Clearwater, Fla. — You listen to Spencer Torkelson talk about hitting and you’d swear he has thousands of at-bats in the big leagues already. Houston Astros All-Star Alex Bregman thought the same thing after having Torkelson on his podcast last year, and that was before Torkelson even played a full season of professional baseball.
“I wish I knew what you know right now when I got into pro ball,” Bregman told him. “That’s awesome.”
The podcast first aired in February 2021 as Torkelson was beginning his first big-league camp and the conversation was enlightening. Bregman asked him about his set-up at the plate.
“When I was 14, I experimented with a leg kick but that ship sailed fast,” Torkelson said. “I stuck with short and simple. I’m open like four inches and I just close it off as my load. If my lower half is in the right place, it makes it so much easier up top to move in the right direction.”
To us laymen, that might sound like mumbo-jumbo, but Bregman nodded appreciatively.
“You’re strong enough, you don’t need anything,” he said. “You just need to put yourself in a good position to barrel it in the air consistently.”
“I like to think that, too, that I’m strong enough to trust my hands and my strength to where I don’t need a big, ole leg kick and muscle up a ball,” Torkelson said. “When I muscle up on something I can feel myself late. Less is more for me. For me and for a lot of people, when you muscle up on something, you are beat.”
The conversation turned to a topic all hitters talk about — handling the high-spin, elevated fastball.
Torkelson: “My freshman and sophomore years (at Arizona State) guys started spinning it and it seemed like the ball was rising. You’d swing through it, it was right down the middle and I was like, ‘What the hell is that?’ I literally struck out on three straight fastballs from a guy who was really spinning it and I swung right through them all.
“I was like, I never swung through 94 (mph) like that in my life. I need to get my eyes checked.’ That’s what I thought.”
His hitting coach set him straight.
“He said just go up and try to hit the top of the baseball,” Torkelson said. “Next at-bat, boom.”
Bregman laughed and told his story. About how in his first couple of seasons in pro ball he saw nothing but sinkers.
“I was grounding out to shortstop every single at-bat,” he said.
Once he adjusted to that, though, the game changed.
“So I get up to the big leagues in 2017 and that’s the year everybody started throwing four-seamers up in the zone and I was swinging under everything,” he said. “I needed to learn how to get above the four-seam.”
Of course, watching Torkelson hit is more fun than hearing him talking about it.
He’s shown, just in the first handful of spring games, the ability to cover pitches on the outer half and drive them with force to the opposite field — like his blistering blast that one-hopped the right-field wall Sunday in Tampa.
Or, like the two-seamer from Phillies right-hander Jeurys Familia that Torkelson stayed back on here Tuesday and drove — with an exit velocity of 105 mph — again off the right-field wall.
He’s also shown the ability to turn on inside pitches and pull them — like the double he hit down the left field line in Lakeland in the spring opener.
“Hitting that inside pitch is just a reaction,” Torkelson said in the Tigers’ clubhouse on Monday. “If you think too much about that inside pitch, (pitchers) will throw that good slider and you will swing right over top of it. Especially when the guy is throwing 98 mph, you have to cheat to get to the inside half.
“So, hitting that pitch is just a reaction. You are looking middle away and you are looking hard (fastballs). When it’s inside, just pull the hands in and let it rip.”
Torkelson was in an 0-2 hole against Yankees hard-throwing right-hander Luis Severino when he ripped the long opposite-field single Sunday.
“It played right into my approach,” Torkelson said. “If he would have thrown that pitch inside, I’m trying to just battle it off. If I get the barrel to it, great, but you’re kind of giving up the inner quarter with two strikes just so you can stay on the off-speed.”
Pretty advanced stuff.
“He ought to be,” manager AJ Hinch said, somewhat tongue-in-cheek. “I mean, he’s 1-1 (first overall draft pick) and he hit 30 homers last year.”
Not to get ahead of ourselves, for sure. Torkelson has just 530 minor-league plate appearances under his belt as he battles to win the Tigers’ everyday first-base job this spring. There are many struggles to come and adjustments to make.
But right now, it’s hard to find a cold zone on his hitting heat map.
“I think he’s going to be a well-rounded hitter,” Hinch said. “Major League pitching is the only thing he hasn’t been tested with. With all due respect to the big-leaguers in spring, but they aren’t quite there yet. But I don’t have a fear for him anywhere in and around the strike zone.
“We bought the bat for a reason. He’s a really good-looking hitting prospect. The fact that he’s doing that with two strikes, it’s a good sign. The fact he can drive the ball out anywhere in the ballpark is a good sign. He just needs at-bats to keep growing and learning.”
Speaking of growth moments: After Torkelson went on Bregman’s podcast last year, he endured probably the worst hitting slump of his life, getting just one hit all last spring.
“It was a little bit of culture shock,” Torkelson said. “Being around such high-profile guys, facing high-profile guys, giving pitchers too much credit. It was like, ‘These guys have 10 years in the big leagues and I’m just drafted.’ Nah. They make the same mistakes. I realize that now, being confident here.
“He’s going to make a mistake and I’m going to be ready for it.”
Nothing is set in stone, as far as Torkelson being the Opening Day first baseman. But there’s been no evidence that he’s not ready, either. He has already won over one of the incumbents at first base. Miguel Cabrera made it clear on the first day of camp that he’s willing to be the full-time designated hitter to make room for Torkelson.
“That’s so special, coming from Miggy,” Torkelson said. “I really look up to him as a player. He’s a great teammate. To have someone like him saying something like that about me is really special. It makes me want to work that much harder to fulfill that.”
chris.mccosky@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @cmccosky