Casey Mize, Tarik Skubal, and Matt Manning — all arrived in Detroit during the past, unsettled year when baseball was blasted by COVID-19’s disruptions, and worse.
Derek Hill and Jake Rogers — both are playing, and making a difference, at Comerica Park.
Riley Greene, Spencer Torkelson and Dillon Dingler should win a ticket to Motown at some point in 2022, perhaps out of spring camp, for Greene at least.
Others are germinating on a re-seeded Tigers farm, which has begun reviving a big-league roster built by talent that bad cycles and good drafts tend to forge.
More help for 2022 and beyond likely arrived last week during a pitching-loaded draft, which should deliver more depth and, in some cases, game-changers to a team as it tries to build a sustained contender that avoids the extreme highs-and-lows Detroit baseball has known these past 20 years.
It is mid-point on the farm, with 2021’s altered minor-league calendar a testament to how COVID upended baseball and its place in a ravaged world at-large. MLB’s farm teams began their seasons a month later than normal, in May, and will play through September, 30 days longer than has been the habit for minor-league schedules.
Because of what has been happening at Toledo, Erie and other stops, the Tigers not only are treating manager AJ Hinch with some difference-makers at Comerica, there are players waiting to be plugged into his lineup, rotation and probably Detroit’s bullpen, with 2022 the more likely ETA.
In something of an order measuring impact, timetables, depth and deficits, we find:
Most likely to succeed
Greene, only 20, is the most all-around skilled player in Tigers World. It was something of a risk to have placed him at such a tender stage at Double A Erie, but the Tigers got it right. Greene in 60 games is batting .278, with a big on-base percentage of .368 as part of his robust .837 OPS.
He also plays center field. The Tigers aren’t hurrying Greene and might choose to leave him at Erie for all of 2021 rather than move him to Triple A and bring him to Detroit for a September call-up.
It doesn’t matter. Greene will head to Lakeland, Florida, next February with every chance to force the Tigers into taking him north for Opening Day.
Torkelson could do the same, but it will be tougher. He is apprenticing at a new position, third base, which is a rugged rehearsal for a man who will be given all the time necessary to hone his bat and glove.
Torkelson could be dynamic in Hinch’s lineup with his knack for scalding pitches and hitting balls 400 feet-plus. But the more likely time frame for a 21-year-old, right-handed masher is later in 2022.
Same for Dingler, who like Greene and Torkelson, is playing at Erie as a warmup for Detroit, which should be in the picture at some point next year.
Dingler is a catcher, which means he has enough going on behind the plate without overly worrying about hitting. He and Torkelson were bumped to Double A after they over-matched high-A pitching at West Michigan. Torkelson during the month since they were shipped to Erie has been faster to adjust.
Dingler, however, is expected to settle in, offensively, and be on his way to Detroit sometime in 2022. He is 6-foot-3, bats right-handed, and can crush pitches. He needs only time the Tigers intend to give him, fully.
Pitchers who might soon help
Joey Wentz confirms why Tommy John surgery is more like a two-season exile. He had his left elbow repaired in spring, 2020, and has been back throwing in the minors, strengthening and sharpening pitches, since last month.
Note the progression: In five starts at low-A Lakeland, he had a 6.75 ERA. In five starts since the Tigers moved him to Erie, Wentz has a 4.42 ERA, as well as a frightening 1.74 WHIP, which is the result primarily of 16 walks in 18 innings.
In other words, this is a man trying to reclaim not only his pitches, but his command, all of which were on display two summers ago at Erie — before surgery. That’s when a former early draft pick (40th overall) the Tigers won in the Shane Greene trade with Atlanta, had these numbers: five starts, 2.10 ERA, 0.93 WHIP, courtesy of 25.2 innings, 20 hits, and — most revealing — 37 strikeouts against four walks.
You see where we’re going with this breakdown of a pitcher who is only 23. Wentz should be back in full form, ready to boost Hinch’s rotation no later than next spring.
Alex Faedo qualifies here, as well. He is a Tigers first-round grab from 2017 and had his TJ surgery late last year. Faedo, a big right-hander with a heavy slider, can be envisioned helping Hinch in 2022 much the way Tyler Alexander now has a role as starter or longer-innings reliever.
The hunt for additional arms
Take a deep look and one sees why the team went heavy for pitching in last week’s MLB Draft.
There isn’t a lot of it beyond those thoroughbreds who already have been called to Detroit.
Beau Brieske at West Michigan has been a true gift, one the Tigers didn’t quite anticipate, given his plucking in the 27th round in 2018 from the University of Colorado-Pueblo.
But consider these numbers, rolled up during five of a right-hander’s last six starts for the Whitecaps: 0.89 ERA, 0.86 WHIP, 30.1 innings, 17 hits, three earned runs, nine walks, 37 strikeouts.
Brieske is 6-3, 200, turned 23 in April, and with his power-pitch repertoire (fastball that can run 94-92 and touch 96 — slider, change, curveball) will be headed soon enough to Erie.
Another of his Whitecaps brethren is also destined for an upgrade, in Keider Montero, who this month turned 21. He has considerable farm-time and body-boosting (6-1, 145) ahead before Montero sniffs Comerica Park, or even Erie. But he has the portfolio a young pitcher typically flaunts en route to the big leagues.
It could be that Detroit’s best, and most immediate hope for rotation help and bullpen back-ups, came during last week’s draft. Big arms — all but Jackson Jobe were college pitchers — designed to help Hinch in a pinch were added last week. The Tigers won’t be shy about using them as early as 2022.
Evolving outfield talent
The Tigers have something of an outfield glut, even after last week jettisoning Nomar Mazara. Daz Cameron (injured list) and Victor Reyes have been alternating time at Toledo and Detroit, while JaCoby Jones has all but sunk from sight, putting Jacob Robson in play to help if the Tigers need reinforcements for Robbie Grossman, Derek Hill, Akil Baddoo, Cameron, Reyes, etc.
But true impact outfielders, beyond Greene, aren’t exactly abundant.
Daniel Cabrera is having a so-so start at West Michigan, while Parker Meadows, an early draft pick from 2018 from whom much was expected, is having a miserable time with his bat. Bryant Packard, a 2019 fifth-round pick from East Carolina, was thought to be one of those youngsters whose bat might boom in 2021, but he’s having a slow go at West Michigan.
Farther down the line is hot-shot teen Roberto Campos, now getting his sea legs at the Florida Complex League, along with good-looking, left-handed hitting Iverson Leonardo, and Jose De La Cruz, who is still having issues with strikeouts even after moving from low-A Lakeland to the FCL.
The Tigers will hope Greene, Baddoo, Hill and perhaps Cameron or Robson, will offer the crux of an outfield corps with enough artillery and defense to give Hinch what he needs. But unless Cabrera, or Packard, or one of the tenderfoots now emerging at the FCL hatchery pulls a stunner, the Tigers will be open to more free-agent outfield help once Grossman’s contract dissolves at the end of 2022.
Evolving infield support
This is where general manager Al Avila’s rebuild figures to be decided, one way or another. The middle infield is where teams win or lose, in tandem with an up-the-middle drive train that extends from center field to catcher.
The Tigers today are going with Zack Short at shortstop and whoever at second base: Jonathan Schoop, Isaac Paredes, Harold Castro, etc.
Short is a godsend on defense but strikes out too much to carry much of a supporting batting average. The Tigers will be open to upgrades there, which might or might not develop ahead of Opening Day 2022.
There is reason to think either Ryan Kreidler at Erie, or Gage Workman at West Michigan, could become the two-day boost Hinch wants and needs at short. Kreidler strikes out too much and isn’t hitting for a big average at Erie. But he’s only two years out of UCLA, and has power on top of that primary necessity: an excellent glove and arm.
The Tigers are keeping a close eye on Kreidler, as they are on the switch-hitting Workman, who was drafted last year out of Arizona State, where he was Torkelson’s running mate. The catch: Workman played third at ASU and now plays short for the Tigers after Torkelson was moved to third. Workman has handled his new left-side station well. He has the offensive potential to bring the Tigers a homegrown answer at short should Kreidler, or Short, fail to be the first option there.
Also on the list: Adison Reyes, 19, who of course comes with the usual asterisked summary attached to infield prospects: “Has a chance if he can hit.”
Second base? Is it Paredes? Could it be Kody Clemens, who was to offer solace at second when he was drafted out of the University of Texas to begin the 2018 draft’s third round? Clemens is trying to make his bat something the Tigers can trust, as is Paredes.
Up-the-middle infield talent — two-way talent that highlights all of the best playoff contenders — still is the biggest question mark.
Corner infield options are at least rising, headed by Torkelson, and probably Colt Keith at Lakeland, assuming his glove gains polish as a 19-year-old matures.
Note that a long-standing Tigers personnel need, at first base, hasn’t been filled with anything that might be regarded as vintage talent. And nothing necessarily looms in any of the 2021 farm lineups.
Part of the answer there, for sure, is that Miguel Cabrera has been a fixture in Detroit for 14 years and still has a couple of seasons remaining, mostly at designated hitter.
But where has been the big, muscular, left-handed slugging, left-handed throwing first baseman who typically is hatched and nurtured in a MLB team’s farm constellation?
The Tigers have tried drafting various people there: Jeff Larish, Aaron Westlake, Rey Rivera (ostensibly an outfielder). Nothing has happened. And nothing quite yet is emerging in the Tigers’ minors.
Catching up on catchers
What not long ago was something of a wasteland in the Tigers’ supply chain is these days more verdant.
Rogers is working alongside Eric Haase and showing the brand of prowess the Tigers liked when they included him in the Justin Verlander trade package with the Astros in 2017.
Dingler is considered to have the best potential collection of offense and defense and, again, could be moved into the Tigers’ big-league picture at some stage in 2022.
Grayson Greiner, a good back-up, is also in the mix.
Apart from them — it’s hard to say. Cooper Johnson at West Michigan is a decent bet to become at least a support option. Otherwise, Sam McMillan, a pet Tigers project when they pried him away from his Florida State scholarship in 2017, has all but shown he should have opted for the Seminoles. Eliezer Alfonzo, 21, a switch-hitter, has a chance, but needs to prove at more advanced levels that he’s an answer.
The Tigers opted for two more college catchers last week and will hope some new inventory will boost Detroit’s long-term options there.
It is, for sure, a better farm the Tigers are these days cultivating. It will get better and richer by way of last week’s draft, and by the usual handful of surprises that today aren’t as visible as they could be a year from now.
The Tigers aren’t terribly different from most MLB clubs, of course. Everyone is fighting the same fight in which baseball, more than any sport, finds itself continually extricated.
Finding big-league talent is tough. Finding good big-league talent is all the harder. The Tigers have more of it on display than in past years, and even decades, but the safari in search of big game, and big-gamers, continues — with urgency.
Lynn Henning is a retired Detroit News sportswriter and a freelance writer.