The way the Tigers finished last year should fuel them this year. A.J. Hinch believes his team has only just begun reaping the rewards of a two-month surge that crested in a long-overdue playoff berth and a victory over the Astros in the wild card round.
"We are capturing a lot of that momentum and experience," Hinch said Monday on 97.1 The Ticket. "We had one of the youngest teams in baseball at the end of the year and we were one of four teams left playing in the American League. We're going to take the good from that.
"Now the challenge is, we’re not a secret anymore. We’re not this building team, because we put together a pretty epic run to get to the playoffs. Now the expectations will mount and we’ll go back to preparing the way that we always have."
The Tigers went into the offseason riding high after wiping out a 10-game deficit in the wild card race to earn their first playoff berth in a decade and their first playoff series win since 2013.
"If anything, I think this season taught us how everything matters and we need to play the whole schedule and see what happens," said Hinch. "I don’t want to get down to a 0.2 percent chance of making the playoffs again, that’s not the healthiest way to live. But it is a memory that should be etched in our players’ brains about what’s possible when you get together and play well."
Now the Tigers are counting on internal growth to push the team further. And the experience they gained in the playoffs should help, said Hinch: "There's only one feeling of an elimination game. All of that is very valuable to where Riley Greene and Parker Meadows and Trey Sweeney know what it’s like to be in the box when it matters most and how to control your breathing and your tempo and your sight lines to be able to perform on that stage. That should propel us to being more and more prepared for good baseball."
There is no offseason for the Tigers, said Hinch: "We’re going to redefine this as a non-game-season." Led by Scott Harris, the organization is fixated on the idea that player development never stops. Take the rotation. While the Tigers would like to add pitching this winter, they're also expecting Jackson Jobe and a healthy Reese Olson to team up with Tarik Skubal and "we’re going to add huge competition in the Matt Manning, Casey Mize, Brant Huerter, Ty Madden group," said Hinch.
"And if they emerge as starting pitchers, you’re going to see maybe less of that bullpen game. But let’s remember how effective it is the next time we do that on a random Wednesday against Cleveland because we want to maximize Tyler Holton or we want to give a bridge outing out to a young pitcher who may be only coming up for a day," said Hinch. "All of that can exist in the game at the same time where you can love baseball for a lot of different reasons."
In that regard, Hinch said he learned in his fourth season as Tigers manager and his second under Harris "that we value players' strengths to the highest degree of any place that I’ve ever been in the game."
"And that allows you to look at players a lot differently and see what they can do as opposed to what they might struggle with. Or maybe there’s a matchup problem that you don’t like and you can strategize to get them into a position to maximize their strengths," said Hinch. "That fits right into the pinch-hitting that we do and some of the platooning that we do, which to the traditional fan I know can get a little frustrating or leave them wanting more from one side of the platoon or another.
"But man, we maximize strengths and that was a great advantage for us to get the majority of at-bats the way we wanted."
One of the Tigers' biggest improvements under Harris has been the ability to operate seamlessly as an organization -- "and that starts with having real conversations with people about what’s going well and what’s not going well," said Hinch. "We're looking for solutions, not just problems."
"Our medical department and our strength department are dialed-in with our hitting and pitching departments because they interact every day. How to get a guy's lower base stronger directly impacts his ability to hold the ground in his stance and use the ground to get some leverage on his swing," Hinch said. "It’s not working in silos, it’s not working individually and thinking we all have the single one answer to make this player better. It’s collectively trying to figure out what we can add to the ingredients to make the player more and more elite.
"And that’s such a fun boss to play for. It’s a relentless effort to try to get a little bit better in every area. And he means it. It’s not just for a fancy quote. It’s an identity that this organization has transformed into in the last couple years working with him. I love our partnership and I love the fact that we can challenge one another, because he can take it, too. It’s not just about pointing fingers at all of us to get better. He and (general manager Jeff Greenberg) and the front office are doing just the same in their departments, and that’s a very exciting place to come to work every day and put in the effort."
"Hopefully," said Hinch, "that playoff run is just a sign of many things to come."