Riley Greene sounded like he was reciting the plot of a movie.
“I’ve had a smile on my face all morning,” Greene said. “We were just, like, reunited. It was like we went our separate ways and finally found our way back to each other. It sounds weird, but now we’re back.”
Kerry Carpenter, who has Spencer Torkelson’s old locker in the Detroit Tigers clubhouse, nailed the genre.
“Sounds romantic,” he said.
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Torkelson, Greene and Ryan Kreidler — the current position player trickle of top Tigers prospects, coming after 2020-21’s pitching wave of Casey Mize, Tarik Skubal and Matt Manning — shared a clubhouse Thursday for the first time since spring training. Other young players were in the room: Manning, Carpenter, Beau Brieske, Kody Clemens and Akil Baddoo. Mize and Skubal were knocked out by season-ending elbow surgeries.
For the Tigers to win soon, they’ll need several of those players to produce. The name that stands out is Torkelson, the No. 1 overall pick in 2020. He hasn’t produced to expectations yet, not in Triple-A Toledo or the big leagues, and could benefit from adjustments to his swing mechanics. Regardless of his swing, he needs to be athletic at the plate and start hitting for a blend of contact and power. Torkelson, the Opening Day 2022 first baseman, had five home runs and a .577 OPS and struggled against fastballs in 83 games. The organization sent him down at the All-Star break.
Torkelson, a 23-year-old rookie, returned Thursday and settled into a new locker directly across the room.
“It wasn’t easy,” Torkelson said. “It was a tough road. It had to get worse before it got better. We would try some things. We’d be like, ‘Hey, did that work?’ Tried for a couple days, and it looked terrible. ‘All right, move on to the next thing.’ I kept grinding every single day until my old keys started to click and I started to feel like myself again, which was really relieving because it was a while since I felt like that.”
Torkelson believes in his swing. It’s the swing that got him to this point, both good and bad. He compared the potential reasons for his struggles to “a deep, dark rabbit hole” and said he spent countless hours in the batting cage and long nights watching film on his iPad. He feels like his swing is starting to click again.
“I would go home from the field,” Torkelson said, “and I’m like, ‘I didn’t think about where my hands were today.’ That’s a win.”
He did a lot of thinking, maybe too much for his own good, while the Tigers thought about September call-ups. The organization, working without a general manager, decided to give Torkelson a chance to finish what he started, rather than leaving him in Toledo for the rest of the season. After all, the next step in his development — proving he can stick around in the big leagues — can only happen at baseball’s highest level.
Torkelson hasn’t overhauled his swing. He has been distributing his weight better and moving his hands to attack pitches, both of which are new adjustments. But everything else looks pretty standard. Torkelson credited “a solid foundation that I’ve always had” for helping him find solutions.
“That’s what I’ve always really prided myself on with hitting is my hands,” Torkelson said. “That’s what gave me confidence at the plate. It’s like, ‘Nothing he can throw can get past my hands.’ To have that confidence at the plate again is nice.”
His distance to the plate wasn’t a primary focus.
“I think that comes with an approach,” said Torkelson, who has stood closer to the plate recently. “Knowing that I can get to that inside pitch, not having to create space, I can just trust my hands and know that when I’m looking out and he throws in, I can react.”
In Triple-A, Torkelson hit .229 with five home runs, 23 walks and 41 strikeouts in 35 games. He posted a .738 OPS. During August, he hit .253 with four homers and logged a .820 OPS. Focusing on his strengths helped him regain some confidence.
“We want to see if these adjustments that he’s done can continue in the big leagues,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “We know he’s not a finished product yet, but the work he’s put in has been substantial. The gains he’s gotten have been OK since. But we still hope there’s some more left in there for him to continue to develop.”
He worked directly with Toledo hitting coach Adam Melhuse, who served as the Double-A hitting coach in 2021. Melhuse joined the Tigers on Thursday, as well, in an off-field role in the batting cages to continue his work with Torkelson and other players.
“As bad as I didn’t want to go down, I think in the long run, it was a good move,” Torkelson said. “I’m going to be better because of it and I learned a lot. Adversity makes us all better. Just keep building off that.”
Now, Torkelson is tasked with succeeding with the Tigers.
It’s key to the franchise’s future.