2024 DETROIT TIGERS REGULAR SEASON THREAD

[SoCalTiger]

Almost every player the Orioles bring up rake except Holiday who had less time in the minors. We are just the opposite. Why is that ? 

[kdog]

10 minutes ago, SoCalTiger said:

Almost every player the Orioles bring up rake except Holiday who had less time in the minors. We are just the opposite. Why is that ? 

If Harris, Greenberg, and Garko had an answer, we wouldn't be in this situation.

[tiger2022]

Mize and Torkelson were stat accumulators in college, but probably don't have an above average mlb skill set.  

It doesn't matter how awesome Mize's stats were in college, but he had a 93 mlh fastball coming out with no swing and miss pitch.  No way was that going to dominate mlb hitters.

[TigerNation]

1 hour ago, tiger2022 said:

Mize and Torkelson were stat accumulators in college, but probably don't have an above average mlb skill set.  

It doesn't matter how awesome Mize's stats were in college, but he had a 93 mlh fastball coming out with no swing and miss pitch.  No way was that going to dominate mlb hitters.

His splitter was considered a 60 grade pitch. 

[tiger2022]

Just now, TigerNation said:

His splitter was considered a 60 grade pitch. 

By Tiger scouts?

[TigerNation]

6 minutes ago, tiger2022 said:

By Tiger scouts?

By everyone. He was the consensus 1-1, that doesn't happen without showing plus pitches/tools.

[TigerNation]

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/top-38-prospects-detroit-tigers/

 

 According to fangraphs he had a 60 grade splitter and slider, a 70 grade cutter, and a 55 grade fastball.

Far cry from a guy who had no swing and miss pitches when he came out.

[tiger2022]

1 minute ago, TigerNation said:

By everyone. He was the consensus 1-1, that doesn't happen without showing plus pitches/tools.

I remember hearing he had an average fastball but he relied on secondary pitches to get outs.  That is a risky combination for #1 overall.   

Just because people who don't work for mlb teams think someone is the best, doesn't mean anything.  Maybe I am being cynical but I can just see the brain trust looking at a draft website and making their selections based on that...kind of Millenesque.

[Tiger337]

 

2 hours ago, tiger2022 said:

Mize and Torkelson were stat accumulators in college, but probably don't have an above average mlb skill set.  

It doesn't matter how awesome Mize's stats were in college, but he had a 93 mlh fastball coming out with no swing and miss pitch.  No way was that going to dominate mlb hitters.

  I really doubt their college stats were an important consideration.  

[Edman85]

4 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

 

  I really doubt their college stats were an important consideration.  

Especially in Tork's case, considering he was drafted in a year where the last three months of the college season were cancelled.

My understanding is stats are used somewhat, but not in the "look on Baseball Cube and rank guys" way. They are likely able to parse stats and factor in competition and park factors, but even then, that's only a small piece of the pie. Especially now that they have batted ball/spin/etc. data.

[Sports_Freak]

6 hours ago, 1776 said:

We enjoy minor league ball more so than MLB. We traversed to Alabama less than two weeks ago to see the minor league game at Rickwood Field as well as a game in Montgomery. We’re headed for Myrtle Beach and Charleston, SC for games this week. 
Seeing different minor league parks & teams is enjoyable. 

And it's more intimate. MiLB is higher quality after the contraction by MLB a few years ago.

[Sports_Freak]

30 minutes ago, tiger2022 said:

I remember hearing he had an average fastball but he relied on secondary pitches to get outs.  That is a risky combination for #1 overall.   

Just because people who don't work for mlb teams think someone is the best, doesn't mean anything.  Maybe I am being cynical but I can just see the brain trust looking at a draft website and making their selections based on that...kind of Millenesque.

All I remember hearing was the Tigers pick was between Mize and Brady Singer. And Mize had enough pitches to be a ML SP and Singer didn't, at that point. It's hard to predict young baseball talent a few years into the future.

[gehringer_2]

25 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

All I remember hearing was the Tigers pick was between Mize and Brady Singer. And Mize had enough pitches to be a ML SP and Singer didn't, at that point. It's hard to predict young baseball talent a few years into the future.

Singer ended up about as projected, a 2/3 kind of starter. He was projected as a possible #1 pick the year before but his last college year he was not as good. Mize impressed everyone with the K rate on the split, the problem is it didn't fool MLB batters and they didn't swing and since it's not a strike, Mize struggled. The conventional wisdom often seems to go overboard for guys that are basically trick pitch guys in college but don't have great swing and miss on their fastball. Ironically, post back and TJ, surgery, now Casey actually has much better fastball and if he makes it I think that will be why.

Edited June 30 by gehringer_2

[Sports_Freak]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

Singer ended up about as projected, a 2/3 kind of starter. He was projected as a possible #1 pick the year before but his last college year he was not as good. Mize impressed everyone with the K rate on the split, the problem is it didn't fool MLB batters and they didn't swing and since it's not a strike, Mize struggled. The conventional wisdom often seems to go overboard for guys that are basically trick pitch guys in college but don't have great swing and miss on their fastball. Ironically, post back and TJ, surgery, now Casey actually has much better fastball and if he makes it I think that will be why.

His velo surprised me today. He was regularly hitting 98 on the radar gun. It looked (and sounded) legit, too. But, IMO, command is the key. A perfectly spotted 92 FB is better than an out of control 98. I like Mize and I think he could be an important piece of our rotation going forward. But, that's just my opinion. We'll see...

[TigerNation]

13 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

His velo surprised me today. He was regularly hitting 98 on the radar gun. It looked (and sounded) legit, too. But, IMO, command is the key. A perfectly spotted 92 FB is better than an out of control 98. I like Mize and I think he could be an important piece of our rotation going forward. But, that's just my opinion. We'll see...

Yeah the biggest thing he's missing is the plus command that he was supposed to have. You can get away without having great swing and miss stuff in the zone as long as you can consistently stay ahead in the count and use a mix of pitches to keep hitters off balance and get swings and misses on pitches out of the zone. The problem is Mize doesn't have the command to locate well enough within the zone yet to consistently induce takes and get ahead in the count. And then when he will get into 0-2 and 1-2 counts he will throw a couple breaking pitches that are a foot out of the zone so it's just an easy take for the hitter.

[Hongbit]

42 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

His velo surprised me today. He was regularly hitting 98 on the radar gun. It looked (and sounded) legit, too. But, IMO, command is the key. A perfectly spotted 92 FB is better than an out of control 98. I like Mize and I think he could be an important piece of our rotation going forward. But, that's just my opinion. We'll see...

His biggest problem is that he finds too much of the plate.  If you miss over the plate at 98, there’s a better chance that you may get away with it than a meatball at 92 that gets hit hard and often.  

[SoCalTiger]

4 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

Singer ended up about as projected, a 2/3 kind of starter. He was projected as a possible #1 pick the year before but his last college year he was not as good. Mize impressed everyone with the K rate on the split, the problem is it didn't fool MLB batters and they didn't swing and since it's not a strike, Mize struggled. The conventional wisdom often seems to go overboard for guys that are basically trick pitch guys in college but don't have great swing and miss on their fastball. Ironically, post back and TJ, surgery, now Casey actually has much better fastball and if he makes it I think that will be why.

Agree 100 %. I wondered after his last start if he had indeed "turned the corner" and you're pointing out it's the fastball does seem to be the difference maker for him. As one of our 1-1 stumbles perhaps another is ascending. As Sparky used to say "the world turns over on whoever is on top every 12 hours." 

[Tiger337]

15 hours ago, Edman85 said:

Especially in Tork's case, considering he was drafted in a year where the last three months of the college season were cancelled.

My understanding is stats are used somewhat, but not in the "look on Baseball Cube and rank guys" way. They are likely able to parse stats and factor in competition and park factors, but even then, that's only a small piece of the pie. Especially now that they have batted ball/spin/etc. data.

yes, the modern stats from Trackman and Statcast are more useful for scouting.  I was referring to the post that said "Mize and Torkelson were stat accumulators in college"  which suggests result stats rather than process stats.    

[chasfh]

19 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

I hope what you are seeing is that they are trying to get him to improve his plate coverage and he is swinging at more pitches across the board. If that's true I'm OK with it, but he's still taking too many hittable 1st pitch strikes. That's seems to be so ingrained he can't leave it. Unfortunately he's not Joe Mauer.

Honest question: do we know he wasn’t a first-pitch-taker at Arizona State?

[gehringer_2]

8 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Honest question: do we know he wasn’t a first-pitch-taker at Arizona State?

Good question - they pitched around him a lot, so he did have a lot of walks at ASU, but what that looked like at finer grain I have no idea.

[chasfh]

15 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

Singer ended up about as projected, a 2/3 kind of starter. He was projected as a possible #1 pick the year before but his last college year he was not as good. Mize impressed everyone with the K rate on the split, the problem is it didn't fool MLB batters and they didn't swing and since it's not a strike, Mize struggled. The conventional wisdom often seems to go overboard for guys that are basically trick pitch guys in college but don't have great swing and miss on their fastball. Ironically, post back and TJ, surgery, now Casey actually has much better fastball and if he makes it I think that will be why.

This pretty much nails it. Back in 2018 breaking stuff was still considered put-away pitches. Six years later, only high cheese pushing 100 at minimum at the top of the zone can seem to get big-league batters out. Casey is basically a pitcher of a different era, with signature pitches today’s hitters know how to spit all over. That might be why his K/9 is not even as high as seven, even post-surgery.

There are some bright spots in Casey’s performance. His FIP- is 91, which is a bit better than average, he doesn’t give away free passes much, and he kills a lot of worms. But he still can’t get swing and miss, can’t get guys to chase, and gives up too much on-the-button contact, and he isn’t better at any of that than he was in 2021 pre-injuries. We may be seeing the finished product right now, which would make him as good as he’s ever going to be. If anyone could theoretically benefit from a ball deadened back to 1980s level, it is Casey Mize.

[gehringer_2]

7 minutes ago, chasfh said:

This pretty much nails it. Back in 2018 breaking stuff was still considered put-away pitches. Six years later, only high cheese pushing 100 at minimum at the top of the zone can seem to get big-league batters out. Casey is basically a pitcher of a different era, with signature pitches today’s hitters know how to spit all over. That might be why his K/9 is not even as high as seven, even post-surgery.

There are some bright spots in Casey’s performance. His FIP- is 91, which is a bit better than average, he doesn’t give away free passes much, and he kills a lot of worms. But he still can’t get swing and miss, can’t get guys to chase, and gives up too much on-the-button contact, and he isn’t better at any of that than he was in 2021 pre-injuries. We may be seeing the finished product right now, which would make him as good as he’s ever going to be. If anyone could theoretically benefit from a ball deadened back to 1980s level, it is Casey Mize.

He had 8 whiffs on 31 FBs last night  - maybe not JV level, but not terrible. He was not getting much S&M on his slider - only 2 whiffs on 24 of those. All we/they can do is see how it goes the rest of this season: can he learn to sequence more effectively as more of a power pitcher; can his slider command keep improving; will the % of non-competitive pitches of all types decrease? As long as he can be competitive in his starts as per last night there is no better alternative anyway.

[1776]

Cody Stavenhagen with a good piece on the gaps between the AAA and the majors.  

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5605564/2024/07/01/mlb-minors-player-reset-torkelson/
 

 

[Longgone]

18 hours ago, Sports_Freak said:

And it's more intimate. MiLB is higher quality after the contraction by MLB a few years ago.

That’s not exactly true. The facilities, training, nutrition, have improved, but the quality of play? No

[chasfh]

2 hours ago, 1776 said:

Cody Stavenhagen with a good piece on the gaps between the AAA and the majors.  

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5605564/2024/07/01/mlb-minors-player-reset-torkelson/
 

 

This is a really good article, and highlights the unintended consequences of all these changes Baseball undertook all at once: reducing number of minor league levels, reducing roster limits within the remaining levels, pitch timer, schedule changes to six-game series, ABS, am I missing anything?

Perhaps especially ABS, which is really juicing walk rates. In the majors the walk rate is about 8%. In AAA, it's 11.3%. And in AA, with supposedly worse pitchers, it's 9.8%. I would imagine we will see jacked-up walk rates when ABS comes to the bigs as well.

Edited July 1 by chasfh