REALITY BITES

by Holly Horning

It’s tough being a Detroit Tiger fan.  It’s been almost a decade since we’ve had something to really cheer about.

The world’s longest failed rebuild.  And now, a rebuild of the rebuild.

The departure of fan-favorite players that crushed souls. 

Watching other teams leap-frog over Detroit in rebuilding and becoming competitive.

You can’t blame Tiger fans for losing their patience.

You can’t blame Tiger fans for insisting that this team start performing at an acceptable level now.

But sadly, there is no magic wand.  There is no formula for taking an under-performing team and turning it into an October caliber one in the blink of an eye.  If there was, don’t you think other teams would have discovered it by now?

And don’t even think that if the Tigers had added 1-2 free agents, their problems would have been solved for the most part.  They bought a roster and had 10+ free agents almost every year from 2006 through 2014 and it didn’t get them to their ultimate goal.

Besides, this roster currently has more holes than Swiss cheese.  Free agents are only going to marginally help right now and potentially cause problems down the road.

As with every year, a new season brings renewed hope.  But it took less than a month for fans to start heading for the ledge.

Every loss brought dire predictions by many to the social media threads.  Too many forecasting a hopeless season with less than 3 weeks of games played.  Too many already giving failing grades to every player on the roster, the PoBO, GM, entire Front Office, manager and the owner.  Even Paws.

So how did so many fans come to have unrealistic expectations about how this team would perform this year?

If we all listened carefully, both Scott Harris and A. J. Hinch were telling us what was likely to happen.  Many of us just didn’t want to listen. Or really want to hear what they were saying.

I do get the desire for fans to wish for a sunny season.  Like Monty Python, we all want to “always look on the bright side of life.”  It’s survival mode.

But as much as we really want this to be a true competitive year, we have to deal with reality.

The reality that an extensive tear down and failed rebuild is going to take more than a year to correct.

That an entirely new Front Office isn’t going to churn out a division title in less than 2 years.  Even in the AL Central.

That young players aren’t all going to come out of the gate playing like All-Stars.

That is reality – as much as it hurts.  And no amount of wishful thinking, hoping and praying is going to change that.

This is a young, inexperienced roster.  Out of 13 pitchers, 5 of them are in their early-mid 20’s.  Five are in their late 20’s.  Three are in their 30’s.

As for positional players, 6 of them are in their early 20’s, 2 are in their mid-20’s and 4 are in their late 20’s.

Only 2 are 30 years or older.

We’ve got a roster in which half the starting pitchers have only a couple months to a couple years of experience. Six out of 8 positional slots are manned by players with just weeks of service to 2 years. And not even full years at that.

We can’t expect them to be playing like veterans.  Look at Riley Greene who has had 2 partial years (excluding this year).  He’s still considered young and inexperienced.  Still learning how to play better defense and how to handle MLB pitching. And learning a brand new position, too.

It’s going to take awhile for all of these young players to get enough experience where they can go head to head with the best teams in baseball.

Scott Harris reminded us several times that the young players would not be blocked.  That they need to play.  It’s the only way to get experience under your belt and develop more quickly.

And if you read between the lines, he’s telling us things aren’t always going to look pretty. That mistakes – lots of them – are going to happen.

Like they did over the past week.  The Tigers, until last week, had MLB’s best defensive stats.  Then a pandemic of errors over the past week.

It’s that roller coaster of performance I’ve been blogging about.

There are going to be days, even weeks, when this team looks really good.  And then, times in which everything just falls apart on the field, at the plate and on the mound.

It’s part of the process. Trying to put it all together.

A. J. Hinch told us that this team is going to struggle at the plate this year until each batter figures it all out.  Because of their youth and inexperience.

It’s why this roster has so much flexibility and why the Tigers have built such a formidable bullpen.  If you’re going to have trouble hitting, you need pitching that is going to shut down your opponent in order to give your team a chance.

As much as we dislike the continued waiting, we somehow have to dig deep and find whatever patience we have left when it comes to players and their learning curve.

We have to understand that the newest members like Colt Keith and Parker Meadows are going to struggle mightily as they try to hit MLB pitching.  It’s a patience that is required for them – but maybe not for Javier Baez given his veteran status.

We also have to make an allowance for the young pitchers who have a harder time settling down on the mound and pitching deeper into innings.

As well, patience for Riley Greene as he learns a new position and Colt Keith as he adjusts to a new set of infield partners.

In contrast, it is appropriate for us to now start questioning the learning track for Spencer Torkelson at this point.  It’s his 3rd year in MLB.

In the past, we were able to point to the poor former player development system and a premature promotion to Detroit acting as roadblocks to his development.

But now we must start to see more consistency in his performance.  Tangible improvement.

It’s time.

He was MLB’s worst 1Ber last year and currently holds that same honor this year.  However, he has also regressed (so far) at the plate after having a solid year in 2023 with 31 HRs and 94 RBIs. 

It’s his 2nd year of very slow starts.  Can the Tigers afford to have one of their best hitters not warm up at the plate until June once again?

Sure, it’s early in the season but the real concern is what should happen if both his defense and offense regress this year.

Should that happen, then fans have the right to be concerned.

Overall, the progression of prospects and top draft picks is never linear.   We can’t expect them to see Detroit in X number of years without some setbacks.  And that is going to directly impact a return to a competitive level.

Take Casey Mize for example.  He was drafted in 2018 and made the roster in late 2020.  He struggled in 2021 and got injured in April 2022, missing 2 full years with 2 different surgeries.

His weekend start this year was his first win in over 2 1/2 years – August of 2021. Since drafting him, the Tigers have had to wait 7 years (7!) to see what hopefully will be his true potential.

There will be other players who experience speed bumps in their playing time. Hopefully not as severe as Mize’s.

And all of this is part of the recipe for why this roster isn’t where many fans want it to be.  Some of it is controllable.  Some of it not.

What this Tigers team needs to be as an above .500 team is consistent in performance and with enough experience to survive and thrive.  They don’t have that yet. 

The most consistent teams are the best teams in baseball.  Overall, they tend to make experienced decisions at the plate, on the mound and in the field.  There are much fewer lapses in hitting, catching and pitching.

But given all of these factors, fans need to see improvement this year.  It may not be in the standings.  It may be in the stats, esp. those involving hitting and starting pitching.

Improvement will tell us that the organization is going in the right direction.

The lack of patience by fans is understandable but this franchise needs to understand that a very slow and steady move upwards is no longer a choice.  The former regime took that option away with an 8-year endless rebuild.

There now needs to be a reasonable sense of urgency to get this train back on the track.

This Front Office needs to achieve at least 1 significant advancement during this season.  Something that fans can point to as a positive sign this franchise will compete sooner rather than later.

It can’t be just 1 player.  Or 1 pitcher.  Or 1 award. 

It has to be something that showcases the advancement of a larger part of this roster.  Not just 1 player with solid batting stats.  More like a roster that moves up in the MLB rankings to reflect average or better offensive stats.

Or finishing the year over .500 for the first time in 8 years.

Tiger fans need something big.

They deserve it.

Don’t see your comment? Comments are limited to a maximum of 3 sentences and must address the day’s topic. Please make sure to check out the other rules for posting under the link at the top of the page in order for your comments to be published.

---

What did you miss on our Twitter feed yesterday?

• The Red Wings evolution coincidentally gives us a parallel for today’s blog.

Why should you follow Totally Tigers https://twitter.com/totallytigersbb on Twitter?

• We tweet out breaking news before it’s published in the sports pages. The best news from the best sources.
• Want more than 1 Totally Tigers fix every day? How about throughout the day?