What you’ll be getting from Tigers Intelligence Report

How a new publication geared to all-things Tigers promises readers a year-round feast of big-league and minor-league news, analysis, opinion, and conversation.

In the sage words of Wilbur Wright, as Orville strapped in for a bit of derring-do at Kitty Hawk in 1903:

“Let’s see if we can at least avoid getting you killed,” or something to that effect as Orville set sail above the Carolina sand for a full 12 seconds.

We’ll see what’s ahead on our end in coming days and, hopefully, years, as Tigers Intelligence Report launches a bid to bring solid Tigers reporting and conversation to a crowd that loves talking baseball.

The mission begins this week at spring camp in Lakeland, Fla. It will continue throughout the season and year. No offseason hibernation. Tigers Intelligence Report will be a 12-month watch, generally three times a week once the regular season begins, with twice-weekly parcels planned from October until camp cranks again in February.

Many weeks, depending upon news and events, stories and columns will exceed those three-times, twice-weekly minimums we’re initially planning.

I’ll be writing regularly this week at Lakeland and again during a second spring-training stint in March. We’ll have fresh takes throughout spring camp and the regular season.

The watch – overviews, reporting, conversation, opinion – naturally will span both Detroit’s big-league and minor-league fronts. It has been the Tigers farm where I’ve been working more exclusively since allegedly “retiring” from The Detroit News in 2019 after 40 years there. Minor-league digging will remain a primary gig alongside steady analysis and focus on what’s happening at Comerica Park and beyond.

This, unlike Orville’s inaugural, won’t be a solo flight.

A few people will be joining me – likely soon. You’ll know more about them in time, but we’ll have excellent expertise involved: analytics, front-office savvy, MLB Draft authorities, all bringing the most solid and experienced mix of Tigers grist a publication of this brand can deliver.

Plan, also, and soon, on podcast news arriving. Deep discussion, from those who know the Tigers fore and aft, will be a podcast staple.

But it’s Tigers red-meat you most often will want to bite into, in print, and that will be the special of the day as we get Tigers Intelligence Report rolling.

Although this will be a subscription-based effort, we’ll shoot to offer a healthy share of free content and podcasts. We’ll invest in being on-site, particularly on the minor-league side with repeat trips to Lakeland (Single A team, Florida Complex League, post-draft updates on the new crop arriving, etc.), as well as assignments at all Tigers minor-league outposts, with plans for Detroit and even a road-stop.

What is assured for subscribers is more a vow:

Tigers Intelligence Report will be a good read.

We will be original, thoughtful, informed, and as provocative as a particular day or hour requires of a journalist and others who wish to make this the most credible and reasoned publication possible. More than 50 years of writing about the Tigers has taught indelible lessons there.

This will be a plunge into every facet of Tigers life: assessing front-office strategies; what AJ Hinch is thinking and doing; roster pluses and minuses; who the Tigers should consider on the trade and free-agent marts; how they’re drafting; tracking Detroit’s forays in Latin America; and how an organization overall is melding with its enormous fan base’s passions.

Experience here has been like an ever-expanding investment account: It brings dividends, this nearly lifelong effort in following baseball in Detroit, as Tigers Intelligence Report debuts.

Something else to remember, bringing to mind the earlier reference to Orville and Wilbur.

By the end of the day, after four flights, they had gone from 12 seconds and 120 feet to 59 seconds and 852 feet.

Things got better, fast.

Tigers Intelligence Report will do the same – and that’s a promise.