No one sells him short. No one makes assumptions. All because Dane Myers is the Tigers farm-hand story that with time gets better and better.
Part one: Myers is a pitcher at Rice University, good enough in 2017 to win a sixth-round draft stab by the Tigers.
Part two: The pitching dream, by 2019, isn’t working out. But an athlete who always has been a hitter, and a fielder, is coaxed into making that not-so-nimble conversion to position player where he can wield his impressive right-handed bat.
Part three: Myers is having a lovely 2022 season at Double-A Erie. He has 19 home runs, is batting .275 in 82 games, with an .826 OPS. Adding luster to his numbers, a man 6-foot-2, 205 pounds, can work — deftly — at various positions.
“I think he’s put himself in a great position,” said Erie manager Gabe Alvarez, speaking Sunday after Myers had played first base and homered in Saturday night’s game against Akron. “He’s an elite defender at multiple positions.
“He’s a very, very good outfielder. He can play Gold Glove defense at first base. And he’s a very, very good third baseman. Just on that side of the ball he makes himself very valuable. Then, you add in the power at the plate.”
Alvarez says the distinction in Myers’ offense is simply explained:
“He is a line-drive hitter. And some of those line drives he’s able to drive and hit out of the yard. He is not a fly-ball hitter.
“He’s a hitter first. And a hitter, first, with power.”
Now, for some issues.
Myers will be 27 next March. This is an age when players who typically can be counted on to help a big-league roster already are rolling.
But note that another past Tigers player who was remarkably versatile, and who hit an occasional pitch into the seats, arrived in Detroit at age 29: Don Kelly, who went on to play six seasons with the Tigers and two more with the Marlins.
No one is counting out Myers, and not only because Kelly is but one example of how a man who might not be a regular can blossom later and offer immense help to a big-league club.
“The versatility is very intriguing,” Ryan Garko, who directs Tigers player-development, said of Myers. “He’s a little bit older, and the clock’s ticking, but he’s put himself in position next year at Toledo. And once you show you can perform there (Triple A), there’s only one team above that.”
Age is not the only concern for a player who, in May, had a 14-game fill-in stint at Triple-A Toledo.
Myers has struck out 85 times in 82 games for the SeaWolves, with only 14 walks.
“That’s something he’s going to need to work on,” Alvarez acknowledged. “Coming from mainly being a pitcher to mainly hitting again — even though he had hit in the past — there still haven’t been a whole lot of professional at-bats.”
“There’s a little swing and miss,” said Garko, who knows the value of 25th and 26th men, and who understands a manager in Detroit, AJ Hinch, loves players who are dependably flexible.
“But he has power. And when you have power, you can live with a little swing-and-miss.”
A couple of catchers?
Arizona Fall League is where a team’s top talents tend to gather each October for a month-plus of games that help them dress-rehearse for eventual big-league work.
Typically, it’s position players who are given preferred status when big-league teams decide who is ready for AFL exposure. And that’s true largely because so many pitchers will already have hit their innings-limits during the previous summer.
The Tigers are thinking, loosely, about who might be sent to the desert for some fall-season buffing and polishing.
Colt Keith is one obvious choice. Keith’s separated shoulder has cost him the past 10 weeks at West Michigan, but if he has healed sufficiently, a splendid left-handed hitter who last week turned 21 figures could salvage 2022 with a hefty AFL stint.
The Tigers won’t know until next month how many players the AFL will request or how many roster spots will be available.
It definitely adds up that Garko and his staff will consider at least one catcher, and maybe two, as rosters are filled.
Dillon Dingler has been playing top-shelf defense at Erie and has shown power (12 home runs). But he is batting .239 and has a 37% strikeout rate that must decrease. Arizona might or might not be the place for Dingler to make some necessary gains, depending how his bosses assess a long year at Double A.
Josh Crouch is perhaps a more natural choice. Crouch has had one of the Tigers’ farm’s breakout years at West Michigan and might benefit from an encore-appearance at AFL.
The Tigers will weigh his fatigue level, where his body is after a summer of wear-and-tear with the Whitecaps, and how a month amid the cacti might burnish his big 2022.
Crouch, 23, was an 11th-round Tigers pick in 2021 from the University of Central Florida. He is 6-foot-205 pounds, bats right-handed. Crouch is hitting .301, with nine home runs, a .379 on-base average, and .846 OPS.
Madden mastery
The Tigers during a bedeviling 2022 have shown at least one area of relative continuity:
Their starting pitching has stayed afloat even as one rotation piece after another has been lost, and for long stretches.
It has shown that depth is indispensable. It also has made clear that pitchers working with skill at Double A can soon be in Detroit.
Ty Madden is on track. He started Thursday night against Akron and lasted six innings, allowing a pair of singles. He walked one and struck out six. He has made three starts for the SeaWolves, has a 2.81 ERA and 1.25 WHIP, and has whiffed 20 in 16 innings.
“Just love the way he goes about his business — how intense he is,” Alvarez said, tossing a bouquet at the Tigers’ second-overall pick in 2021 after Madden had been the University of Texas’ starting ace.
“He was in control of that game (Friday). He knew it was his game. He shut down a very good lineup for six innings. I just love his competitiveness — the way he attacks his game. The way he prepares for the game.”
Madden’s repertoire is generally known, but Alvarez upgraded it Sunday to an “overpowering arsenal.” He had thoughts on how Madden’s first full season of professional baseball has gotten steadily stronger.
“He can move the fastball around, mid-90s and a little higher, and he touched a couple of 97s (Friday),” Alvarez said. “He’s got a very good slider he can throw for an early strike, or throw to finish off a hitter. And the change-up is really coming along.
“You’re going to be seeing him in Detroit for quite a while.”
Flores with a flourish
It’s the brand of subject Alvarez loves to chew on, his starting pitchers, all because the troika of Madden, Reese Olson, and Wilmer Flores has been so formidable in what has been a season of remarkably good baseball at Erie (68-45 record entering Sunday).
It was Flores’ turn Saturday against Akron: six innings, five hits, one earned run, one walk, seven strikeouts. His season ERA for the SeaWolves: 2.19. He is averaging 11.3 strikeouts per nine innings.
“He had it going yesterday,” Alvarez said of Flores’ Saturday show. “He was able to throw multiple pitches for strikes, putting guys away with both his slider and with his curve ball.
“The change has always been his fourth-best pitch. But he’s throwing it more and more. It seems like every game he’s showing a few more.”
Lynn Henning is a freelance writer and retired Detroit News sports reporter.