In year four under A.J. Hinch, the Tigers are on pace for the same record they had in year one: 77-85. They are slightly behind last season's pace of ... 78-84. They have lost five of their last six to fall three games under .500. It's more of the same for a team that feels stuck in place.
"The record is frustrating for us because we feel like some of these games are very winnable, and I’m sure you guys feel the same," Hinch said Thursday on 97.1 The Ticket before the Tigers tried to salvage the finale of a three-game set with the Nationals. "This one step forward, one step back, two steps forward, two steps back, you end up in the same spot."
Progress is the aim in a rebuild. It's hard to see it in Detroit. One first overall pick is in Toledo trying to find his swing, the other will take the mound on Thursday trying to win his second game in three years. The starting center fielder is also in Toledo, and the starting second baseman is looking more and more like he belongs there. The defense has sprung leaks. The bullpen is a levee on the verge of collapse.
"There’s some growing pains," said Hinch. "I know everybody’s frustrated with the lack of accelerator trying to get to the other end of this .500 (record). Trust me, it’s keeping us all up at night because we have some ingredients that we feel like should be better. We also are very proud of some other things. You can bang your head against the wall if you’re not careful with some of the back and forth."
The back and forth is futile between Toledo and Detroit: Down goes one young player, up comes another. While the Tigers hope for better, the results have been mostly the same, which is flirting with insane. If the Tigers, as a collective, aren't better than they were last year -- or three years ago -- then where does Hinch see progress this year?
"I think progress is very individual to a guy," he said. "If you look at where Matt Vierling is toady, he’s making progress. Wenceel Perez wasn’t even being talked about (at the start of the season), he’s come out of a little mini slide, for him, and he's making progress. Tarik Skubal emerging as a No. 1 pitcher is pretty good progress. The record is going to be indicative of the consistency we can create."
Outside of Skubal looking like the best pitcher in baseball, Vierling's growth into an everyday player has been the best story of the season for the Tigers. He plays everywhere on defense and has eight homers and a .777 OPS in 60 games. Then again, if that's your best story in year seven of a rebuild ... that's why you're in year seven of a rebuild. Pérez has been a pleasant surprise, too, but is anyone all that surprised by his recent downturn? Is either Vierling or Perez a key cog on a contender?
Is Spencer Torkelson? Is Colt Keith? Is Parker Meadows? Is Casey Mize? Is Reese Olson? Is Kerry Carpenter? Is anyone other than Skubal and Riley Greene? The Tigers are still trying to find out. The latest hitting prospect to arrive on the scene is Justyn-Henry Malloy, who has struggled like you might expect in a league dominated by pitching. Jace Jung would be next.
"We need experience for these guys to get through things," said Hinch. "Malloy’s pinch-hit last night was probably the first time he’s ever been in a game-on-the-line pinch hit. Colt Keith, under this type of microscope offensively and defensively, he has to go through it. Like anything you’ve done in life, you have to go through it to build steps to success."
From the outside looking in, very few of these steps are visible. Therein lies the frustration. The Tigers, led by first-time MLB shot-caller Scott Harris, are so bullish on Keith that they extended him for up to $80 million over nine years before he'd played a game in the bigs, and he's responded with some of the worst offensive and defensive numbers in the game as a rookie.
"But did you like Colt Keith's May?" said Hinch.
Keith, indeed, hit. 343 in May in what felt like a breakout after hitting .154 up to that point. But he's plummeted to .074 in June and, in total, has been one of the easiest outs in the majors, in an offense with easy outs up and down the lineup.
"No, I get it," said Hinch. "But offense in the league is completely down. It’s not justifying it. It’s just more like, welcome to breaking in a young player that doesn’t go perfectly. It is part of the process that unfortunately will probably drive you crazy, drive me crazy, but most importantly, drive Colt crazy. He’s very much grinding his way through this learning curve."
Questions abound for the Tigers, and answers are slow to take shape. The biggest one concerns Torkelson: Is he a guy, or just a guy? The 24-year-old kept up with the top power hitters in the majors last summer. He's spent the rest of his career falling further and further behind expectations. He's second to last in the majors in OPS (.683) over his three big-league seasons, among hitters with at least 1,300 plate appearances -- better than only Javier Baez (.607).
Torkelson has hit well in his eight games since being sent down to Toledo, and Hinch is wary of creating "a lose-lose for him where if he performs we toss it to the side because it’s Triple-A and not the big leagues, and if he doesn’t perform, we hammer him for lack of performance." But it will take more than nice numbers in the box score for Torkelson to get called back up to Detroit. Hinch said there's "a couple things that we’ve put in front of him."
"One, the quality of contact really has to be there," he said. "It’s defined by hitting the ball hard. It doesn't account for the result. The result will take care of itself if you put up a quality at-bat, swing at the right pitches and you hit it hard."
And two, said Hinch, "is the defense. We’re not just sending him down there to go fill the scoreboard with fancy numbers. He’s gotta get back to playing baseball and being more instinctual, more fluid at first base, not getting in-between. So there’s a couple things that are measured in different ways that aren’t so much, ‘Hey, he went 2-for-5 today. He’s ready.'"
Indeed, progress can take on various shapes, especially in the minors. But in its simplest form, the Tigers still haven't made any in Detroit.