From the day he was hired as manager of the Tigers, A.J. Hinch has stressed the importance of starting pitching. Makes sense for a manager who presided over some of the best rotations in baseball with his previous club. And makes sense for an organization loaded with young arms.
So it also made sense when Hinch went out and hired one of the most coveted pitching coaches in baseball in Chris Fetter. Already, Hinch and Fetter have identified two key areas where the Tigers need to be better -- much better -- than they were in 2020.
"The pitchers are really the foundation of our mindset -- how we enter the game, who's facing who. And that mindset is set by the pitching staff in that first inning. We weren't very good at getting into games last year," Hinch said Wednesday as pitchers and catchers reported to Lakeland for the start of spring training. "You have to take the responsibility as a pitching staff to build the foundation of that winning mindset, and then you gotta go do it."
Hinch is right. Tigers pitchers surrendered a 5.28 ERA in the first inning last season, fifth worst in the majors. That included an MLB-high 16 homers. It started in the season-opener when Matthew Boyd put the first five batters he faced on base. Boyd wound up with a first-inning ERA of 7.50. The Tigers wound up allowing a first-inning run in 20 of their 58 games.
That has to change.
So does this:
"The theme you're going to see and hear from our pitchers is how we control the strike zone," said Hinch. "Good things happen when you get ahead, and that starts with the very first pitch, it starts with winning the 1-1 pitch. It's a theme that Fet has told me from the beginning of his interview process, and it's something that quite honestly we didn't do a very good job of last year as a team.
"There's a lot to work with here and it's not as simple as saying, 'Just throw strikes.' But there is data out there that suggests your life is a lot better as a pitcher when you get in the strike zone on the first pitch and when you get to two strikes faster than you get to two balls. Way simpler to say than do when you're out there, but that's going to be the baseline of what we do with all our pitchers."
Again, Hinch is right. Tigers pitchers threw first-pitch strikes just 57.1 percent of the time last season, third worst in the majors. Both Boyd (59.4) and Spencer Turnbull (56.6) were among the bottom 25 pitchers in baseball, among those who threw at least 50 innings. Tarik Skubal (57.5) and Casey Mize (55.6) weren't any better.
And to Hinch's point, the splits are glaring. When Tigers pitchers got ahead 0-1, batters hit .236 with a .714 OPS. When they fell behind 1-0, batters hit .274 with an .859 OPS. When Tigers pitchers got ahead 1-2, batters hit .190 with a .602 OPS. When they fell behind 2-1, batters hit .270 with an .887 OPS.
"Pitch usage and optimizing when they throw what pitch to what hitter is the essence of the competition every pitch," Hinch said. "Fet is incredible at breaking down each individual pitcher. Not everybody can just be put in a bucket and then handled that way. I'm excited to see how the pitch usage change can help our pitchers.
"Obviously we have to get outs and you don't need to hit a quota, you don't need to throw this pitch this particular amount of times, but if you know your strengths and you know the hitter's weakness and you use both, that can help you."
In all, starting pitchers for the Tigers had the worst ERA (6.37) in the majors last season. They haven't ranked in the top five of the AL since 2016. Houston's starting pitchers ranked in the top three of the AL in four of Hinch's five seasons at the helm, including first in 2018 and 2019. Helps when you have guys like Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole and Dallas Keuchel at your disposal.
"I believe in starting pitching," said Hinch. "I want our starters, whether you're a young kid or a veteran, to anchor a staff and to solidify how we get our outs for the better part of the game. I'm coming from an incredibly elite group of starting pitchers, so it's easy for me to fall in love with starting pitchers. But I just want our players to know where I'm coming from, the resources that are here, both on my coaching staff and in the organization.
"And then ultimately, the bar is pretty high. We're setting the bar high for these guys to carry a workload not just in a post-pandemic situation, but just the way we're going to operate, the way we're going to rely on them to lead this team on a day-to-day basis."
