So you want the Tigers to get with the times? Here's what that sounds like. For almost four straight minutes Monday, president of baseball operations Scott Harris talked about the plan "to modernize our operation ... and find new tools that are going to help us get a little more out of all the players that come through this organization."
"In order to do that," Harris said in his end-of-season press conference, "we have to make significant, multi-year infrastructure investments up and down this organization. That is a mission that we've already started. I have some really ambitious projects."
We run through them below.
The Tigers have purchased a plot of land in the Dominican Republic and are in the design phase of a new development academy "that's going to make us a lot more competitive internationally," said Harris. This is crucial for an organization that has long failed to mine international talent, especially one that isn't inclined to spend big in free agency. The Tigers must develop talent from within, and this is one way to do that. They have never produced their own position-playing All-Star from Latin America.
Harris said the academy will include "development features that are going to allow us to tap into that (talent) the day that those young players walk into this organization in the Dominican, and then we're going to be able to hand them off to Lakeland and help to both raise their ceilings and accelerate their path through the minor leagues so they can help us here (in Detroit)."
At their spring training facility in Lakeland, which also houses the Low-A and rookie ball teams, the Tigers are undertaking "baseball expansion projects" that include new batting cages, new mounds and a covered field "to help every player that goes through this organization in spring training, especially the young players that will populate the Rookie Ball teams and the Low-A Flying Tigers," said Harris. They're also building a new team dorm in Lakeland.
At the big-league level, the Tigers are beginning the second phase of their "clubhouse and performance center renovation" that started last offseason "to help us get a lot more out of the big leaguers we have coming through here and sustain those gains throughout the summer," said Harris. They are also debuting a new team plane "that is fully customized with best-in-class features to promote the comfort, recovery and culture" of their MLB players, Harris said.
Finally, said Harris, the Tigers are investing heavily in technological improvements throughout the organization: "It's really expensive, but it's something we have to do."
"If we're going to be sincere about building this organization the right way, and creating that culture of development and finding gains within our players, we have to have the infrastructure to be able to do it," said Harris.
He added that Tigers owner Chris Ilitch "believes in all this stuff and is ready to invest heavily in this type of infrastructure to strengthen the pipeline of talent that's coming through this organization."
"It's really important," said Harris. "We are doing a good job with the tools we have, but we need more tools that are going to help us get more out of our players moving forward."
