makes the difference, as opposed to the owner, and I think Nestor. That’s obvious in the case of the Orioles, not that Peter Angelos hasn’t given way here in that particular era of skin Flint ownership was well known throughout baseball that Peter was meddling where he probably shouldn’t have meddled, and not helping where he could have helped. And I always sympathized with the Orioles fans in that regard. But really when things began to turn around, and we all know Mike Elias is captaincy of that front office, is why the Orioles are good and why they’re going to remain good. Now, I know there are issues right now, and those issues are probably somewhat predictable, particularly on the starting pitching side, and that’s why I thought last July there was every chance the oils were going to steal Carrick school from the tigers, and probably for Jackson. You know, I just believed that was going to be the trade. And I thought it would have worked for both teams, and I think they had to have been talking seriously right up until the trade deadline, about that potential deal would have given scuba three playoff seasons with the Orioles and the Tigers, would have gotten a holiday for a shortstop, need that is eternally existent here. I thought it was going to work, but it didn’t. And. Here’s where we’re at. Anywhere else are a little light on starting pitching, to say the least, tigers are flush with it. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 05:05
when you start talking about Jackson holiday here, or cows or westburg or rutchman or Anderson, you start to talk about, you know, it’s like that scene in Pulp Fiction where they open the briefcase and you don’t know what’s in there. But you know, it’s gold. You know, you know, you know it’s going to shine. And making those kinds of ballsy deals through the history of baseball really difficult thing to do, to deal off a guy that you gave a whole season away, to be so bad that you can have a player of that caliber in a 20/21, age year, and to think that you’re going to have that player, I think there would have been outrage here. Had they done that. Had they done that, the orals would have had number one pitcher, unless his arm falls off, and there’s been a lot of that around here. I mean, I Elias is getting destroyed right now, Lynn and so’s Brandon high because of the lack of patience here since 1983 we last time we won. But more than that, all of the pitchers whose arms have fallen off. I mean, I look at the injuries and say, well, they’re probably not going to be as good as you wanted them to be. And then there’s the cry to the owner of let’s spend some more money and buy some more pitching.
Lynn Henning 06:17
It’s a case often when, as we know Nestor, where it’s just not a matter, though, that free agent market being like a trip to WalMart where you just take your shopping list and load up the cart and check out, because those players are in short supply. They’re not always practical ads, and they’re they simply are not always going to be achievable for the areas of need. That’s why I think trading is a more, far more efficient way to get it done, a more direct way to get it done. If I had to criticize Mike for anything, I think it’s because he’s hoarding so many trade ships, and you find yourself in this situation with an abundance of talent, not knowing where everybody’s really going to slot for a while. I think I would have gotten very aggressive last summer if I were Mike Elias and the Orioles and made that school deal, because that would have given you what you now lack, that foundational rotation piece that carries you not only through the season, but gives you a one up on everybody in the playoff time. Now that is easier said than done. And as you said, too, there’s always the physical issue. And if a guy does go down next week and you’ve given away a franchise short step like Jackson holiday, I understand that calculation, but I think you have to be aggressive. I think you have to trust help. Sometimes I think you have to trust franchise talent, in the case of school or holiday for being what it is, and swap it if that’s what’s really going to improve your team. And in that instance, I could see that deal last summer working, and I was a little surprised, frankly, that it didn’t
Nestor Aparicio 08:01
Well, I’m not going to criticize Elias on that front, because he dealt for Corbin burns in the middle of the fire last summer when things were breaking the wrong way. He dealt for ethlin, right? But no robbery guys, no effin, right? Now, clearly, burns didn’t want to come back at any price. They didn’t get aggressive financially in the free agent market, and now they’re paying the price. Had I talked to you eight weeks ago and said Charlie Morton’s 41 Chicano hadn’t thrown a pitch, and he’s turned out to be, you know, serviceable. And the notion that Kate povidge, these young guys, they brought up, that the young kid the other day, that they’re going to have to go with this right now, and the bats haven’t been really right. This whole thing hasn’t been right so far, in a lot of ways, Henderson didn’t start the season. Cows are got hurt. Kirstad took one off the hand the other day. Again. I mean, this has been a best spate of bad luck for an organization with really high hopes new ownership. They’ve almost doubled their payroll in the first year, and it’s just not going to be going well by the time they get to Detroit this week.
8Lynn Henning 09:06
I understand that too, Nestor completely, and what I would say is, based on the Tigers experience last year, give this thing a chance to straighten out the oils. Have too much talent now they’re in a division that is unforgiving. We all know that, and that is the difficulty for an Orioles fan right now, compared with, let’s say, the American League Central, where you have definitely an opportunity by being a few games over 500 to win that thing. It’s not going to be as receptive a case for anybody in the American League East, including the oils, but your talent Nestor is still so utterly deep on that team, and their bats will come around. The pitching is going to be an issue, there’s no question about it. And how do you get past that issue? You. You’re going to need some luck there. You’re going to need some development. You’re going to need some probably a major deal in July. We all know the realities there. You can’t overcome bad pitching, but you do have to count on it straightening out, getting healthier and perhaps adding a piece or two that’s going to make a difference. In that case, I can see the Orioles getting back into this thing. Otherwise, without the pitching, no, it’s going to be a long season. It’s clear as a bell. Or even in an April you’re going to have to have those arms at some point. It’s why, bringing
Nestor Aparicio 10:33
you sage guys like you want to just reconfirm that bad pitching is bad pitching. You can’t win with bad pitching, right and Sparky told you that Earl told you that everybody told you that baseball’s
Lynn Henning 10:45
told us that for 100 years. And you know, we’re seeing that right now, again with with the Orioles, a prime, prime exhibit of that. But I keep saying, Nestor, this is baseball in what looks bad in April can look pretty good in May, and arms can find grooves, you know, without effluent and without Rodriguez, it is a tough row to hoe for them, no doubt about it, but I would say, give this thing a chance. There’s still so much skill on this Orioles roster. I mean, I what Mike has done here with this 40 man, and in the minor leagues, your drafting has been consistently excellent with him. And this is a good GM, but I honestly go back to that deal last July, and I think that’s right now an example of what the oils could have done that would have probably given you a much more greater sense of security and peace this April, if you had Terry scuba out there every five days?
Nestor Aparicio 11:46
8Well, I love scuba. I mean, obviously we saw him, you know, and everything that the Tigers went through to get to where they were last October, um, what made him so Expendable for that organization? And also to say, Why would you give him up? Will you give him up to get a franchise shortstop, but, but nothing less. There wasn’t going to be any Connor Norby, you know, of Stowers kind of deal, right? I mean, and probably not even cows or westburg, right? That probably would not have whet the appetite, would it have?
Lynn Henning 12:14
Well, and this gets back to GMs Nestor and Scott Harris has done a terrific job with a tiger since he came in two and a half years ago, and he understands pitching and throwing strikes is how you get it done. Primarily, they have built a very good staff here with excess pieces. They have some folks at triple A that could easily be starting in the big leagues, and they’re now using a six man rotation you’re going to see scuba this weekend, and understand whether giving him ample rest, because he’s about as good as anybody has been since, on the left handed side, I’ve seen since Carlton and Cofax and those guys. I mean, that’s how good of a lefty this guy is. But they have great depth. Jack Flaherty came back after they got a super trade made for him, one of the Dodgers last deadline. He’s back and throwing well, they add very good pitching parts and giving to give you an example, er Nestor, they went out and signed Alex Cobb from the Indians during the off season as a free Asian edition. He hasn’t even pitched yet. He had a hip issue. Now he’ll be back before long. You can’t
Nestor Aparicio 13:29
name it all these old Orioles.
Lynn Henning 13:32
Yeah, I know, you know. And Alex Cobb is an example of the kind of guy they they add here in in always seem to benefit from they are extremely good at identifying arms. In this organization, we’ve
8Nestor Aparicio 13:46
added Kyle Gibson, and we’re waiting on him, and I don’t even know what we’re waiting on. Lynn, well,
Lynn Henning 13:51
and I’ll say again, it’s always the GM to me, Nestor, not ownership. It’s, it’s, it’s who is doing what with the pieces that you you can realistically and pragmatically add, separate from dollar signs. I don’t think free agency is the way that you really build a championship team. It can it can help in a complimentary fashion, but it’s not the undergirding for a playoff or championship roster, and that’s why I think Mike Elias has done so wonderfully with the Orioles, and why Scott Harris is off and running with the Tigers here. Because this kid is really good as a GM. He knows exactly what they need. He’s good also Nestor, and this is key making these one year signings and oftentimes then flipping them at the deadline and getting more pieces for his farm and ultimately for his big league roster. He’s done a magnificent job. It’s not a case where Mike gillich was, let’s say, unchecked, with his. Payroll. They had to observe some things, not many. But it’s not also fly outside
Nestor Aparicio 15:05
the realm of what other teams certainly, what was going on here from a financial standpoint? Yeah, they
Lynn Henning 15:11
8did. I mean, their biggest thing, Nestor, was they took a gamble on Pudge Rodriguez when everybody was sidestepping him because of the back issue, back in oh four. That’s how they got Pudge and how this thing started. They took a flyer on maglenius, who had a bad knee, and who had had a process in Vienna, Austria to try to rehabilitate that knee. They took a chance on that. No one else was ready to sign those guys, and Mike Ilitch gambled on them, and it got an enormous payoff. And then, really, that’s about the extent to which he went and added what you might call Brinks trucks, additions and on the free agent market. Otherwise he was trading for Miguel Cabrera. You know, this is, this was not a team built necessarily on largesse. But what
Nestor Aparicio 16:04
does it need to be in your division, or has it needed to be historically, right?
Lynn Henning 16:08
No, that’s I’m one of those people Nestor that believes you don’t buy your way into the playoffs or into a world championship. You compliment it. And really, the last time the Tigers won, we’re getting back here into the Doug disense day. They were 84 they did it with using free agency as an adjunct. They went out and got a Darryl Evans. They traded for Willie Hernandez. They added a Dave Bergman, but they did it primarily with homegrown talent, the same way the 68 tigers, the other world championship team of my life, did it with homegrown talent, and the Orioles are proving, in my estimation, that that’s the way that they return, and have returned back to the upper echelon, is by way of homegrown talent and drafting and signing. And so that’s where I view the framework for a real contender, and how it’s constructed, and how you do it is in the examples of Mike Elias and Scott Harris. Now that he’s working here in Detroit, Tiger
Nestor Aparicio 17:13
stole out K line from Southern High School 50 years ago, and then they started 35 and five and 84 and we haven’t been the same since 83 around here. Lynn Henning is here. He is been a long time writer at The Detroit News. He is in somewhat of semi retirement, not even understand it. He’s in the golf ball. He’s down in Georgia, but still covering the Tigers like what a start they got. Off to moon. It’s been the opposite year. We have an owner who had his own bobble head last week. He’s had the team a year, and he already has his own bobble head, where they just got streaming this week for the first time, Lynn out of market streaming. Had you been in Georgia in an Oriole fan? No, thank you. You have to buy the whole MLB package, the whole deal. But they’re trying, but they just figured massing out here for money and all that. Give me some good news about your franchise, because it was sort of given up for dead this time last year. All of a sudden, some things came together, maybe more quickly than even an old sage like you thought they could for the Tigers. Well,
8Lynn Henning 18:18
in some respects, yeah, I picked them last year to win 85 games. Ended up winning 86 what I didn’t see happen in though Nestor was them starting off so poorly, they just had no hitting to really support that great pitching. So guess what? It comes to be July, and they’re sellers, and they sell off Flaherty, and they sell off Andrew Chaffin, and they sold here, and they sold there, Carson Kelly and everybody else they got rid of. And lo and behold, they go on a what, 36 and 11 run, or something like that, to close things out, because that young talent gestated. And to give you an example of how they have done at Parker meadows, really, at sin center field, who covers the equivalent of two outfield positions and who has a big left handed bat really hasn’t played a game for them yet and won’t play for them for at least another five or six weeks, and that’s because of a nerve issue. Well, they’ve overcome that. They’ve been without a lot of people and and Matt veering, who played third base in right field alternatingly for them, hasn’t played a game for them yet. This is an example of how Harris has patched up. They’ve lost a little pitching from the bullpen of late with some injuries, and that has been something now that’s been more of a threat than it’s really cost them games, but that’s about the only weakness on this team. And getting back to last year, though, it was simply a case where the youth grew up and gestated, and in that second half, they played at a torrid pace and ended up winning one more. Game than I thought they were capable of winning. It was a very unique timing fashion in which they did that last year, starting cold and finishing so red hot. But ultimately, talent was what got them into the playoffs and got them nearly into the ALCS.
Nestor Aparicio 20:15
What anticipate the sage writer from the Detroit News joining us here on the on the eve of the Orioles getting together with the Tigers in Detroit, scoople gonna stick around now, right? I mean, as much as there was a little bit of a fire sale feeling for a couple of months last year when things weren’t going well in May and June, you know, he might be there for another dozen years, huh? Well,
Lynn Henning 20:36
here’s the thing, and when we all know this, it takes two to tango on a contract extension. And if you’re terribl and your agent is Scott bourse, are you signing extensions? No, you’re going to go to free agency and probably come close to being the first billion dollar player the way this market is going. I mean, he’s going to make 400 million, 500 million in free agency, which will come at the end of next season, end of the 26th season. And there’s really no way Nestor that with Scott Boris is your agent, you’re going to sign an extension unless it’s for $500 million the Tigers aren’t going to invest that in a pitcher when we all know the frailty of pitching to get back to your early point, and so he’s going to hit free agency. The Tigers will hang on to him, unless they would happen to fall out of it the next two years, and then they could probably spin them at one of the two deadlines, but that’s not likely to happen. They have a good team here, and it’s going to remain good for the foreseeable future. This is not a team built for cycles, so even if they lose scoobel, you get the draft pick, and I think you have to move on. You have to prepare yourself for losing good talent, because you also need to trust in your power to regenerate that talent to draft Well, that’s what Mike Elias is doing. That’s what Scott Harris is doing. The first thing Scott Harris did here Nestor was he changed his scouting apparatus at the top completely. The Tigers, inability to develop the farm are why they haven’t won in 41 years. Well, that’s changing. Their farm is very rich, very robust. Now they’re doing better in Latin America. All along, I knew that was the answer. It wasn’t free agent dollars, it was what you were drafting and bringing up from the farm roots. And that’s what’s changed here in Detroit. You feel
Nestor Aparicio 22:29
8bad about 41 years. It’s been 42 years. You found somebody that you could commiserate with where it’s been worse. Lynn,
Lynn Henning 22:35
well, why do you think I always resonate so well with my buddies in Baltimore? Because I feel like there’s common blood there, on top of the fact that, of course, my favorite ballpark has always been canned, and it always will be. I’m so glad they brought the fences back, because I hated to see them lose the intimacy of that bulk, wondrous ball ball field when they changed those fences. Now they’ve got them back to where they should be, and it’s got the intimacy that I always loved about Camden. It’s, it’s by far my favorite ballpark,
Nestor Aparicio 23:09
and by far my favorite ballpark was Tiger Stadium because of the word you used intimacy, right? Intimacy. And
Lynn Henning 23:17
they went in crazily. They built the exact opposite of Tiger Stadium. When they built Comerica Park, for which I’ve never forgiven them, because they went to this monstrous, expansive, outlandish place, and everything that was good about Tiger Stadium, they decided to do this in the opposite polar end, and I just don’t understand it yet, but I’ve been on that horse for a long time. Well,
8Nestor Aparicio 23:43
I you know, I would just say for you guys to be involved in all of this, the hardest part for me, and being an older guy, and you’ve talked about this their whole life, you don’t talk about the Red Wings or the pistons or the lions in respect of, well, if the player gets too good, they’re going to go somewhere else because we don’t have enough money, and we don’t buy top shelf we only buy this kind of player or whatever baseball still like. It’s a dinosaur in that way that we discuss it in that way,
Lynn Henning 24:14
it is, it is. And of course, that gets back to another question, that’s, what’s hottest in Baltimore, the Ravens or the Orioles. When they’re good, the Tigers were always the straw that stirred the drink here. But I knew when the lions got good and they were ultimately going to get and guess why? By the way, a GM who knew what he was doing, got in here, and Brad Holmes and now the lions are an elite team, but that’s where all of this boils down to. It’s why Baltimore has such rich sports fabric, primarily because, of course, the Orioles have been the Orioles here for 70 some years, but also because the Ravens offset that and give you two spheres throughout your year. That you can really, really concentrate on, fixing on and live and die with. And the Detroit scene is is more for sport. No question about you got the pistons in the playoffs now for the first time in 17 years, and the city is wedded to them right now. And the lions draft this week is going to be again, the point of focus in an entire sports region. But the Tigers are eternal. In Detroit, they are eternal. And right now, everybody is as involved with them as they always are. And it’s a good story. It’s a good sports story throughout Detroit, but the Tigers right now still have never really lost their position as patriarch of Detroit’s pro sport teams. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 25:49
I appreciate you, Jacob, which and you give me all of this for sports. And I see the Michigan State thing behind you. They got the Michigan Wolverines. There’s a whole college thing going on up there as well. You know hockey as well, college hockey’s on and on, right? It’s
Lynn Henning 26:05
8a pretty rich tapestry of sports up this way Nestor. But again, understand that my favorite road trip was always Baltimore, and always will be. I love that town. I love the Orioles in their wonderful lineage. Earl Weaver was my favorite guy to ever deal with in baseball, and I’ve just feel this brotherhood with Baltimore that will never go away.
Nestor Aparicio 26:30
Have you read the new book, The oral Weaver book by John Miller?
Lynn Henning 26:33
I was going to get it and I will be getting it because unquestionably, that is going to be a cover to cover read for me.
Nestor Aparicio 26:40
Oh, there’s no question about that. I’ve had him on through all the errors I did. The last ever interview with Earl Weaver, and John found me right before Earl died, and John was enamored because I didn’t talk to anything about the Orioles. I talked to him about how he became a manager, and apparently no one ever asked him those questions, you know, about why he wanted to be a manager and all that. It wasn’t quoted anywhere. So kind of interesting stuff. Lynn heading, if John Steadman were alive, and he is through my spirit, we would call you a young, old timer. So I appreciate it, and I appreciate your time as always. And hey, next time you come to your favorite ballpark, I’m going to take you and get you some crab cakes in here. I’ll run you up the street to Fave these. We’ll do it upright. Alright, got a deal. I meant, Nestor, always Alright. Take care of yourself. Enjoy vacation land. Lynn, adding long time Detroit scribe, covering all things for the Detroit News and joining us here from retirement. Eat. I want the kind of retirement he has where I sit around and watch baseball all day and talk about it. I am Nestor. We are W, N, S T am 1570 Towson, Baltimore and we never stop talking Baltimore positive. I.
