5/1/24 1:10PM Cardinals @ Tigers

[gehringer_2]

12 minutes ago, Tigermojo said:

Two things stick out to me in hindsight. First, this article predicted Greene's performance this year:

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/these-three-hitters-can-hit-their-peak-projection-in-2024/

Second, when Tork and Greene appeared on MLB Network while they were going to play the Mets, they talked about their hitting approaches. Tork's approach was the opposite of Greene's and the opposite of any other hitter the host had ever talked to. Maybe now would be a good time to re-evaluate his approach.

https://www.mlb.com/video/greene-and-torkelson-take-a-look-at-their-swings

He's had 100+ AB this season. It's been obvious how he is being pitched and he's not adjusting -either won't or can't. Depressing either way. And really, it is not can't. Taking strikes is a always a choice and Tork is taking too many.

Edited May 2 by gehringer_2

[Tigermojo]

4 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

He's had 100+ AB this season. It's been obvious how he is being pitched and he's not adjusting -either won't or can't. Depressing either way.

That interview was a month ago and one of them is a top performer in the league and the other is one of the worst in the league. Still a long way to go but if it were me, I would try copying what Greene is doing.

[casimir]

15 hours ago, chasfh said:

As aggravating as it was to lose that first game yesterday in the ninth, we still won the series. Now a big test in New York and Cincinnati. 

Wrong C.

[Sports_Freak]

8 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

Statcast spray chart for 2023 says he hit 6 HR to RF so there is no reason he should be such a pull happy guy. The two choices would seem to be either he is dumb, or he is doing what the Tigers have encouraged him to, either overtly or subconsciously. I take no position either way.

Spray Chart

Forget that working the count stuff. I saw him take a juicy fastball at the middle of the plate yesterday. He's a mess at the plate right now. Thinking top much. See ball, hit ball...simplify.

[casimir]

6 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

Forget that working the count stuff. I saw him take a juicy fastball at the middle of the plate yesterday. He's a mess at the plate right now. Thinking top much. See ball, hit ball...simplify.

I think this is it.  But I'm a hack, so what do I know?

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, casimir said:

Wrong C.

Probably because “Cincinnati” is so fun to write. Like “Mississippi” or “Walla Walla” or :”Kalamazoo”. Not that any of those places are particularly fun to visit, mind you. In fact, there must be some inverse correlation thing going on there …

[oblong]

It's a bitch to drive thru though.  Made the trek to TN 3 weeks ago.  

I used to hate driving through Ohio as a kid but as a driver I kind of like it.  Once you get thru Toledo then you can relax and put the cruise control on and it's just you and some truckers.  Then as  you approach Dayton then fun begins and I hate that more than the rest of the state.  There's always construction and getting across the river is a pain. 

 

[gehringer_2]

34 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

Forget that working the count stuff. I saw him take a juicy fastball at the middle of the plate yesterday. He's a mess at the plate right now. Thinking top much. See ball, hit ball...simplify.

I agree he gives away too many hittable strikes. He said he sits on the FB "100%" but he sure lets a lot of decent ones go by for called strikes.

[mtutiger]

20 minutes ago, oblong said:

It's a bitch to drive thru though.  Made the trek to TN 3 weeks ago.  

I used to hate driving through Ohio as a kid but as a driver I kind of like it.  Once you get thru Toledo then you can relax and put the cruise control on and it's just you and some truckers.  Then as  you approach Dayton then fun begins and I hate that more than the rest of the state.  There's always construction and getting across the river is a pain. 

 

I did the Ohio Turnpike for the first time in years back in January.... most of it is as boring as I remember, but while I struggle to compliment anything in Ohio *too* much, the trip through the Cuyahoga valley is actually fairly pretty, better than I remember it being.

[mtutiger]

9 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

He's had 100+ AB this season. It's been obvious how he is being pitched and he's not adjusting -either won't or can't. Depressing either way. And really, it is not can't. Taking strikes is a always a choice and Tork is taking too many.

Possible it's been mentioned already in the thread, but Dirks made the point that players can go an entire game without seeing a good pitch to hit... and while organizational strategy may be playing a factor (the Tigers are swinging at far fewer first pitches than in years past in 2024), with Torkelson, he absolutely needs to swing at a few of them, if for nothing else, to keep pitchers honest. Or else he may not get much of anything worth hitting

It's a big reason he ends up down in counts so often.... pitchers don't have any fear and just know he'll take the "get me over" fastball early in the count. And by the time he shows interest in taking the bat off of his shoulders, he's at a point where he's unlikely to get much to hit.

That's at least my amateur observation.... I still think he's a talented hitter, hitting 30 homers last year established that in my mind. But something needs to change with approach if he wants to stay there for sure.

Edited May 2 by mtutiger

[oblong]

4 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Possible it's been mentioned already in the thread, but Dirks made the point that players can go an entire game without seeing a good pitch to hit... and while organizational strategy may be playing a factor (the Tigers are swinging at far fewer first pitches than in years past in 2024), with Torkelson, he absolutely needs to swing at a few of them, if for nothing else, to keep pitchers honest. Or else he may not get much of anything worth hitting

It's a big reason he ends up down in counts so often.... pitchers don't have any fear and just know he'll take the "get me over" fastball early in the count. And by the time he shows interest in taking the bat off of his shoulders, he's at a point where he's unlikely to get much to hit.

That's at least my amateur observation.... I still think he's a talented hitter, hitting 30 homers last year established that in my mind. But something needs to change with approach if he wants to stay there for sure.

agree.  Even last year when "struggling" he was still smoking the ball for outs.  I don't see that to the same degree this year. 

[gehringer_2]

10 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Possible it's been mentioned already in the thread, but Dirks made the point that players can go an entire game without seeing a good pitch to hit... and while organizational strategy may be playing a factor (the Tigers are swinging at far fewer first pitches than in years past in 2024), with Torkelson, he absolutely needs to swing at a few of them, if for nothing else, to keep pitchers honest. Or else he may not get much of anything worth hitting

It's a big reason he ends up down in counts so often.... pitchers don't have any fear and just know he'll take the "get me over" fastball early in the count. And by the time he shows interest in taking the bat off of his shoulders, he's at a point where he's unlikely to get much to hit.

That's at least my amateur observation.... I still think he's a talented hitter, hitting 30 homers last year established that in my mind. But something needs to change with approach if he wants to stay there for sure.

I actually did hear Hinch "admit" in one of his recent pressers that the working counts does have to be balanced against giving away strike one, which I thought was a non-trivial concession in his mindset, but that doesn't mean the communication to his hitters has changed. And TBF, Tork was a huge walk guy in college, and maybe it's just his "go home to momma" approach when he struggles to take more pitches as opposed to an older wisdom that you have to swing your way out of a slump. But you'd hope  coaching could drive him toward better and not worse approaches.....

[mtutiger]

13 minutes ago, oblong said:

agree.  Even last year when "struggling" he was still smoking the ball for outs.  I don't see that to the same degree this year. 

DD also mentioned AJ discussing the need for Tork to (paraphrasing) "sell out for the approach on any given day" during that conversation yesterday. I take that as a sign that the Tigers are fully aware and are probably working on it with him. Although it remains to be seen if it goes anywhere.

[mtutiger]

7 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

I actually did hear Hinch "admit" in one of his recent pressers that the working counts does have to be balanced against giving away strike one, which I thought was a non-trivial concession in his mindset, but that doesn't mean the communication to his hitters has changed. And TBF, Tork was a huge walk guy in college, and maybe it's just his "go home to momma" approach when he struggles to take more pitches as opposed to an older wisdom that you have to swing your way out of a slump. But you'd hope  coaching could drive him toward better and not worse approaches.....

Or even results.... like, I don't think it's an accident that when he actually swung at a first pitch fastball against Mikolas in yesterday's game, he ended up getting a sharp single out of it.

It's easy for me to say as an observer of this, and obviously it's situation dependent, but if you identify a pitch as hittable, you should swing at it more often than not. Whether it's Pitch #1 or Pitch #6 of the AB.

[gehringer_2]

Just now, mtutiger said:

DD also mentioned AJ discussing the need for Tork to (paraphrasing) "sell out for the approach on any given day" during that conversation yesterday. I take that as a sign that the Tigers are fully aware and are probably working on it with him. Although it remains to be seen if it goes anywhere.

actually I not sure I like that thinking at all. You can't sell out for an approach *before* you see how the other team has decided to pitch you. The great Al Kaline, who knew more about hitting than I believe anyone in this Tiger FO does, was adamant that you had to set your approach based on what you recognized the pitcher's approach was in that AB. If the Tiger org preaches to hitters that they have to control ABs in that sense, I would go so far as to call it a fundamental misunderstanding of baseball. The pitcher *always* has the initiative - he has the ball he picks the pitch. Batters must react to what a pitcher is doing, they cannot control it and if you go into a game with idea that you are going to do a certain thing and the pitcher has a different idea - you have just set yourself up to fail. Hopefully that isn't what he means.

[oblong]

This disussion reminds me of the circular logic Jim Bouton complained about in Ball Four.  The coaches always had an answer anytime a situation didn't go their way.   Any time a hitter succeeded the pitcher was told "You can't throw that pitch in this situation."

The old adage... "throw strikes but don't give them anything to hit"

"Work the count..... but don't give away pitches".  Ok.  So when a guy like Tork swings at a 1st pitch FB and flys out it's "You can't just go after on the first pitch and let him off the work.  Make him work".  If he hits a HR it becomes "Look at that!  He jumped all over a meatball"

 

[gehringer_2]

just to take this a step further - how many post games have we heard with a Tiger pitcher or catchers telling us about how "well the slider was great today so he threw that a lot" or "Skubal was pin-pointing his FB so we were working inside", or "we thought he was looking off-speed so we went after him with hard stuff". All decisions made on the fly in the game based on what a pitcher had and what the catcher and pitcher were seeing in real time. I don't think a team has any hope offensively if they think they can preprogram what their hitters' approach should be going against a certain guy. You can tell them what to be ready for, but they still have to react to what they actually see. You can't listen to your own players describing how they drive the game with real time decisions and then dismiss that the other team's battery isn't doing the same thing - that they are more locked into their tendencies than your own players are or that they don't see when a hitter is taking an 'approach'.

Edited May 2 by gehringer_2

[CMRivdogs]

59 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

I did the Ohio Turnpike for the first time in years back in January.... most of it is as boring as I remember, but while I struggle to compliment anything in Ohio *too* much, the trip through the Cuyahoga valley is actually fairly pretty, better than I remember it being.

Traveled Ohio a lot over the years between Metro Detroit and Virginia. I used to joke the trip wouldn't be so bad if Ohio wasn't in the way. I finally found secondary routes around Columbus that didn't leave me sitting in traffic. Still not super crazy about the WVa Turnpike and Charleston, however.

[gehringer_2]

8 minutes ago, oblong said:

This disussion reminds me of the circular logic Jim Bouton complained about in Ball Four.  The coaches always had an answer anytime a situation didn't go their way.   Any time a hitter succeeded the pitcher was told "You can't throw that pitch in this situation."

The old adage... "throw strikes but don't give them anything to hit"

"Work the count..... but don't give away pitches".  Ok.  So when a guy like Tork swings at a 1st pitch FB and flys out it's "You can't just go after on the first pitch and let him off the work.  Make him work".  If he hits a HR it becomes "Look at that!  He jumped all over a meatball"

 

true, but this is where stats can tell a story. The tigers have one of the lowest 1st pitch swing rates, and they have one of the worst offenses. Correlation doesn't mean causation but it's always good place to start looking!

[casimir]

23 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

true, but this is where stats can tell a story. The tigers have one of the lowest 1st pitch swing rates, and they have one of the worst offenses. Correlation doesn't mean causation but it's always good place to start looking!

Just for nothing's sake, Torkelson swunged at just under 29% of first pitches last season.  Its down under 23% this season.

Oh, and this splits from last season:

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, oblong said:

agree.  Even last year when "struggling" he was still smoking the ball for outs.  I don't see that to the same degree this year. 

Astute observation.

[Sports_Freak]

2 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

I agree he gives away too many hittable strikes. He said he sits on the FB "100%" but he sure lets a lot of decent ones go by for called strikes.

Whatever he's doing, he's doing wrong. Not using his legs? Did he learn anything from Miggy? Cabrera was just a shell of himself once his legs started betraying him. Hitters need a good foundation to drive the ball.

[Sports_Freak]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

Probably because “Cincinnati” is so fun to write. Like “Mississippi” or “Walla Walla” or :”Kalamazoo”. Not that any of those places are particularly fun to visit, mind you. In fact, there must be some inverse correlation thing going on there …

This reminds me of my nephew in San Francisco. He asked his mom (my sis in law)..."Mom, there's a town in Michigan called Bad Ass, isn't there?" Yeah, he meant Bad Axe. 🤣🤣

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, oblong said:

This disussion reminds me of the circular logic Jim Bouton complained about in Ball Four.  The coaches always had an answer anytime a situation didn't go their way.   Any time a hitter succeeded the pitcher was told "You can't throw that pitch in this situation."

The old adage... "throw strikes but don't give them anything to hit"

"Work the count..... but don't give away pitches".  Ok.  So when a guy like Tork swings at a 1st pitch FB and flys out it's "You can't just go after on the first pitch and let him off the work.  Make him work".  If he hits a HR it becomes "Look at that!  He jumped all over a meatball"

 

I don't think either "throw strikes but don't give them anything to hit" nor "work the count but don't give away pitches" is contradictory in the least. A good pitcher can throw strikes without giving a hitter anything to hit, and a good hitter can work the count without giving away pitches. It's just that pitchers and hitters who aren't good are those who can't make that work. Which is why Bouton complained about it. 😁

I tend to think that Hinch is as at least as savvy as you and I when it comes to understanding that a well-hit at 'em ball results from a good process that needs to be embraced and repeated, almost regardless of the outcome.

Edited May 2 by chasfh

[IdahoBert]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

Probably because “Cincinnati” is so fun to write. Like “Mississippi” or “Walla Walla” or :”Kalamazoo”. Not that any of those places are particularly fun to visit, mind you. In fact, there must be some inverse correlation thing going on there …

Walla Walla has a nice Downtown and that’s where you can run into Kyle McLaughlin who did all the films with David Lynch. He has a winery there. It’s not the heavily forested area of the northwest though.