Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - Detroit Tigers | Profile & Projection | 609

Episode Date: February 23, 2023

Use code TALKIN for $20 off your first SeatGeek order. https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/TALKINThe Tigers might be looking ahead at a tough season with Casey Mize and Tarik Skubal out. What will Detroit fans be watching for this year and is it the return of Matthew Boyd? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello. Oh, you look nice, Jay. Detroit. Hello. Welcome to talking baseball team profile and projections. This is your fifth ranked team? The Tigers, fifth, bottom five, fifth worst by our audience. Not us.

Not us. Not us. Don't get mad at us. I think it's sixth. By you guys, the six? This is the six. You guys already? So not bottom five, not bottom five.

All right. All right. Way to be. Jake. It's the Detroit. Tigers. They might have been in my bottom five. What's going in?

What's going out? And these TPPs are brought to you by Seat Geek. Code talking $20 off your first order with Seat Geek. What's going in? What's going out, baby? Matthew Boyd is back, Jim. Your guy, guy. With Michael Lorenzen, two guys that I feel like you're attached to in a way.

Lorenzen? Yeah, I feel like he's always been a question mark for you because it's like, is he starting, is he relieving? Is he good? Is he bad? He's got the fans on? Is he fun? Is he annoying? Right.

It's a good looking guy. They had that big Phillies trade. Veerling, Maton, and Sands are in town. A bunch of waivers guys, not a ton on your list. Hey, Caesar Hernandez on a minor league deal. And you know Chasing Shree is going to be getting outs at some point. Who they love. Tucker Barnhart, friend of the program.

Jamer Candelario, you heard about him. Soto, he was the big piece in that trade along with Cody Clemens. Joe Jimenez is out. Tehran, Castro, Victor Reyes, another Castro, Andrew Chafin. They're all out of Dodge. And Big Mike Paneda, another John Boy favorite pitcher.

They're moving some fences. Trev, what are they moving in that lineup? Well, I hope they're moving in the right direction. We need some bounce back. years. We need some breakout years from these guys. Austin Meadows, he'll be manning some outfield for them. He's a potential bounceback candidate. Riley Green in center field. He's nasty. He's going to be really good for you guys, no doubt about that. Havi Bayez, scope. Carrie Carpenter Fangrass has listed at the DH. I'm sure him and Miggy will be doing a lot of dances together.

Eric Hauls. Another bounce back candidate, Spencer Torkelson at first base. Badu who burst onto the scene early on last year, I believe, another balance back candidate. And then Nick Maton, who they got from the Phillies on that bench, Tyler Nevins, Donny Sands, Matt Veerling, all will be mixing in at some point during the season. Like I said, they need some people to get back to where they were. James. Tell us about that rotation, please. They got E. Rod. That was a big signing when that happened. And then Jake told you, Boyd Lorenzen, Matt Manning, that's a football name.

Spencer Turnbull returns. He had T.J. C. I don't know when he was returning. Uh, Bo Briskey. He threw up in the mound, right? Is that the guy that threw up on the mound last year? He'd have puked. Garrett Hill.

Tyler Alexander and Alex Fado, huh? Hmm. They got Scooball and Mize on the IL. Scooball, Mize, Turnbull. They were the future. Everyone got hurt for the Tigers last year, like the whole entire rotation. And in the bullpen, they got a bunch of guys. And that's about it.

Man, is there any name in the bullpen that people that don't follow the AL Central? No. I mean, it was Soto. Like, he was kind of the sexy piece, even Jimenez. I think Lang or Lange, we were debating that beforehand. I think he can put up some big numbers on a gun and he might be the next guy. but yeah, it's not, especially coming off the Royals in division, different taste in the bullpen.

They did move the walls in, so that's going to be a storyline. I mean, one of the bigger parks, not only do they move some walls in, they're moving center field in from 420 feet to dead center, I think to 412 feet. And then they had the 13-foot walls in left and right, and they're dropping those down to seven feet. I love cookie-cutting.

stadiums. And I, this is something we need to look into. We had the MLB rules guys on a show early in the year. And this isn't specifically Tiger, so I guess. But what are the sanctions? You should be allowed one giant wall. And then the rest should be robbery. Allowed.

Like, you know, I'm not going to take away Fenway or, you know, in Minnesota. Like you get one of the three can be a giant wall where it bounces off and creates fun quirks. But the rest, you got to be able to rob home runs. Basically, this was home run robbery less park. It was a really nice catch up. It did happen. Treff, how many more homeruns would you have hit in these new dimensions? Are they in left field there?

It's a very robberable left field. We've seen many. Are they moving that fence up, you said? Like higher? Left field, right field center. Right center is getting lowered. Left field will be unchanged. Oh, yeah.

This is hilarious. Okay. But they research in laser measuring the left. field corner dimensions have been corrected from 345 to 3.42. So the numbers on the wall in left field were three feet off, which is what Happer was telling us about Wrigley. He's like, all the numbers are wrong. That sanctioned that, MLB.

Let's laser these distances and start, stop lying to the people. We can get the distances by now. I want people to know like lasers sounds like futuristic technology, but we've had like laser leveling and laser distance for quite some time. Like decades we've had that not sure how the 345 came about. Did it sound better? Just like, hey, like 345 is more like that. Yeah.

I think that's 342 out on that. Yeah, I think that's what we're looking at here. I think back in the day, they just rounded shit. We're getting a little off topic here. Let me stay on topic. Let me transition on topic. You asked about Riley Green. He gets affected big time by these new walls.

He would have had one, two, three, four, five, six, eight, nine. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine more homers at homeers at home. home last year with the new dimensions, according to Stackcast. Nine, that's only in home games. That's a big fucking difference. It's a big difference. He's the highest projected player as far as war on the team. He's projected for 15 homers and a 112 WRC plus.

He only had five last year. So, James, what you're talking about, I think they're trying to take into account here with the projections. But he's a stud. He hit three at home. It's a big part, dude. It's cold as shit there. Not an easy place to hit.

I think bringing the fences in is probably a good idea. Again, as I was reading the lineup for you guys, I talked about all these bounce back candidates and guys that need to have big years. I mean, Spencer Torkelson, before the year last year, all we heard about was that this guy's got prodigious power. He's a real big league hitter. He's ready to go right now.

He struggled. It's hard to hit in the big leagues. I don't care what your pedigree is. I don't care what you did in the minor leagues. When you get to the big leagues and you get that major league pitching shove down your throat every single day, Jake, I know you got excited right there. It gets overwhelming, though. So one year under the belt, you see what you're made of,

then you go in the Aussies and you work and you prepare. I think Torkelson is obviously a prime candidate to have a much better year than he did last year. And they're going to need it if they want to compete. I've got some good news in the rotation. I mean, Erod, remember, I mean, he went genuinely missing last year. Hopefully we're putting that in our rear view of Lorenzen and Boyd. I like for one of them to put together a nice season. I'd be interested in which one.

Turnbull, man. Turnbull's got some interesting stats, and I wouldn't be surprised. I'm going to tease a future trade at this year's deadline. Meadows and Turnbull together go to a team. They each have the, they'll be at the one and a half. they each have two years. So that's a little pre-prediction there. So I like maybe a little boost in the rotation,

especially they had some injuries like you mentioned, Jim. The lineup just scares me. You know, I need Riley Green or Torkelson to kind of be like, I am next. Like I am going to be the future of this Tigers team for the next five years or so. And Javi Baez, I mean, an ugly kind of tough year for him. He actually led the team in war, and funny enough, if he put something together this year, and maybe the walls moving in in just a second year, he does have an opt-out,

which would be really funny if that was his Detroit Tigers ride. But I'm worried about the lineup, and they lost a lot of good innings out of their bullpen between Soto, Chaffin, and there's one other guy. They basically lost a buck-60 innings of good bullpen that Jimenez. So that's, I'm not too gung-ho on these T-Graise. Me neither. At all. E-Rot also has an opt-out after this season, too.

I guess we could talk about Miguel Cabrera a little bit. I mean, this is the Swan song for him. And how much is he going to play, I think is a storyline. It says here he had 433 plate appearances in 2022. I don't think he approaches that unless I'm way off. he doesn't really have more milestones to hit. I don't see any. We know what he got to last year.

It's going to be interesting to see what kind of role he plays on this team. I'm assuming every stadium he goes to that he's going to get an ovation and they're going to play some sort of farewell to Miggie because he's meant that much to the game, one of the best right-handed hitters of all time. Certainly some of the best years I've ever seen in person,

was incredible. But, you know, at the end, when you get guys like this at the end, it's almost, I don't want to say it's sad to kind of like see them as a shell of their former selves. But, you know, if you're a Tigers fan, definitely go out and applaud this dude for what he's given to the organization because he has just been, he's a monster, dude. They have big smiles on their baseball reference from last year. Okay.

If you go check out, you know, their leaders in war. I mean, big old smiles. They're top eight, nine guys. Big smiles. So there's that. Yeah, man, I mean, they only had one hitter who had over 115 at bats last year, have an OPS plus over 100. That was your boy, Eric Haas, Trev.

I guess that's your spin, Royals, or excuse me, Tigers. Nothing kind of went right last year. And in the course of a baseball season, it feels like something's got to go, right? There's got to be your bright spots. So maybe that's going to come this year. My biggest problem with this team is I don't like their rotation, lineup, or bullpen. That's what's got you hung up.

And the bottom five themes, maybe three of them, I liked one aspect. You know, the Royals, I like their bullpen. I think you could, you can get excited about the lineup if everything goes right.

I think the rotation is where I would like jump to first if I had to choose one. Okay. There's some proven hitters here. I mean, Austin Meadows has done it before. Javier, he was kind of off and on all last year. He was like month to month, like good, bad, good bad. He could go off. Scope has had years before. And then I think, I mean, the biggest one is Torkelson, dude. Like, you got to be the guy they thought you were going to be if you want this team to produce whatsoever. I mean, I know those are big ifs, but like you could dream a little bit if you're a tiger's friend. Well, the young pitchers, I mean, hopefully they come back and they get back to where they were supposed to be headed. but you're not going to bank on them to, you know, carry you to over 500 season this year, anything like that. I guess that's where, you know, I was the biggest Pirates Kool-Aid guy,

as we all know, where everyone's talking about. Like a Pirates roster compared to this, I'm very much rats. So I don't know. Tiger would kill a rat. I don't know. Like you were saying, I could see, you know, something between E-Roy, having a full year and Turnbull coming back, Boydor Lorenzen clicking. Like, yeah, you know, I think you're going to get something there is going to click.

And last year it was their bright spot with Scoobel. And right now he's got a flexor tendon surgery. So I don't know, man. It's tough to see what it is. I keep going back to the stars. If I'm a Tigers fan and I can tune in every day and I can see, okay, Riley Green, who is just under that 100 OPS plus for a rookie playing the outfield. And like you said, the fence is moving in.

If that can become real, if Torkelson, he can put that rookie year in his rearview and it can become real, then I can start map. I can start finding the roadmap. Right now I don't see the road map, which I don't love. Me either. They're instantly back to square one. like they graduated their rebuild. And their prospects, they don't have many right now.

They don't have the next wave for a little bit. So have we seen a team like really graduate their promising rebuild and not even crack above 500? Like it took the White Sox a while, but they got there not winning World Series or winning the division. They did win the division. You know, we're seeing, we've seen other teams take a while. but they really need those young pitchers to come back and get healthy and then next season like go at it again. Same with on the hitting side these prospects because if they don't pan out, it's a whole wave of graduations that kind of didn't pan out.

I feel bad. I could see that and this is a, you know, a cautionary tale for people who always want to just strip it down and rebuild and let's get prospects and do all this stuff. like they don't all pan out all the time. I'm not saying these guys won't. I understand injuries happen. I think the difference between like the tigers and maybe like a different team that if they say the, I don't know, the royals or the reds

if they whiffed on their rebuild. The tigers have been, they'll shell out money for a free agent every now and then. So they can kind of stay in the game that way. But you're right. I mean that this is, this was supposed to be the Calvary and, you know, it's not, it hasn't happened yet. There's some good pieces there though.

The over under family is set at 70 and a half. I'm taking, if this is the only episode of the team profile projections you've watched, taking the under and all the centrals until I find one line that I really like on the better teams coming up, but I'm going under 70.5. I don't know what I've done so far I feel like I've been picking a lot of unders as we're seeing some of these bottom teams and we know they're not all going to be under

but I agree with you James I can't I can't wrap my head around this team kind of having the resurgence and doing that because the lineup can be good if everything goes right the starting pitching can be good if these guys come back or something

it's a lot of ifs I'll take the under Treve you've gone three overs three unders three six oh Treve you're balance this shit. I'm going under. Sorry, Detroit. I think they're sorry. Okay.

Let us know. We're all commiserating together. Who's going to save us? Excited for the new ballpark dimensions. Riley Green. Hop some. Riley Green. Maybe on my hot boy list to start the year.

He's athletic. It's a baseball name. Yeah. Sounds like you should fight for the brakes. Well, also like Cincinnati, I mean, the football team got better this year. Jared Gough pretty good.

Riley green kind of looks like Springer's brother.