A.J. Hinch doesn't want to get ahead of himself, and he won't. But he likes the vibe around the Tigers this season. He likes where they might be headed.
"We come in with a lot of enthusiasm. Our guys are ready," Hinch said Friday on Bally Sports during the Tigers' preseason opener. "We add Javy (Baez), we add Eduardo (Rodriguez), we trade for Tucker (Barnhart), we’re continuing (to add), (Andrew) Chafin the other day. There’s a lot of buzz about how much better we can be. That’s great -- then you gotta play the games."
As Hinch was talking, Rodriguez, the club's $77 million free agent signing, was on the mound throwing strikes. Barnhart, its key trade acquisition, was behind the plate stealing a few more. Baez wasn't on the field at the moment, but soon he'll be flashing the leather at short and doing damage at the dish. Riley Greene was in center and Spencer Torkelson was at first. The five of them are joining a team that played winning baseball for the final five months of last season and stood up to most of the top teams in the league.
One of the few they didn't is the team they're chasing in the AL Central: the White Sox. Chicago took control of the division last season, wresting it away from the Twins, who had wrested it away from the Indians, who had wrested it away from the Royals, who had wrested it away from the Tigers. Every team in the AL Central has won the divison since the Tigers last won it, in 2014 for the fourth year in a row. They'd like to win it again. Preferably soon. Like, now.
"We’re tired of it being somebody else’s divison," said Hinch. "We've gotta take that energy and channel it into the work that we have to do every day. I’m not going to let us get too far down the road of what we're gonna do toward the end of the season. We're gonna try to win the first game of the year and go from there, but I like where the standards are."
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With the playoff field expanding to six teams from each league, October baseball isn't out of the question for the Tigers. A division title might be a tad ambitious, but Hinch wants his players aiming high. He also wants them to be aware of the work that lies ahead.
"I want our confidence up, I want us to feel like our trajectory is in the right place and I want us to be hungry enough to be honest with ourselves: we didn’t turn double plays that well last year, we made too many outs on the bases. We’ve gotta clean up some things up," he said. "In order to be a 90-plus win team and win our division, we can’t be too proud of ourselves too soon."