As they raise the bar, Michael Lorenzen and the Tigers are living up to their word. After Lorenzen put up his third straight scoreless start in Detroit's win over the Royals on Thursday to lower his season ERA to 3.49, you might recall what Scott Harris said last winter after signing the veteran righty to a one-year, $8.5 million deal:
"He does a lot of the things that we value in this organization, but we think there’s more in there. We think he’s just scratching the surface as a starter. We think he can get better, and I know Michael thinks he can get better."
The Tigers were so bullish on his potential that Lorenzen laughed and said "Harris was hounding my agent about making me a Detroit Tiger." At the time, it seemed like a reach. Lorenzen had logged most of his big-league innings as a reliever with the Reds and posted a 4.24 ERA last season as a starter with the Angels. He was 30 years old with a career ERA north of 4.00.
But: "We had a long conversation about how he sees himself as a pitcher and how we see him as a pitcher," Harris said, "and I was struck by the alignment between our two visions."
The Tigers looked at Lorenzen and focused on what he did at the end of last season. After recovering from a shoulder strain and regaining his natural arm slot, Lorenzen finished with a flourish. He showed the sort of repertoire and athleticism suited to the starting rotation. Lorenzen looked at the Tigers and focused on their progressive staff of pitching coaches, led by Chris Fetter, Juan Nieves and recently-hired Robin Lund, a former kinesiology professor.
"Baseball is in a spot where some organizations are a little behind and some are leading the way, and I think Detroit is going to get to the point to where they’re leading the way," Lorenzen said at the time. "For me, that’s exactly where I want to be. I’m all about a growth mindset and getting better, so I want a group of coaches around me that are going to support me in that pursuit. I feel like this coaching staff is definitely going to be able to do that."
It's never as simple as one pitch, but the difference for Lorenzen in Detroit has been the slider. While effective for him last year, he didn't trust it enough to throw it more than a few times per game. He threw it 24 times on Thursday, on his way to seven shutout innings. He's thrown it five times more frequently this season than last.
The slider isn't necessarily Lorenzen's best pitch. But it's been his second most utilized this year, which has kept hitters off his four-seam fastball (.175 batting average against), which has elite spin rate, and his changeup (.169), which has long been his calling card. He's also increased his first-pitch-strike rate this season and, wouldn't you know it, lowered his walk rate -- both by dramatic degrees.
"There's just a different confidence when you develop more and more skill," Lorenzen told reporters after Thursday's win. "I know I have developed the skills I need, just cleaning up the command with the slider has been huge."
Along with rotation-mate Eduardo Rodriguez, Lorenzen is one of the most appealing arms on the market approaching the Aug. 1 trade deadline. With contenders watching around the league on Thursday, and surely a cadre of scouts watching in person, he made it 21⅔ scoreless innings in a row, the longest active streak in the majors.
For the Tigers, Lorenzen is peaking at the right time. The Astros and Rays are among the clubs pursuing him, according to MLB Network. That he's drawing interest from two of MLB's most data-driven organizations is proof that the progress he's made with the Tigers is real. That should count for something when Lorenzen goes back to free agency this winter. Even if he's traded by Detroit, perhaps he'd just as soon return.
They believed in him, a middle-of-the-road pitcher who thought he had more in the tank. And he believed in them, a once behind-the-times organization that's starting to catch up. The Tigers sent Lorenzen to the All-Star Game this month, and they'll almost surely send him to a new team by August. The only way they don't is if they make a sudden surge in the AL Central, where they're five games out of first entering play Friday.
No matter what happens next, this is a win for the Scott Harris Tigers. They identified a pitcher with more to give, and they've pulled it out of him as an organization. Now they have an asset to sell at the deadline -- and/or an arm for the future. Compare that to the end of the Al Avila regime, when the Tigers continually whiffed on free agent starters. Signings like Michael Pineda, Jose Urena and Ivan Nova (to name a few) felt like hope-for-the-best experiments. With Lorenzen, Harris and the Tigers have executed a vision.
"The plans that he has for me and this organization, he sold me," Lorenzen said last winter. "I like to look at big-picture things. I like to make sure the organization is going in the right direction. Him coming from San Francisco and what they’ve built over there, I see the vision and what he’s trying to create here and I want to be a part of it."
Lorenzen's time with the Tigers is likely ending soon, and maybe just beginning.
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