DETROIT — In sports, we love to look into the crystal ball. That can often become a self-defeating exercise. Baseball, perhaps more than any other major sport, can be a mercurial game. Pitchers get injured. Batted balls start getting caught. Deep flies die at the warning track. Some prospects don’t pan out, and sometimes stars emerge from nowhere.
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Still, all the speculation can be a fun and even useful exercise.
With the Detroit Tigers off to their best start since 2016, let’s head back to the mailbag and simultaneously peer once again into that crystal ball.
The Central division is perhaps the strongest, or at least winningest, in the MLB right now. Did the Tigers under-acquire in the offseason, and does this signal that they need to be more aggressive to stay competitive? If so, what should that look like? Pitching for bats? — Sean H.
I got about one million questions of this variety. It’s probably not productive to relitigate the entire offseason (I addressed J.D. Martinez back in March. Made a lot of sense to me. He didn’t interest the Tigers’ front office at all.)
Overall, I do think there was a compelling case to add at least one more veteran hitter, though I also understand president of baseball operations Scott Harris’ rationale for letting the young guys play. Conservative as the Tigers are with prospects, at least they aren’t being blocked by the likes of Harold Castro or Victor Reyes?
Looking ahead to the trade deadline — because many of you asked — it does get interesting. And yes, it’s a bit premature. But if the Tigers are in the hunt, I do think they should be looking to buy a bat at the trade deadline. They should have enough pitching depth to get a decent hitter (probably a corner type?) on an expiring deal. I’m not saying they should mortgage the farm. I think there is zero chance they will trade for Mike Trout. But if — if — the Tigers are in position to buy at the deadline, it will be an interesting test for Harris and may reveal even more about his long-term vision.
When does Kerry Carpenter (Tigers’ best hitter) get his Colt Keith long-term offer to lock him up? His last year in the minors and first two in the big leagues have been remarkable and he’s still growing. And no, he’s not a DH. He has an elite arm (85th percentile) and he is not slow (70th percentile sprint speed). He is getting better defensively. Future All-Star and could be one of the faces of the franchise for eight years. — Jon S.
This isn’t a video game, so it’s not necessarily easy. The way I try to think about these things: What are you offering Kerry Carpenter if you are the Tigers? If you are Carpenter, what would it take for you to accept?
Part of the reason Keith’s contract was so polarizing when the news first broke was the fact Keith hadn’t even played an MLB game, let alone come close to establishing his MLB ceiling. Even with Carpenter, we’re still finding out what type of player he is. Does he actually need to be platooned against left-handed pitching? Can he really be a league-average defender in the outfield? He still grades out negatively on jumps and routes.
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Carpenter is indeed important for the future in Detroit and deserves to start being talked about in the same light as Spencer Torkelson and Riley Greene. But I have a hard time seeing him getting a contract extension in the near future.
What do Riley Greene/Spencer Torkelson extensions look like? — Levi B.
Tim Britton, The Athletic’s resident contract expert, recently projected Greene to be worth an eight-year, $125 million extension. Torkelson didn’t crack the list of projections for the next generation of MLB stars. You can read Britton’s reasonings for the Greene projection here.
My quick thoughts: Greene has to prove he can merit those numbers by staying healthy for a full season. But if he does that, and if he continues to play well — he entered Wednesday ranked 11th in MLB at 1.2 fWAR — I could absolutely see the Tigers pursuing a big extension with Greene. He has the highest upside of any of Detroit’s young hitters and could still blossom into a true star.
It’s tougher with Torkelson. From the Tigers’ perspective, his 31 homers were great last year, but his 1.3 fWAR last season was worth only an estimated $10.8 million. It would be hard to commit to a higher pay ceiling for Torkelson given his defensive struggles and questions about his on-base ability. Even if Torkelson gets it going this season and becomes a true masher, he is a Scott Boras client, and Boras is notorious for advising his clients to explore the open market (we’ll see if that changes after what happened this offseason).
In short, I think Greene is absolutely an extension candidate if he’s healthy. Torkelson is less likely at this point.
Also: I’m not sure I’d ever extend a pitcher given the injury risks, but Tarik Skubal — another Boras client — has to be in this discussion, too.
When will the Tigers acquire a true franchise, bat-first catcher to replace the Carson Kelly/Jake Rogers tandem? P.S., it appears that Dillon Dingler is not the long-term solution either. — Scott U.
About one month ago, most people seemed excited about the tandem of Rogers and Kelly. Now both have been off to slow starts. And while that’s not 100 percent surprising — I feared Rogers could regress at the plate, and Kelly’s track record is spotty despite some good numbers in the past — it’s also really, really hard to find a bat-first, franchise catcher. This is something that has become more and more apparent as the years have gone on and the Tigers have lacked true stability behind the plate.
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How many true franchise catchers are there right now? J.T. Realmuto. Adley Rutschman. Salvador Perez. Will Smith. Does Cal Raleigh count? It would be great if the Tigers could find a guy more like Jonah Heim, a stable and productive presence but maybe not a superstar. But I’d say more than half the league is in the same boat. It’s a hard position to play. The best bet is to develop a homegrown catcher, and if Dingler isn’t that guy, the Tigers’ catching situation may look similar for years to come.
Sidenote: Josue Briceno, though I’m not sold on his ability to stay at catcher, looks like he could become a legit big-league hitter. I’m also curious how the eventual advent of an automated ball-strike system will change how catchers are evaluated and developed.
Are the Tigers thinking about trading one of their many DH-type players? They have so many bat-first guys with below-average defense: Carpenter/Jace Jung/Justyn-Henry Malloy/Torkelson/Keith. It’s crazy how bad the gloves are. They are elite in center field and at shortstop. Below average almost everywhere else. — Richard P.
This is one of the most under-the-radar things to watch in the next couple of years. I will say Carpenter and Keith both deserve credit for their defensive improvements. Jung, too, looks way better than I expected. You’re still hoping for league average at best for those guys. Torkelson is a puzzle and Malloy can only play the outfield corners. It could really hurt your roster flexibility and create problems down the road. I’m not sure exactly what the solution is.
First off, a couple of these guys still have to prove they can hit like regulars at the MLB level. But to your point … the Tigers could have some tough decisions to make in the next year or two.
How does Dan Dickerson know what the pitcher is throwing? I listen to all the games via the MLB app and hear Dan saying slider, curveball, etc. Is it that obvious when you watch the pitcher from the booth? — Tom R.
This is a fun question to end on. It’s certainly possible to tell the pitch based solely on the eye test. In most cases, a curveball looks way different from a major-league fastball, and that probably helps Dan call a pitch as he sees it. Dickerson and the rest of us in the media are also usually looking at a bunch of stuff during games. You have scoreboards that display velocity and pitch type almost instantaneously. You have TV monitors. And you have MLB Gameday and Baseball Savant. There is never a shortage of information these days — if anything, it’s an overload.
(Top photo of Riley Greene: Duane Burleson / Getty Images)
