Justice Bigbie was about ready Friday to check into Canal Park, in downtown Akron, Ohio, where his Erie team was set to play one of those lovely rain-mandated doubleheaders against the Double-A RubberDucks.
Yes, he said, this is the time of year baseball wise men had warned about: Getting tired. Dealing with a 140-game schedule and summer heat. Feeling, sometimes, as if a hitter is swinging a sledgehammer rather than a 31.5-ounce bat.
“Coming from college, where you only play 60 games, then to professional ball and 140, you’ve really got to keep pushing forward,” said Bigbie, an outfielder and right-handed hitter who has been the most dramatic story of 2023 on the Tigers farm.
“During the offseason, I worked with Michael Cuddyer (longtime Twins outfielder and Tigers nemesis, who lives in Bigbie’s hometown of Chesapeake, Virginia) and I picked his brain on how he navigated the in-season swings, and he was a big help for me — how to get the most out of your body, to recognize that you’re never going to be 100% every day, that you’ll get a little fatigued.”
You wouldn’t know, at least by his numbers, that the 2023 minor-league grind has fazed him anymore than did his June jump from Single-A West Michigan to the Double-A SeaWolves.
Dig into these digits:
Bigbie was batting .333 in 37 games at West Michigan, with a .400 on-base average and .544 slugging percentage, all responsible for a .944 OPS. In 49 games since moving to Erie, he is .362/.418/.568/.985. On the season, he has 15 home runs.
Take the comparisons further. They’re a little freaky.
Against left-handed pitching, where you might figure Bigbie to have an edge, he is batting .319/.391/.468/.859. Against supposedly tougher righties he is .362/.418/.594/1.012.
His metrics are meaty: wOBA of 436; ISO, .205; wRC+, 168.
Also (drum-roll from the Tigers front office), he has a slender strikeout rate of 13.5%.
“That’s something that was kind of ingrained into our heads in spring training with Scott Harris coming in,” said Bigbie, referring to the Tigers’ first-year front-office general. “They really made that a big point, controlling the strike-zone.
“And I think that’s something I really take pride in. Strikeouts are going to happen — sometimes they happen a lot during a week’s span and then they don’t for a few games.
“But the more you can control the strike-zone in good counts, the more you’re able to get really selective in areas you want.”
Bigbie has been both selective and slightly sensational in 2023. He is known as a legit line-drive hitter with extraordinary skill at hitting to the opposite field and to gaps. He doesn’t miss a lot when he does swing, and when he does swing, he tends to sting the ball.
And how, exactly, did this happen for a 24-year-old man who was a distant 19th-round Tigers draft pick in 2021?
Bigbie’s glad you asked. Because it’s a unique story. And, more fundamentally, a tale of how hitters can develop at vastly different points on a timeline.
Begin with his prep days at Grassfield High in Chesapeake. He was quite the quarterback, closing in on the 6-foot-2, and 210-215 pounds — his Friday estimate — that he today weighs. He was also a catcher, then shortstop, first baseman, and third baseman, even as he wasn’t so sure whether baseball or football would be his college choice.
Baseball won as he agreed to a walk-on shot at Western Carolina — and quickly to a scholarship ahead of an enormous sophomore season (2019 Southern Conference Player). Next came this world event known as COVID that proceeded to make a mess of everything in 2020, including Bigbie’s junior year at West Carolina (16 games) and plans for MLB draft eligibility (only five rounds in 2020).
He got busy in 2021 with his senior season and with big numbers that invited the Tigers to jump at Round 19.
“The scout I had talked with in 2020, I had stayed in contact with him,” Bigbie said, speaking of Tigers area scout Matt Zmuda. “The Tigers I had probably talked with the most. If I was going to go (be drafted in 2021), I figured the Tigers might be the team.”
Bigbie says there was nothing particular, no swing change, no mechanical realignment, that made his bat catch fire about as quickly as he was shipped late last summer to West Michigan for a nine-game cameo in which he hit .387/.441/.613/1.004.
He had been doing just-OK in his previous 91 games at Lakeland (.258, .696 OPS) but had begun swinging better as summer wore on. He simply had grown. The Tigers sensed it might be the start of something.
It was, as became clearer when Bigbie showed up for a spring, 2023, reunion at West Michigan that turned into an eventual trip to Erie and to a place now within reach of Detroit.
Notice, again, the numbers and Bigbie’s consistency, even after moving to Double A:
June: .353 batting average and .939 OPS. July: .373 and 1.039. August: .364 and .963.
A couple of tasks head the to-do list — one tied to offense, the other, defense.
“Hitting-wise I go to the opposite field really well, so I’m really working on improving my pull-side,” Bigbie said. “In high-A and Double A they can kind of attack that, so I’m trying to improve on that part of game — pull the ball with some lift, some power.
“It’s getting better, but I’m not nearly where I want to be.”
Defense probably is the bigger challenge.
Bigbie is, well, big, and more of a natural at the position he mostly played in 2022: first base.
Ah, one problem there as the Tigers look at future rosters — a guy named Torkelson.
This prompted a visit during spring camp by Arnie Beyeler, the Tigers’ development coach who specializes in grooming outfielders.
“We’re going to start working you in the outfield,” Beyeler said. “We see you fitting in at West Michigan as an outfielder.”
Bigbie wasn’t an alien there. He had worked 14 games in left for Lakeland in 2022.
That’s where he began most of his defensive shifts for the Whitecaps in 2023. Since shifting to Erie, he has been splitting time almost equally in left and in right field.
It has been an adjustment, for sure. Hardly seamless. Not always on a level that would be considered even average.
But bear in mind: A gent named Kerry Carpenter had a similar rap during previous seasons at Erie and Toledo and he has since become way more than adequate in right field in Detroit, which has made his bat that much more of a plus.
The outfield grooming continues for Bigbie, mostly under the tutorship of Matt Malot, Erie’s bench coach.
“I really want to improve that (defense) a ton,” Bigbie said. “That’s something I pride myself in trying to improve, and it’s definitely a lot of work.
“I think I can get a lot better in the outfield, especially now that I’m playing there this season — a lot. It’s just different situations, where are you gonna play? The different routes you take.
“And I think my arm strength is also something I can continue to improve upon — a lot, each and every day. During the offseason, too. I think my arm has improved this season. My agility, too, is a little better, and speed.”
How he fits into Tigers lineups as early as next year is one fine question.
It helps that he is right-handed when the bulk of Tigers outfielders bat from the left side (Carpenter, Riley Greene, Akil Baddoo, with Parker Meadows expected soon to arrive).
It does not help that another hitter, Justyn-Henry Malloy at Triple-A Toledo, tends to be a better choice in left field than at the other position he purportedly can play, third base.
One advantage, clearly, comes next year when the Tigers have an opening at designated hitter now occupied on most days by Miguel Cabrera.
Bigbie has one response (not surprising) to all of this conjecture about when he might get to Toledo, or to Detroit.
He says he will wait. He will try each day to get better. He will work this offseason, in step with the Tigers strength team, to build even more muscle he says has been key to this season’s breakout.
He will lean on Cuddyer, too, for an old All-Star outfielder’s counsel as he gets ready for what could be — as much as farm forecasts can apply — a possible Toledo-to-Detroit summons in 2024.
“I think the biggest thing or me is to stick to my process,” Bigbie said. “To not get too high, not get too low. The more you can put your head down and not get too out of the ordinary, well, that’s a big thing for me.”
Lynn Henning is a freelance writer and retired Detroit News sports reporter.