So much spotlight this spring has been on other Tigers youngsters: Ryan Kreidler, Wilmer Flores, Colt Keith, Jackson Jobe.
Then there’s Kerry Carpenter at Double-A Erie.
He was only tied Saturday for the Eastern League lead in home runs, with 11. He was merely batting .322 with a 1.017 OPS.
He swings left-handed and is playing left field three seasons after the Tigers took him with a 19th-round turn in the 2019 MLB Draft as Carpenter was wrapping up a junior year at Virginia Tech.
Lest anyone think Carpenter is one of those roster-filling diamond rats who will chase and chase and chase the big-league dream, with a snowball’s chance of reaching the majors, his manager at Erie has a different take.
“I think he’s a big-league hitter,” Gabe Alvarez said Saturday, a day after Carpenter had socked a pair of home runs in a whipping of New Hampshire. “The numbers are real.”
Carpenter is 24 and is not new to Erie. He played there last year, ripping 24 doubles and 15 homers.
That was before he decided on some swing alterations.
Carpenter decided he needed more launch angle — more ability for a man 6-foot-2 and 220 pounds to get some altitude and backspin on those pitches he was squaring-up.
“It’s helped him get a little more loft on the ball,” Alvarez said, a couple of hours before Carpenter went 1-for-3 (single) in that afternoon’s game against New Hampshire. “He has a little more torque in his swing and in his legs. He’s really, really driving the ball well to all fields.
“Any time you go through a swing change, you can work on it during the offseason, but you can’t really work on it until you’re playing games. Right now, he’s got it dialed-in. In the last couple of weeks he hasn’t missed many pitches.”
Left field is comfortable for all parties, as well.
“He knows where to be on the field, he knows good routes and where to go with the ball,” Alvarez said. “He’s big, with average speed, but because of his instincts on the bases, he’s a good runner.
“And he has a very professional manner. I think players at this level are still trying to find routines and perfect them. He’s kind of already there, already past that. He knows exactly what to do to get his body and swing ready.”
Reese’s (pitching) pieces
There he was again Friday night, knifing through New Hampshire’s batters, striking out 11 in 4.2 innings as the 2022 Reese Olson story continues.
Olson is 22, a right-hander pitching at Erie, and owner of the following 2022 numbers: Eight games (seven starts), 3.60 ERA, 0.93 WHIP, spanning 35 innings, 26 hits, seven walks, and — as a crescendo — 54 strikeouts.
He happens also to have been the pitcher the Tigers got in last July’s trade that sent to the Brewers lefty Daniel Norris, who now works for the Cubs.
The difference with Olson in 2022 — the story to his strikeouts — has been a fastball that can climb to the upper 90s.
“His fastball is not just a tick up — it’s four or five ticks,” said Alvarez, who saw Olson a handful of times last season when Alvarez was a roving hitting tutor for the Tigers. “I just think he’s gotten stronger — and more efficient with his mechanics.
“The ball has just been exploding.”
Olson was a 13th-round pick by the Brewers in 2018. He is 6-foot-1, 160 pounds. He missed by one-third of an inning from getting the victory Friday, all because his pitch-count had maxed out at 78.
“With an arm like that you don’t want to mess around,” Alvarez said. “He has a bright, bright future.”
Welcome back
Three years ago, before COVID hit, Keider Montero was one of the Tigers’ youngest — 18 turning 19 — and sharpest pitching projects.
Then, last season, there were forearm issues and Montero faded.
He is back. Fully.
In his last two starts for West Michigan, Montero, who throws right-handed, has been blossoming: 10 innings, combined, four hits, no runs, one walk, eight strikeouts.
He has a high-horsepower combo of pitches (fastball as high as 99) that neither COVID’s wrath in 2020 nor last year’s arm ills likely will have marred.
Pay regular attention to Montero in 2022.
Also on the road back: Marco Jimenez, 22, a right-hander and starter who was in a fast lane before Tommy John surgery felled him early in 2021 and who is about to resume bullpen sessions. Also: Cleiverth Perez, a lefty starter, also 22 and also a year removed from Tommy John who is considered one of the better pitching talents in the lower Tigers system.
Hot stuff
► Kody Clemens, 3B/2B/OF, Triple-A Toledo: Clemens was 3-for-4 Saturday, including a triple, which leaves him at .338 for May and .311 on the season, with eight homers and a .929 OPS. He has four doubles, five triples, and four homers in May, good for a .721 slugging percentage and 1.086 OPS.
► Wilmer Flores, 6-4, 225, RH starter: He made his entry into Double A ball on Wednesday — and promptly did the same thing he had been doing at West Michigan. Flores, the hottest and strongest young pitcher in the Tigers farm galaxy, threw five innings, gave up a lone hit, walked one, and struck out seven. No surprises if he sees Toledo, even this summer, at age 21.
► Dario Gardea, RH reliever, Toledo: Here is one of those Mud Hens names to keep in mind, all because Gardea is one of several bullpen arms the Tigers are pondering calling up as their ongoing needs arise. Gardea is 23, checks in at 6-2, 210, was signed by the Tigers out of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and in 13 games between West Michigan and Toledo has these numbers: 19.1 innings, 17 hits, two walks — and 29 strikeouts.
► Ricardo Pinto, RH reliever, Toledo: Pinto was signed as a minor-league free agent and in 10 games has been sterling: 1.77 ERA, 1.13 WHIP, 20.1 innings, 16 hits, seven walks, 25 punch-outs.
► Derek Law, RH reliever, 31, formerly in Giants system, now at Toledo: He’s another of the past year’s minor-league, free-agent grabs and there are no regrets; 11 games, six saves, 14.1 innings, 11 hits, four (unintentional) walks, 17 strikeouts, 1.12 WHIP. Law, a ninth-round pick by the Giants in 2011, has a career farm WHIP of 1.15.
► Manuel Sequera, 19, shortstop, Single-A Lakeland: 14-for-31 in his last five entering Sunday, and .323 in May, with a .935 OPS and four homers on the season. He’s 6-1, 170, bats right-handed, was signed out of Barqusimeto, Venezuela, and was last year’s Most Valuable Player in the Florida Complex League. He is en route to being a top 10, or even top five, Tigers prospect by the end of 2022.
Lynn Henning is a freelance writer and retired Detroit News sports reporter.