THE SALVAGE SEASON

by Holly Horning

The Tigers will never define it because labels carry baggage and expectations.  They have carefully constructed a word salad to indicate what the 2023 season will be so as to prepare fans.  Descriptions that come across as particularly neither good nor bad.  But just enough to keep hope afloat without creating wild disappointment.

As I’ve blogged about previously, this is not a continuation of the first rebuild.  At least not this year.  To label it as such means that there was actually some progress in rebuilding this team after the tear down was complete.

This is also not a reboot.  To assume such means that things were working to a certain degree and that some tweaking just needs to be done.

The best word to describe what is going on with the Tigers is “reassessment” as I wrote earlier.  As defined in the dictionary, to reassess “is to evaluate it again, or reappraise it, especially if its value has changed or new information has altered your understanding of it.”

What this means, as it pertains to the Tigers, is that the new Front Office has found enough evidence that the former regime did not perform due diligence in correctly and thoroughly assessing and developing talent.  That there are question marks over a significant percentage of the team’s talent to warrant concern and review.  That the evaluations performed previously were done under a flawed or incomplete system.

The stories about the poor coaching of top prospects continues to dribble out.  We are reading on a daily basis how the new crew and experts are working with every player and discovering flawed advice from the previous administration.  That is, if any advice was actually handed out.

To further support evidence that the previous system was spotty, one can’t ignore that Al Avila assembled an entire roster last year of free-swinging, undisciplined hitters who never worked counts and didn’t know how to take walks.  That means that either the Tigers didn’t use analytics in constructing their roster or that the system they used was flawed.

Thus, the need for reassessment.

But there are other areas, too, of the organization that come with question marks.

For Scott Harris, you could say that the Tigers’ talent currently resembles a box of chocolates.  You just don’t know what you are going to get.

With this suspicion, you’ve got to believe that one of their current priorities is to salvage and resurrect as many of the top draft picks as possible.  For all those years of tanking and misery, the Tigers really need to get something of significant value from that. They certainly didn’t get it in trading off their top talent for peanuts.

To allow these top prospects to simply drop off and disappear would create a public relations nightmare.  Teams never like to publicize their incompetency and fans would never forget the years of misery they endured – all for nothing.

So let’s now dig into the team’s history of top draft picks.

They have not had a #1 draft pick successfully stick for 11 years.  The last was James McCann in 2011.  Before him, it was Nick Castellanos in 2010.

As GM, Dave Dombrowski had some luck in drafting.  But it was more misses than hits.  After McCann, he, Avila and the Front Office consecutively drafted Jake Thompson, Jonathan Crawford, Derek Hill, Christin Stewart and Beau Burrows.

All of them gone.  None of them stuck.

For the record, MLB’s average percentage of #1 draft picks who stick and do somewhat well in the sport is 60%.

Since then, Avila has been in charge.  Here’s who he has drafted:

2016 – Matt Manning

2017 – Alex Faedo

2018 – Casey Mize

2019 – Riley Greene

2020 – Spencer Torkelson

2021 – Jackson Jobe

2022 – Jace Jung

Now let’s take a look at each one’s current status……

Matt Manning took 5 years in order to reach Detroit.  He’s made only 30 starts in 2 years and has been shut down repeatedly with injuries.

Alex Faedo also took 5 years to make it to MLB.  Mostly because of injuries including Tommy John surgery.  But last year, in addition to being shut down with arm issues, he also ended up having hip surgery that is believed to have been caused by former Tiger coaches who forced him to change his pitching mechanics when he arrived in Detroit.  He has now returned to his previous form after analysis by the new people in place.

Casey Mize has started 39 games in 3 years with arm troubles interrupting each of his seasons.  He will miss this year after having arm surgery in 2022.  But now we are hearing that he also had his back operated on during the off-season. 

It turns out that he had a bad back in college that he says impacted his pitching on occasion, yet the Tigers still drafted him #1.  What’s puzzling is that Mize says that his back issues were not a secret back then.  It is unclear whether the team did its due diligence in the drafting process or even required a physical before drafting him. 

Casey was a #1 consensus pick back then but would other teams have required additional proof that his back would not create a problem going forward before drafting him?

It should also be mentioned that at the end of 2021, A. J. Hinch was reported to be upset at the slow progress of the Tigers’ top pitching prospects and how every one of them struggled more than expected when they reached Detroit.  He did drop Mize’s name as an example.

Riley Greene spent 2 years in the minors and appears to be the most prepared prospect on the team.  However, after 1 full year in Detroit, he is just now learning about his offensive habits that have generated a disproportionate number of ground balls hit.  The off-season was the first time that the new people in charge came in to do a full analysis and develop a plan for him to improve.

Spencer Torkelson was given exactly 1 year in the minors before being promoted to Detroit, despite having a mediocre stint in Toledo.  Of course, he was rushed to Detroit not out of merit but to help bolster Al Avila’s precarious position.  But it had to do untold damage to Tork, esp. mentally.  The hitting coaches worked with him over the winter on his skills but it’s going to take some time for him to regain his confidence after a very rough rookie season.

It is still too soon to make any observations on the last two #1 draft picks – Jackson Jobe and Jace Jung.  Jobe spent his first year under the guidance of the old guard and now he’ll be overseen by the Harris Front Office.  Jung will only have known Harris and Co.

So now, the Tigers have 7 top (#1) draft picks.  All of them have question marks over their heads for various reasons.  Five of those 7 were acquired courtesy of the tanking process. Four of the 7 are pitchers who are known to be high risk/high reward in the development process.

Right now, only Riley Greene (and maybe Manning) appear to have the best odds of turning out well.  But the Tigers previous history going back over a decade is of concern.

There is probably no singular greater priority than for Scott Harris and his crew to ensure that as many of these 7  #1 draft picks are coached and supported as best as possible so that they may have successful careers.

Let’s hope that he and the new crew get this ship back on course. It’s not a moment too soon.

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