DETROIT – The Detroit Tigers wrapped up spring training over the weekend and are now looking ahead to Opening Day in Tampa Bay.
Starting the season against Rays lefty Shane McClanahan is no easy task, especially for an offense that ranked last in MLB in both runs and homers a year ago.
But the Tigers are trying to put last season behind them, with several new faces expected to crack the starting lineup. New president Scott Harris didn’t make any flashy moves during the offseason, but he tweaked the roster and put a greater emphasis on managing the strike zone.
Will his plan work? It certainly can’t be worse than last year.
Before spring training, I took a stab at predicting the team’s Opening Day lineup (click here to read). Now that we’ve seen a month of spring training games and know the opener will come against a left-handed starter, those predictions have changed.
Here’s my best guess at the lineup A.J. Hinch could roll out Thursday (March 30):
1. Matt Vierling, LF
- Spring training stats: .300 batting average/.344 on-base percentage/.500 slugging percentage, 2 home runs, 1 walk, 3 strikeouts in 32 plate appearances.
There wasn’t much of a pattern to what Hinch did in the leadoff spot this spring -- I think he was mostly just making sure certain players got as many at-bats as possible. In the team’s final six spring training games, Nick Maton, Parker Meadows, Kerry Carpenter (twice), Zack Short, and Vierling all started atop the lineup.
Meadows and Short didn’t make the team, and Carpenter isn’t likely to start against lefties, so that leaves the leadoff spot down to the two newcomers: Maton and Vierling.
Vierling is the most obvious choice against left-handers, since most of the team’s other leadoff candidates (Maton, Carpenter, and Riley Greene) are left-handed hitters.
Acquired in the Gregory Soto trade with the Philadelphia Phillies, Vierling got off to a hot start this spring, batting .467 with a pair of home runs in 15 at-bats before a knee injury. He missed 10 days and returned March 20, going 2-for-15 in the final five games, but striking out just twice in that span.
Harris traded for Vierling because of his elite speed and impressive exit velocities. His middling minor-league OBP makes him a less-than-ideal leadoff hitter, but the Tigers don’t have great options.
2. Riley Greene, CF
- Spring training stats: .308/.345/.615, 4 homers, 2 doubles, 3 walks, 13 strikeouts in 55 plate appearances.
Greene’s placement in the first lineup will tell us a lot about how much Hinch wants to adjust his starting nine on a daily basis.
Though he’s only 22 years old, Greene feels like the best bet to be an above-average everyday player on the Tigers, and that’s not necessarily the type of guy who should drop dramatically in the lineup against same-handed pitchers.
Coming off a rookie season in which he was named “Tiger of the Year” despite missing the first two-and-a-half months with a broken foot, Greene mashed this spring, ranking among the team leaders in hits, home runs, and OPS (on-base plus slugging percentage).
Left-handed hitting didn’t bother Greene at all in his first taste of MLB action. He had reverse splits that saw him hit .303 with a .747 OPS against lefties and just .232 with a .656 OPS against righties. All five of his home runs came against right-handed pitchers, but the overall numbers weren’t nearly as strong.
That probably won’t be the case throughout Greene’s career, but it’s certainly a good sign that he can hit same-handed pitching. The best-case scenario for the Tigers is that Greene settles into the No. 2 hole every day, regardless of matchup.
3. Javier Baez, SS
- Spring training stats: .167/.162/.222, 2 doubles, 6 strikeouts in 37 plate appearances.
- World Baseball Classic (Team Puerto Rico) stats: .368/.368/.684, 3 doubles, 1 homer, 3 strikeouts in 19 plate appearances.
Baez pulled off the rare higher-batting-average-than-OBP feat this spring (thanks to a sac fly and zero walks), which sort of exemplifies the overarching problem with his entire offensive profile.
Baez cannot draw walks. He has no concept of the strike zone (Scott Harris shudders). He’s extraordinarily pitchable, and when his sellout power swings aren’t connecting, the slumps can get really, really ugly.
That’s exactly what happened in his first year with Detroit, as he posted an OPS+ of 93, which is well below average. Baez chased out of the zone and whiffed as much as any player in baseball, while walking at an 8th-percentile rate.
He didn’t make much hard contact, either, ranking below the 40th percentile in both average exit velocity and hard hit percentage. Throw in that he led the league in errors and there really wasn’t much Baez did well in the Old English D.
But the Tigers are paying him $22 million this season, and there aren’t any proven hitters on the roster. So Baez will be entrenched somewhere in the heart of the order.
4. Eric Haase, C
- Spring training stats: .273/.283/.545, 3 homers, 3 doubles, 1 walk, 16 strikeouts in 46 plate appearances.
Finally, Haase is getting his shot at being a true No. 1 catcher in the big leagues. There’s no Tucker Barnhart to block him, and Jake Rogers is clearly the backup coming off of injury.
We’ll see if Haase can take advantage of this opportunity.
He finished second on the team in home runs in 2021, despite registering only 351 at-bats. Last year, only Baez hit more homers than Haase, who finished with 14 in 323 at-bats.
The power was on display again this spring, as Haase blasted a trio of home runs in 44 at-bats. His OBP is always going to be low because more than a quarter of his at-bats end in strikeouts and he rarely walks. But if he can stay afloat against right-handed pitchers, he has always mashed lefties.
5. Austin Meadows, RF
- Spring training stats: .240/.304/.320, 4 doubles, 5 walks, 9 strikeouts in 56 plate appearances.
I can’t get over how Meadows seemed to transform as a hitter in the blink of an eye when he got traded to Detroit. A guy whose one bankable skill always seemed to be power has yet to hit a single ball over the fence since the trade -- in 36 regular-season games and 19 spring training games.
Meanwhile, the strikeout rate plummeted from 20.6% to 11.6%, albeit in a small sample size. Meadows played excellent defense (not a norm during his time in Tampa Bay) in right field. He looked like a completely different player.
The Tigers are hoping to get a bit of the old Meadows back this season. If he can stay healthy and be in the lineup on a near-everyday basis, Meadows should be a good bet for at least 20 homers and an OBP in the .330 range.
6. Miguel Cabrera, DH
- Spring training stats: .217/.250/.391, 1 homer, 1 double, 1 walk, 5 strikeouts in 24 plate appearances.
- WBC (Team Venezuela) stats: .111/.111/.111, 2 strikeouts in 9 plate appearances.
This isn’t where I would put Cabrera in the lineup (I would just start Carpenter, even against lefties), but it’s about as low as I expect Hinch to drop the future Hall of Famer.
Cabrera might pick up a few percentage points of batting average thanks to the infield shift ban, but overall, he’ll likely hurt the lineup. Cabrera hasn’t even been one win better than a replacement-level player offensively since 2016, meaning the Tigers could have replaced him with an average MLB hitter and been just as well off.
7. Spencer Torkelson, 1B
- Spring training stats: .268/.317/.375, 1 homer, 3 doubles, 2 walks, 15 strikeouts in 60 plate appearances.
There’s a chance Hinch will put Torkelson higher in the order -- maybe swapping him with Cabrera at No. 6. He had a solid spring training while batting almost exclusively in the fourth and fifth holes.
Torkelson’s rookie season did not go as planned. He didn’t hit for power or average, and struggled to even make consistent contact against pitches in the strike zone. But his pedigree is so strong, and the Tigers are going to give the former No. 1 overall pick every opportunity to succeed.
Strikeouts were still a bit of an issue this spring, but on the bright side, Torkelson hit the ball hard fairly regularly.
8. Jonathan Schoop, 2B
- Spring training stats: .267/.313/.433, 1 homer, 2 doubles, 2 walks, 11 strikeouts in 32 plate appearances.
- WBC (Team Kingdom of the Netherlands) stats: .077/.250/.077, 1 walk, 6 strikeouts in 16 plate appearances.
One of the most quietly consistent players in MLB the previous seven years, Schoop fell off a cliff in 2022, losing nearly .200 points off his OPS while batting .202 with just 11 home runs.
There wasn’t just one issue plaguing Schoop. He didn’t hit the ball as hard, he struck out more often, he walked less, and he saw every single expected stat plummet. If this is who he is now that the juiced ball era is over, then the Tigers will probably be searching for a new second baseman by June.
But Schoop has earned a longer leash than that. Just two years ago, he was the team’s most consistent hitter, slashing a solid .278/.320/.435 with 30 doubles and 22 home runs in 2021. Also working in his favor: He was one of the best defensive players in all of baseball last season, by some metrics.
There’s a chance the shift ban hurts Schoop, because range isn’t necessarily the strength of his defensive profile. But with some positive regression likely on offense, he should end up being better all-around.
Would Hinch bat Schoop this low in the order, particularly beneath a youngster in Torkelson who’s coming off a rough season of his own? Well, in his final six spring games, Schoop hit second once, fourth once, eighth twice, and ninth twice. So I’d say it’s at least under consideration.
9. Nick Maton, 3B
- Spring training stats: .313/.400/.667, 5 homers, 2 doubles, 6 walks, 13 strikeouts in 55 plate appearances.
It will be a bit ironic if Detroit’s best spring hitter starts the season batting ninth, but it doesn’t feel like a stretch against a lefty starter.
While Maton had reverse splits over a small sample size with the Phillies, his minor-league track record suggests he’s probably better against righties, which makes more sense.
Maton left no doubt that he had earned the job by the end of this spring’s third base competition. The only question is whether he gets to start on an everyday basis or makes up the strong side of a platoon with a right-handed hitter like Ryan Kreidler drawing assignments against lefties. At least for Opening Day, I think he’ll start.