2026 DETROIT TIGERS REGULAR SEASON THREAD

[Tiger337]

1 hour ago, monkeytargets39 said:

I think deep down that’s my problem with the organization.  We can never define what type of team we are supposed to be.  Are we going to win with pitching and defense, or are we going to win with offensive fire power?  
 

If we are going to win with pitching, are we going to do that by amassing guys with overpowering stuff/velocity, or by using control pitchers to hit spots and exploit weaknesses and let them hit into our advanced defensive positioning and abilities.

 

Regardless— why is our rotation loaded up on guys who overpower with one or two amazing pitches and high velocity who attack hitters and then our bullpen is always full of low velocity, matchup dependent guys who are more pitch to contact (Holton, Hanifee, Hurter, Finnegan, Kahnle, Foley, etc.)

 

Likewise, we’ve been saying for several years that we want to be a team that’s versatile and strong defensively, yet we have had all these guys like Keith, Jones, Carpenter, Jung, Workman, Perez, JHM, etc.) who are practically positionless because of their defensive deficiencies—on top of solidly below average regulars like Tork, Riley and Torres?  So then we overcorrect that by playing guys like McKinstry, Short, Ibanez, etc. who should be end of the bench guys getting 150-200 PAs a year?

 

If we are going to be a team that dominates the strike zone and waits for their pitches and drives it, then why do we continue to give ABs to guys that do the opposite?  Baez, Perez, Carpenter, Vierling, Rogers, Keith and Jones are all free swingers with poor walk rates.  Then there’s Torkelson who has already struck out 63 times this year and we aren’t even 1/3 the way through the season yet.

 

Define what parts of the game we both want to and have the ability to excel at and then start working to build a roster based off of that philosophy.  I don’t blame Hinch for all of the analytics and matchup moves because that’s the only real way to make the group as it is have any success.  Too many guys are proving to be only useful in one aspect of the game and he is constantly having to try and figure out which deficiencies need to have a bedsheet thrown over them to hide them from being exposed.

 

Obviously it’s not as simple as get rid of guys and replace them with better guys tomorrow, but it’s concerning that this is a problem top to bottom in the organization.  There’s way too many guys who are liabilities on defense whose offense doesn’t appropriately make up for it.   Likewise there’s guys that hit a ton but don’t walk, K a lot and play poor defense.

Harris has do done well identifying and drafting players for what his vision is, but if he cant make trades or get international talent in, then we will never have more than a few guys on the roster at any given time that fit the profile.  Especially if he’s just going to dumpster dive for pitching help.

Their plan is to "control the strike zone"

[monkeytargets39]

55 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

Their plan is to "control the strike zone"

Sure—but when does the plan match the actions?  We’ve drafted and developed McGonigle and Clark who do that well.

2024 we finished with 2 guys that had OBPs over .333:  Riley and Carpenter, and we had three pitchers with a K/9 over 9- Skubal, Flaherty and Brieske.

 

2025 we finished a bit better but Torres was the only guy over .333 who had 200 or more ABs.  But Keith, Torkelson and McKinstry all were at exactly .333.  Riley and Carpenter regressed significantly in OBP (along with BB/K).  Skubal, Flaherty, Vest and Hurter had K/9 above 9.

This year, Greene, McGonigle and Torres are over .333 and everyone else on the roster is below .315 except Keith.  Pitching K rates are

improving with Skubal, Flaherty, Mize, Jansen, Anderson and Vest all above 9–but that being said, we’ve been almost completely flat over the last 3 years as a team in K/9 (8.4-8.6) yet we are now walking more than a batter per inning this year than last year.  Granted, the injuries—but we had a ton of injuries and pitching chaos in 2024 and performed a lot better.  Mize, Skubal and Keider are the only pitchers with BB9s under 3.

 

Anyway—if dominating the strike zone is the identity and has been since Harris took over in late 2022, why has there been very minimal improvement in high level strike zone related stats?  We are walking more guys than we did by a surprising amount, and we can only seem to get about 2 guys above a .333 OBP each of the last three seasons..  one of those he drafted, so definite gold star for the McGonigle draft.

 

There’s a bunch of guys who have been with the team the last 3 years that have not made meaningful improvements to their strike zone abilities despite the ABS system this year.  Again, it’s early and there’s been injuries—but if after 3 full seasons for most of these guys under the Harris regime they haven’t been able to grasp the approach and improve on it, then when do you cut bait?  A two week hot stretch for a player seems to buy them a years worth of plate appearances in the hopes that they recapture that magic rather than accepting that this player just had a stretch of extreme outlier data compared to what they typically do.  
 

We bring up the Guardians a lot in comparison—and they aren’t necessarily statistically better than we are over the last three years in pitching or offense across the board—but they’re very consistent with the things they do well.  They don’t strike out a lot, their pitchers do amass strikeouts, they are consistent across the board with their walk rate, and they advance runners (23 sacrifice hits/flies to our 10).  We’ve struck out 50 more times than them this year and walked 40 times less (not including IBB)

 

They’ve turned their roster over quite a bit more than we have the last 3 years in pitching and defense.  So why are they able to be consistent at these aspects of the game and we aren’t? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tiger337]

10 minutes ago, monkeytargets39 said:

Quote

 

Sure—but when does the plan match the actions?  

 

I was mostly being sarcastic.  I think it's one of these lines that management teams like to repeat over and over.  I mean it's a line that sounds really good, but it's also pretty vague and probably not possible to have every player in the organization follow.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

[monkeytargets39]

5 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

 

Fair enough, but I feel like my point stands.  If you’re going to preach a certain style of play from day one, then roster construction needs to match what you’re trying to do.  Guys that actually show foundations of good plate discipline are more DFA bound (JHM, Jung) than others.  I’d rather we try something and go all in on it and win or lose that way than by just being erratic all the time.