By Jack Walker
The Major League Baseball’s Opening Day has finally come, the day baseball fans have been waiting for since Josh Sborz struck out Arizona Diamondbacks second baseman Ketel Marte to win the Texas Rangers their first World Series in franchise history.
Although technically the season opened last week in South Korea, as the Los Angeles Dodgers played a two-game series against the San Diego Padres, the other 28 MLB teams have 162 games remaining on their schedule.
Opening Day will look a little different for the Detroit Tigers, as for the first time since 2007 a familiar face will no longer be on the squad, that being the future hall of famer, Miguel Cabrera.
The absence of Cabrera marks a new era of Tigers baseball. Though many players remain from the Al Avila era, President of Baseball Operations Scott Harris, now in his second full season, has brought in plenty of new faces himself. According to ESPN, the Tigers will field the third youngest roster in the league, only behind the Oakland Athletics and the Cleveland Guardians.
The Tigers remain one of the more unpredictable teams in the MLB, with many analysts and writers predicting the Tigers will finish between fourth place and first in the AL Central. The consensus seems to be that the Chicago White Sox will finish last in the division, after a down year last season and a massive trade, sending ace Dylan Cease to the Padres. But, between the Tigers, Guardians, Minnesota Twins and Kansas City Royals, there is no consensus, which is typical in the AL Central, as it tends to be one of the more fluctuating divisions in baseball.
Detroit’s season will depend on a few storylines, such as:
Will Tarik Skubal take the leap to true number one ace status?
How will the rest of the rotation outside of Skubal perform?
Can Spencer Torkelson add more consistency to his powerful bat?
Can Riley Greene stay healthy after Tommy John Surgery
How good can Colt Keith be in his rookie year?
Is there any life left in Javier Baez’s bat?
According to Fangraphs steamer 600 projections, Detroit projects to have nine hitters with average to above average hitting seasons using wRC+ (Weight Runs Created). Those nine players would be Torkelson, Greene, Mark Canha, Keston Hiura, Justyn Henry-Malloy, Kerry Carpenter, Keith, Gio Urshela, and Akil Baddoo. Of those nine, three will not be on the opening day roster for Detroit (Hiura, Henry-Malloy, and Baddoo). Offense has been stagnant for the Tigers recently, with the last time Detroit had a team OPS (On Base+Slugging %) ranked in the top half of the MLB was 2016. However, with the young core that the team will field this season, the upside is there for the team to have an above average offense.
The biggest controversy on the Tigers team comes from their $140 million dollar shortstop, Javier Baez, who has had a rough start to his Tigers career. After putting up 31 home runs and an .813 OPS in 2021 with the Chicago Cubs and New York Mets, Baez was able to snatch a deal with the Tigers for over nine figures. It’s safe to say Baez has not lived up to expectations, as the former all-star has put up a .633 OPS, and a 77 OPS+, meaning he’s 23% worse than the average hitter, not ideal for the highest paid player on the roster. A slow start to the season could quickly send Baez to the bench.
In order to be competitive, the Tigers will need some of their young guys to take the next step in their careers, those young guys being the previously mentioned Torkelson, Greene and Carpenter.
Torkelson, a former number one overall pick struggled mightily as a rookie and struggled to start off hot in year two, hitting only two home runs the first two months of the season, but caught fire in the month of June, hitting 27 home runs from then until the end of the season. Despite the 31 home run season, Torkelson only finished with a .758 OPS due to his below-average on base and batting average. A tick in those two categories will have the everyday first basemen in all-star conversations.
For Greene, the key is staying healthy, as the former top prospect is yet to play 100 games in a season yet in his young career. He’s shown flashes of being an above-average hitter with the occasional flashy play in the outfield, of all current Tigers, Greene holds the most upside.
Carpenter has shown flashes of being the Tigers best hitter, as last season Carpenter reached his apex on Aug. 23, hitting home run number 20 to raise his OPS to .900. From Aug. 24 to the end of the season, Carpenter hit zero home runs, finishing with an OPS of .811. If Carpenter can find his form pre-September, the Tigers have a big building block for the future.
Pitching will be a big key for the Tigers in order for the team to exceed expectations this season. After missing the majority of the first half of last season, Skubal led all pitchers in wins above average from July to October, proving that he can become the ace the Tigers have been missing since the Justin Verlander days. The rest of the rotation remains a big question mark for the team, with newly acquired Kenta Maeda turning 36 early into the season, and Jack Flaherty coming off a rough year with the St. Louis Cardinals and the Baltimore Orioles. Former number one overall pick Casey Mize will return to the diamond this season, after missing all but two starts in 2022 and all of 2023 after having Tommy John surgery and back surgery. The fifth starter spot will be given to second-year man Reese Olson, who ended his 2023 campaign with a 1.44 ERA in over 30 innings pitched.
After coming off a 78-84 season in 2023, it seems like 2024 could be the first time in eight seasons that the Tigers finish above .500. A rough start for the offense but a great start for the pitching staff as the team was able to lock up their first win of the season, in a 1-0 contest over the White Sox in Chicago. A lot of things will need to go right for the ball club, but there is optimism to be had regarding this season.
