Let's go back. Back to when Daniel Norris was one of the top pitching prospects in baseball. Back to when his scouting report on MLB.com said "he's looking like the top-of-the-rotation starter the Blue Jays hoped they were getting when they drafted him." Back to when a Daniel Norris rookie card was worth as much as any up-and-comer's in the game.
What's it worth now?
"Probably, I would say, 99 cents," Norris said Thursday on the Stoney & Jansen Show. "Maybe go to your local Walmart and get a random pack and then sell it on eBay and you can get yourself half a cup of coffee."
A quick eBay search reveals Norris is selling himself short. Three cups of coffee is a bit more accurate -- two if you prefer those fancy beans like Norris does. But let's circle back at the end of this season. Finally, Norris is poised to give his career a jolt.
Norris has been here before, as recently as last spring. He was fully healthy after groin surgery in 2018 and coming off a strong closing act to the 2019 season. Then the season got delayed. Then Norris got COVID-19 and missed most of summer camp. He wound up in the Tigers' bullpen, where he wound up pitching really well: 2.77 ERA with 28 strikeouts to five walks in 26 innings.
So here we are again. And there was Norris telling new manager A.J. Hinch early this spring that, if he's being honest, he's done being a spare part in the bullpen.
"I basically told A.J., ‘Listen, if I’m not going to start, I want you to feel like you need me in the game to help us win. I want to be in when the game’s on the line. Whether that’s the sixth inning or later, whatever it is, I want to be that guy for you,'" Norris said.
And you know what? Hinch and new pitching coach Chris Fetter agreed. Norris said they've "made it clear" he won't be the three-inning starter he was at the end of 2019 or the spot reliever he was throughout last season. He said his role will be "a little more high-leverage."
"It’s exciting to feel like you’re going to be used when the team needs you the most," Norris said.
It's not just the opportunity that has Norris excited. It's the feeling that he's ready to seize it. He's healthy. He's strong. His fastball is heating back up, 92-93 for most of this spring and creeping closer to where it was before a slew of injuries knocked it down to 89, 90. And thanks to an offseason adjustment, Norris feels better about the pitch than ever before.
While Norris has always spun his fastball well, that spin hasn't always worked in his favor. It would sometimes cause the ball to veer back over the middle of the plate. The spin rate on his fastball ranked in the 85th percentile last season, but the pitch yielded an expected slugging percentage of .576 -- two points higher than Miguel Cabrera's actual slugging percentage over his first nine seasons with the Tigers.
So Norris' goal this offseason, on the heels of his longest stretch of success in the big leagues, was to correct that, "to get more true spin" on his heater. Which he accomplished in one trip with Matthew Boyd and Tarik Skubal to the Driveline Baseball facility in Seattle.
"It took truthfully one day to increase that efficiency by five to 10 percent, which was really cool to see," he said. "This spring I’ve just been working on keeping that consistent. It’s not going to be perfect every time, but working on that stuff and seeing what works, you can tap back into it if you feel like it’s going awry at any time."
Norris has given up a few more runs than he'd like this spring, but that new-and-improved fastball was on full display Wednesday against the Phillies. He got three whiffs on four swings including strikeouts of Odubel Herrera and Philadelphia's top hitting prospect Bryson Stott.
And not that anyone's keeping score, but Norris protected a three-run lead in the seventh to help the Tigers to a 4-1 win, just the kind of part he'd like to play in his seventh big-league season.
"Time just kind of flies," said Norris, who turns 28 in April. "Seems like just the other day I was getting called up and I was a young, little kid, but I guess I’m getting older."
Older in age, younger in promise, as young as he's been since his first cup of coffee in the show.