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04/24/2023 7:40pm EDT Detroit Tigers vs Milwaukee Brewers


casimir

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STARTING OFF ON THE WRONG FOOT: Once again, the Tigers are last in runs per game — at an even 3.00, they’re more than a quarter of a run worse than No. 29, the Miami Marlins — and in OPS (.596, 10 points behind No. 29, the Royals). There are several reasons for the lack of scoring, but it starts at the top — as in the top of the order: The .427 OPS — just a reminder that that’s OBP and SLG combined — by Tigers leadoff hitters (Akil Baddoo, Nick Maton, Zach McKinstry and Matt Vierling, thus far) is also dead last and 130 points worse than No. 29, the Colorado Rockies.

LEFT BEHIND: Another area of concern — the Tigers’ performance against left-handed pitchers. Their .559 OPS vs. lefties was, yep, last in the majors: 26 points behind No. 29, the Milwaukee Brewers (good news for Monday’s starter, Matthew Boyd, we suppose ) and more than 130 points off the league average OPS of .723. Almost no Tiger is hitting lefties well this season, with the exception of Jake Rogers and his two homers in nine at-bats, but there’s one Tiger who’s a particular surprise: Vierling.
The right-hander came over from the Philadelphia Phillies in the Gregory Soto deal with a track record of producing against southpaws; last season, he posted a .760 OPS against lefties (with an awful .580 off righties). Perfect platoon material, right? In another good news/bad news scenario, Vierling’s OPS against righties is actually outpacing that vs. lefties by nearly 300 points … but that’s because he has just a .417 OPS against left-handers.
 

From the freep tigers newsletter. fun times all around.

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1 hour ago, kdog said:

From the freep tigers newsletter. fun times all around.

The only area where the offense has improved slightly is in BB/per game. Instead of being 30th in the league, as they were last year, they are 22nd. Pretty much every other category they are 29th or 30th. 

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2 hours ago, kdog said:

From the freep tigers newsletter. fun times all around.

I don't know how much stock to put into numbers yet, at least as far as individual players are concerned.  They're still only, what, 20 games into the season.

As Vierling was mentioned, I see he has only 20 PAs vs LHPs.  So, small sample size?  Something that should correct itself over time?

Maton was another hitter I glanced at this morning.  BABIP is killing him.  Hard hit % looks reasonable, but his LD% looks extremely low and his FB% looks pretty high (I think going off of memory).  He's still drawing walks, so, do they just wait out the BABIP or do the LD%/FB% ratios suggest something needs to change?  Again, only 20 games in.

Now one of the numbers that is frightening is Greene's propensity for SOs.  HIs swing path/length has been mentioned around here a bit.  I'm not sure that's necessarily a small sample thing unless they are actively working on something right now.

And, of course, the team wide slump is concerning as a whole.

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40 minutes ago, casimir said:

Now one of the numbers that is frightening is Greene's propensity for SOs.  HIs swing path/length has been mentioned around here a bit.  I'm not sure that's necessarily a small sample thing unless they are actively working on something right now.

You can never take what a manager says all that seriously, but with regard to Greene he just falls back on his "Riley has to swing at strikes" mantra. Whether he actually believes that and whether they are actually coaching him strictly on that basis are open question to me.

So in recent years there has been a lot of talk about keep the bat in the 'hitting zone' for a longer time. To me this basically means you have to swing the bat at least close to the plane that the ball is coming in at - probably between about 5 and maybe 15 degrees tops depending on the pitch type. Any more upper cut than that and you start making the job of finding the ball with the bat from a one dimenisional problem into a 2 dimensional one. Judge for yourself if you think Riley is swinging that close to level much of the time. It looks to me like he often lets himself get too much uppercut. Now maybe Hinch is right and when he goes after better pitches he doesn't do that, but Scales commented yesterday that Riley needs to hit the ball further out front, and you can't have too much uppercut or by the time your bat gets out front you will just top the ball into the ground or just swing over it completely.

Edited by gehringer_2
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14 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

How long do we give Greene and Torkelson? Not criticism, just a serious question. All season? All of 2024 too? These guys gotta produce.

I'm watching for Torkelson to start walking. That's his game. He's already starting putting the barrel on the ball more and he's not late on fastballs this season so that's big progress. With the umpiring being so horrible in two of the Tigers series already it's tough to judge, but when Tork is confident and seeing the ball he's going to walk more. I have some hope he's going in the right direction.

OTOH, Greene seems to be regressing. As posted above, I think his swing is getting long and loopy. Maybe he can get that back under control without a step back to easier pitching, maybe not, but right now I think I'm willing to give Torkelson a little more rope than Riley, which is the reverse of where I have been in the past.

The other ironic thing with Riley is that he recently has a lot of trouble with low and in, which is often a happy zone for a LHH, but not for Riley.

Edited by gehringer_2
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6 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

How long do we give Greene and Torkelson? Not criticism, just a serious question. All season? All of 2024 too? These guys gotta produce.

I think you stick with them all season barring a complete meltdown, at the very least for Tork; Riley is 22 and Tork is 23. We're they a tad rushed to get here? Yeah probably but look at Tork's Savant page, yeah the BB and chase rate aren't great but that is a lot of red and pink. He has had some bad luck on games that I have watched, lots of diving catches on his line drives which will fall in at some point. 


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17 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

I'm watching for Torkelson to start walking. That's his game. He's already starting putting the barrel on the ball more and he's not late on fastballs this season so that's big progress. With the umpiring being so horrible in two of the Tigers series already it's tough to judge, but when Tork is confident and seeing the ball he's going to walk more. I have some hope he's going in the right direction.

OTOH, Greene seems to be regressing. As posted above, I think his swing is getting long and loopy. Maybe he can get that back under control without a step back to easier pitching, maybe not, but right now I think I'm willing to give Torkelson a little more rope than Riley, which is the reverse of where I have been in the past.

The other ironic thing with Riley is that he recently has a lot of trouble with low and in, which is often a happy zone for a LHH, but not for Riley.

Totally, Tork gets far more skepticism because of last year, but he seems a lot less concerning at the moment than Greene does. At a minimum, Tork is at least hitting and pulling fastballs and making some hard contact. Greene has a good approach and is promising in a lot of respects, but the inability to pull any fastballs, along with the Ks and the high groundball rate, is pretty alarming.

Edited by mtutiger
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Rogers, McKinstry and Carpenter are hitting well so far. The sad fact is only a few of these guys might actually prove useful. Many may not be able to make the adjustments required for this level. But, if a few can prove themselves this season and a few more from the minors can contribute, then a few trades or free agents could be added. It's impossible to predict the roster when this team can be successful again.

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1 hour ago, Sports_Freak said:

How long do we give Greene and Torkelson? Not criticism, just a serious question. All season? All of 2024 too? These guys gotta produce.

How much time you got? Seriously what else is there on the horizon? It might take another full year or two for them to figure it out.

We should tattoo 'development isn't linear' on our foreheads.

Edited by kdog
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3 hours ago, Tigermojo said:

Rogers, McKinstry and Carpenter are hitting well so far. The sad fact is only a few of these guys might actually prove useful. Many may not be able to make the adjustments required for this level. But, if a few can prove themselves this season and a few more from the minors can contribute, then a few trades or free agents could be added. It's impossible to predict the roster when this team can be successful again.

I just figured out the other day that Mckinstry went to the same high school I did.  We even had the same baseball coach. However,  he was born the year graduated lol.

Edited by Tigeraholic1
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4 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

I just figured out the other day that Mckinstry went to the same high school I did.  We even had the same baseball coach. However,  he was born the year graduated lol.

His ties to the general area, being from FW, playing at CMU, etc. all make it crazier that the trade was trashed as much as it was. Should be a natural to root for for Tiger fans

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