Tigers Could Actually Contend For 2024 Crown
PLUS: MOOKIE'S MOVE TO SHORT IS MAJOR GAMBLE BY L.A. DODGERS
Pregame Pepper
Did you know . . .
The Atlanta Braves are seeking their 24th division title, most in the majors since the advent of divisional play in 1969, with the Dodgers (22) second and Yankees (21) third.
Adam Duvall, who kills left-handed pitching, joined the Braves for the third time on Thursday and will form a right-left platoon in left field with Jarred Kelenic . . .
All four outfielders obtained by the Braves after Ronald Acuna, Jr. tore his ACL just before the 2021 All-Star break are no longer free agents, as Duvall has signed with the Braves, Jorge Soler with the Giants, Joc Pederson with the Diamondbacks, and Eddie Rosario with the Nationals . . .
Boston, where Duvall played last year, will play 35 exhibition games in 33 days, with two contests in the Dominican Republic against Tampa and a pair against the defending World Champion Texas Rangers at Globe Life Field . . .
The St. Louis Cardinals, who open on the West Coast, will play two games in Mesa against the Cubs as they wing their way to California . . .
Pittsburgh pitcher Marco Gonzalez, new to the team this year, was Seattle’s Opening Day starter for three straight seasons from 2019-21 . . .
Netflix is producing a pair of documentaries on the Red Sox — a look back at the team’s historic 2004 campaign and a day-by-day docuseries in which camera crews will have unprecedented access to players, coaches, and executives.
Leading Off
Detroit Tigers: 2024 Season Preview
By Joe Underhill
It’s almost here! We are just a couple weeks away from the opening day and the start of the marathon that is the major-league season. With games about to count for real, it seems like a good time to take a look at the Detroit Tigers and make some predictions and set at least one author’s expectations on what would make a successful 2024 for the Tigers.
It’s been seven seasons sense the Tigers last posted a winning a record and its been 10 seasons sense they made a playoff appearance. So why am I predicting the Tigers will win 88 games this season? Rotation, offensive growth, and a pitching development staff that is able to help pitchers get the most out of their stuff.
The rotation is shaping up to be the strength of this version of the Tigers team. Though Tarik Skubal is being picked by some sites as a dark horse for the Cy Young, I think he will come up short of that due to inning restrictions coming off a 2023 where he was only able to make 15 starts and 80.1 innings in his return from flexor tendon surgery.
In those 15 starts however, Skubal was dominant, posting a K/BB rate of 7.29 and an ERA of 2.80. His FIP was even better 2.00. Skubal has looked locked in this spring, hitting 100 mph on his fastball, while demonstrating the ability to pitch inside to right-handers with ease.
The rest of the rotation looks above average as well.
Kenta Maeda understands “the art of pitching” and while his velocity isn’t in the 92-93 range yet, he is able to mix pitches and locate everything expertly.
Jack Flaherty is hoping the Tigers’ pitching coach can work the same magic with him that it did with Michael Lorenzen in 2023. So far this spring, Flaherty is looking like he is regaining the command that allowed him to be a top five Cy Young candidate.
The last two sports in the rotation will be filled by two of the last three starters standing: Casey Mize, Matt Manning, and Reece Olson. Mize is coming off nearly two years away from competitive pitching due to injury, while Manning is also coming back — from two freak foot injuries that limited him to 78 innings across 15 starts in 2023.
Olson didn’t look that impressive when he began the season at AAA, but it all clicked when he came up the majors. It ended with Olson posting a 3.99 ERA over 103.2 innings.
As of this writing the guess is Mize and Manning will open the year in the rotation but Olson will be critical when an inevitable injury hits someone. In addition to Olson, the Tigers have Sawyer Gipson-Long, Alex Faedo, Mason Englert, Wilmer Flores, and Ty Madden in the wings. All will most likely start the year at AAA but should be ready to step in should a hole open in the rotation.
The 2023 Tigers offense was terrible — and that is being nice. For the season, the offense posted a -79 run differential, which was improvement over 2022 where they posted a -156 run differential.
In spite of the ugly overall numbers, there are a number of underlining numbers that suggest the Tigers are going to be better in 2024.
First, the Tigers have a young core of hitters who began to really come into their own as the season progressed.
Torkelson posted his first 30-homer campaign and the prediction for 2024 is he will top 35 while also bringing up his batting average into the .265 range.
Riley Greene has been limited by injuries in his first two seasons in the majors and both were freak type injuries, first being hit by a pitch and then his non-throwing elbow while making a diving catch. If Greene can stay healthy, a .300 season with 20 home runs from the top of the order is realistic.
Kerry Carpenter is the third of the young bats to impress in 2023. The former 19th-round pick ultimately posted a wRC+ of 121 while recording the second-highest WAR among Detroit position players. He will likely see the majority of the time at DH in 2024, but his defense was league-average in the corner.
Finally, Jake Rogers was able to pair his defense and power in 2023, hitting 21 home runs, albeit with a low batting average.
In addition to those four, Matt Vierling is versatile and will play a critical role with his speed and ability to put the ball in play.
Another defensive wizard who I think will surprise in 2024 is Parker Meadows.
Meadows appeared in 37 games in 2023 and should be a plus plus glove along with double-plus speed. The bat has been a question mark sense his prep days, but a shorter swing has led to better discipline and improved contact rates.
Meadows will hit toward the bottom of the order, but his speed/power combo will have a positive impact on the offense for the full season.
Finally, there is the newest young bat: Colt Keith. He has looked comfortable both in the batter’s box and in the field and brings the ability to hit for both average and power from the left side.
All told, the 2024 version of the Detroit Tigers should be a lot more fun to watch for Tigers fans. The Tigers should be playing meaningful baseball into the end of September and depending how the injury and development front plays out (for both the Tigers and their AL Central counterparts) the Tigers may very well break into the playoffs for the first time in a decade. It is spring, hope and optimism reign!
Joe Underhill is a high school administrator and diehard baseball fan and fan of the city of Detroit. Joe currently writes for www.mlbreport.com and HTP Newsletter. You can follow Joe on Twitter @TransplantedDet and @transplanteddet.bsky.social
Cleaning Up
Will Mookie’s Move Help or Hurt the Dodgers?
By Dan Schlossberg
He came up as a second baseman. He played 16 games at shortstop last year. But he went to the All-Star Game as an outfielder.
With the possible exception of new teammate Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts must be the most versatile man in the major leagues.
He came to spring training in Glendale, AZ intending to return to his original position of second base but agreed to switch to shortstop after Gavin Lux (out last year after tearing his ACL during spring training) showed early on that he was far better suited to the keystone. Lux has not had any luck throwing, which has conjured up unpleasant memories of yips-prone Steve Sax, who once played the same position for the same team.
Shortstop, not second base, is the most important position in the infield and Betts is an acrobatic fielder who can handle it.
Or can he?
Playing shortstop can be physically draining for a slugger and Betts definitely qualifies. He generates enormous power from his 5-9, 180-pound frame (39 homers last year) and knocked in 107 runs, most ever produced by a leadoff man.
Now Betts heads a lineup loaded with former MVPs: his righthanded bat is first, followed by Freddie Freeman and Ohtani, both of whom bat lefty. That’s four MVP awards in the top third of the Los Angeles lineup.
Starting his 11th season, Marcus Lynn Betts is a seven-time All-Star who owns six Gold Gloves, six Silver Sluggers, and two World Series rings. He was American League MVP for the 2018 World Champion Boston Red Sox and runner-up in three other seasons, including 2023.
His .346 batting average was not only best in the AL in 2018 but the second-best ever recorded by a player during a 30/30 season.
Betts has led his league in runs scored three times and figures to do so again with so much firepower behind him. But playing shortstop is much riskier than playing right fields so injury could be a factor.
He played in 152 games last season but that was only the second time in the last five years he topped 150. Yet his numbers were so impressive — a .307 average, 39 home runs, and those 107 RBIs — that only a superhuman season by Atlanta’s Ronald Acuna, Jr. denied Betts his second MVP trophy.
Should Betts prove at least adequate at short, the trophy could be his. And he would thus join Hall of Famer Frank Robinson as the only men to win the award in both leagues.
Betts came to the Dodgers on Feb. 10, 2020 when the Red Sox, unwilling to meet his asking price, sent him across country with veteran lefty David Price for Alex Verdugo, Jeter Downs, and Connor Wang.
If that wasn’t the most lopsided trade in baseball history, it was pretty darn close.
Suffice to say all three players sent to Fenway are already gone, so the Sox have nothing to show for the swap other than magnificent memories.
Nor is it surprising that the diminutive Betts, like Old Man River, keeps rolling along at age 31. This spring, he collected 15 hits in his first 34 exhibition game at-bats. That’s a .441 batting average, a clear indication that returning to the infield may have recharged his batteries.
The Mookie move from right field to shortstop is the biggest position shift by any player this spring. But the little slugger from Nashville is determined to make it a smooth one.
“If there’s somebody I would bet on, it would be Mookie,” says Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, once an infielder himself. “But to go out and expect him to be Miguel Rojas is something that’s not realistic.”
Rojas, who has won a Gold Glove at shortstop but doesn’t have the bat to match, is helping Betts learn the new position on the fly — with Opening Day for the Dodgers coming up Wednesday in Seoul, South Korea. That’s five days away.
“The most important thing I’ve learned is I can do it,” Betts told Jon Heyman of The New York Post. “I enjoy challenges.”
He’s certainly paid well enough to dive through a wall for the Dodgers. Betts owns a 12-year, $365 million contract that makes him the highest-paid position player on a well-paying team. It’s not Ohtani’s $700 million but hey, let’s not quibble over a few million here or there.
If the Betts experiment goes bust or the Brewers decide to dump Willy Adames, entering the walk year of his contract, Mookie might just return to right field. But the move of a short man to short stop is “permanent for now,” according to Roberts.
The Dodgers have not won a world championship in a complete season since 1988 — the Year of Kirk Gibson — so the hunger is there. And Ohtani’s desire to play for a winning team for the first time in his career is a big motivation for the whole team.
For Mookie Betts, it’s make or break time. He says his shortstop play last year was “kind of raw” but he’s taking groundball reps before and after games to sharpen his skills. Needless to say, it will be interesting to watch.
Former AP sportswriter Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ is the author of 41 baseball books, including the forthcoming Home Run King: the Remarkable Record of Hank Aaron (Sports Publishing, 320 pages). His e.mail is ballauthor@gmail.com.
Timeless Trivia: on Atlanta’s Hitting Prowess
“He’s in a really good place right now. He’s seeing the ball well, timing has been good, staying on off-speed pitches really nicely. He’s just having good at-bats. Everything looks like it’s in slow motion for him. It’s where you want hitters to be.”
— Braves hitting coach Kevin Seitzer on Atlanta center fielder Michael Harris II
After a poor start in which he was injured and hit .167 in May, Harris hit .326/.352/.535 from June until the season ended . . .
“Last year was a better year for me than my rookie year (2022) because I learned a lot more,” Harris told The Atlanta Journal Constitution . . .
An Atlanta native, Harris has hit .346 (9-for-26) this spring with three homers, all deep drives, that hint he’s due for his first 30-homer campaign . . .
Last year’s Braves hit 307 homers, tying the 2019 Minnesota Twins for the major-league mark. The Braves’ .501 slugging percentage was the best ever and the only one to top .500. Atlanta led the majors with 947 runs, 1,543 hits, a .276 average and .344 on-base percentage . . .
Historical comparison: by weighted runs created plus (wRC+), the Braves’ offense matched the 1927 Yankees as best ever . . .
Among other feats, Matt Olson led the majors with 54 homers and 139 RBIs while Ronald Acuna, Jr. had 41 home runs and 73 stolen bases en route to a unanimous MVP award . . .
Trivia time: Atlanta starter Max Fried won the last Silver Slugger given to a National League pitcher when he hit .273 in 2021.
Know Your Editors
HERE’S THE PITCH is published daily except Sundays and holidays. Benjamin Chase [gopherben@gmail.com] handles Monday and Tuesday editions, Elizabeth Muratore [nymfan97@gmail.com] does Wednesday and Thursday, and Dan Schlossberg [ballauthor@gmail.com] edits the weekend editions on Friday and Saturday. Readers are encouraged to contribute comments, articles, and letters to the editor. HTP reserves the right to edit for brevity, clarity, and good taste.