Tigers Rumors

AL Notes: Royals, Boone, Yankees, Tigers, Hernandez

By Mark Polishuk | February 20, 2022 at 8:45pm CDT

Many of the Royals’ best pitching prospects are returning from injury-shortened seasons, yet as MLB.com’s Anne Rogers writes, most of these young arms are back at the club’s minor league camp in good health. The most prominent of these names is Asa Lacy, the fourth overall pick of the 2020 draft and a consensus top-40 prospect heading into the 2021 season, though Lacy’s stock has dropped a bit after a rough debut year.

The left-hander posted a 5.19 ERA over 52 innings in high-A ball, with a strong 33.3% strikeout rate but also a garish 17.3% walk rate. Discomfort in his throwing shoulder sidelined Lacy for a good chunk of the season, though he felt well enough to pitch 7 2/3 more frames during Arizona Fall League action, with mixed results. Lacy delivered a 2.35 ERA and 15 strikeouts over that smaller sample size, but still issued six walks. It isn’t uncommon for players (even those without injury concerns) to have some trouble adjusting to their first taste of minor league ball, and both Lacy and the Royals are hopeful this was just a bump in the road of Lacy’s development.

Some other items from around the American League…

The Yankees and manager Aaron Boone are still looking at candidates to become the club’s third hitting coach, Joel Sherman of The New York Post writes. When last we heard of the Yankees’ search, the Bronx Bombers were hoping to land a former MLB player in the role — neither hitting coach Dillon Lawson and assistant hitting coach Casey Dykes played pro ball. (Eric Chavez was initially hired for the job but then headed crosstown to become the Mets’ new hitting coach.) How close the Yankees might be to finding that new coach is unknown, as Sherman indicated that a hire could come this week, or the team might just stick with two hitting coaches if they can’t find a good fit for that third position. The hitting coach search is just of several topics broached within a wide-ranging interview with Boone about the manager’s tenure in the Bronx, the challenges of the lockout, and keeping the staff prepared for what might be a rushed Spring Training.
Wilkel Hernandez threw his first bullpen session at the Tigers’ minor league minicamp Sunday, Evan Petzold of The Detroit Fress Press writes. The right-handed prospect hasn’t pitched since 2019 due to the canceled 2020 minor league season and then Tommy John surgery in October 2020. Even despite this missed time, Hernandez (who turns 23 in April) still has four years of pro experience, after joining the Angels as an international signing in 2015. Hernandez came to Detroit’s organization in December 2017, as one of two minors pitchers acquired from the Angels in exchange for Ian Kinsler.

Central Notes: Kuhnel, Reds, Tigers, Moreno, Jobe

By Darragh McDonald | February 20, 2022 at 9:27am CDT

In 2019, right-hander Joel Kuhnel threw 53 2/3 innings between Double-A and Triple-A with an ERA of 2.18, strikeout rate of 23.3% and walk rate of 7.4%. Just 24 years old at the time, he also made his MLB debut that year, logging 9 2/3 innings out of the Reds’ bullpen. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been able to build off that strong campaign, with injuries hampering him over the subsequent two years. In 2020, a shoulder issue limited him to just three big league innings. Due to the pandemic wiping out the minors, those are the only innings on his ledger that year. He underwent surgery to repair a torn capsule in his right shoulder in October of 2020 and was outrighted off the roster, then was rehabbing for much of 2021, throwing eight minor league innings on the year.

Kuhnel is now getting geared up in spring training for 2022, since he is not on Cincy’s 40-man roster and not affected by the lockout. Mark Sheldon of MLB.com checked in with the 27-year-old as he tries to get back on track. “Everything feels normal,” Kuhnel said. “It feels better than ever, really.” The Reds’ bullpen didn’t do them many favors in 2021, as their 4.99 ERA ranked 27th in baseball, only beating out the non-competitive Diamondbacks, Nationals and Orioles. Advanced metrics were a bit kinder, but not by much, with Reds’ relievers putting up a 4.56 FIP and 4.34 xFIP. The club has been rumored to be cutting payroll this offseason, making it unlikely they bolster their staff with a big free agent splash. That means that improvement from internal options like Kuhnel will be important for them as they try to walk a fine line of keeping spending down but staying competitive.

Some other Central notes…

Chris McCoskey of The Detroit News is at the Tigers’ spring training facility, even if none of the players on the 40-man roster are. One player in camp that caught his eye is Gerson Moreno, who was selected to the club’s roster after the 2017 season. 22 years old at the time, Moreno lasted just a few months on the roster as he required Tommy John surgery. The Tigers released and re-signed him in the summer of 2018. His rehab period wiped out most of his 2018 and 2019, then the pandemic wiped out the minors in 2020. Last year, Moreno was finally able to get some significant time on the mound, throwing 49 innings between Double-A and Triple-A. His 4.59 ERA doesn’t jump out, but his 33.2% strikeout rate is excellent. It does, however, come with an elevated 13.2% walk rate. The Tigers spent big already this offseason to upgrade their rotation and lineup with Eduardo Rodriguez and Javier Baez but haven’t made a big move in the bullpen. If the 26-year-old Moreno can take a step forward, he could give them a boost from within.
Other than Eduardo Rodriguez, the Tigers’ rotation consists of hurlers they drafted and developed: Casey Mize, Tarik Skubal, Matt Manning and Tyler Alexander. The next guy behind them on that path is Jackson Jobe, according to Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press. Selected by the Tigers with the third overall pick in last year’s draft, Jobe is just 19 years old and isn’t close to the majors, but is already drawing rave reviews. MLB Pipeline ranks him the 46th-best prospect in baseball and Baseball America places him in the 79th spot. Petzold spoke to one scout, who had nothing but superlatives to offer about the right-hander, giving Jobe’s fastball and changeup 70s and his breaking ball an 80, on the 20-80 scouting scale. Jobe is still quite young, meaning Tigers fans will need to be patient, but the scout offers this as the ceiling: “If everything lines up, he’s the No. 1 starter in the big leagues on a championship team.”

The Tigers Continue To Benefit From 2017 Deadline Trade

By Anthony Franco | February 14, 2022 at 10:26pm CDT

The Tigers and Cubs were going in polar opposite directions in 2017. Detroit was headed towards a last place finish that would kick off the massive rebuild from which they’re only now emerging. Chicago was trying to defend their drought-breaking World Series title, eyeing another division championship as part of what looked to be a dynasty in the making.

Given their respective competitive windows, they made for natural trade partners as that summer’s deadline approached. The Tigers were clearly preparing to sell off some productive big leaguers; the Cubs were willing to part with young talent to bolster their push for another championship. The day before the deadline, they agreed to a deal that sent a pair of veteran role players from Detroit to Chicago in exchange for two young infielders. Catcher Alex Avila and reliever Justin Wilson landed on the North Side, while Jeimer Candelario and Isaac Paredes headed to the Tigers.

Nearly five years later, the Tigers are reaping the benefits of that swap. Candelario, who had logged the briefest of action at the MLB level in each of the previous two seasons, served as a near-ready pickup. A corner infielder, he had no path to playing time on a Cubs team with Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo on the roster. But the Tigers could afford to give him regular run, and he was an everyday player by September.

Candelario has been a regular for much of the time since. He played in 144 games in 2018, performing around the league average on both sides of the ball. His 2019 campaign was a disaster, as his power evaporated and he was optioned on and off the active roster a few times throughout the year. That seemed to call his long-term future into question, but Candelario has turned things around over the past couple seasons.

The switch-hitter returned to appear in 52 of the Tigers’ 60 games during the shortened 2020 campaign. He posted career-best numbers, managing a .297/.369/.503 line over 206 plate appearances. That’s a very impressive showing but it’d have been easy to write that off as something of an outlier. Not only were those numbers compiled in an abbreviated schedule, he benefitted from an unsustainable .372 batting average on balls in play.

To his credit, Candelario largely backed up that strong performance last year. He tallied a personal-high 626 plate appearances over 149 games, hitting .271/.351/.443 with 16 home runs and an MLB-best 42 doubles. As expected, a .039 point dip in BABIP dropped his overall numbers a bit relative to 2020. Still, last season’s production checked in 19 percentage points above the league average (119 wRC+), and he did that over a much larger body of work than he had the year before. He now owns a .278/.356/.458 mark (123 wRC+) in 832 trips to the plate going back two seasons.

Nothing Candelario does stands out as excellent, but he has developed into a well-rounded offensive player. His contact rate, hard contact frequency and average exit velocity are all slightly above-average. So too are his line drive and barrel rates, as Candelario has demonstrated a knack for consistently squaring balls up. He’s been effective from both sides of the plate — .299/.350/.473 as a righty hitter; .270/.358/.453 as a lefty — allowing skipper A.J. Hinch to plug him into the lineup no matter the matchup. And while Candelario’s not a great defender at the hot corner, public metrics have considered him competent there. With top prospect Spencer Torkelson soon to assume first base duties in the Motor City, Candelario should be plugged in at third for at least the next couple seasons.

The Tigers’ rebuild has been ongoing for a few years, so Candelario’s recent production has flown a bit under the radar on non-competitive teams. Yet Detroit played reasonably well down the stretch, and this winter’s signings of Eduardo Rodríguez and Javier Báez — coupled with the looming debuts of Torkelson and Riley Greene — indicate they’re hoping to turn the corner in 2022. Candelario now looks like a key piece of that effort, and he remains under club control through 2023 via arbitration.

Paredes, who was in Low-A at the time of the trade, also remains in the Detroit organization. He’s yet to find much MLB success, but he’s coming off an impressive .265/.397/.451 showing over 315 plate appearances with Triple-A Toledo. He still has a pair of minor league option years remaining and could yet develop into a productive infielder himself.

That the deal worked as the Tigers had hoped — at least the Candelario pick-up — doesn’t mean it didn’t pan out for the Cubs. As mentioned, Candelario was going to have a hard time finding playing time in Chicago anyhow. The Cubs obviously didn’t develop into a dynasty, but their acquisitions of Avila and Wilson proved successful enough. The former hit .239/.369/.380 in 112 plate appearances down the stretch, providing a strong on-base presence behind Willson Contreras before departing in free agency. Wilson spent a year and a half in Chicago, posting a cumulative 3.86 ERA/3.66 FIP across 72 1/3 frames of relief. Neither player was a franchise-altering star, but they were never intended to be. Avila and Wilson were brought aboard to fill specific areas on the roster (backup catcher and left-handed relief, respectively), and they both fared reasonably in doing so.

All in all, it seems this trade served both teams well. Going in differing competitive directions, the Cubs’ and Tigers’ needs aligned. Avila and Wilson were short-term but effective players for Chicago, while Candelario has since developed into the solid regular Detroit envisioned. After a significant rebuild, the Tigers are hoping to contend this year. Candelario continuing to perform as he did from 2020-21 would be a quiet but important asset alongside their big-ticket additions and graduating top prospects.

Tigers, Jack Lopez Agree To Minor League Deal

By Steve Adams | February 9, 2022 at 11:01am CDT

The Tigers have agreed to a minor league contract with free-agent infielder Jack Lopez, as first reported by former big league infielder Carlos Baerga (on Instagram). Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press tweets that Lopez has signed a deal and will head to the Tigers’ spring facility in Lakeland, Fla. for minicamp.

The 29-year-old Lopez won a Silver Medal as part of Team USA during last summer’s Olympics. He made his Major League debut with the Red Sox not long after returning, going 2-for-13 with a pair of doubles in a tiny sample of seven games. He split the rest of his season between Double-A (five games) and Triple-A (68 games), batting a combined .285/.355/.413 with four homers, 17 doubles, a triple and 15 steals (in 17 tries) over the life of 273 plate appearances.

Lopez, a 16th-round pick by the Royals back in 2011, has appeared in parts of nine minor league seasons and logged a collective .241/.295/.331 batting line in that time. The vast majority of his professional experience has come at the two middle infield slots, with more time at shortstop than at second base. Lopez also has more than 1200 professional innings at the hot corner, in addition to some more sparse work in the outfield.

Baseball America at one point ranked Lopez among the middle tiers of the Royals’ farm system, noting that his range, soft hands and solid arm gave him a chance to handle shortstop at the big league level. That was seven years ago, and the the bat obviously hasn’t panned out as hoped, but Lopez will give the Tigers some defensive value and versatility to stash in the upper minors.

Tigers Sign Carlos Sanabria, Chris Rabago To Minors Contracts

By Mark Polishuk | February 5, 2022 at 3:53pm CDT

The Tigers have signed right-hander Carlos Sanabria and catcher Chris Rabago to minor league deals, The Detroit Free Press’ Evan Petzold reports. Presumably, both players will be invited to the Tigers’ big league Spring Training camp whenever the lockout ends and camp opens for Major League players.

Sanabria pitched in the Royals’ farm system in 2021, after spending his first seven pro seasons in the Astros organization. It’s fair to speculate that Tigers manager A.J. Hinch had a hand in recruiting Sanabria to Detroit, as Hinch was undoubtedly familiar with the righty when Hinch was managing the Astros from 2015-19. Sanabria didn’t make his big league debut until Hinch had left Houston, however, as Sanabria’s MLB resume consists of two games and two innings with the Astros in 2020.

Still only 25 years old, Sanabria has a 3.82 ERA and 23% strikeout rate over 412 1/3 career innings in the minor leagues, working only as a reliever over the last four seasons. Much of Sanabria’s success has come at the lower levels, as he has a 5.27 ERA at Triple-A, albeit over just 27 1/3 innings of work. A greater concern may be a lack of control that has more or less been an issue for Sanabria over his career, and has particularly manifested itself over the last few years; Sanabria has a 14.75% walk rate over 113 1/3 combined innings at the Double-A and Triple-A levels.

Rabago was a 13th-round pick for the Rockies in the 2014 draft, and he has played almost all of his career in Colorado’s farm system apart from a seven-game stint with the Yankees’ Double-A squad in 2018. Rabago has hit .248/.327/.348 over 1727 plate appearances in the minors, including a very similar .240/.325/.346 slash in 235 PA at the Triple-A level.

Rabago will provide the Tigers with further depth at a catching position that is headlined by new arrival Tucker Barnhart. The versatile Eric Haase is the primary backup on the big league roster and can also be used in the outfield, while Dustin Garneau is at Triple-A providing more experience. Jake Rogers will miss a good chunk of the 2022 season recovering from a Tommy John surgery from last September.

AL Central Notes: Buxton, Delmonico, Baddoo

By Steve Adams and Anthony Franco | February 4, 2022 at 4:44pm CDT

Chatting with SportsGrid’s Craig Mish earlier this week, Byron Buxton spoke about his decision to re-sign a seven-year extension with the Twins rather than play out the 2022 season and enter the free-agent market next winter. Reports dating back to July have indicated that the Twins and Buxton both hoped to work something out, and the 28-year-old tells Mish that “loyalty was a big thing for my family and me” when it came to contract talks. Buxton expressed appreciation for the Twins sticking with him and wanting to build around him despite a litany of injuries. He added that since being selected with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2012 draft, his goals have been to reach the Majors, play for a long time, and to spend his career with one team.

There’s no guarantee that last part will come to fruition, but in addition to a $100MM guarantee, Buxton’s contract came with a full no-trade clause. He can also boost his annual salary considerably with incentives tied to plate appearances and MVP voting. There’s a good bit of risk involved in the deal, given Buxton’s injury history, but as his .277/.321/.575 line and 42 home runs through his past 684 plate appearances show, Buxton is one of the game’s best in terms of raw talent. A hip flexor strain and then a broken hand sustained on a hit-by-pitch limited him to 254 plate appearances in 2021, but Buxton turned in a mammoth .306/.358/.647 slash with 19 home runs in that time.

The Tigers’ Forgotten Pitching Prospect

By TC Zencka | January 29, 2022 at 7:15pm CDT

The Tigers are one of the teams seen to be on the rise heading into 2022, in no small part because of a cavalcade of promising rotation arms that have begun to establish themselves in the big league rotation. Casey Mize, Matt Manning, and Tarik Skubal are three of the most impactful variables that might make the difference for Detroit in 2022. The pedigree of these three are well known, and their arrival in the Majors long-anticipated. Manning was the ninth overall selection of the 2016 draft, and Mize followed two years later going first overall. Skubal was the unheralded of the three, a former ninth round pick who rose to prospect prominence prior to the 2020 season.

But in the year between the Manning and Mize selections, the Tigers spent another first-round pick on a college righty whose road to the Majors took on a more circuitous route. After leading the University of Florida to a National Championship, Alex Faedo went 18th overall to the Tigers in the 2017 draft, signing for a $3.5MM bonus, barely less than it took to sign Manning the year prior. Faedo was a high character right-hander who looked like a future rotation piece based on the strength of his slider.

The gaudy strikeout numbers that Faedo posted in college didn’t translate to pro ball, however, and after making an appearance on top-100 prospect lists prior to the start of his professional career, Faedo soon after fell from the national spotlight. His fastball lost a tick or two of velocity, his change-up never fully developed, and the slider lost just enough effectiveness to dim his prospect star. He remained among Detroit’s better looking prospects, however, with Baseball Prospectus pegging him as the 10th, 6th, and 11th-ranked prospect in the Tigers’ system prior to the 2019, 2020, and 2021 seasons, respectively.

He finished the 2019 season in Double-A having recaptured some of the swing-and-miss that had eluded him in his first couple of seasons on the farm. He made 22 starts for the Erie SeaWolves that year, posting a 3.90 ERA in 22 starts covering 115 1/3 innings with a career-best 28.3 percent strikeout rate. He was expected to compete for a rotation spot at some point in 2020 despite not having tossed an inning in Triple-A, but a bout of COVID-19 delayed his season, and then forearm soreness led to Tommy John surgery, which ended it. Faedo hasn’t pitched since that 2019 campaign, but he’s on his way back. Faedo started throwing bullpens in his recover from Tommy John on January 11th, which should put him on track for game action sometime in March, per Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press (via Twitter).

The lost time means the Florida native still hasn’t pitched above Double-A, and at 26 years old now, his days as a top prospect are behind him. But expect the Tigers to push him once he’s proven healthy. If he can get himself back up to speed, Faedo could absolutely become a factor somewhere on the roster for the Tigers.

Even before the injury, Faedo had yet to establish a third pitch, so it could be that he eventually makes his bones out of the bullpen. A fastball that reached 95 mph as a starter could play up out of the bullpen, and he certainly wouldn’t be the first former prospect with a slider-forward arsenal to become an impact bullpen arm. Perhaps that’s not the result the Tigers or Faedo hoped for when he was a first round pick back in 2017, but in 2022, the Tigers are going to need some farmhands to pop in unexpected places in order to make a real push for contention. If Faedo can earn his keep on the 26-man roster at some point in 2022, both team and player ought to be encouraged. That’s still a long ways off, but with his first bullpen sessions in the rearview, consider the first hurdle crossed.

Tigers Name Gary Jones First Base Coach

By Steve Adams | January 27, 2022 at 9:47am CDT

The Tigers announced Thursday that they’ve promoted Triple-A manager Gary Jones to the Major League staff, where he’ll serve as the team’s new first base coach. The promotion comes in the wake of the tragic death of Detroit first base coach Kimera Bartee, passed away at just 49 years of age earlier this offseason due to a brain tumor.

Jones, 61, assumes his new role under unenviable circumstances, but he’ll bring a wealth of prior coaching and managerial experience to the position. He’s spent more than three decades in professional baseball, serving as a minor league skipper with the A’s, Red Sox and Padres — where he also worked as a minor league coordinator for nearly a decade. Jones was also Oakland’s first base coach back in 1998. He also served as the Cubs’ third-base coach from 2014-17, meaning he’s no stranger to newly signed shortstop Javier Baez or to third baseman Jeimer Candelario — who debuted with the Cubs in 2016-17 before being traded to Detroit at the ’17 deadline.

Jones joins third base coach Ramon Santiago, bench coach George Lombard, hitting coach Scott Coolbaugh, assistant hitting coach Mike Hessman, pitching coach Chris Fetter, assistant pitching coach Juan Nieves and quality control coach Josh Paul in rounding out manager A.J. Hinch’s staff for the upcoming season.

Jones’ ascension to the Major League staff left a vacancy with the Triple-A Toledo MudHens, but they’ve also filled that role with a very familiar name: Lloyd McClendon. The 63-year-old McClendon managed the MudHens back in 2016, but he’s best known for his time as the big league manager with the Pirates (2001-05), Mariners (2014-15) and his stint as the Tigers’ interim manager late in the 2020 season, following Ron Gardenhire’s retirement.

McClendon also has 16 years of Major League coaching experience — most of it coming with the Tigers organization. He’s previously held the roles of bullpen coach, hitting coach and bench coach with the Tigers, working alongside managers Jim Leyland, Brad Ausmus and Gardenhire.

Francisco Liriano Announces Retirement

By TC Zencka | January 17, 2022 at 10:44am CDT

Left-handed pitcher Francisco Liriano has announced his retirement, agent Mike Maulini tells Robert Murray of FanSided. Liriano debuted in 2005 with the Twins as a 21-year-old, and he last toed the rubber with the Pirates in 2019. All in all, Liriano appeared in 14 big-league seasons with the Twins, Blue Jays, White Sox, Tigers, Astros, and Pirates. MLBTR sends our sincere congratulations to Liriano on a long and successful career.

Liriano originally signed with the Giants as an amateur free agent out of the Dominican Republic on September 9, 2000. He would spend his first three professional seasons in San Francisco’s minor league system, reaching High-A in 2003 before being traded to the Twins in November. The deal would prove a good one for Minnesota, who received Liriano with Boof Bonser and Joe Nathan in exchange for catcher A.J. Pierzynski and cash. The deal marked the first of four times that Liriano would be traded throughout his professional career.

With the Twins, Liriano became a star. He burst onto the scene for a 96-win club in 2006, immediately crowned as the perfect sidekick/successor for ace Johan Santana. The 22-year-old threw 121 innings with a 2.16 ERA/2.55 FIP. Liriano was so impressive that he made the All-Star team, his only such appearance. Just as Liriano tantalized Minnesota’s fanbase with his electric arsenal, disaster ended the dream before it really even began: Liriano underwent Tommy John surgery in early November, knocking him out of the entirety of 2007.

He returned in 2008 to make 14 starts, posting a 3.91 ERA/3.87 FIP over 76 innings. Unfortunately, the electricity was gone from his game as his 30.4 percent strikeout rate from 2006 fell to 20.4 percent in his return season. Though some thump may have been gone from Liriano’s game, he proved to be an extremely resourceful and resilient professional, twice winning the Comeback Player of the Year award.

The first time came in 2010 when he rebounded from a difficult 2009 seasons to start 31 games and toss 191 2/3 innings with a 3.62 ERA/2.66 FIP, striking out more than 200 batters for the first time in his career. Liriano helped the Twins to 94 wins and a division title. He made just one postseason start as the Twins were bounced from the playoffs in a three-game sweep at the hands of the Yankees. That club was the third division winner of the past five years, but all three were swept out of the playoffs, and they tumbled to fifth place in 2011.

They stayed there in 2012, which helped lay the groundwork for the second trade of Liriano’s career. The Twins traded Liriano to the White Sox on August 1, 2012 for Eduardo Escobar and Pedro Hernandez.

Liriano signed a somewhat surprising deal with the Pirates that offseason that turned out to be a prescient move for the Buccos. Liriano made 26 starts in his first season with the Pirates, tossing 161 innings with a 3.02 ERA/2.93 FIP, a remarkable effort that won Liriano his second Comeback Player of the Year award. Liriano proved the perfect avatar for the Pirates’ own turnaround, who won 94 games and ended a 20-season playoff drought.

Not only did Liriano help get the Pirates to the postseason, he was the winning pitcher of a one-game playoff against the Reds, tossing seven innings of one-run baseball en route to a 6-2 win. That win might be the single greatest moment in the last 30 years of Pirates baseball. Remarkably, that team boasted a rotation that included a young(er) Charlie Morton and Gerrit Cole, but Liriano was the ace of that staff, and he pitched like it in the postseason.

The Pirates would go up 2-1 in the NLDS before ultimately falling in a five-game loss to the Cardinals. Liriano started a game three win as well, pitching six solid innings and giving up just three hits and two runs. Liriano even walked and drove in a run with a sacrifice in that game.

Liriano and the Pirates would return to the playoffs a wild card team in each of the next two seasons, running into a pair of buzzsaws in Madison Bumgarner and Jake Arrieta, both of whom threw complete game shutouts in their respective wild card contests. Liriano’s run in Pittsburgh was no less remarkable, however, as he posted a 3.65 ERA over 693 2/3 innings in parts of five seasons with the Pirates.

The 2016 season would mark the end of the second phase of Liriano’s career and begin the third. After a subpar start to the season for both player and team, Liriano was traded for the third time in his career. This time saw him shipped to the Blue Jays along with Reese McGuire and Harold Ramirez in exchange for Drew Hutchison.

He was traded for the last time at the deadline the next season. The Astros acquired Liriano for Nori Aoki and Teoscar Hernandez. He shifted to the bullpen, becoming a lefty specialist and winning a World Series with the 2017 Astros. He recorded a valuable out in each of game six and game seven, retiring Cody Bellinger on both occasions.

Because of the speed at which Liriano burst onto the scene, he probably ended up being slightly underrated throughout his career, one marked by reinvention. No matter the trial, Liriano pushed through it, making 300 career starts and appearing in 419 career games, tossing 1,813 2/3 innings and finishing with a 4.15 career ERA and 3.88 career FIP. He was an All-Star, a World Series winner, and he even tossed a no-hitter while a member of the Twins back in 2011. Congratulations to Liriano on a truly remarkable career.

Who’s Blocking Spencer Torkelson?

By Darragh McDonald | January 16, 2022 at 11:58am CDT

In 2019, the Detroit Tigers finished the season with a record of 47-114, easily the worst in the league that year. The silver lining in a season that bad is receiving the first overall selection in the next year’s draft. The Tigers used the first overall pick in the 2020 draft on Spencer Torkelson, a first baseman out of Arizona State University. (At the time, the club announced him as a third baseman, despite him not playing that position in college.)

Torkelson wasn’t able to play any organized ball for the Tigers that year, as the pandemic wiped out all of the minor league seasons, but 2021 was a rocketship ride up the minor league ladder. He started the year in High-A, playing 31 games and mashing at a rate of .312/.440/.569, wRC+ of 171. A promotion to a higher quality of competition in Double-A dampened his production, but only slightly. In 50 games there, he hit .263/.373/.560, for a wRC+ of 148. He was promoted yet again and got into 40 Triple-A games. Although the higher quality of pitching led to a decreased batting average, he still hit for power and drew walks, slashing .238/.350/.531, 129 wRC+. After that, he went to the Arizona Fall League but was sidelined with an ankle injury after just seven games. He is expected to be fully recovered for spring training. He is now considered the #4 prospect in all of baseball by all three of Baseball America, MLB Pipeline and FanGraphs.

After that tremendous showing at all levels, he seems a virtual lock to join the big leagues in 2022, the only questions will be about the date and which position he plays. In college, Torkelson primarily played first base, with a bit of outfield work sprinkled in. But when the Tigers drafted him, they announced him as a third baseman. In 2021, he played first and third somewhat evenly to start the year, with first base taking over as the season wore on. At High-A, he got into 15 games at first and 16 at third, with his Double-A stint featuring 23 at first and 27 at third. But in Triple-A, he played first base in 37 games, none at the hot corner. However, he did get into a couple of games at third base in the Arizona Fall League before the injury.

First base would seem to be the best path to playing time for Torkelson, both because of his greater experience at the position and because of the current makeup of the Tigers’ roster. Jeimer Candelario seems to have locked himself in as the third baseman after a strong pair of seasons with the bat. In the shortened 2020 season, he hit .297/.369/.503 for a wRC+ of 138 over 52 games. Although he played more first base than third that year, he moved across the diamond in 2021, playing 142 games at third and not appearing at first at all. Statcast considered him to be a roughly league-average defender, as he finished the year at -1 Outs Above Average. He also had another good year at the plate, hitting .271/.351/.443, 119 wRC+.

The situation at first base, however, can fit Torkelson into the picture much more easily. The Tigers gave most of the first base playing time to Jonathan Schoop in 2021, as he appeared in 114 games there. But that was Schoop’s first showing at the position, as he had largely been a second baseman prior to that. He even played 38 games at the keystone last year. If Torkelson were to take over at first base, Schoop could slide back to his traditional position at second. That would create a bit of a crowd in the middle infield for the Tigers, as they signed Javier Baez to take over the shortstop position. If Schoop was getting regular playing time at second, there would be little room for younger players like Harold Castro, Willi Castro, Isaac Paredes and Zack Short. None of those players have fully cemented themselves as everyday regulars just yet, but for a Tigers team that is looking to emerge from a lengthy rebuild, it should still be a priority to give chances for unproven players to blossom and take a step forward.

One way to help with this crowding would be to rotate these players through the designated hitter slot, giving them a bit of a rest while still getting reps in the batter’s box. However, that raises the question of how many DH at-bats will be going to Miguel Cabrera. While there’s no questioning he’s one of the greatest hitters of his generation, he hasn’t been an above-average hitter over a full season since 2016. His wRC+ dropped to 92 in 2017, then bounced back to 127 in 2018, though injuries cut his season short after just 38 games. In 2019, he dropped just below the league average of 100 again, coming in at 97. He snuck over the line in 2020 with a mark of 103, though that was the pandemic-shortened campaign. In 2021, he dropped down to 92 again.

Up until now, letting the veteran continue to play out his contract and hit career milestones hasn’t been an issue as the team hasn’t been earnestly trying to compete for some time. But push will likely come to shove at some point, as the club has already spent a lot of money this offseason in order to wipe their hands of this lengthy rebuild. Even if they don’t become AL Central favorites right out of the gate in 2022, Cabrera still has two guaranteed years remaining on his contract and will turn 39 in April. After getting 526 plate appearances in 130 games in 2021, how much rope will he get going forward? Is he destined to be squeezed out by younger players and eventually let loose in a similar manner to what happened to Albert Pujols last year? Or at least nudged into the type of bench role that Pujols settled into with the Dodgers? Cabrera is sitting on 2,987 hits and will surely be given the chance to cross the monumental 3,000 barrier, but at a certain point, the team’s desire to compete will clash with their desire for Cabrera to get the proper legacy treatment.

Regardless of how it plays out, the future seems bright for the Tigers. They have a roster with heaps of young talent that showed signs of promise in 2021. After a miserable 8-19 start in April, they went 69-66 the rest of the way. Since then, they’ve added Baez, Eduardo Rodriguez, and Tucker Barnhart to try and take them to the next level. With prospects like Torkelson, Riley Greene and Dillon Dingler on the way to help as well, they seem poised to be a fun and competitive team for years to come.

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