2023 Detroit Tigers Mid-Season Review
Taking stock of the first ~10 months of the Scott Harris administration and evaluating the first 89 games of the 2023 Detroit Tigers
Just over one year ago, I penned what is still the angriest piece I’ve ever written, excoriating the management of the Detroit Tigers under Al Avila and the ownership of the team under Chris Ilitch. It was clear at that point, mid-June 2022, that the Avila rebuild had failed. The team was no closer to contention than they had been five years earlier and it was time to pull the plug. I encouraged fans to boycott the park and games until a change had been made. Pessimism was everywhere and the outlook was GRIM.
Fast forward to the present day and the bare hopes of my piece have come true. Al Avila was fired as GM of the team on August 10, 2022, and a subsequent clean out of the front office began. On September 19, 2022, Scott Harris was hired to assume the role of President of Baseball Operations, giving the organization its first clean change of leadership in two decades. The offseason that followed was predictably quiet, a new management group assessing the club and getting to know all the players and the team, rather par for the course for a new GM.
We have now reached the MLB All Star Break- and the conclusion of the MLB Draft. The Tigers sit at 39-50 after a tough defeat at the hands of Toronto on Sunday, headed for a losing season for the seventh straight year, and just surprised many in the baseball world by drafting Max Clark. With significant buzz around the team, a restless fanbase online, and topical subject matter with the draft, not to mention a symbolic check-in mark in the ASG, I figured this was a good time to check in on the club one year after my rage piece from 2022. Today I’ll be quickly catching everyone up on the front office changes in the past year, giving you fine folks my takes on the 2023 Tigers as a team, dissecting the MLB Draft controversy, discussing fan grumbling and the big picture of building the franchise up under Scott Harris.
[MLB.com]
A Get To Know You
Before we get to the part you all want to read, I wanted to write a couple quick paragraphs about the organizational changes that have happened in the past year, as a way to close the saga from last year. The hardest thing in North American pro sports is deciding whether to get excited or furious when your favorite team hires a new GM who has no prior experience at the position. Even if they are coming over from a smart organization, if they weren’t the one with the finger on the trigger, who is to say they aren’t actually a doofus? After Bob Quinn, hired as an assistant in the front office of the most successful dynasty in NFL history, turned out to be a ginger moron who evoked images of Matt Millen, my willingness to say anything about a GM with zero experience dropped to nil.
With all that having been said, Scott Harris seemed to have a solid resume of MLB franchises he was a part of. He did internships with the Nationals (when they were starting to build some pieces towards contention) and the Reds (during the peak Votto years), then did a couple seasons in the MLB offices. After that he joined the Chicago Cubs in 2012, when Theo Epstein took over and began steering the ship back on course. Harris worked in a variety of roles for the Cubs, all the way up to Assistant General Manager in 2018. He was there for their curse-breaking World Series title and had a hand in a lot of winning. After Chicago, Harris was hired to be GM of the San Francisco Giants under the leadership of Farhan Zaidi. While I recognize that Harris serving as Giants GM contradicts my statement about him not having experience, the truth is that Zaidi ran that team as the Big Dog.
That of course explains why Harris departed after just three seasons. It was valuable experience, but Detroit is the first time he is running his own team as the #1 man in the front office. Of course, he accomplished a good bit in San Francisco. A team in transition, the Giants put together two .500-ish seasons in 2020 and 2022, in between a monstrous 2021 campaign that saw them win 107 games (they are jostling for a playoff spot in 2023). Zaidi, a Dodgers disciple, is seen as a very smart guy and won MLB Executive of the Year for that 2021 Giants season. The Dodgers and the Cubs were two of the very best NL franchises in the 2010s and if you were picking teams that you’d want your sparkling ingénue front office leader to have learned from, those two would have to be near the top five.1
Harris’ resume looks strong, but naturally, only time will tell. After taking over, Harris dipped into another promising reservoir of front office talent, the wizards down in Tampa Bay, to poach Rob Metzler from the Rays to be vice president/Assistant General Manager. MLive details Metzler’s position as being in charge of amateur scouting. Metzler in turn gave the boot to amateur scouting director Scott Pleis and hired Mark Conner from the Padres to get the gig.
Harris showed longtime Avila henchman David Chadd the door after two decades of failure, while keeping Sam Menzin and Jay Sartori on as fellow AGMs next to Metzler, while Scott Bream and Ryan Garko stayed to deal with Player Personnel and Player Development, respectively. Menzin has dealt with contract negotiations and MLB guidelines, while Sartori was a lone wolf constructing an analytics department from scratch in 2016 once Avila realized having one would be a good idea (over a decade too late). Garko joined the team at the tail-end of the Avila tenure and was praised for bringing a fresh and progressive approach to player development, one that bore fruits in 2022.
In other words, Harris largely kept the late Avila hires, the ones who weren’t troglodytes, while bidding adieu to Avila’s inner circle. Harris’ re-making of the organization didn’t just stop at the front office level, re-assigning or dismissing outright the longtime heads of the medical staff, strength-and-conditioning, and the training staff. For the first time in two decades, there is fresh blood in the front office of the Detroit Tigers. This is a brad new management team from the top on down- exactly the change I was clamoring for this time last year.2
[Lon Horwedel - USA Today Sports]
A broad view of the first 89 games
Let’s get this out of the way really quick: the 2023 Detroit Tigers are a bad team. The atrocity that is the AL Central this season has allowed the team to be in a “playoff chase” in the sense that they’ve spent much of the last couple months <5 games back of the division lead. But in no other division in the MLB would Detroit be anywhere close to a playoff chase and we shouldn’t forget that, especially as the deadline approaches and large-scale decisions need to be made. They’re 10 games back of the third AL Wild Card spot and would be even further behind in the AL East or AL West. They’d be at least 10 games back in any of the NL Divisions and would be behind by about the same amount for the third NL Wild Card spot. The Tigers are bad.
The ugly -86 run differential that they are sporting is fourth-worst in the MLB (only Oakland, KC, and Colorado are worse… Washington is three runs better). Their offense ranks near the bottom of the league in most metrics and the pitching has had its moments, but injuries have crushed its potential and led to some pretty ugly results as a whole. There really are not too many bright spots to point to, beyond the team’s record in extra innings and close games, and say “this is something this team does well” in the context of the MLB overall.
But insulated in the AL Central, which is an abject joke, this season has had its fun moments. The Tigers got off to a dreadful 2-9 start and since then have mostly treaded water, playing very competitively with their AL Central opponents. They were 25-26 at Memorial Day, but a flood of injuries to the team’s best pitcher (Eduardo Rodriguez) and by far most valuable position player (Riley Greene), in addition to several other key pieces, led to a rough June and helped bury the team further back from the division lead. Occasional happy moments since then, a stunning comeback and walk-off win over the Braves and the recent no hitter of the Blue Jays, do exist. But they are subpar as a whole, something confirmed by losing two of three at home to Oakland.
Given the roster and injuries, it’s actually a bit remarkable that the team is only 11 games under .500. On paper, they have far less talent than Cleveland, KC, or Minnesota, in the division alone, not to mention the loaded AL East and talented AL West. This roster has a long way to go, that’s for sure. Which is something that the new management team seems to understand.
Takes on the season so far
I want to get some thoughts in about this year’s team for all the hard core fans out there, so here goes (bullet point style):
We’ve only seen two starts of Tarik Skubal back from injury, but he’s the best pitcher on the team when everyone is healthy. Fastball is hitting 97-98 with ease, offspeed stuff looks good, carved up the putrid A’s on Tuesday and then baffled the much better Blue Jays on Sunday. Now, can Skubal stay healthy and build himself back up the rest of 2023, angling to a big 2024?
Eduardo Rodriguez was rusty in his return to the rotation after injury, but was so good in the first third of the season. The underlyings were suggesting a bit of regression when he had an ERA straddling 2.00, so that may continue, but if he has a couple good starts out of the AS break, there will be bidders at the deadline. The opt-out in his contract is the big black box determining his value. I’ll get more into my approach to the deadline later on, but I want to commend E-Rod on his awesome play. The Tigers definitely missed him when he was out.
To continue on the starting pitching, bummer for Matt Boyd needing Tommy John. Hope he gets another shot to pitch in the MLB someday, but the Tigers aren’t going to miss him and he isn’t in the long-term plans. Michael Lorenzen has been… fine. Gotta be one of the worst All-Stars in recent memory, but that should boost his trade value some. You wouldn’t get a big return, but he’s a decent swingman/back-end option for a contender.
Among the young arms, we saw pretty clearly that Joey Wentz is not an MLB pitcher this season. Black hole in the rotation. On the other hand, consider me intrigued with Reese Olson. The spin rate on his slider is absurd, legit filth. If he can command his fastball consistently, there’s a player here. For a guy who was getting pounded in AAA, he’s been shockingly effective in the MLB and there are no obvious red flags. I’m not sure if he’s a bullpen arm or a starter long term, but I would like to see more of him. Let Chris Fetter do his thing with Reese.
Finally, Matt Manning hasn’t gotten to pitch much this season, but did get the awesome moment in the no hitter. Manning’s numbers have been good, and strong starts against the Rangers and Jays aren’t nothing, but until he starts getting more whiffs on any of his pitches, it’s hard for me to buy in. My biggest hope here is Manning staying healthy for once and getting to work with Fetter in an extended capacity. Alex Faedo has had some moments, but getting thumped in his last two starts by two real offenses says a lot to me. Don’t think he’s an MLBer.
[Nick Wass/AP]
The MVP of the team and the best player is Riley Greene. His absence was so massive on the offense and his return over the weekend confirmed it. The 10 pitch AB against Chris Bassitt on Sunday, ending in a HR to the deepest part of Comerica… no one else on this team is doing that. Greene has now played exactly 1/3 of an MLB season and is hitting .305/.373/.462/.835, 133 OPS+ and per 162 games he’d be on pace for 18 HR, 18 SB, 27 2B, 9 3B, and 5.7 bWAR. His plate approach is tremendous and I think there’s 25 HR power here to unlock, as he’s only 22 years old. Even just over his first 147 MLB games dating back to last year, Greene is looking at 3.0-3.5 WAR depending on which site you use. There’s a legit 6 win, star player as he ages into his prime.
Spencer Torkelson has been under a continued magnifying glass and I’m not exactly sure what to conclude here. He has definitely improved compared to last season, which is positive, but he’s still not anywhere close to where you want him to be. Tork hits the ball very hard, but he hasn’t been pulling it nearly enough. I like how many walks he draws and how he works counts, but he doesn’t attack pitches in the zone and swings through way too many meatballs. Patience as a hitter is a good attribute, but sometimes you can be patient to a fault.
I’d like to see a more aggressive Tork. The K-rate is too high, but he has been hitting for more power in the last month (L28 games = .504 SLG, 7 2B, 7 HR). How he finishes the year will say a lot about his projection. My biggest worry with Torkelson is that if the hit tool doesn’t improve and the power doesn’t get unlocked further, you’re not left with much else… not a good runner and the defense at first isn’t good enough (yet). Right now he looks like right-handed Rowdy Tellez and that’s not a good thing. There’s still time though; Tork is only 23 and has played <200 MLB games.
Lord almighty, Javier Báez. Look, Javy is a deeply flawed MLB hitter for reasons well established by now, but prior to coming to Detroit, he was never a truly bad hitter save for the (fake) 60 game season in 2020. He had OPS clips above league average in every 162 game season from 2017 to 2021 and even his disappointing seasons, 2016 and last year, were still OPS+ numbers above 90. Right now he sits at 64 OPS+. From 2017-2022, Baez hit at a 32 homers per 162 games pace. This season he’s hitting at a 12 homers per 162 games pace. His defense is still good (mostly his range), so he’s a positive WAR player, but if he was hitting anything like he normally did, he’d be having an awesome season. Instead he’s quite possibly one of the three worst hitters on the worst offensive team in the MLB. And it had to happen in his opt-out year too.
Boy have the two Phillies acquired for Gregory Soto gone in opposite directions. Matt Vierling has been a solid player, 113 OPS+ with a little power and speed, on pace to be worth ~2 wins per 162 games. Nothing incredible but that’s a fringe starter. Nick Maton on the other hand… he gave us that fun walk-off HR in April but after that it was a horror show. Maton was one of the five worst position players in baseball, contributing nothing and actively harming the team. Could draw walks, yes, but couldn’t hit his weight, little power, horrible defensively. That Hinch kept running him out there every game as a starter no less, was baseball malpractice. -1.2 bWAR is more than enough to get the message. I’m happy to see him hitting well in Toledo and am willing to give him another shot at some point because he was a useful bench piece in Philly, but good grief.
Speaking of “enough is enough”, Jonathan Schoop. I don’t need to say anything else other than he seemed like a nice guy and a good teammate, but it was more than time to move on.
The catching tandem shouldn’t really be much of a tandem. Happy for Eric Haase to catch his second no-no but he’s playing his way out of the league. Jake Rogers on the other hand has been a solid MLB hitter (with power!) at a position that is generally an offensive blackhole. Play him more!
Rapid fire on some other hitters: Akil Baddoo was playing so well in May and has not been able to find the spark since returning to the MLB (small sample though). We’ll see how he does in the second half. Zack Short is not an MLBer, nor is Andy Ibañez (despite the flashes), nor Tyler Nevin. Way too many ABs given to AAA players on this team. Kerry Carpenter brings much needed power and should be platooned less. Zach McKinstry needs to adjust to how MLB pitching adjusted to him after the hot May. That will determine his future. Still a solid waiver claim by Harris given the expectations I had (which was nothing).
To finish off our talk on hitters, I have loved watching Miguel Cabrera put together good ABs in the summer of his final year in the MLB. He was a carcass in the spring, but has been legit good in June and July. Still no power at all but slapping singles and getting on base. A nice last glimpse.
In the pen, Alex Lange needs to be moved out of high-leverage work until he learns how to throw strikes consistently and not just rely on chase-rate. Jason Foley is a Dude though. Tyler Holton is the surprise player of the season for me and it’s been nice to see a bounceback from Jose Cisnero. Major bummer injuries to Tyler Alexander and Will Vest. Not a big fan of Mason Englert or Chasen Shreeve, to be honest. Fetter does good work with this group I have to say.
Improved defensive metrics are a pleasant sign of playing baseball the right way. Per Fielding Bible’s Defensive Runs Saved metric by team, the Tigers are tied for 6th-best in the MLB at preventing runs through defense (+20). Over the final five years of Al Avila, they ranked 23rd, 30th, 24th, 26th, and 13th.
Yeah, this team is bad. Some of it is the ruthless randomness of injury that has struck the pitching staff (and Riley Greene). This team would be 5+ games better with a fully healthy Greene and E-Rod/Skubal pitching every five days from early April to now. But adversity is part of baseball and this squad doesn’t have the depth. Riley Greene goes down and Tyler Nevin replaces him. Will Vest goes down and Zach Logue or Anthony Misiewicz replaces him. Like I said previously, far too many ABs and innings pitched going to players who have no business being on an MLB roster. And in terms of financial allocation, the team has gotten -0.4 bWAR from $65.8 M spent on Cabrera, Schoop, Austin Meadows, and Báez (over 50% of the team’s payroll). That’s the root of your problem right there and it all leads back to Al Avila.
[Daily Journal, Franklin, IN]
The 2023 MLB Draft CONTROVERSY
The 2023 MLB Draft conducted this week was the first litmus test of the direction Scott Harris wanted to take the franchise’s future. The Tigers, who moved up from 6th to 3rd in the first-ever MLB Draft lottery, held a premium selection for Harris to take. The draft had a widely established top five with two buckets, the big three of college players and a big two of HS players. The three college players got more of the attention, perhaps because of their deep runs into the NCAA Tournament, LSU ace Paul Skenes and CF Dylan Crews, and Florida OF Wyatt Langford, a hitter with prodigious power.
Tigers fans online zeroed in on those three players, knowing that Skenes would likely be off the board, but the team having the chance to add either Langford or Crews, elite college hitters. Not much consideration or thought went into the possibility that Detroit could draft either HS bat, OF Max Clark from Indiana or OF Walter Jenkins from North Carolina, even though reports were out there that Pittsburgh had been considering Clark at first overall into the final days before the draft.
When Skenes went first to Pittsburgh and then Crews went to Washington at #2, the Tigers were on the clock and much of the fanbase online clamored for Langford. Instead, Harris went in the other direction and selected Clark. Initial reaction was not pretty, though time has begun to heal some of those wounds. What the fury was about says a lot more about where the fanbase is psychologically, however.
Let’s first get it out of the way that while Langford was higher rated on most draft boards, it was not by enough to constitute a real “reach” (a term I already detest in the context of drafts). Most boards had Langford 3rd and Clark 4th, with some placing Langford in one tier ahead of Clark, but it was not a massive difference. This was not Jackson Jobe over Marcelo Mayer. Clark is an elite prospect in his own right and a player who could’ve gone first overall in other years. This just happened to be an exceptional draft, with five electric talents at the top of the draft. The Tigers walked out with one of those and that’s the biggest thing for me.
Where the anger came primarily from was the perceived timeline. College players are generally closer to the MLB than HS prospects are and thus Langford will likely reach the show a bit sooner than Clark. That that reality was a primary motivating factor of outrage speaks volumes about the fatigue and frustration the fanbase has at the length of this rebuild. Completely justified, I should say, but we must also stay fair here: Scott Harris is in his first year on the job. The fury should be pointed at Al Avila.
My personal belief on this topic is that while I certainly want the Tigers to be an elite team as soon as possible, I want it done the right way and that means building through the farm system. If you believe Max Clark is going to be the better player then you should draft him, timelines be damned. I have many concerns with drafting HS pitchers high, but HS position players I have much less worry about. In many cases they are the high upside swings and Clark is certainly that. College players are often “safer” but also can lack that gargantuan ceiling because the players with those ceilings (like say, Max Clark) get picked out of HS and never end up in the NCAA.
Clark has a high-level hit tool, elite speed and defensive potential, with some questions about his power. He could be a five-tool superstar a la Mookie Betts, though there is a decent skillset to think he can be an MLBer even if it doesn’t all pan out given how toolsy he is. I think he’s a dynamite, really good prospect. Everyone in the top five was. I’d have been fine with Langford or Clark. I like the raw talent of Clark and think that having him develop from age 18-21 in pro baseball, rather than college, will be beneficial. Given his stunningly massive Instagram following for an 18-year-old, if Clark pans out, this is the sort of player who could be the face of not just the Tigers franchise, but baseball as a whole. A cornerstone piece for Harris.
The anger about taking Clark over Langford was more the belief that Wyatt Langford could be on the 2024 Tigers and Max Clark almost certainly won’t be and fans just desperately want the team to be good again. I totally understand that, but again, it’s not a good enough reason to make a draft pick. Desperate GMs with their backs against the wall make picks based on how soon they can make the MLB- and then they often rush their development. Good GMs pick best player available. Maybe Clark will end up being that, maybe he won’t, but timeline is not a mindset you should factor in during the draft.
Moreover, the refrain among fans that “oh hopefully we’ll see Clark in FIVE YEARS” is pretty ridiculous. If Clark is not in the MLB five years from now, it will be because he’s on track for bust status. If you pick a HS player in the first round and the pick pans out, they don’t take five years. Take Riley Greene, who I was just lavishing praise on in the previous section. He was a HS player picked near the top of the draft like Clark (not as highly regarded as Clark at the time, by the way). Greene missed an entire year of minor league ball because of COVID in 2020 yet was ready to make the Opening Day roster in 2022 (he didn’t because of injury but debuted later in the year). That’s three years after the pick, less than 200 minor league games in total.
Corbin Carroll, the Diamondbacks phenom who Clark has gotten comparisons to, was in the same draft as Greene and similarly missed a year of development but was still in the MLB three years after being picked, needing fewer than 150 minor league games to get there. Bo Bichette took three years to reach Toronto out of HS and is now a star in the majors. Colt Keith, the Tigers’ top prospect, is knocking on the door of the MLB in Toledo right now as a former HS player, just three years after being drafted as a 5th rounder. He has fewer than 200 minor league games to his name. If you are a stud, it doesn’t take ages to reach the MLB even as a minor leaguer. It will probably be longer than Langford (assuming Langford pans out), but don’t make this out to be a forever journey if we’re planning for positive outcomes.
And for those who think this had something to do with money, Clark only went slightly under-slot. This had little to do with $$ and if it did, it was to help the team take big swings on high upside players later in the draft. Which they did, leading us to my other takeaway from the draft. While Al Avila was a college-heavy drafter, Scott Harris was much more prep interested. The team took two HS players with their top two picks for the first time in over 20 years in selecting Kevin McGonigle after Clark, and used five of their first ten selections on HS players. From 2017-2022, the most HS players the Tigers selected in their first ten picks was two.
Returning to my observation about HS players being higher upside profiles, Harris’ decision to go much harder towards HS players says a lot about what he felt was lacking from the Tigers’ system. Avila loved himself “safe” college bats and what did that get us? The worst offensive team year after year. Harris is big fish hunting and trusting his player development staff and I for one welcome it. Not just did Al Avila’s rebuild fail to produce winning at the MLB level, but it left a farm system somehow mostly barren despite years and years of losing, picking high in the draft, and selling at the deadline. Harris is rebuilding the pipeline from close-to-scratch and drafting high upside HS players was his first move to accomplish that.
Another element that Harris clearly felt was missing from the organization was good hitters. In other words, he watched at least one game of the 2023 Detroit Tigers. Each of the three players taken on night one of the draft, Clark, McGonigle, and Nebraska’s Max Anderson, have scouting reports that begin with and focus on their hit tool. Four of the first five picks were used on position players, as well as six of the first eight. High upside players and hitting talent was badly needed and Harris’ first draft targeted that. Will it pay off? Who knows. But they’ve at least identified a problem and addressed it and plan to rebuild from the ground-up at the minor league level. Fine by me.
Colt Keith [MLB.com]
The Timeline™ and how Harris should approach the next six months
So now that the draft is in the books, how should we begin to think about the next six months, as the trade deadline and then offseason approach? And how angry should Tigers fans be about the timeline of the rebuild? The fury directed at Harris in the first year of his tenure has almost all been about the length of the rebuild (something he has no control over) and the slow pace of his actions this season extending it, and this isn’t just about Clark over Langford. Such grumbling has been everywhere from Harris’ quiet first free agent period (not uncommon among first year GMs in any sport) to his decision to not promote prospects Colt Keith, Parker Meadows, or Justyn Henry-Malloy to the Show.
Tigers fans are completely fed up with the losing product on the field, while countless other teams lap them in the rebuilding sphere. I totally get it. After all, most of you read my piece from last year. I was as angry as anyone then and still am internally. If you’d like to put up a photo of Al Avila in your backyard and throw axes or shoot a crossbow at it as a form of catharsis, I would not be opposed. Avila will go down as one of the worst general managers in the last several decades of MLB history, a complete buffoon who bungled MLB free agency, trading, drafting, and international free agency. But other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?
If you want one more laugh at Al, feel free to watch this clip of him talking about the Justin Verlander trade recently.3 Chris Ilitch’s decision to extend Avila in the summer of 2019 had disastrous consequences for the franchise and the result when Avila was mercifully shown the door last August was a team that sucks at the MLB level, has sucked for years, and somehow has a weak farm system with very little elite talent. Avila was on a level of bad that is not that far removed from Matt Millen.
He is why we are here, not Scott Harris. Absent Chris Ilitch wanting to spend like Steve Cohen, there are no overnight fixes. And by the way, given the way things are going for the Mets, Padres, and Yankees this season, I think there’s plenty of evidence that trying to buy a World Series in UFA like it’s George Steinbrenner and this is the mid-2000s is an outdated way to go about things. Building through routine smart acquisitions and player evaluation at the MLB level, in tandem with a robust minor league development system, is how it’s done. The owner must be willing to spend to keep the core together and make a big signing here and there but the best teams in baseball pump out great players from the minors. That’s how it’s done these days.
That starts with re-stocking the farm system, which the very earliest steps of were accomplished at the draft, as addressed earlier. But there’s a lot more to it than that and this is where some sort of truce can be reached between Harris, who knows it will take time, and the fans, who want to not watch a team that flirts with 100 losses. The greatest lie Al Avila ever sold Tigers fans was that losing gobs of games was necessary to eventually build a contender. I wrote about this last year:
The narrative that Chris Ilitch and Al Avila sold the fanbase that you can only get good prospects when you tank is complete and total bullshit. It was a laughable excuse to explain why Al Avila can only get good prospects from the top of the draft rather than just admitting the truth outright: that he’s a failure at his job. Every thinking Detroit baseball fan should’ve been offended by that line because it insults our intelligence
Avila seemed to believe that he was an NBA/NHL GM and getting a top three pick is how you get good again. Sit on your hands, do nothing, lose year after year, and hope that the first rounders pan out is NOT how it’s done. The biggest thing I want to see Scott Harris do moving forward is while he’s continuing to beef up the farm system and replenish the minor league pipeline, pursue real MLB players who can put a respectable product on the field. I’m not saying sign the big fish free agent of the offseason; I’m saying do not give major league ABs and innings to minor leaguers.
That has been the case this season and it needs to be changed starting next year. No one is helped by watching Tyler Nevin get a chance to hit. Nevin is not a prospect, nor is he a real MLBer. Starting next season I want to see a roster composed of only real MLB players OR prospects. I can accept the team being bad if prospects are going through some struggles or frankly, the roster still isn’t great because it doesn’t have elite talent. That’s fine. What I will not tolerate is a 2019 Tigers roster where John Hicks, Ronny Rodriguez, Gordon Beckham, and Jordy Mercer are playing 70+ games.
The fact is that the Tigers do actually have an interesting collection of young pitchers who could feasibly constitute a rotation next year, Skubal, Manning, a healthy Casey Mize, and perhaps Reese Olson, with Beau Brieske, Alex Faedo, and Spencer Turnbull on the periphery. They also will have Justyn Henry-Malloy, Parker Meadows, and Colt Keith all ready for cracks at the MLB lineup, in addition to Greene, Torkelson, and Rogers as younger hitters on the team. That’s a decent amount of youth that probably won’t amount to a good team, but at least a vaguely interesting one.
They need- and deserve- to be supported by real players around them. With Cabrera and Schoop’s money coming off the books, not to mention the possibility of an E-Rod opt out, Harris should have some cash to toss around. I’m not asking for a huge signing, but I am asking to sign decent MLB players who can help fill in and at least give this group of young players a reason to believe in themselves and their team as they go into 2024 in what will probably again be the worst division in baseball.
Al Avila’s approach of taking a nap for the entire offseason is not gonna get it done. Harris needs to show a willingness to continue to build at the MLB level, even while the pipeline is being re-built at the minor league level. He’s shown some inclination towards it in his aggressiveness in waiver claims, a total 180 from Avila. As we saw from the Tigers’ disgraceful offensive showings against Oakland, a lot of this offensive lineup needs to be changed out ASAP. That work shouldn’t happen “when the prospects come up”. It should start this offseason. Harris is correct that it’s going to take time to put a great team on the field in Comerica Park and he shouldn’t be bullied by fans’ (justified) anger with the franchise. But he can and should meet the fans in the middle and continue to improve the team at the MLB level regardless of his work in the minors. Because it’s smart baseball.
All that said, I do support selling at the trade deadline. I liked Harris’ recent quote about not selling if the team goes on a run, because it lights a fire under the group and doesn’t immediately install a losing culture. But in all likelihood, the team is probably not going on a sustained heater. And outside the AL Central, the Tigers are not going anywhere this season, hence my support for selling. If Eduardo Rodriguez plans to opt out of his contract and elect free agency, then he could be a big ticket item and you have to move him. Michael Lorenzen could return something, as could Jose Cisnero, also an expiring contract. There are fewer sellers than ever before with the MLB’s expanded playoffs. Capitalize on that as much as you can and get something in return to continue stocking the minor league system. If those players are all headed to UFA, it doesn’t affect anything with regards to my feelings about 2024.
After the deadline, I want to see the prospects simmering in Toledo to get their shot, be it right away or in September. Play out the rest of the season letting the kids play, the record ending up wherever it may be, and then once the offseason starts, the real building begins. Bring in a competent free agent pitcher or two to help support the youth in the rotation and act as insurance for inevitable injury. Then get to work revamping the lineup.
Last offseason was the usual status quo/marginal tweaks offseason that most GMs do in their first year on the job. That’s not going to cut it for me in 2023-24. Get creative, be somewhat aggressive, and start team-building. Harris seemed to have a solid plan for how to approach the draft (go for young, hit-focused, high upside HS players) and followed it this week. Next it will be time to see a similar vision and approach with major league transactions this winter.
So how far away are the Tigers ultimately? Hard to say exactly, but they are very likely not a playoff team this year and probably won’t be next year, though never say never I guess. There are a few long-term core pieces on this roster but a lot more are needed. Some could come through the farm system, some through free agency, and some through trades. All routes are legitimate and all should be emphasized heavily by Scott Harris. The first 10 months on the job was a lot of getting the house in order. Now the building begins.
One year after Al Avila’s firing, things are definitely better for the Tigers’ outlook. Partially because they couldn’t possibly be worse, but partially because I think there are reasons for optimism. There are a few decent young players on the roster, there’s a strong coaching staff in place, and the new management regime comes from smart reservoirs of talent. There are reasons to think the ship could be going in the right direction, but we just left the port so it’s still a bit early. The next six months will be an important litmus test though, watching the deadline, prospects, and the offseason getting underway. Happy days aren’t here again yet. They might be on the way, they might not be, but at the very least the ship isn’t being steered by a drunken sailor.
And that’s what it’s like being a Detroit Tigers fan one year post-Avila.
I’d accept Atlanta, Tampa Bay, Cleveland, St. Louis, and maybe the Yankees as other answers?
Interestingly, the Tigers have still not hired an official GM. Harris assumes the de facto role but said he plans to hire a GM eventually. For now he’s enjoying the role Zaidi held over him
“That was a pretty good return that just didn’t turn out to be very good”