IDEAL OFFSEASON: DETROIT TIGERS

With the Detroit Tigers coming off their most successful season in quite some time, finishing second in their division by winning 78 games (their highest mark since 2016) and propelling their farm system towards the top of the sport, many think next year’s Tigers have their best chance in a while to be competitive in the weak AL Central and make a push for a postseason appearance. For that to happen, though, they’ll have to make great strides in certain areas. First and foremost, you’ll need to be better than the 29th scoring offense if you want a shot to play postseason baseball. While Spencer Torkelson, Riley Greene and Kerry Carpenter showed some potential to be the core of a potent offense in the future, you don’t want to throw that heavy of a load on three young players. Acquiring a few bats that can take some pressure off your young cornerstones and drive in some runs should be priority number one for President of Baseball Operations Scott Harris and his newly assembled front office in 2024. While the team did make a leap in walk rate, their power numbers as a team were still well below average despite jumping significantly from 2022’s all time lows. If Harris’ organizational philosophy still rings true, he’ll look to add players that can hopefully provide baserunners for the team’s big boppers to bring home.

On the pitching side, the needs are mostly depth. Tarik Skubal rounded into a legitimate ace this season, and even if Eduardo Rodriguez opts out and leaves as expected, the Tigers have built themselves a nice little fallback plan with their minor league pitching depth. We saw a glimpse this season with Reese Olson and Sawyer Gipson-Long making their MLB debuts and impressing, while players like Jackson Jobe, Keider Montero, Wilmer Flores and Ty Madden all threaten to make their MLB debuts in 2024. Harris has put an emphasis on making acquisitions that don’t block any of their young guys from finding playing time, so I wouldn’t expect a major splash to be made on the pitching front, but rather looking to find a couple guys they can turn into assets for the team on the field and possibly in the trade market like they did this season with Michael Lorenzen.

With all that said, I’ll now dive into some specifics surrounding moves that I think they can and should make with the basically limitless flexibility they have with no major contracts currently on their payroll. I think this could be a big year to dive into the middle of the free agent market (unless they want to make Shohei Ohtani part owner of Little Caesars) and round out a roster that showed serious promise in 2023.

Spencer Torkelson is penciled in at first base after his 31 home run campaign that saw him make major strides at the plate starting in June, with the hope that his continued development should see him inch towards an .800+ OPS and 40 home runs to make up for his poor defense at first. Javier Baez, despite reports that he may opt out of his $25M AAV contract will absolutely not do that until proven otherwise, and will likely spend another season as the starting shortstop of the Tigers. This is not the end of the world despite his offense completely falling off a cliff since he signed in Detroit. He still plays elite defense at a premium position, and the goal of the offseason should be to Javy-proof the lineup rather than try and get rid of him when that just doesn’t seem like a realistic option. If he was batting 8th it’s not a stretch to say his numbers would improve and he wouldn’t be under such a microscope from the fanbase. Jake Rogers has a hold on the catcher position, posting great defensive numbers to go along with well above-average-for-a-catcher numbers at the dish. After moving on from Eric Haase they may want to procure a backup for Rogers, but Carson Kelly seemed to be able to handle that job just fine if that’s what it came down to. I’m not so sure I wouldn’t add a bat-first backup catcher just to have in pinch hitting situations a la Mitch Garver, though.

So that leaves the question spots as 2nd and 3rd base, much like they were this past season. Andy Ibanez performed admirably in a utility role, likely earning himself a spot on the 2024 roster. He flashed the leather at multiple positions, and is a natural third baseman, but I think he’s best served off the bench playing a multitude of positions and starting 3-4 games a week. In my ideal world, 2nd base is occupied on a day-to-day basis by Colt Keith, the Tigers’ bonafide top prospect that wasn’t just drafted this past year. He lit A+ and AA on fire, and the leap to AAA only slowed his production down marginally. He’s not the best defender you’ll ever see, but his offensive upside projects to be well worth the trade-off. He’s a slugger from the left side with great plate discipline. He covers all parts of the plate, and is liable to go on scorching hot streaks for weeks at a time. I’m sure the Tigers will give him every opportunity to make the team in Spring Training, and I would love to see him enter next season with the 2nd base job.

3rd, however, is not so simple. They tried a number of options in 2023 and nobody was able to make the job their own. Nick Maton, Jonathan Schoop, Zach McKinstry and Andre Lipcius all had their moments, but if this team is to take the next step they need a true cornerstone bat on the hot corner. Here is where Scott Harris has a chance to get creative. It’s no secret that the Tigers have a surplus of young arms, one of the best things you can have if you want to make a splash on the trade market. When I think of teams with a lot of bats that the Tigers could try to make a move on and in desperate need of young, controllable pitching, I think of the St. Louis Cardinals. They’re not likely to head into full rebuild mode with Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt under contract, and their lineup is incredibly deep as it is for a team that just had the season they did. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Nolan Gorman could be taken off their hands for the right combination of pitchers.

Now, I can’t take credit for coming up with this trade package on my own. @GhostMavGG on Twitter has floated the idea of dealing Matt Manning and Wilmer Flores for Gorman, and the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. St. Louis gets some promising young arms while giving up a bat that, while productive, they can afford to do without considering the depth of their lineup. Gorman is a natural third baseman, and while he’s not outstanding defensively at the hot corner, he packs some pop in his bat. He slugged .478 for the Cards this season, another potent left handed bat that could slot into the middle of the Tigers order. While the price may be steep to acquire the 23 year old, a young pitcher with good results but questionable peripherals like Manning combined with a fringe Top-100 prospect like Wilmer Flores could be the package that gets St. Louis to do it. Keep in mind, young arms come at a premium on the market and St. Louis is extra desperate to get some in their organization. Manning has a lot of upside and room to build his arsenal, while Flores just needs to be smoothed out a bit before making his major league debut. Both of them could be immediate contributors to the 2024 Cardinals, which I think would entice them to take a swing. Finding a way to acquire Gorman would be one of my highest priorities if I were in Detroit’s front office.

The outfield is an entirely different beast from the infield, with at least two of the starting spots and likely all three set going into 2024. The uncertainty stems from who they choose to keep and whether or not Austin Meadows will be available next season. I’d have to guess he won’t be, so that assumption will be influencing a lot of these hypothetical moves. First of all, Riley Greene and Kerry Carpenter are locked into the lineup in 2024. With Kerry putting up another strong offensive season at age 25 and Riley looking like a future all-star, there’s zero chance either of them aren’t taking swings for the Tigers next season. Now that they’ve moved Riley from CF to the corner to preserve his health, too, that tells us a lot about who they plan to have in CF next season, in my opinion. That player being Parker Meadows, who put up strong offensive numbers in a limited sample size despite an astronomical strikeout rate in his debut stint. The difference maker here, even if his offense regresses, is his defense. In a spacious park like Comerica, having a guy that covers as much ground as Parker does is invaluable and I personally believe it gives him an edge over Akil Baddoo, who I don’t expect to make the MLB roster out of camp next season provided he’s not moved to another team. 

An interesting wrinkle in the outfield room is that while Kerry Carpenter has been the presumed successor to Miguel Cabrera’s DH spot as he retires, by the end of the season Carpenter became a respectable right fielder, recording 7 outfield assists on the year with his surprisingly big arm. If you remove the belief that he needs to DH, that opens up a world of possibilities for who the Tigers could add to the outfield next season. Enter JD Martinez. Ever since he broke out with the Tigers in 2014, he’s been a fan favorite that would be met with open arms if he were to sign back with Detroit after his excellent season for the Dodgers in 2023. Even if he were to take a one year deal as his career winds down, you could expect above average offensive output from him and never have to worry about his less-than-stellar defense should Carpenter hold down RF. On the other hand, even if Riley Greene has to start the year exclusively at DH due to his elbow injury, you could use JD in a platoon role or possibly play him in the field just a little to get his bat in the lineup. With Parker Meadows patrolling CF, that should take a defensive load off both corner spots that allows them to squeeze more bat-first players onto the roster. 

When I considered a bench outfielder, I found it hard to imagine Matt Vierling not being on this team next year. While he was a maddeningly inconsistent player and doesn’t seem to necessarily fit the Scott Harris prototype, he brings enough tools to the table and is still just young enough that I don’t think the Tigers are willing to cut bait on him just yet. Using him off the bench as a right handed bat could maybe be a role that maximizes his abilities, as we’ve seen flashes of what he can do when his technique and plate approach are where they need to be. Considering he was Harris’ first major trade acquisition as POBO, I think he stays with the team for at least one more season.

The bullpen in 2023 was, as it has been every year since Chris Fetter and Gabe Ribas set up shop in Detroit, good. Even with Alex Lange’s inconsistencies they just simply rotated another group of tremendous arms through the pen, with Jason Foley and especially Tyler Holton breaking out in a major way. While you can reasonably expect Holton to take a step back from his otherworldly numbers next season, he should still be an effective left hander that’s capable of eating multiple innings per appearance if need be. While I wouldn’t be shocked to see Foley or Lange dealt if the right trade presents itself this offseason, I think they’re comfortable where they are, with just one or two depth acquisitions to round out the relievers. Jose Cisnero will be mercifully gone, and maybe a free agent like Aaron Loup or Trevor May could bring some stability to the middle inning roles, but generally I like where the bullpen is at and have complete trust in what the organization wants to do here.

Now the rotation may be the trickiest part of this whole team. While Skubal and Olson seem like safe bets, nobody has any clear idea of when Casey Mize will be able to pitch games again, and Matt Manning is traded in my ideal offseason as stated earlier. With E-Rod likely gone in free agency, that leaves at least three rotation spots that need to be filled. So hear me out…

Last year we watched the Tigers take a flier on Michael Lorenzen, who was seen by most of the league as a long reliever, and turn him into an All-Star and legitimate trade deadline asset. If we as a fanbase trust Fetter the way we claim to, then we should have no issue with the Tigers dipping back into this relatively weak free agent market and pulling a couple of gems out. With that said, I present to you Andrew Heaney and Luis Severino. Heaney is a journeyman left hander who has posted mediocre to slightly above average results in most of his MLB seasons besides his 2022 stint with the Dodgers (because they’re cheating). This year he threw 147.1 pretty pedestrian innings for the Rangers, but before this year’s outlier, he has consistently kept his walk rate low. He throws a low 90s fastball but a devastating slider, which would make him a project that Fetter hasn’t really taken on yet. But he’s not Joey Wentz, and that’s a great place to start.

On the Severino front, he just posted by far his worst season ever in his age 29 contract year. I just can’t imagine Fetter and Ribas not being able to tap into the ability of a pitcher that largely dominated in 2022 even after returning from injury. Even though he’s currently rehabbing an oblique strain, I just think this is a risk worth taking. If you were to bury him down at the bottom of a rotation that features Skubal, Olson, Heaney, and possibly Mize or Sawyer Gipson-Long, I think the risk/reward potential here is just too much to pass up. If they wanted to make more noise, though, there’s always the option of throwing some money at longtime Phillies ace Aaron Nola, although I find it hard to believe they’d go that route.

I now present to you my final 26 man roster for the Tigers to break camp with…

In an extremely weak AL Central, the Tigers have a real chance to make significant upward movement next year and possibly find themselves in a playoff spot should everything work itself out. Of course, nothing ever works out the way the Tigers want it to, but with Miggy’s money off the books and Chris Ilitch (lol) hopefully willing to spend a little money, I don’t think signing six short term deals to round out the roster is too much to ask. Scott Harris, we don’t ask for much.

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