Image: Katelyn Mulcahy / Getty Images
We’ve put out a good bit of Tigers content recently, so:
Check out Daniel Pardi’s “Ode to Miguel Cabrera” here.
Check out my article “The 1976 Tigers; or, Learning to Love a Lost Season” here.
Finally, check out my 2023 Detroit Tigers Season Preview here.
2023 Record: 78-84 (.481 win%, 2nd in AL Central)
2023 Payroll: $121,494,514 (20th)
2023 Lineup:
1. LF Akil Baddoo, .218 AVG/.310 OBP/.372 SLG, 1.0 fWAR
2. CF Riley Greene, .288 AVG/.349 OBP/.447 SLG, 2.3 fWAR
3. 1B Spencer Torkelson, .233 AVG/.313 OBP/.446 SLG, 1.4 fWAR
4. RF Kerry Carpenter, .278 AVG/.340 OBP/.471 SLG, 2.2 fWAR
5. 2B Andy Ibáñez, .264 AVG/.312 OBP/.433 SLG, 1.6 fWAR
6. SS Javier Báez, .222 AVG/.267 OBP/.325 SLG, 0.8 fWAR
7. 3B Nick Maton, .173 AVG/.288 OBP/.305 SLG, -1.1 fWAR
8. DH Miguel Cabrera, .257 AVG/.322 OBP/.353 SLG, 0.8 fWAR
9. C Jake Rogers, .221 AVG/.286 OBP/.444 SLG, 2.2 fWAR
10. UTL Matt Vierling, .261 AVG/.329 OBP/.388 SLG, 1.1 fWAR
11. UTL Zach McKinstry, .231 AVG/.302 OBP/.350 SLG, 1.2 fWAR
2023 Rotation:
1. Eduardo Rodriguez, 152.2 IP/3.30 ERA/1.15 WHIP, 3.0 fWAR
2. Joey Wentz, 105.2 IP/6.80 ERA/1.68 WHIP, -0.6 fWAR
3. Michael Lorenzen, 105.2 IP/3.58 ERA/1.10 WHIP, 1.7 fWAR
4. Reese Olson, 103.2 IP/3.99 ERA/1.12 WHIP, 1.5 fWAR
5. Tarik Skubal, 80.1 IP/2.80 ERA/0.90 WHIP, 3.3 fWAR
2023 Top 4 Relievers:
1. CL Alex Lange, 66.0 IP/3.68 ERA/1.33 WHIP, -0.1 fWAR
2. Jason Foley, 69.0 IP/2.61 ERA/1.16 WHIP, 1.5 fWAR
3. José Cisnero, 59.1 IP/5.31 ERA/1.48 WHIP, 0.0 fWAR
4. Tyler Holton, 85.1 IP/2.11 ERA/0.87 WHIP, 0.9 fWAR
Regular Season Recap:
Season Analysis
I mentioned in a previous article that I spent six weeks this past spring in the forests of New England with no technology for a program at the University of Michigan. From the end of April to mid-June, I would have to check in on the Tigers by reading The Boston Globe. Sifting through glowing reviews of Rob Refsnyder, I would frequently find Detroit only two or three games back of first place in the division.
On Sunday May 28, an Eric Haase sacrifice fly scored Spencer Torkelson to beat the White Sox in the bottom of the 10th, 6-5. The Tigers were 25-26, one game back of the 27-26 Minnesota Twins following their shutout loss to Toronto. This was the closest Detroit would get to .500 baseball all year.
The Tigers would go on to lose their next 13 of 15 games, including a nine-game losing streak with three walk-off losses from June 2 to June 11. That was the season.
The streak coincided with my time spent trying to summit Mt. Washington. A whipping snowstorm sent four of our seven groups back down the mountain before we could reach our goal. It was the first time I’d seen snow in June.
In North Conway, New Hampshire, I picked up a copy of The Globe to find that my beloved Tigers had gone 3-7 in their last 10 games.
I was defeated.
The Hitters
Detroit hit 55 more home runs in 2023 than they did the season prior. That certainly made the offense more palatable to watch, and I predicted that! I didn’t say they’d be good, though. Detroit scored the third-fewest runs in MLB.
This is still a team in flux and Scott Harris will need time to completely flush out the old regime’s guys. However there are a number of players that took steps forward this season to give Detroit a few hitters that were above league average.
Eric Haase was the only Tiger regular to post an OPS+ over 100 in 2022. He finally succumbed to what I outlined in my first article for msabr.com, found here. He never walked much as it was, so when the bat speed fell off, there wasn’t much left to get out of him. He also graded out poorly defensively once again. After catching his second Tiger no-hitter in June, the hometown kid finished his season in Cleveland.
Haase’s replacement, Carson Kelly, was picked up midseason after being released by the World Series-bound Arizona Diamondbacks. In limited time, Kelly was about as bad offensively as Haase was, but was an above average defender at catcher. He has a club option worth a few million dollars for next season. I’d be interested to see if it’s picked up.
We finally got to see what a full season of Jake Rogers looks like! He had spent all of 2020 at the Alternate Site and missed parts of 2021, and all of 2022, due to Tommy John surgery. The catcher’s sweet Hulk Hogan mustache lifted him to a 21-homer season and a near All-Star nod.
An aspect of Rogers’ game that we really saw grow was his defense. For a long time, he was known as an old school catcher that could gun down runners but wasn’t really adapting to the modern approach. In 2023, he ranked in the 90th percentile for blocking and 80th percentile for pitch framing, giving Detroit much needed defense behind the plate.
Miguel Cabrera’s name can no longer be found on the Tigers’ active roster for the first time since 2007. It’s only listed on Detroit’s front office directory after the Big Fella accepted a position up there. There’s not much to say about his play on the field this season other than that his swing for No. 511 is still as sweet as it always was.
We’ll talk about Spencer Torkelson later, so Tyler Nevin is the last first base/DH type in this section. When I talked about his addition to the organization in the Preview, my response was: “Whatever.” I think that reaction was warranted. Nevin finished with .622 OPS in 111 plate appearances.
Andy Ibáñez was the other player whose signing got a “whatever” out of me. I was wrong about him. Ibáñez was hitting the ball really hard to start his season after being called up towards the end of April, but ended up only finishing 11% better than league average in that regard.
However, he posted an OPS of .819 against lefties as opposed to .710 against righties, and the latter number was still high enough to keep him in the lineup almost every day down the stretch. At 30 years old, he’s not a piece for the future, but I was happy to see him succeed.
Zach McKinstry played all over the diamond this season, but was best at second base, filling in on the left side of that position’s platoon. His bat was hotter early in the year before cooling off once he realized he was Zach McKinstry again. I would be surprised if he’s not on the 40-man roster in 2024, though, given his versatility.
Two guys who I love as people, but who I don’t really want to see wear the Olde English “D” again, are Nick Maton and Zack Short. I saw Maton hit a walk-off homer against San Francisco in April (-1.1 fWAR in 2023). Zack Short’s walk-up song was “ATLiens” by OutKast (-0.2 fWAR in 2023). Find replacements, Scott.
Jonathan Schoop, Isan Diaz, Ryan Kreidler, and Jake Marisnick are four more guys that I don’t really want to talk about for one reason or another, but they all took ABs for Detroit in 2023 (Schoop took a lot more than the others). Shout out to Jake Marisnick, though, for being fine for us and also playing for the Dodgers and White Sox this year.
I don’t want to talk about Javier Báez either, but I have to. Detroit is lucky that Báez can still field his position better than 95% of the league because he was the second-worst qualified hitter in MLB behind only Tim Anderson. Shout out to Schoop for actually doing the darn thing last year.
If there is anything to like about him right now as a hitter, it’s that his HardHit% and K-rate are only about 10% worse than league average. Right now, I would say Detroit has a hole at shortstop, but I’m not sure the front office will abide by the sunk-cost fallacy.
I called Riley Greene the real deal last season, but he really proved it in just over a half-season that was curtailed due to multiple injuries. Carpenter has him beat by rate and counting stats, but I think it’s plain to see that Greene is the best pure hitter on the team. He hits for contact and he hits the ball hard.
I think you could expect more than 25 homers from him next year in a full season, and I hope we could see that level of production, given that he’s striking out at a 27.4% clip. Cut down on those K’s and he’ll be a complete, MVP-level hitter.
After Kerry Carpenter hit his second bomb in four innings to extend Detroit’s lead to the eventual 6-0 score in a game in Seattle after the Break on July 15, I texted in a group chat filled with friends from middle school, “Kerry can have my kids, man.” That’s what I thought about his performance this season.
“Kerry Bonds” received just over 400 plate appearances this year due to an management apprehension over batting him against same-handed pitching, but, buoyed by a nine-homer August, Carpenter was able to post an OPS+ of 120.
He still strikes out a ton and doesn’t walk like he had shown in his breakout minor league campaign last season. He was also stuck at 20 homers for all of September due to a month-long slump. To establish a real opinion of Kerry, and not one tinted by fandom, this season needs to be replicated by Carpenter to prove that the disparity between his results and expected averages isn’t a fluke.
It took a while for Parker Meadows to finally make it to Detroit after struggling in the minor leagues over the early part of the year, but he turned out to be an explosive late-season call-up. In only 37 games, Meadows registered four Outs Above Average in center field and showed great pitch selection, chasing and walking at a better rate than about 80% of the league.
Last season, Riley Greene broke the streak of unique players taking the bulk of games in center field each season over seven consecutive years since Austin Jackson was traded in 2015. If Meadows can push Riley and Carpenter down a peg on the defensive spectrum, the Tigers will generate some serious value, and hopefully start a new streak at the position.
Akil Baddoo is probably going to be the odd man out among Detroit’s numerous lefty outfielders. He’s failed to generate much with the bat since his breakout rookie year, and since he doesn’t play center field, his type of player doesn’t last long. My suspicion is that his available minor league options will keep him in the fold, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was moved.
Matt Vierling will also be covered later, so we’ll move to the last player to receive at-bats in the outfield, Austin Meadows. I don’t know when Meadows will be back in uniform, and I’m not sure Detroit knows, either. I hope he fixes the problems affecting him right now, but after a 30-homer season from Isaac Paredes (even though he got to it in a weird way), Tigers fans have to be upset with the result of the trade.
Detroit will need to make some additions and hope for prospect development in the offseason to further improve the offense but this lineup does have some bats worth rostering unlike the past few years.
The Starting Rotation
I predicted Detroit’s pitching staff to be at the bottom of the league in my season Preview. However, their collective ERA of 4.24 was actually nine points better than league average and allowed them to cover some holes that awful staffs couldn’t.
I was not entirely wrong about Eduardo Rodriguez. Now, obviously, I’m happy that he played nearly the full season and that his fastball velocity went up a tick, and obviously I’m happy that he pitched to a 3.30 ERA. He got lucky this year, though, and while I wouldn’t be worried about Rodriguez’s contract staying on the books, I would not be as upset about him opting out as I would have been before seeing the numbers.
From a bird’s eye view, E-Rod’s xERA was 4.04 in 2023. That’s not a bad number, and with his strikeout rate rising nearly five percentage points to 23% (still below average) in 2023, he did re-establish himself as a quality starter. However, his underlying Savant numbers, and this is true from last year, too, suggest his true talent is closer to average.
The xwOBA of all Rodriguez’s offspeed pitches were around 40 points higher on average than their actual wOBA’s. The changeup was responsible for most of his woes in 2022, registering a negative-nine run value. In comparison, his changeup was worth positive-four this season.
Yet, the xwOBA of his 2023 changeup was actually higher than it was in 2022 (.309 in 2023, .276 in 2022). While this may suggest a return to the mean, I would argue that since the true outcome of the pitch is an allowed xwOBA of .300-plus, worrying about his xERA is warranted.
Michael Lorenzen’s struggle to make Philadelphia’s postseason roster after a rough second half was indicative of the highs and lows of a full season. Certainly, the reason Lorenzen went to the Summer Classic was because he was a Tiger, and you have to have one guy from every team make it. I went to a couple family events this June and everyone was asking me why this guy who pitched to an ERA over four deserved to be Detroit’s sole representative.
After being named an All-Star, it seemed like Lorezen flipped a switch, and proved the doubters wrong. Four July starts totaling 23.2 innings and only three earned runs fueled Lorenzen’s rise to the top of the list of available pitchers at the deadline. The Phillies traded 20 year old infielder Hao-yu Lee to Detroit for him, and they were rewarded with eight innings of two-run ball in his first start and a no-hitter on August 9 in his second. However, Lorenzen soon crumbled as a starter over the next month before being demoted to the bullpen.
A particularly bad stretch that was not too far off from his worst May-June stretch in Detroit saw Lorenzen toss 26.2 innings and allow 27 earned runs. It seems Lorenzen pitched a full season as a starter and ended up with results similar to what he’s gotten throughout his career. That didn’t stop him from saying this in his exit interview after being dealt:
“Michigan was incredible, Detroit, incredible. My wife and I loved everything about it. We appreciate Tigers fans and the city and the staff here. They followed through on their promise for me: ‘You’re going to come here, and we’re going to make you better.’ They definitely did that. I told Scott (Harris) on the phone, ‘You followed through, and I appreciate that.’”
I think Detroit did get a little something extra out of Lorenzen, but a particularly hot stretch in his last four appearances for the Tigers framed the opinion of many, instead of the full season of work.
The third-most used starter for Detroit was Joey Wentz. After a nice 2022 cameo, Wentz was one of the worst pitchers in MLB over his 19 starts in 2023. He finished with 13 losses, an ERA of 6.90, and his underlying metrics don’t look promising, either. Even with a few relief appearances interspersed, the lefty couldn’t find a groove all year.
Traded at the 2021 Deadline by Milwaukee for Daniel Norris, 24 year old Reese Olson surprisingly captured a spot in the rotation in the second half of 2023. His stuff, namely a wipeout slider with a PutAway% of 22.8, allowed him to be successful despite being shelled when batters made contact. We’ll see what the Tigers really think about him by how they approach additions to the rotation this offseason.
Tarik Skubal is an ace, and it’s a shame he’s been named in trade talks for what seems like a half-decade. He’s been doing stuff like this:
And this:
And finally, this:
He’s never pitched more than 150 innings in a season before, but if Skubal can accomplish that next year, with these results (100th percentile xERA of 2.28), he will win the Cy Young and headline a Detroit staff that should challenge for the AL Central Crown for the first time in nearly a decade.
When Matt Manning is on the field, you kinda know what you’re getting. It’s one of three true outcomes: he throws five-to-six innings of one-run ball, he gets blown up, or he gets hurt. Manning missed a big stretch from early April to late June this season, and was shut down in early September. Did he show enough?
On July 8, Manning contributed six and two-thirds innings to the first combined no-hitter in Detroit Tigers history. In three starts from July 27 to August 6, Matt Manning tacked on nearly two whole runs to his season ERA after allowing more earned runs than innings pitched. In the four starts following, he looked nearly unhittable again.
Manning’s FIP never dipped below 4.50 for the entire 2023 campaign. It’s the plight of the groundball pitcher to always be at the mercy of a batted ball, but it’s safe to say that Manning was lucky. He achieved a second consecutive half-season with an ERA around 3.50, but his xERA jumped a run and a half from last season’s to 5.48.
It seems that Manning’s ability to induce soft contact cratered. Batters barreled him up at the level of the bottom tenth of the league, which represents a stark contrast to his 70th percentile ranking in the metric last year. He continues to showcase great control, but everything else besides that ERA—his peaks and valleys, his continued inability to strike anyone out, a lack of quality offspeed pitches, and his injury history—is worrying.
At age-27, it’s nice to see Alex Faedo still be able to develop as a starter with more usage. A few injuries derailed the former first round pick out of Florida’s minor league career, but the underlying metrics we saw from him this year are satisfying. His ERA of 4.45 was much higher than the expected 3.87. He does a good job limiting hard contact as a flyball pitcher despite a fastball that sits around 93 MPH.
Similar to Turnbull, but less as a way to reinvigorate his career and more to get him on the field and out of a crowded rotation, I would like to see Faedo out of the pen in 2024 to suit his strengths. The crop of failed Tiger starters all have a lot to offer in relief, and with Faedo, you could get a bulk reliever that doesn’t walk a lot of guys and keeps the ball in the park. Get that velocity and K-rate up and you’ve got a real dude.
The acquisition of Sawyer Gipson-Long was similar to that of Reese Olson, given that he’s a young righty potential starter dealt for a Tiger fan favorite reliever (Michael Fulmer). Now, some people are extrapolating an excellent first 20 big league innings over a full 2024 season to put him in the same category as someone like Skubal. We have to see more from him first. It was nice to see a Tiger youngster not get overwhelmed in his first MLB action for a change, though.
Matthew Boyd will never live up to my own expectations of what I believe his ceiling is. He keeps getting hurt or pitching badly. It’s a shame. Spencer Turnbull is unfortunately similar in this regard, but I’d be interested to see him out of the bullpen like I said.
The Bullpen
Jason Foley is still doing exactly when he’s been doing, and maybe better than ever. He sits 97, but doesn’t strike anyone out, though he limits walks at an 89th percentile rate. He gets hit hard when batters make contact, but it’s often not a barrel, resulting in more balls in the dirt. His 2.61 ERA will most likely be a career-best with an xERA of 3.79 attached to it, but Foley is this bullpen’s ace until further notice.
Alex Lange is no longer this bullpen’s ace, to the surprise of many. The turtlenecked closer looked the part in 2023—coming out to “Sweet Emotion” and rocking a great scowl—but he had, quite literally, the worst control of any high-usage reliever in MLB this year. It limited his effectiveness, and he’s a very effective pitcher when he limits the bases on balls.
He has some of the best swing and miss stuff in the sport, with his 2023 curveball getting batters to whiff nearly half the time it’s spun out of his hand. It was the most valuable curveball thrown by a reliever this season, and in all of MLB, only Pierce Johnson threw the pitch more often compared to the rest of his arsenal.
If Lange can learn to better locate his secondary pitch, the sinker, which is responsible for a lot of Lange’s getting behind in counts, he’ll be back on track to be the closer for the near-future. Maybe he can take some advice from his buddy, Foley, whose sinkerball was the best pitch thrown by a reliever this season, generating a Run Value of plus-20.
I’ve deemed lefty star Tyler Holton the surprise of the season, so he’ll be discussed in more depth in a later section.
The end finally came for José Cisnero in Detroit. He carved out a solid, improbable five-year niche in MLB after being left for dead by the churn of the 100-loss, early 2010’s Houston Astros. After a nice month of June to set himself up for a possible deadline deal, he couldn’t find a plus-pitch after July, and really only played in mop-up duty the rest of the year.
Will Vest was reclaimed from Seattle after a poor showing as a Rule Five pick in 2021. I’d argue he broke out at age-28 in Detroit. I said he was an average, passable reliever in the Preview; all the signs pointed to an ERA just above or below four. The signs now point to an ERA just above or below four. How’d he do it?
I’m not sure. He added about two and half inches of break to his slider this year and it’s a better pitch. I looked at multiple clips from the past two seasons and couldn’t notice a giant difference from the center field angle; it’s no sweeper. However, he’s started to locate it less over the middle of the plate (Top: 2022, Bottom: 2023).
His four-seamer’s PutAway% is nearly seven percent better than it was a year ago, and maybe that’s just an example of year-by-year growth from the two ticks of velocity he’s added to it over the past two seasons. Vest has grown as a pitcher, it seems—painting corners and such—and he’s gotten better results.
Beau Brieske’s transition to the bullpen worked! And so did his number change—four looks good on him. He seemed more comfortable out there, which is understandable given the circumstances into which he was thrust last season. The Tigers seem to have a thing for throwing young right-handers to the wolves after a particularly bad rash of injuries.
His slider didn’t break nearly as much as last season, losing about four inches of horizontal movement, making it almost an offspeed cutter in the process. The change made it easier to control and Brieske located it less over the heart of the plate. Detroit’s pitching staff also told him to lose the curveball, which was about as bad as his 2022 slider with nearly five times less usage.
Those two changes, along with an uptick in velocity, turned Brieske from a young, five-pitch starter that got shelled, into a four-pitch reliever that can munch up some innings. The backend of the bullpen is shaking out to be pretty formidable for next season.
Brendan White, Mason Englert, and Tyler Alexander are all guys I can take or leave. Tyler Alexander seems like he’s been around since Brad Ausmus, but I wouldn’t mind giving him another shot since he throws the baseball with the arm a majority of the population do not. Englert performed poorly as a Rule Five guy. The lights may have been too bright for him this year, so kick him around in Toledo for a few months and see what happens. Ditto for White.
To wrap up the rest of the players who pitched for Detroit out of the pen at some point this season, none of Trey Wingenter, Chasen Shreve, Miguel Díaz, Andrew Vasquez, and Garrett Hill made enough of an impression to stick around with the organization, in my opinion.
Who are Brenan Hanifee, Zach Logue, Braden Bristo, and Anthony Misiewicz? Apparently they played this year. Are we sure they exist? Let me know in the comment section below.
Detroit was able to see contributions from veteran starting pitchers with improved results and a few young guys who made the jump, along with a bullpen that didn’t lose much of a step when I thought it would, in order to stay competitive even with a subpar offense.
M-SABR Predicted Record (68-94) vs. Actual (78-84):
I was right to predict Detroit to win more than 67.5 games…by half a win. I was also correct that Detroit would finish above Kansas City in the AL Central standings. However, I was not bold enough.
I don’t think anyone could have predicted the extent of the White Sox’s implosion, so how the Guardians finished the year is more interesting to me. The Tigers’ late season surge, an 18-10 record in September and October, combined with Cleveland’s 12-16 slide in the same time frame caused Detroit to finish second in the AL Central standings.
The Tigers probably could have been in closer contention for the division if they had the luxury of last year’s schedule, having posted a winning record in 2023 against all of their division opponents. The problem was that they struggled with everyone else.
Almost every facet of the team took a step forward or didn’t take too far of a step back. For a young team working on the margins, that’s more than enough to show some improvement. Detroit’s plus-five wins over their Pythagorean expectation help, too.
Surprise of the Season:
LHP Tyler Holton
The last Tyler I’ll talk about in this article was by far the best one for Detroit in 2023. And he’s a Tyler I didn’t even mention in the Preview! Claimed off waivers from the Diamondbacks this offseason, the lefty Holton is surely a guy Arizona would love to have against the Rangers in this year’s World Series.
With an ERA of 2.11 over 85.1 (!) innings pitched, Holton was one of only four pitchers who registered one or fewer starts in 2023 to post a bWAR of 3.0 or more. A lot of starters weren’t that valuable. Like everyone in Detroit’s pen, he’s a little unique. In contrast to Foley, Holton was one of the softest-throwing relievers in baseball, with a fastball velocity that rarely got up above 92 miles per hour.
You wouldn’t expect a fastball estimated as a 30-grade pitch while Holton was a prospect to produce nearly as much value as Shohei Ohtani’s, but that’s the beauty of baseball, baby. He doesn’t even rely on it that much, as none of the five pitches he throws are used more than 28% or less than 12% of the time.
He’s an average strikeout guy, sure, but when you’re not letting anyone on base via walk or not giving up the long ball, does it really matter? Holton seems to be a master of his craft in his first full season in the bigs, though given that small of a sample size, maybe I’m making a leap. I am excited to see him pitch next year.
Players We Watched:
#1 – 1B Spencer Torkelson
Thirty bombs. Thirty bombs! Torkelson still isn’t the complete hitter we want him to be, but this is the resuscitation the fanbase needed. He stopped spiking as many balls in the dirt and started hitting more in the air. This led to his increased home run total, and a profile that compares more closely to 2023 Pete Alonso than 2022 Dominic Smith.
His expected numbers show he was a bit unlucky this season, and Tigers fans will attest that Tork excels at hitting missiles right to defenders for frustrating outs. His xBA and xSLG are noticeably higher than their results-based counterparts. Torkelson is beginning to show the power we’ve seen at all levels of his career.
As the preview says, I am not on-record calling him a bust. I’m glad about that, as I would have been wrong if I did. I’ll take a real stance here and say that he’s going to walk into an at-large All-Star bid next year.
#2 – OF Matt Vierling
The unluckiest hitter in baseball last season had his luck levels stabilize this season, and he was…okay! That, to me, is a big deal. Nothing about him is really remarkable, but the Tigers have lacked quality depth for a long time, and that’s what they’ve found in Vierling. In addition to being the team’s only competent right-handed outfielder, it seems that Vierling can now be the third baseman Nick Maton was not.
A lot of people who weren’t watching the Tigers after the Break were confused when I told them Vierling was getting some burn in the infield. I think AJ Hinch initially had put him there because there were really no other options, and the outfield was crowded after Riley Greene’s initial return from injury.
Vierling actually graded out as a slightly above average defender at the hot corner. I’m a bit worried about his value as the right side of a platoon at any of the positions he can play. He actually hit worse against left-handed pitching than against righties this year, but if he can continue to play five positions competently as an okay hitter, he will stick around. And that’s fine!
#3 – INF Andre Lipcius
This season I learned that Andre’s last name is actually pronounced, “lip-see-us” not “lip-shis.” And that was about it.
No, I thought Lipcius was serviceable in only 38 September plate appearances, but he was so bad at third that he might not have a role on this team moving forward. Negative-five Outs Above Average! In 13 games!
I thought that his breakout 2022 season in the high minors was indicative of a guy ready to be called up, but it’s clear that Scott Harris knows more than me about baseball. He made the right move by keeping him down after the ball was seemingly jumping off his bat in Spring Training.
Lipcius came back down to Earth in Toledo this season, posting an OPS below eight-hundred. If he can’t play defense outside of first base, and he can’t hit better than the players at those positions Detroit already has, he’s a Quad-A player at best, unfortunately.
Offseason Outlook:
Eduardo Rodriguez will most likely opt out of the final three years of his contract and become a free agent. He should! The good news for the Tigers is that there are plenty of veteran options to replace him. This needs to be something Detroit looks into with the infinite injuries to the rotation they seem to have suffered over the past few years.
We’ll have to see what Scott Harris and Co. will look for in free agency this season. Last year’s signings were almost certainly more cautious than they will be in ensuing years since the administration was only in its first year. My suggestions will be influenced by what we saw this past winter, but a bit more forward.
The market is headlined by pitchers like Sonny Gray, Aaron Nola, Jordan Montgomery, and Blake Snell, and some guy who can hit, too. Each of those guys have their own flaws, and the only guy actually worth the money is Ohtani, who can’t even pitch next year. I won’t attempt to predict what waiver claims will be added to the bullpen or trades that will be made, so here are some signings I think can happen.
Even with Casey Mize being looped back in, along with the emergence of Skubal as an elite option, the relatively unproven commodities of Olson and Gipson-Long, in addition to Manning’s troubles, mean that Detroit probably needs to add two starters.
One thing that Detroit has wanted to do since Harris took over is control the strike zone, and they’ve had good results in that department. Outside of the top guys, look out for Kyle Gibson, Kenta Maeda, Colin Rea, and Luke Weaver. Gibson and Maeda could both slide into a fourth or fifth role, while Rea and Weaver would be Lorenzen-like lottery tickets. All four pitchers limit walks in the top quartile of MLB.
This lineup still needs at least two more real hitters to be competitive in the playoffs, and I don’t see us getting there by signing one of the two-WAR corner outfielders like Lourdes Gurriel Jr. Tommy Pham, or Teoscar Hernández.
It’s Matt Chapman or bust for me. Detroit hasn’t had a long-term solution at third base since Brandon Inge, and I’m sorry to Matt Vierling, but he’s not the answer. Every other hitter on the market is either 35-plus, or not worth the money.
If it’s a contract over $100 million total, I don’t want it, but I think that letting the kids come up right away with no competition won’t end entirely well. With a Boras client like him, we most likely will not end up with him. I’d just like to see us try.
Please make one big move in free agency, though. Sign Chapman or sign one of the big pitchers. We all know the team will be bolstered in trade, or it should at least. This team can win the Central next year. Please.
Categories: 2023 Season Review, Articles, Season Analysis
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