Ten Thoughts on the 2025 Detroit Tigers: Mid-May Edition

A quarterly review of the surprising Tigers

Baseball is the ultimate marathon sport, 162 regular season games over six long months. It feels like an eternity and in some ways it is. But once the season gets going it can often begin to zip by. Case in point: 44 games have passed since I wrote the Detroit Tigers season preview, yet it still doesn’t feel that long ago that the Tigers were in Los Angeles kicking off their season. 44 games doesn’t seem like much compared to 162, but it is 27%, the equivalent of 22 NBA or NHL games. That’s quite a chunk and as we saw last year when the Tigers finished 31-13 in their last 44, it can single-handedly swing a season.

There is much that can be learned in that span and for this Tigers team, what we have learned is nearly uniformly positive. The team sits 29-15, 1st place in both the AL Central and the entire MLB. Their +86 run differential leads the MLB as well. They’ve won all but four series that they’ve played and are off to one of the best starts to a season for any Tigers team in the 21st century. With so much to talk about, we’ll go through ten takes about the team, a format I plan to reprise in later installments during the season:

1. At this point, we probably have to start with Javier Báez. After Tuesday night’s game, Báez has rapidly become the dominant story of the 2025 Tigers season so far. In the season preview I wrote that I was getting “tired of talking about Báez” and merely hoped that Báez could get back to being normal bad at the plate, rather than the worst hitter in the MLB (as he was in 2024). I also didn’t know much about plans to play Báez in centerfield at the time.

Baseball is a weird sport with a decent degree of variance year over year, but the Javier Báez renaissance is one of the most remarkable baseball stories I ever remember. Báez is 32 years old and from 2021-2024, his OPS+ dropped each season. There was little reason for optimism other than blind hope that his offseason hip surgery could recoup enough hitting value to justify his defense. If you told me that Báez was going to bounce back to being regularly playable, I would’ve been a bit surprised, but I could see it. If you told me he would be one of the most valuable players in baseball through seven weeks of the season, I would have checked the calendar to make sure we’re not in 2018.

Báez is currently hitting .309/.346/.496/.842 with 1.9 bWAR and 1.4 fWAR, having played in 35 of the Tigers’ first 44 games. He has played some shortstop but a lot of centerfield and been a complete natural. Báez has been one of Detroit’s better hitters and probably their defender. The logical question is “can he keep it up”? To the level he is currently hitting, I would say no. There will be downward regression coming. But Báez does not look like the black hole offensively he was last year, even if he is maybe a bit lucky right now.

The baseball savant page does not look pretty, however Báez was only seldom a darling in those metrics. He pretty consistently outperformed his his expected OPS (xwOBA+xSLG) during his heyday with the Cubs, sometimes by a wide margin. Thus, while Báez’s expected OPS is .703, well below his current OPS of .842, I don’t think it screams tremendous regression. Some of it, sure, but in 2016-2017 he was outpacing his expected OPS by ~80 points. In later years Báez outpaced it by 40-50 points. Let’s say he’s in that ballpark again, the OPS comes down from .842 to .770 or something… that’s still well above average and when combined with Báez’s defense, it makes him extremely valuable. Báez might not be “MVP candidate” for real, but he is likely a legitimately above average starter in the year 2025. No one saw that coming.

[MLB.com]

2. If Báez were not the story, then Spencer Torkelson would be the story. In the season preview I admitted that I was starting to believe in Torkelson yet again after a fabulous spring training and if I had bought stock then, it would be paying off right now. Tork has cooled off some since the start of the season but he’s still sporting a 144 OPS+ on pace for ~40 HR per 162 games. And unlike Báez, the underlying numbers suggest that Tork is a little unlucky so far. That matches the eye test, as Torkelson has had a number of loud outs, hard liners caught by the fielders or flyouts that died near the warning track.

The process has a whole looks much better, as Torkelson has been able to punish pitches he missed far too often a year ago and he’s remained patient, working long at-bats and drawing a ton of walks. Tork still chases and whiffs too much but you’ll take that given the power he’s providing. Some of the recent cool off appears to be getting fed a steadier diet of off-speed pitches once it became clear that meaty fastballs weren’t going to beat him anymore. That’s part of the learning process though, a constant adjustment game as the year goes along.

The most important thing is that Tork’s primary issue from last year has been rectified and it’s allowed him to unlock his power. That’s power that the Tigers desperately needed, especially from the right side. For all the talk of Alex Bregman, who would’ve been a superb one-year addition given how he’s swinging it in Boston, Torkelson has produced a good chunk of what Bregman would’ve provided, except far cheaper and with years of team control.¹ The challenge for Tork will be continuing to do it over the long grind of the season, but he doesn’t look anywhere near as lost as he did last year. Right now he’s an above-average bat and his defense has gone from awful to solid alongside it. That’s a plus player and another reason the Tigers are exceeding expectations.

3. Too many people ignored the Gleyber Torres signing. Not to be stuck in the offseason, but there was so much focus given to the Bregman sweepstakes that it felt like the signing of Gleyber Torres went unnoticed. It shouldn’t have, because Gleyber Torres is a useful baseball player and has been his whole career. But even the more optimistic Tigers fans probably underestimated what Gleyber has given the Tigers. Torres spent time on the injured list yet he’s still hit five homers and has been worth nearly a full win above replacement in just 31 games played, a 130 OPS+ to go with it. Do the math and that’s an All-Star caliber pace.

I liked the Gleyber signing at the time because even if it was a bit of a wonky fit defensively, Torres gave the Tigers a lot of what they needed. Namely another right-handed bat bringing some extra power to the lineup, in a veteran’s body with playoff experience. He’s also given them something I didn’t expect: needed contact hitting. Torres has struck out only 13 times this season, compared to 12 walks. He’s more than halved his K% from last year because he’s still showing good plate discipline while drastically reducing his whiff rate. Grabbing Gleyber was an incredibly savvy signing by the Scott Harris regime, one of several developments that has made the Tigers’ lineup significantly deeper and more balanced from a L/R standpoint.

[YouTube.com]

4. Give it up for Zach McKinstry. It speaks to just how many guys the Tigers have performing near their realistic ceilings that Zach McKinstry is the 3rd or 4th most notable story on the team just among position players alone. McKinstry’s been electric for the Tigers so far, a .285/.371/.409/.780 quadruple slash, eight doubles, three triples, and already 20 walks. He’s also arguably Detroit’s best base-runner and his defensive versatility is a huge part of his role on the team, as you can play McKinstry basically every spot on the diamond besides pitcher and catcher. That’s translated to a 1.6 bWAR/1.4 fWAR start in just 40 games.

Sunshine and rainbows aside, compared to Báez, Torkelson, or Torres, I’m least confident that McKinstry can keep it up. Báez was once an MVP runner-up, Torkelson hit 30 HRs two seasons ago and was a 1st overall pick, while Torres has played in two All-Star Games. McKinstry doesn’t have the pedigree and did have a similar red hot stretch in early 2023 before cooling off precipitously. That will probably happen again (expected OPS of .668), but if it does, it’s perfectly fine!

The best part of McKinstry’s eruption is it happened exactly when the Tigers needed it most. The injuries that befell the team in spring training meant there were defensive holes in the OF and at 3B and offensive holes in the lineup. When some players go down with injury, you need other players to step up. McKinstry has stepped up and delivered the sort of production you could have reasonably expected to have received from a Meadows or a Vierling. If he goes back to being a useful utility player, great. I love useful utility players. That’s what McKinstry’s ideal role probably still is, but the Tigers needed someone to cosplay as a strong starter for a couple months and McKinstry did exactly that. Well done, Zach.

5. CHICKS DIG THE LONG BALL. One of the main areas I felt the Tigers needed to improve in the offseason was their power hitting. Even with the surge late last season, the Tigers finished 24th in homers in 2024 and it was a problem in the playoffs. In a tight five-game ALDS, the Tigers were outgunned by Cleveland in the home run department, a primary reason why the Guardians won the series. Homers are increasingly tied to playoff success and it makes sense why: in the playoffs you are likely to face the best pitchers in the league. The best pitchers in the league are not likely to surrender many hits. If your team gets five hits in a game and they all are singles, you need a lot of sequencing luck to score many runs. On the other hand if three of your five hits are homers, you may have scored 4 or 5 runs.

You have to hit homers to be a serious threat in October and that’s why I am so pleased to see the Tigers suddenly in the top 10 in dingers. Power contributions have come from all over beyond the usual mainstays of Greene and Carpenter (who each will hit more than last year if they stay healthy). Torkelson might chip in 35 or 40 this year (compared to 10 in 2024), Torres looks like he’ll add 20-25 out of free agency, and Dillon Dingler may add 15-20 himself.

Add in Báez possibly contributing 15 and Sweeney maybe matching that number and you see how the power is adding up quickly, before you even get to Vierling or Meadows, who could each hit 15-20 per 162. If your lineup has three 30+ homer guys and everyone else is a credible 15-20 per 162 threat, you’re a real power hitting offense. Maybe not the Bronx Bombers, but enough juice to slug your way deep into the playoffs, which didn’t exist last year when Tork was scuffling, Gleyber didn’t exist, Dingler wasn’t ready, and Báez was under the knife. Speaking of which…

[MLB.com]

6. The Tigers don’t have an Aaron Judge, but they are a good lineup because there are few vulnerabilities right now. The Tigers currently have one of the AL’s top offenses, right alongside the Yankees (expected), Mariners (huh?), and A’s (odd). They sit 2nd in the MLB in runs scored, 6th in OBP, 7th in SLG, 6th in OPS, and 7th in homers. My hope in the season preview is that the lineup could stick around league average while the pitching would carry the day. I (and most fans) felt queasy about that, in part because the conventional wisdom said that the offense was going to be mired on the struggle bus until Matt Vierling and Parker Meadows returned.

Instead, that hasn’t been the case. The offense has hit from the first games of the season up to the present, occasional off nights here and there but they’ve consistently been able to consistently get on base and manufacture runs. A quick scan of the lineup by a casual baseball fan may raise questions on how they’re doing it because yeah, there isn’t a Judge or an Ohtani, or a Tatis. These Tigers don’t have a mega-superstar everyone fears but right now they have no easy outs in the lineup. 1 through 9 are players who hit at league average or better with some degree of power.

Coming into the year we felt good about Riley Greene and Kerry Carpenter. They’ve largely done their jobs. Greene was mired in an ugly slump for a 10 day period and hasn’t been as strong as last year overall but he’s still got an .823 OPS with 10 HRs. Carpenter has been right at expectations, yet some could say he’s exceeded them because he’s not being shielded from lefty pitching nearly as much. Last season Carpenter had 32 total PA’s against lefties the entire regular season. This year he’s already faced them 31 times. Encouragingly, Carpenter has been better against the lefties this year (.627 OPS vs. .408), justifying Hinch letting him start more regularly. Carpenter has become less of a gadget platoon guy, which is a nice upside.

Those two were your rocks, but there weren’t many other proven quantities in the lineup with Vierling and Meadows injured. Thankfully for the Tigers, a lot of unproven players are proving themselves. As mentioned, Báez and Torkelson are now plus hitters. McKinstry has been one for much of this year, even if he may eventually cool off. Torres, one of the few proven pieces healthy to start the year, has been even better than expected. Pseudo-prospects are also chipping in, Dillon Dingler emerging as a plus hitter at catcher (though I wish he’d draw some walks) while Trey Sweeney has been on fire recently to get up near league average.

That leaves you one spot in the lineup and AJ Hinch has been able to splice in Colt Keith and Andy Ibañez, using the platoon to command the matchups. Keith had a miserable open to the year but like Sweeney, has heated up as of late. It’s unlikely the Tigers ever get perfect health but if they did, and you had Meadows, Rogers, and Vierling available, that’s a team with 13 position players, all of whom you trust to be in the lineup and with plenty of versatility. Not many teams can boast that level of depth, be it offensively or in the field. It would be nice to have an Aaron Judge but it turns out if you can roll out a lineup of 8-9 hitters who are all league average or better, your offense is going to be a load to deal with.

7. I’m curious to see how the Tigers navigate the pitching over the next few weeks. Casey Mize has been another one of the best stories of the year, which is why it’s a bummer he’s going on the injured list. It’s supposed to be a short stint, though I admit I couldn’t help but get a little nervous when I heard it was a hamstring issue after he missed extensive time with such an ailment last year. Reese Olson has been pretty sharp since his bumpy start and those two + the usually excellent Skubal give the Tigers a rock solid trio in the rotation when healthy.

Having to stomach the loss of Mize is annoying but doable, even if Keider Montero hasn’t looked great this year. Of course, stomaching the loss would be easier if the Tigers could get more help from their other two starters. The highs and lows have been there as expected for Jackson Jobe, albeit with his most recent start being his best. He needs to throw more strikes because the walks are way too high but the pleasant trade off is increased swing and miss. What we’ve seen from Jobe is why the Tigers need to let him work through the kinks because once he figures it out, it’ll be special. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

The choppy seas Jobe has faced has been fairly predictable. The problems Jack Flaherty is dealing with perhaps less so, especially after he started the year so strong against elite offenses like the Dodgers and Yankees. The strikeouts are still there, as Flaherty is getting poor swings from batters. He’s also getting CRUSHED when pitches are left in the zone, a skyrocketing HR/hard-hit rate.

Before his last start against Texas it seemed that the issue was mostly a third time through problem, since Flaherty would easily navigate the first four or so innings before getting derailed. After getting blitzed right off the hop by the Rangers, the problem seems to be deeper. The biggest culprit is no doubt the fastball: the velocity is down 0.5 miles per hour on average and and is getting no swings and misses on it, a whiff rate collapsing from 23.9% to 11.0%. Opponents are also slugging .618 against the fastball(!!). It has to get fixed because a Tigers rotation with Montero instead of Mize, rookie Jobe figuring it out, and floundering Flaherty is going to put a lot of pressure on the hitters and bullpen. It would also be nice if Alex Cobb could be healthy and worth his $15 M at some point.

[Detroit News]

8. Pitching depth? Still there. Though the rotation has encountered some potholes in the road, the bullpen has stayed rock solid. Not everyone is performing perfectly up to form but it is still an extremely strong unit. Lost in the shuffle of this season is the fact that the player who was largely Detroit’s closer last season has not and will not throw a pitch this season. That would be Jason Foley, sent down to Toledo and now out for the season with injury.

Losing Foley is a bummer, but the bullpen chugging on without him goes to show you how strong this group is. Tommy Kahnle has been as good as the track record has suggested, even with the gimmicky-seeming “I only throw changeups” shtick. Will Vest catches too much of the plate from time to time but he throws gas so it largely works and the end result has been dynamite. Brenan Hanifee has been so reliable as well with his groundball magic. Tyler Holton is the biggest disappointment so far, looking pretty off from what we’re used to seeing but the rest of the pen slots in nicely, Brant Hurter, John Brebbia, and Beau Brieske.

When a pitcher like Chase Lee² is stashed in the minors, you’re in pretty darn good shape. I have little doubt that Chris Fetter & Co. will be able to come up with depth to fill out this bullpen because the Tigers Pitching Factory is a real thing now. I do think that there’s a high probability that an elite flamethrowing closer type may be a top trade deadline need down the line.³ Slot that person in for the highest leverage role, then Vest to the 8th, Kahnle to the 7th, and then Hanifee/Holton/etc. in middle relief⁴ and this pen would be looking awfully good.

9. Checking in on the standings. As I publish this piece, the Tigers sit 3.5 games up on Cleveland, 4.5 games up on Kansas City, and 5.5 games up on Minnesota in the AL Central. The Tigers’ run differential dwarfs that of their AL Central rivals by a wide margin but that doesn’t do anything for the standings. It does, however, suggest that the Tigers are the best team in the AL Central and over an extended period of time we should expect them to separate even more from the pack.

I generally agree with that and don’t find myself too fixated on the standings. Yes, the Central appears to be the best division in the AL this season and all I can say is “cool”. I don’t foresee any of the Tigers’ division rivals winning 95+ games so if the Tigers can keep at it on the pace they’ve been on, they should be in great shape. KC and Minnesota have excellent pitching but iffy offenses, while Cleveland’s offense hasn’t been much better and their pitching has been hit or miss. Good enough to allow them to do well in close games but ugly when it goes wrong.

Teams with great bullpens generally overperform expected record implied by their run differential and Cleveland’s bullpen is strong, but I’m not sure I see them keeping pace over 162. Detroit can pitch every bit as well as Minnesota and KC, with the twist that their offense, as it is currently clicking, can far exceed what those two teams can do at he plate. That’s why they have a decent cushion and it’s one they should maintain.

As for the rest of the AL, the Tigers are five up on Seattle (AL West leaders) and 3.5 up on the Yankees (AL East leaders). The Yanks are hitting extremely well but will need pitching help, while Seattle’s offense has overperformed alongside a pitching staff that is underperforming a bit (with injuries factored in). The summation is the M’s are probably (record-wise) where I’d expect them to be. Are the Tigers the best in the AL then? Right now, yeah. Not sure there’s a credible counter-argument. If their hitting were to go down a level or two, then it opens up a case for someone else. But right now they are the most complete team in the AL and deservedly have the best record.

[AP Photo/Paul Sancya]

10. Let’s compare the 2025 Tigers to the past. At the 44 games played mark, the Tigers have their second-best start of the past 20 seasons:

• 2006: 30-14, +69 run differential

• 2025: 29-15, +86 RD

• 2014: 28-16, +47

• 2007: 27-17, +29

By RD, this is their best 44 game start since 1984 (+107), while they are only a game behind the ‘06 squad in wins. The 2006 team finished with 95 wins, 2014 with 90, and 2007 with 88 wins. Pretty solid company. The next best starts after these four are the 2015 (+19) team, which started 26-18, and then 2009 (+43), 2010 (+6), and 2013 (+55), who all started 25-19. Of those four, the 2015 and 2010 teams didn’t keep it up, which is where their less inspiring run differential are notable. The 09 team finished with 86 wins and the 2013 team finished with 93 wins. Right now it’s hard to imagine that 86 wins won’t get you into the playoffs in this AL.

Some may be wondering where the 2012 squad that went to the World Series is… diehard Tigers fans will remember that the ‘12 team spent most of the year underachieving before waking up in September just in time to save the season. That team started 20-24 with a -10 run differential, remarkable given the talent on the team. Likewise the 2011 team that won 95 games and made the ALCS started 22-22 with a +1 RD (diehard Tigers fans will also remember them going from mediocre to nuclear death machine after acquiring Doug Fister at the deadline).

Looking at all those years, you can come to the conclusion that this 2025 Tigers team might be special. Without getting too high on hopium, I don’t know if they are special but I do think they are legitimately excellent. What the Tigers are doing is validating their torrid close to last season, which also validates how this one has started. Put more simply, we now have a large sample of games where this team has won at an elite pace. Including 2024’s 31-13 finish, the Tigers are 60-28 in their last 88 baseball games(!!!). If you want to wind the clock back further to get a larger sample, they are 76-43 in their last 119 games. That’s a 103.5 wins per 162 games pace.

Looking back at Tigers teams of the past, I feel like this is a better TEAM than the 2011-14 teams were. Better total product? Not sure, but more of a TEAM. The 2011-14 teams were a good collection of some outrageously talented players who made up the core of what was a team with clear strengths and weaknesses. The 2013 team, for example, had better top end talent. Tarik Skubal may end up in the HOF if he keeps doing this for 10 more years but that’s a long way off. Until it happens, I’m going to say Scherzer and Verlander were superior to him and Cabrera was superior to any Tigers hitters now. Don’t think anyone’s gonna dispute that. There were other studs on that team too, Prince Fielder, V-Mart, Sanchez, Fister, even Torrii Hunter.

The downside to that team, and what ended up being part of their undoing, is they were not a well-rounded team. They had a nasty starting lineup and a legendary rotation, but also a terrible bullpen and a weak bench (for a contending team). Moreover, as great as that lineup was at slugging the baseball, it was one of the slowest teams in the MLB on the basepaths and consistently a poor defensive team. That era of Tigers teams were as good as you could possibly be at some things and really quite bad at other facets of the game.

This Tigers team has less of the meteoric highs of talent and less of the glaring weaknesses. Frankly, this team doesn’t have many weaknesses right now. They are 6th in starting pitcher ERA in the MLB, 3rd in reliever ERA, and 6th in team OPS. The Tigers don’t steal bases much, but they run the bases so well, going 1st to 3rd more than any other team and mastering the art of the slide to take contested bases. There have been fielding hiccups⁵ but generally they play strong defense, especially in the outfield. The Tigers are tied for 2nd in runs scored per game and are 6th in runs against per game and they’d be higher in the latter if they didn’t let Kenta Maeda be terrible on the mound for no reason other than his high salary.⁶

Detroit plays the right way, a fundamentally sound team that is well coached and very deep. They survived a tough early season schedule without several key projected contributors because of that depth. Every night it’s a different hero stepping up to deliver and they are playing with the youthful confidence of a team that expects to win every night.

Even as the Tigers are seemingly transforming into an AL juggernaut, they are still the Gritty Tigs at heart. The plucky underdogs who made an impossible dream come true by never believing they are out of it. That’s the way the Tigers still play, every single night. They are never out of a game and no amount of adversity can rattle them, the last two games against Boston this week as an example. That mentality took them from 0.2% to the playoffs last year and it may bring a lot of winning to Comerica Park this summer.

1. Bregman is almost certainly opting out after the season to cash in on how his year has gone

2. shoutout to a Bethesda Big Train legend

3. Could the Tigers try to fix David Bednar?

4. This of course acknowledges that there are never set roles for AJ Hinch, who treats each game as matchup-dependent. That said, Kahnle/Vest are currently the clear “set up”/”closer” guys given how and when they are normally used.

5. That week where Colt Keith forgot how to field and the Trey Sweeney meltdown game vs. Houston standing out

6. Remove Maeda’s 8 runs against in just 7 innings and the Tigers drop from 3.59 runs against to 3.40 runs against, moving from 6th in the stat to 3rd.