With the MLB Winter Meetings off to a roaring start, the Tigers have been quiet. Speaking with reporters in a suite at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas on Monday evening, president of baseball ops Scott Harris said that the team's subdued offseason so far is a reaction to the market.
"One observation is that free agent prices continue to rise, at a pretty staggering rate, I would say. Which is not a criticism of the players, they definitely deserve it," Harris said. "But I think what we have seen in the early going is that the market is off to a really fast pace, both in terms of the size of the deals that are coming through and how quickly they’re coming through.
"We’re always engaged with every agent and we are engaged with all the teams on different trades and when we find something we actually like, we’ll jump on it."
After snapping a 10-year playoff drought, Detroit has added just one player, veteran starting pitcher Alex Cobb on a reported one-year deal. The club has a projected payroll of about $80 million next season, one of the lowest figures in the majors, but isn't in a rush to raise it.
"We just haven’t lined up with trades or free agents as frequently early," Harris said. "But I will say, we always seduce ourselves into thinking that the Winter Meetings are the finish line of the offseason. In most offseasons, it’s not even the halfway point. We have a long way to go in the offseason, we’re hopeful we’re gonna get something done pretty soon here, but it’s been a pretty crazy market."
The Tigers are counting mainly on internal growth this winter to boost a team that made a historic run to the playoffs in the final two months of last season. Though they struggled to create offense for most of the year, Harris is putting more stock into how they "performed as one of the best teams in baseball in the second half" after a wave of promotions and breakouts for young players.
"It was a very young team, a very athletic team, it was built to exploit matchups and it performed pretty well," he said. "I think we were in the top half of most overall offensive measures, top 10 in a lot of them. There are still some areas where we need to get better. The first thing we have to do, all of our young players have to take a step forward, no matter where they are in their development arc."
Detroit did create more runs in the second half of last season, but Harris might be stretching it. Entering July, the Tigers ranked 21st in the majors in runs scored, 24th in wRC+ and 27th in OPS. From that point on, they ranked 17th in runs scored, 18th in wRC+ and 20th in OPS. Most notably, they jumped from 25th to ninth in walk rate. The splits are generally the same if divided by the beginning of August.
Updated: From the start of their series against the Yankees on Aug. 16, which coincided with the call-ups of Jace Jung and Trey Sweeney and essentially the end of the season for the injured Javier Baez, the Tigers ranked 15th in runs and OPS, 13th in wRC+ and seventh in walk rate.
"When I step back and look at this group, we have a young talented player at every position now, which puts us in a really healthy spot," said Harris.
Harris outlined three groups of young hitters who should continue to fuel an improved offense. The first is headlined by Riley Greene and Kerry Carpenter who have established themselves in the majors, the second by Colt Keith and Parker Meadows who broke through last season, the third by Trey Sweeney, Jace Jung and Dillon Dingler who "aren't even past their second month of the big leagues right now."
"This is a group that we expect to take that leap just like Colt and Parker did and just like Kerry and Riley did before them, so there’s a lot of growth to be had from within," Harris said. "It's why I keep talking about it. These guys are still young and young players get better."
In terms of potential additions, the Tigers would like to balance out a lineup that got heavy on left-handed hitters by the end of last season and "we’re always searching for a little bit more power if we can find it," said Harris. It was reported Monday that they've expressed interest in free agent first baseman Paul Goldschmidt.
But continued development remains their primary path toward building a better team, and "we have to be full steam ahead on that path," Harris said.
"There was a youth movement that swept through Detroit (last season). That youth movement is not over," he said. "There are more players coming, there are players that are going to get to the big leagues this year for the first time, and then there’s another wave behind them.
"I feel really good about the overall base of young talent we have at every level of the organization right now, and we’re going to start to see that continue to trickle into the big leagues."