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2023 Detroit Tigers Regular Season Discussion Thread


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4 hours ago, Dave Christian said:

Hopefully this works out for you and the Tigers!

I have been really down on Torkelson since his MLB debut but I think he is going to turn it on for the rest of the season.  Has a hit in 11 out of last 12 games.

Edited by tiger2022
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45 minutes ago, tiger2022 said:

I have been really down on Torkelson since his MLB debut but I think he is going to turn it on for the rest of the season.  Has a hit in 11 out of last 12 games.

Torkelson's last ~250 AB his OPS is 770, pacing for 30 HR and 90 RBI per season. His OBP still needs to come up - it's about 330 for that stretch, but considering he is just now reaching one full season's worth of experience in the majors (~700PA) he's doing fine. Tork has two problems in terms of fan perception - he's not going to hit for as high average as Riley, and he had a terrible April which keeps his season stats depressed.

Edited by gehringer_2
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Look around—other can’t-miss guys have struggled, too.  Joey Bart, CJ Abrams, Jerred Kellenic, Alex Kirilloff, JJ Bleday, Nick Madrigal—none has lived up to their hype (yet). Heck, Austin Martin, who was heavily debated as a potential alternative to drafting Tork, has yet to make the majors.

 

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On 7/15/2023 at 9:32 PM, Tenacious D said:

Look around—other can’t-miss guys have struggled, too.  Joey Bart, CJ Abrams, Jerred Kellenic, Alex Kirilloff, JJ Bleday, Nick Madrigal—none has lived up to their hype (yet). Heck, Austin Martin, who was heavily debated as a potential alternative to drafting Tork, has yet to make the majors.

 

Yes, well put, people tend to only reflect on the home team (or team followed more than others) that is relative to them. Objectively, there are many 'Top Prospects' that struggle initially or shortly after the league adjusts and some just plain do not make it - even after some success.

Tork is coming along. He may not be 'living up to expectations' but in reality he is making positive strides (IMHO and that of others) and hopefully will have a long productive career over time.

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The frustrating thing about Tork is the inconsistency.  That 9th inning K yesterday is the perfect example...that was a good AB...he worked the count and got the pitcher to throw him  middle/middle low 90's FB...a pitch he's supposed to kill...and he was late on it.   That's frustrating.

Javy going up there as the $25 million man as the potential tying run and waving at pitches a HS player would take...that's not frustrating...it's infuriating.

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I'm still kinda worried about Torkelson's defense.  Although he's not at the bottom anymore, he's still in the lower half.  

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=1b&stats=fld&lg=all&qual=y&type=1&season=2023&month=0&season1=2023&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2023-01-01&enddate=2023-12-31

His overall WAR is 0.1, which is 10th among Tigers hitters, mostly due to his poor defense (although Marisnick is no longer with us).

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&month=0&ind=0&team=6&rost=0&age=0&filter=&player=&startdate=&enddate=&season=2023&season1=2023

I think he'll have to be regulated to the DH sometime in the near future and so far his hitting hasn't justified him to be a fulltime DH. 

I don't think I've fully written him off yet.  He is still young enough to turn it around.  

Since May 1st, he has hit .238/.320/.431 with 10 HR and a 110 wRC+ in 279 PA.  Not great, but it is above average.  But that also includes the month of June where he hit .196/.274/.441 with a below average 96 wRC+ (but he did hit 7 of his home runs in that month).  Like @Shinzaki mentioned, the most frustrating thing is his inconsistency.  

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I am not too worried about Torkelson's defense.  He has poor range, but can catch throws from infielders.  Statistically, it seems he was close to average last year.  This year he is below average, but has been trending better as of late.  I don't think there is enough there to definitively say he's a bad fielder who needs to DH.  I am more concerned about his hitting, although indications are that he'll improve.  

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So lots of reporting about Javy's current problem being that he's late on the fast ball and all kinds of mechanical prescriptions about what he should do. But all this ignores that Javy didn't used to get beat on fastball with his current mechanics. I believe Javy's problem on the fast ball is the same one Tork has had, which is that you are late on the fastball when your confidence sucks because that uncertainty delays your natural reflex ability just enough that you can't pull the trigger quickly enough. Watching this team try to 'control the zone' is mostly telling me that there is a point where too much concentration on looking for pitches just makes it more difficult to hit any of them.

I've becoming pessimistic that this current Tiger org has enough understanding of the important *non-mechanical* aspects of hitting to be successful coaching their hitters.

Edited by gehringer_2
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I wonder if Javy has just lost bat speed independent of his mechanics. Yeah he's not at the age where you would expect a decline but iirc Javys speed was heavily dependent on his hands and wrist speed unlike just being strong so perhaps that is something that declines earlier than other things. Just a thought. 

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31 minutes ago, RandyMarsh said:

I wonder if Javy has just lost bat speed independent of his mechanics. Yeah he's not at the age where you would expect a decline but iirc Javys speed was heavily dependent on his hands and wrist speed unlike just being strong so perhaps that is something that declines earlier than other things. Just a thought. 

maybe - but in general it's not strength that goes first, it's reflex speed. So in that case getting shorter to the ball could certainly help - it's sort of what Cabrera has done - shorten everything up and give up his power to maintain his abiity to get to the fastball to at least maintain some OBP. But look at Javy in the field - does it look like his reflexes are going? 

The curse with the Tigers hitters seem to be 'being in between'  - which you see looking at Haase, Maton, and some times Torkelson and the fix for that is as much mental as physical. But javy is so abnormal at the plate that it's admittedly hard to tell what's going on with him just watching.

Obviously some of these guys just can't hit MLB pitching, but some like Haase and Javy have shown maybe they can.

Edited by gehringer_2
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38 minutes ago, Tigermojo said:

Turnbull and Vest on track for possible returns at the end of July.

is this speculative or being reported?  If Turnbull can return around that time, the front office might be more open to trading both ERod and Lorenzen, if the opportunities present themselves.

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some confirmation that the Tigers' Bally broadcast are indeed, bad.

https://www.blessyouboys.com/2023/7/19/23800246/detroit-tigers-broadcast-rankings-bally-sports-matt-shepard-craig-monroe

Quote

On Wednesday, Awful Announcing rebooted their annual MLB local broadcaster rankings. The reader-voted list had not been released since 2019, and while the voting sample size of just over 10,000 total votes is a mere fraction of the list’s peak voting sample size of 64,000 total votes, the results are as interesting as ever — especially if you’re a Detroiter, but probably not surprising. This season, Detroit’s broadcast ranked dead last in the national fan vote.

 

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