In the second half of his second season with the Tigers, Spencer Torkelson was one of the best power hitters in the majors. "We think he's a lot better right now," Scott Harris said Sunday morning before Detroit wrapped up a three-game set with the Blue Jays.
That afternoon, Torkelson strode to the plate with two on and two out in the first and drove a sinker at the knees off the wall in right center to stake the Tigers to a 2-0 lead. Facing the same scenario in the seventh and the game tied at two, he got a slider in on the hands and smacked it into center to plate the go-ahead run in yet another series victory for the best team in baseball.
"Kept it simple," he said on the field after the game. "Get a good pitch to hit, put a good swing on it, and trust that."
Two months ago, you might have thought Torkelson was busted beyond repair. A few weeks ago, you might have feared he was coming undone. You still might not believe the fixes are real, but he continues to quiet your doubts, doesn't he? After falling into his first slump of the season with a .532 OPS in the final 10 games of April, Torkelson has snapped out of it with an .836 OPS in the first 15 games of May.
When Harris took over the Tigers' baseball operations three years ago, "I talked a lot about developmental wins in this organization," he said. It would be a priority of theirs to "help our guys find ways to make adjustments to get a little bit better." This is a must for every team. The Tigers are just doing it better than ever, and maybe better than most.
"Spencer embodies all of that, and he deserves all the credit for it," Harris said Sunday on MLB Network Radio. "He had some rough stretches over the last few years. We were trying to get him back to the hitter that went 1-1 overall. You don’t go 1-1 overall if you’re just a pure power hitter. He went that high because there was real opportunity for both the hit tool and the power tool to play at this level."
You know what happened next. Aside from that power binge when Torkelson cranked 23 homers over his final 83 games in 2023 -- tied for the most in the American League -- none of those tools translated to the bigs. Combined with his subpar defense at first base, the Tigers were left with a player who was hurting them more than helping. They couldn't abide that any longer after last year's run to the playoffs, so they signed Gleyber Torres this offseason to play second and told Colt Keith to prepare to play first.
And Harris told Torkelson that if he made real changes over the winter that bore fruit in the spring, "there is a place for you on this team. We need that right-handed power, we need the damage in the middle of our lineup from the right side to complement a bunch of the talented left-handed hitters we have, and there’s every path in the world for you to be that guy — but we need you to be that guy."
"He got the message," said Harris, "he certainly worked really hard, and the results speak for themselves."
It's the process that matters here. Torkelson is indeed a new hitter, and also the hitter of old who rocketed up draft boards at Arizona State. The Tigers sent him into the offseason with a plan, and Torkelson responded by making "concrete adjustments to his (swing) path and his setup in the box that I think have brought this version out of him," Harris said.
"He’s a little bit narrower in the box, he’s a little bit more athletic, and his path is allowing him to stay on all different types of shapes and hit the ball a lot harder," said Harris. "We thought as soon as he showed up in spring training, he’s just hitting the ball a lot harder, he’s using the whole field and he’s doing damage very regularly. This is the version that we need from him."
Last Tuesday in the Tigers' win over the Red Sox, the heroics of Javy Baez overshadowed a milestone of sorts for Torkelson. He hit his 11th homer of the season, surpassing his total from last year in about half as many games. More notably, it was his fourth homer of the season to right field or right center, after he hit none the other way last year. It was also yet another quality at-bat against a right-handed pitcher.
Over his first three seasons, Torkelson had a .668 OPS against righties, one of the worst marks in the majors. This year he's up to .807. Both of his hits Sunday came off righties. Combine it with his damage against lefties and you get an OPS of .886, seventh in the AL. Combine that with an OPS of .929 with runners in scoring position and you get 38 RBI, tied for second in the AL with Rafael Devers. Only Aaron Judge has more.
"This is a human who wants to be great in this game," said Harris. "He wants to put up those gaudy numbers on the scoreboard, and he’s certainly every bit as talented as the guys that are doing that."
Pretty much all of the underlying statistics suggest this is sustainable. Torkelson has a career-high barrel rate that ranks in the 87th percentile of MLB hitters. Even when he's making outs he's hitting the ball hard, like when he lined out twice to third on Saturday after homering in the first for Detroit's only run of the game. His expected batting numbers are even better than his actual ones, based on quality of contact. Most importantly, Torkelson is back to drilling fastballs, which leaves him much less vulnerable to off-speed and breaking pitches.
Harris and the Tigers knew they needed to add a right-handed bat over the winter. When they signed Torres, who has been even better than advertised, they "had an opportunity to add another if we could get Tork right during the season," Harris said.
"And fortunately Tork didn’t dwell on the stretches of underperformance over the past few years. He attacked it really hard this offseason, he showed an open-mindedness and willingness to make concrete changes, and we’re really proud of him for doing it," said Harris. "He’s a really big part of what we’re doing here."