Small samples can be larger samples, in context, which is why it was worth noting Dillon Dingler had a better last week of April.
He had a home run. He had a double. Four hits, total, in five games, to go with a pair of walks. He had an .852 OPS spanning five games.
And a warmer May was about to arrive for hitters across baseball’s northern tier.
It needs to have been a prelude to better days for a Tigers farm catcher who two years ago was Detroit’s second pick (38th overall) in the 2020 MLB Draft.
As pivotal draft choices go, Dingler’s huge — particularly given his position.
“He’s gonna be just fine,” said Gabe Alvarez, the one-time Tigers player who stepped in as SeaWolves manager in 2022. “It’s early season. He’s been playing in some really cold weather, and his timing’s not quite there.
“But he works his butt off every day. He’s going to hit. And he’s going to be a star. And his defense is outstanding.”
That would be reassuring news to the Tigers.
They could use help at various posts, beginning with catcher.
Tucker Barnhart is there for now, teaming with Eric Haase, whose defensive skills explain why he often is viewed as a greater asset in left field.
Jake Rogers is healing from Tommy John surgery and today ranks as precious insurance heading into 2023, given that Barnhart this autumn becomes a free agent.
Rogers might be the team’s better option looking ahead, even if Dingler’s bat comes around in 2022.
But the Tigers would prefer to have two everyday options incubating this season, especially when so much capital ($1.95 million signing bonus) and organizational strategy was invested two years ago in Dingler, who was coming off his junior season at Ohio State.
Life on the Tigers farm began smoothly. A year ago, Dingler was having a bang-up first 32 games at Single-A West Michigan (.287, eight homers, .925 OPS). The hot bat earned him a ticket to Double-A Erie.
Then the fire semi-died, with tougher at-bats (.205 batting average, .603 OPS) ahead of a broken finger the first week of August.
He made it back for the regular season’s final three weeks, finishing his 2021 Double-A hitch with 50-game totals of .202 average, .578 OPS, three doubles, three triples, and four homers. He struck out 62 times and had only nine walks.
This season: He has 26 whiffs and four walks in 78 plate appearances.
There’s work to do.
Always a hitter (well, ultimately)
Dane Myers had a future with the Tigers. As a pitcher. No question about it.
The Tigers liked his right arm so much that junior season at Rice University, they made him their sixth-round pick in the 2017 draft.
Then they discovered something. Myers wasn’t going to be part of their pitching future. Batting practice and workouts, not to mention a 6.54 ERA in 15 games at Single-A Lakeland in 2019, suggested he was a better bet on offense.
He made the switch three years ago, trading in his exclusive pitcher’s portfolio for new life as a right-handed hitting swing-man who could play corner infield positions or give you an option in left field.
“I don’t know why they made him a pitcher — he’s a hitter,” said Ryan Garko, the Tigers’ vice president of development.
In fact, the Tigers — and all scouts, for that matter — knew Myers could hit. He split time pitching and playing third base for the Owls. But it was his fastball at 96 and his size (6-foot-2, 200 pounds) that at first had teams thinking of him as a rotation piece.
Myers has been working this spring at Double-A Erie. And he’s been solid: 19 games, .304 batting average, four home runs, four doubles, .870 OPS.
He has played 13 games at first base, three at third, and three in left field for Alvarez’s SeaWolves.
“You never know when it’s going to happen,” Garko said. “He’s really controlled the strike zone, which is why we talk all the time about zone-control. He has a really good feel for the barrel. You can see how he understands how to work an at-bat and attack with the bat.”
Myers isn’t overly picky. Heading into Sunday’s game he had only two walks in 78 plate-appearances, with 19 strikeouts. But the quality of his at-bats — and swings — has the Tigers intrigued, especially when a man who turned 26 in March can survive at multiple spots.
“I’ll tell you what,” Alvarez said, “the ball absolutely explodes off his bat. It has a different sound. I think he has a chance to be a pretty good hitter, actually an elite hitter, just because of the velocity the ball comes off his bat.
“He’s able to go line-to-line. He doesn’t just have power to the pull-side. He has power the other way, as well.
“And I think that’s the reason he has a chance to play in the big leagues. He most definitely can play all the corner spots, and if you put him in at second base, he’s doing to get it done there, as well.”
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Yeah, yeah — Yaya can pitch
His given name is Yasin Chentouf, which might explain how Yaya Chentouf came to be the name to which a 24-year-old pitcher answers and is listed on scorecards.
He was throwing for the University of Pittsburgh when the Tigers decided four years ago that a right-hander with Chentouf’s menu was worth taking as a 36th-round flyer, even if he measured 5-foot-9.
Now, it all makes sense — how size was ignored when it was his arm the Tigers liked.
Chentouf has pitched in six games for Double-A Erie, worth 8.2 innings entering Sunday, and has struck out 16 batters while walking one. He has allowed seven hits. His ERA is 2.08, his WHIP is 0.92.
“He has big-league stuff,” said Alvarez, speaking of an Orlando, Florida, native who is a product of the same high school (Dr. Phillips) that gave various MLB teams, as well as the Tigers, one Johnny Damon.
“He’s got an overpowering fastball and a wipeout slider — and an elite change-up, as well. Three well-above-average pitches. He’s shorter in statute and kind of throws from a different arm-slot that hitters aren’t used to seeing. So the ball just jumps out of his hand.
“He has a very quick arm, and the ball just gets in on the hitter. Hitters don’t look comfortable in there.”
His work in April isn’t dramatically different from his showings in earlier Tigers farm seasons, although the strikeout rate (16.6 per nine innings) has nearly doubled. Chentouf’s four-season numbers: 112 games, 3.12 ERA, 1.23 WHIP.
Lynn Henning is a freelance writer and former Detroit News sports reporter.