DETROIT — Finally.
The NCAA Tournament is winding down, and the Masters is right around the corner.
That can only mean one thing: It's time for baseball season. The Tigers open the season Thursday at Tampa Bay, then head on to Houston, before returning to Detroit for Opening Day on April 6.
It's hardly the most-anticipated Tigers season in recent memory — Opening Day tickets are still available, an unheard-of development during the team's 2006-14 heyday — but there's at least some reason to be optimistic about the future, if not the immediate future. And that main reason is Scott Harris, the team's new president of baseball operations, hired away from the San Francisco Giants last fall to replace the fired Al Avila.
Harris didn't go crazy with the checkbook this offseason, even though team CEO Christopher Ilitch promised the resources would be there when needed. And the lack of marquee moves definitely disappointed some fans, the patience running quite thin for a team that hasn't logged a winning season since 2016 and hasn't made the postseason since 2014.
But the deliberate nature of Harris was to be expected. While the Tigers have been in rebuild mode for a long time, Harris hasn't. He's new. And while he went to great lengths to avoid using the word "rebuild" in his introductory press conference, he's certainly owed the opportunity to assess what's good in the organization and what's bad in the organization, and those decisions weren't all going to be made on Day 1 or even Day 100. Think about it. You lose a whole lot of credibility if you come right into a new business and start tearing things down before you're even issued a company parking pass. He hasn't even hired his general manager yet.
So, on the roster front, you can expect 2023 to be a year of analysis — a whole heck of a lot of analysis — and next offseason to be a bit busier, on the trade and free-agent front, once he knows whom he likes and whom he doesn't, and, thus, knows what holes he has to fill and what ones he doesn't.
All that said, all those uncertainties could make for an interesting season, if not a good season.
And if you're not going to be good, being at least interesting is the next best thing.
Here's a look at some of those storylines we'll be watching.
Spencer Torkelson
This is the big one, at least from the fans' perspective. The first overall pick in the 2020 MLB Draft, Spencer Torkelson had a rough rookie season, with a .604 OPS and a lengthy demotion to Triple-A Toledo late in the year. There has been talk among some pundits (and more fans) this is a make-or-break year for the first baseman, but I don't buy that. Yes, you'd like to see progress. But it's not all-or-nothing, not yet. He's still just 23, and not every prospect is a star the moment they arrive in the major leagues. Think about Kirk Gibson, who was raw coming out of college and had to figure out the mental side of things before he finally clicked (Torkelson, interestingly, has focused largely on the mental side this offseason). Also, think about J.D. Martinez, who didn't make it until he was 26 or 27. Torkelson barreled a lot of balls this spring, and didn't have a ton to show for it. Expect things to turn in his favor in 2023.
Starting pitching
During all those years of the Avila rebuild, fans were told to be patient, the talent was coming, particularly pitching. Now, well, we're not so sure. This year's rotation will start out with lefties Eduardo Rodriguez, Matthew Boyd and Joey Wentz, and right-handers Spencer Turnbull and Matt Manning. Those five guys combined to pitch exactly 200 innings in the majors last season, equal to the expected workload of one starter. Turnbull is the most intriguing, given he's coming back from Tommy John surgery, after throwing a no-hitter in 2021. Rodriguez and Boyd bounce-backs could give the Tigers some midseason trade chips. Wentz has the stuff, but can he find the command? And is the clock ticking on Manning? Don't be surprised if we see a six-man rotation at some point this spring, and don't be surprised if the rotation looks a lot different in July than April, with Alex Faedo and Tarik Skubal lurking.
Javier Báez
Avila declared the rebuild over last offseason, and went shopping, signing Rodriguez to a five-year, $77 million contract, and shortstop Javier Báez to a six-year, $140 million deal. Both were essentially busts, with Rodriguez leaving the team for several weeks to tend to a serious family issue, and Báez posting a putrid .671 OPS and, more surprisingly, subpar defense. That leads us to be a bit of a conundrum. When Harris took over as team president, his main thesis about building a winning team revolved around owning the strike zone — both pitching and at the plate. And Báez, 30, frankly, doesn't fit the mold. He chases often. He walks rarely. So, it's in the Tigers' best interests that he has a big resurgence in 2023, not just so he can help the team win ballgames, but so that he might be enticed to opt out of his contract, allowing the Tigers to go a different direction. A bad year, and he's here to stay.
The kid cats
If there's a silver lining to a rebuilding team — sorry, a transitioning team — it's that we're likely to get a look at some of the more intriguing prospects, and sooner rather than later. We can start here with outfielder Parker Meadows, 23, a second-round pick in 2018 who never was going to make the team out of spring training, though not for a lack of effort. He has big-time power and electric speed, and it might not be more than a couple months before we see a dynamic defensive outfield of Meadows in center field and Riley Greene in left field (the question will be whether Parker's older brother, Austin, sticks long-term in right field, another development to keep an eye on). Parker will start the season at Toledo, and almost certainly end it in Detroit. Another guy to watch: Third baseman Colt Keith, 21, a fifth-round pick in 2020. He put himself squarely on the map in his spring-camp cameo.
Miguel Cabrera
The Tigers are likely to be bad again. Vegas has them winning in the 60s or low 70s. They're picked to finish fourth in the American League Central. Even AJ Hinch is the third-favorite to be the first manager fired in 2023 (I don't buy that for a second). And I've said this before: If you're going to be bad, at least be interesting. That's what those early 1990s Tigers teams did, hitting all those home runs (and giving up a whole lot, too). The worst thing you can be is bad, and boring. Then you're totally irrelevant. I don't see that with the 2023 bunch, and part of that is because we get a whole year to say goodbye to arguably the greatest Tigers talent ever, Miguel Cabrera, who turns 40 on April 18. He isn't likely to start more than once or twice a week (unless he goes all Albert Pujols), so take the time to celebrate the greatest baseball talent we've been fortunate enough to see night in, night out for, now, 16 seasons.
