Just before the 2020 season concluded, the Tigers finalized agreement with A.J. Hinch to take over as manager. At the time, the club announced the hiring only as a “multi-year” deal, and it’d remained unclear for how long he was under contract until this week. Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic reports that Hinch signed a five-year pact, taking him through the end of the 2025 campaign. Rosenthal adds that general manager Al Avila’s deal wraps up before that point, although its specific terms are still unreported.
The five-year term for Hinch is a fairly lengthy commitment for a manager, but it reflects the atypical track in which he was hired. Generally regarded as one of the sport’s best skippers for much of his tenure with the Astros, Hinch was suspended for the entire 2020 season after the extent of the club’s 2017 sign-stealing operation became public. Houston dismissed both he and GM Jeff Lunhow almost immediately thereafter, but Hinch became an in-demand managerial candidate virtually the second his suspension was up.
The 48-year-old oversaw 100-win teams for each of his final three seasons in Houston. The Astros claimed a pair of pennants during that stretch and won the 2017 World Series. Those teams’ star-studded rosters obviously played a big role in that success, but the manager had drawn plenty of plaudits for the Astros’ excellence before the sign-stealing revelations.
Since landing in Detroit, Hinch has endured quite a bit more losing. That was to be expected last season as the club neared the end of a massive rebuild. The Tigers were coming off their third last place finish in four years, and a dismal April killed any chance they had of hanging in contention in 2021. Detroit played fairly well from May onwards, however, leading to some optimism they might turn a corner this year.
Instead, the Tigers have begun the season at a 26-43 pace. They’re virtually certain to finish below .500 for a sixth straight year, and they’ve been outscored by 100 runs through play Thursday. Detroit’s rotation has been gutted by injuries, with only Tarik Skubal staying healthy all season. Spencer Turnbull also underwent Tommy John surgery last year and was always expected to miss most or all of the season. Virtually any team would have a tough time overcoming the losses of six of its top seven starters, but the Tigers’ problems have gone beyond rotation woes.
The bigger indictment for the organization has been a generally anemic offense that ranks last in MLB with 198 runs scored. (Every other team has plated at least 220). Detroit has a .226/.281/.327 slash line that translates to a 75 wRC+, indicating they’ve been 25 percentage points worse than the average hitting team. That figure is tied with the A’s for worst in the league. The Detroit lineup has been problematic essentially top to bottom; of 11 players with at least plate appearances, Miguel Cabrera and Austin Meadows are the only two with a wRC+ better than the 100 league average. Cabrera (.299/.336/.374) and Meadows (.250/.347/.328) have only been marginally above par themselves.
The team’s disappointing first half is magnified by the aggressiveness with which Avila and his staff attacked this past offseason. Detroit signed Javier Báez to a $140MM guarantee with a post-2023 opt-out opportunity. That came on the heels of a $77MM investment in starter Eduardo Rodríguez, while the club picked up Meadows and Tucker Barnhart via trade. Most public projection systems still viewed Detroit as a longshot to contend for a playoff spot, but few would’ve forecast them struggling to this extent.
Avila has overseen the entirety of Detroit’s rebuild. A longtime member of the front office, he took over baseball operations in August 2015 when Dave Dombrowski left the organization. Avila assumed an aging roster with a bottom-tier farm system, so it wasn’t surprising the club embarked on a retooling effort. Detroit has had a top ten draft pick in five of the last six seasons.
Players like Casey Mize, Riley Greene, Spencer Torkelson and Matt Manning have all reached the majors and still have plenty of long-term promise, but they’ve not yet pushed the team especially close to contention. Mize and Manning have dealt with injury issues — including a recent Tommy John procedure for the former — while Torkelson has stumbled to a .191/.282/.291 showing through his first 63 big league games.
As the August 2 trade deadline approaches, Avila and his staff look likely to serve as at least moderate sellers. Relievers Andrew Chafin and Michael Fulmer are each nearing free agency (Chafin after 2023, Fulmer following this season) and should draw interest from contenders. Barnhart, Robbie Grossman and Michael Pineda all are impending free agents and could be dealt for cost savings and/or a minimal prospect return. The Tigers won’t be offering the kind of impact talent of some other sellers this summer, but they seem likely to move a few shorter-term players for help in 2023 and beyond.
Im sure plenty of Tigers fans are happy to hear that Avila’s contract might be ending soon.
Avila’s contract is nowhere near ending. I believe he has signed through 2030. The man’s a genius it’s some of the Detroit fans that are stupid.
You clearly didn’t read the article, as it states that his “contract wraps before that point…” In reference to AJ Hinch’s contract, which runs up in 2025.
People don’t get you were being factious. It’s probably over in 2023 and Illitch won’t fire him but just not renew him.
Lol That I get.
Dave, Illitch is too stupid to let Avila walk, let alone fire him. He’ll probably tender him a new 3 year contract like he did before despite few accomplishments.
Amazing for a guy who should have been thrown out of baseball..
Along with Beltran and Cora for sure.
@Brooklyn1953: Call it what you want. A form of cheating? Gamesmanship strategizing? Playing the angles? Bottom line. This stuff has always been going on. The Astros just got caught. The MLB “fraternity” , and in this case the Tigers, take care of their own.
Oh, here we go! Of course it is a Yankees fan with the pot calling the kettle black,
The Yankees wrote the book on cheating.
There last 3-4 titles were “won” with a roster of drug abusing cheaters
with many of their players roided up like cartoon characters.
Yankees, Red Sox and other teams have cheated much worse and much longer than the Astros and Hinch..
Hinch was never found guilty of cheating.
Hinch and GM Luhnow were made the scapegoats and blamed for some unsanctioned cheating by the players.
The Players Union and MLB threw team employees (non players) under the bus for activities by the players.
Hinch and Luhnow were disciplined for failure to supervise more closely,
NOT FOR CHEATING.
Ok, Johnny Cochran. He knew about it for a while and did nothing about it. Just because he wasn’t directly involved doesn’t mean he doesn’t have culpability. That’s like saying a lookout for a bank robbery isn’t guilty of robbery just because he didn’t take the money.
Sign stealing is part of baseball, using high tech cameras to do it, is not. Try a little nuance sometime.
Complete BS…I thnk the sign stealing scandal only started after Carlos Beltran brought the Yankees cheating techniques over to the Astros.
Again, it was the players.
The Players Union and MLB made a “deal” to not suspend/fine/ban the perpetrators aka the players actively involved in the sign stealing cheating.
They Yankees fought hard against the release of the facts of the investigations and findings about sign stealing, electronic video room cheating etc… The “final report” was “sanitized” by lawyers
and glossed over the real culprits and teams most involved in sign stealing cheating, including electronic, over the years…
Astros management and Front Office were made, convenient, scapegoats for a league wide problem that started in New York.
Hope Avila’s contract is up after this season
Isn’t there an opt out for hinch?
I believe one report said so, but Avila has said that report was false.
Ownership made a mistake when they extended Avila. He is both unlucky and unskilled. He hired Hinch, which was good, but his free agency and trade records are uninspiring. Now Tigers have to endure him for another draft and trade deadline season. Should rebuilds take this long in MLB?
When the rebuild starts with the worst farm system in baseball…yes.
White Sox rebuild was 12 years.
Tigers are only in year 5 of their rebuild.
since Mike Illich sabotaged the much needed rebuild
when he fire Dombrowski for starting it….even though Dombrowski fully disclosed
to Illitch, in advance, that Dombrowski would be trading veterans at the Trade Deadline that year. Mike Illitch put the brakes on and stopped the rebuild for another few years…
Avila needs to go
Hitch is an excellent manager, given at least decent talent. Avila, not so much.
Anyone can win with talent. He hasn’t come close to getting the most of his team – injuries or not. He was fired in Arizona, but had success with a very talented team that cheated. He’s overrated.
Just don’t get all the Avila hate. He took a team with no farm and few major leagues assets to trade, and put together one of the best farm systems in the majors. Candelario, Harold and Willi Castro, Torkelson, Clemens, Rogers, Haase, Cameron, Hill, Greene, Reyes, Baddoo, Mize, Skubal, Manning, Brieske, Faedo, Alexander, Turnbull, Garcia, Wentz, Cisnero, Lange, Foley, Funkhouser, and Soto, all acquired or drafted at the minor league level. That’s excellent! His Free Agent signings have been mostly disasters, as he was spending at the bottom of the market. The exceptions being Zimmerman, Baez and Rodriguez. Two of those have time to correct the initial impression. As the pieces came together, everyone got hurt. Now’s not the time to change diection.
Problem is the Castros, Clemens, Roger’s, Cameron, Hill, and Baddoo are probably not on major league teams elsewhere. (Baddoo isn’t even on the team here.) He doesn’t get credit for the obvious choices of Mize, Greene, and Tork. Most of those pitchers have been injured or you got lucky (Skubal, Brieske) with. Several of which only got chances because of how decimated starting pitching has been and are truly not ready.
Skubal wasn’t a “lucky” pick. Good Lord, give the staff their due credit.
Doesn’t fit the narrative so has to just say got lucky instead of due diligence
If you want to say they selected Skubal and had an idea that a ninth round pick would be have as good as he is thats fine. Honestly thought he was 12th round for some reason and I always consider anything after 10 for any team luck. What I said has nothing to do with a narrative. I don’t see how someone looks at this team and all the complete misses he made on contracts and trades and thinks he’s doing well.
Boros called Avila and the Tigers Front office and pitched to them to draft Skubal. Tigers sent a few scouts to look him over and decided they would take a flyer on him. Not sure what the story was whether he was coming off an injury or just a “sleeper pick”..
Yes it was. If they knew he was going to be good they would have taken him higher – that’s common sense.
Consider the opportunities he has missed……
Hire the Superfife, for example…..
Not to mention: taking on bad contract salary for prospects; he allows FAs to showcase on the MLB level for free, no team options, no salary reduction with signing bonuses…ie does nothing to make trade candidates more appealing; pretends we could make it to the playoffs everytime we got a hot streak playing.lower level teams instead of taking action; does not instruct his manager to massage stats of trade candidates; does not appear to know when to walk away from the table….
Do you really think Boras has the upper hand? THE DETROIT TIGERS are giving Boras clients the opportunity…not visa versa…..
Has done absolutely nothing to resolve the inane price of a hotdog at Commerica. How is that doing a good job as a GM? He obviously is oblivious to the concerns of any real baseball fan!
Hire the Superfife, he knows what to do!
I think you are charitable to AA’s draft record. I will say, though, that the draft is still probably his greatest strength. I would put him as a C+, B- drafter. He could skate by with that if he would show any savvy in trades or f/a signings.
Haha. Good one. You almost had me believing that you were serious until you named Candelario, the Castros, Haase, Rogers, Cameron and Hill as bright spots. Or failed to acknowledge that only Skubal has really established himself as a true building block so far. Or completely ignored that he built a historically bad offense seven years into his reign after they declared the rebuild over. Fangraphs had an interesting article a few days ago about how this offense was on pace to be the worst since integration in 1947.
Al should be gone.
Any average or almost average gm can trade away every veteran player and draft high for 5 years to build a good farm system.
Holy god, is your name Alex Avila? Most of those players are aaaa or unproven. He has not drafted one position player who’s played a full year, let alone be good in 7 years. I could go on and on, but I don’t have the energy.
I remember someone in the thread when Joe Maddon was fired saying Hinch could go to the Angels and win immediately, looks like that may take a while.
While the Tigers have certainly disappointed this season after making several all-in moves to contend before Miguel Cabrera’s contract expires and he retires, they still aren’t that far off. Injuries have hit the starting pitching staff which hasn’t helped, and the offense has been ice cold all season but they are showing signs of life. Everyone handed the White Sox the division and it’s the Guardians and the Twins duking it out for the top spot so it’s not hard to imagine Hinch getting the Tigers back to the playoffs sooner than later
Rsox;
In 2021 the Tigers played around .500 ball the 2nd half of the season with primarily young players coming out of a rebuild. I thought they’d sign a few more vets to go with Miggy, Schoop and Grossman. Instead they brought in 6 or 7, headed by Javier Baez – too inconsistent at SS, as a personality, and as a hitter to be anything resembling a team leader…..which is what they sold him to the fans as.
This year they brought up Spencer Torkelson and Riley Greene, and lucked out with Tarik Skubal. The rest of the roster pretty much resembles a 3rd or 4th place team whose players have little future upside. Hinch can only do so much (see post below).
Most rebuilds fail. It’s a numbers game. I was critical of the Phillies rebuild years ago; said the White Sox rebuild would flame out; the Royals are failing due to their lack of being able to work successfully with pitchers (their young position players are fine); and can tell you that the Tigers are not in a very good place today. The rebuild I do see succeeding – that has been given no national pub at all – is the ‘Rebuild on the Fly’ that Cleveland did under the radar. Red Sox will be playing them this weekend. Have a look at the young players they have – and how they play the game fundamentally – and then consider that in 2023 another batch of youngsters comes up…….
Also, keep an eye on the Orioles and Pirates.
Haha, you are smoking too much schwag.
Actually, the 2021 Tigers played 6-7 games over 500 after a terrible start in April. Tigers, again, started poorly in April of ’22.
Hinch’s teams always play hard and finish strong.
Was not happy that they traded Paredes for often injured Meadows.
That guy cannot stay on the field. And, his power is AWOL.
Have you ever considered…. contending teams would rest their best when playing the Tigers at the end of last season ……how could you guys not see it……?
The only reasons why the Sox aren’t in first: massive injuries & TLR. Even so, I still expect them to win the division. When healthy, they are clearly the best team.
And I am definitely not a White Sox fan.
rememberthecoop;
1. The White Sox cannot play baseball on a field against good teams. Their position players are one-dimensional – a bunch of Ron Kittle’s, Carlos May’s. etc.
2. Their farm system has been strip mined; their payroll is at a max based on revenues.
3. As for injuries – there seem to be a rash of them coming form players that are out of shape, and don’t play fundamental baseball – putting unnatural strains on parts of their bodies. See it all over MLB. The Sox are poster boys for it.
You want to blame this on Larussa or the owner….fine. I watched them last night because I wanted to check in on the Orioles. The CF screwed up a ball hit off the wall so the batter got a triple instead of a double and a runner scored from 1st that should have been stuck at 3rd. Later in the game the 2B narrowly averted running into the CF on a pop fly – oftentimes While Sox players do just that. It’s routine. The 3 young Orioles OF’s made plays last night that helped win that game. Sox don’t do that.
I can’t argue with those points. But for the Sox to be hanging around despite the injuries makes me believe they can still win the division. But probably be out in the first round ha.
Plus, I just don’t think the Twinkies or Tribe are all that great. You know the Guardians won’t do anything at the deadline, though it will be interesting to see what Minnesota does.
rememberthecoop;
Have you looked at the Twins injuries? Their 2 best players – Correa and Buxton – have missed time (they wanted to hold Buxton to 110 games this year and won’t let him try to steal bases for fear of injury…..he’s out injured again now). They lost one of their starting pitchers for the year, and others have been out. They’ve had other injuries as well.
Cleveland is breaking in young players. If they win the division – which I thought during the offseason they could – it will be a bonus. They’re looking at competing for the next 5 years…..at which time the minority owner can buy out the Dolan’s.
The Sox problem is the owner and his loyalty to employees. Kenny Williams should have been gone years ago. The last 4 managers were hired to teach the players fundamentals. None succeeded. Think maybe the problem lies in the types of players brought in?
P.S. Merge the Sox pitching with the Royals position players and that team is a legit WS contender.
The White Sox started their rebuild 12 years ago.
They are just emerging form it.
They have already strip mined their farm system that is now rated
near the bottom of both leagues.
They talk about adding players at the trade deadline?!
With what?! A few case of Polish dogs and some deep dish pizzas?!
AJ is the quintessential example of a primary baseball person being helped by a solid organization…..,,
Jeff Luhnow built up an infrastructure of evaluators and scouts; along with teachers / coaches specializing in pitching and hitting at both the ML and minor league levels. Those people used the most current hardware and software technology available along with Quality Management processes to involve all in finding and maximizing the abilities of the players they brought in – using analytics and state-of-the-art techniques on the field.. Every person employed was better for it – including Hinch. After the scandal the structure is still there with other people. The Astros continue to be the best organization in MLB.
Mike Elias was hired by the Orioles from Houston in 2019 to build a similar structure in Baltimore. We’re beginning to see the results, the major league club now has a dozen or so quality players on it that play solid fundamental baseball, Have enjoyed watching some of their games the past month. Orioles are going to be a power.
Point being that AJ is just the manager in Detroit. He can influence some of what’s being done in the organization, but he’s not getting the sort of support from his FO, minor league instructors and coaches that he got in Houston.
To succeed in MLB for more than just a year or two here and there, franchises need to have a strong organization overseen be a talented Baseball Ops person – and even then only 2 teams a year get to the World Series.
Those were state of the art trash cans no doubt
Luhnow would be the perfect hire to replace AA. The guy grew up in Mexico City and is an data analytics genius. According to MLB, Luhnow did not know his players were cheating. The Tiger Organization needs a complete makeover from the bottom rungs all the way to the top, and this is the guy to do it.
That was a really pretentious post. He had great talent, almost all drafted high after tanking. Any reasonably competent gm would have drafted those players. Talent wins, period unless you’re the Rays. People make this more complicated than it really is.
Greenberg;
Yours is a really arrogant and juvenile post.
That’s why the Astros picked up guys like Cole, Verlander, Morton, and McHugh from other teams; all of whose careers were winding down, and quickly reworked them into stars and superstars.
Epstein tanked too. How come the Cubs haven’t kept winning like the Astros?
When you accomplish something in your life and realize how hard it is, get back to me.
Should have been managing the Sox. Way to go Jerry!
Even if he was, he couldn’t do anything about those injuries and bad defense.
White Sox are so overrated.
The Indians have better young talent breaking out and a consistently good, young pitching staff no matter how many rotation pieces they trade.
Puts to bed the whole opt out after 2 seasons nonsense.
Soon as Dusty retires, Hinch will be back in Houston
Ilitch will just resign him because Chris thinks he’s doing a great job. He keeps saying he thinks AA has this team on the right track.
Trash can manager. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Are you five years old?
Unfortunately, cheating is rampant in pro sports.
Big money is on the line.
Only the “favored franchises” by MLB can get away with it like the Yankees, Red Sox etc..
Belichick (sp) and Brady have been implicated in numerous cheating scandals.
I would not be surprised to see Jeff Luhnow get hired next by Chris Ilitch.
Get that Houston north vibe going in Detroit.
That man knows how to build an organization.
Avila is an above average GM.
The Tigers have had some bad luck with injuries.
In ’23 and ’24 many of Detroit’s new core pieces will be in the majors.
There are still some very highly rated guys in rookie leagues, A ball etc
including international signings.
If the Tigers are getting ready to compete and open a new window of contention
in ’23-’24, then Avila keeps his job.
If not, I could see Luhnow getting another shot as GM in Detroit.
Agree with everything except your comment that Avila is an above average GM. He makes lousy trades, isn’t adept at signing free agents, and his highest draft picks were the consensus choices. Skubal and Brieske were impressive choices, but the body of work isn’t.
I was strongly against the Paredes trade with the Rays. The Rays rarely lose on trades. just last week , Paredes hit 3 home runs in only 1 game.
Paredes is the power and hitting the Tigers are missing and they let him get away for an often injured OF whose power seems to have disappeared.
Above average? Please tell me one good major league player that he’s drafted in 7 years other than skubal. Name one trade he won. Name one free agent that has been good.
It’s going to be a lot harder for him to win now that PitchCom exists
At least we have Marcelo Mayer coming up soon!
Oh, wait…
Al Avila has got to go.
It will take another rebuild to repair what he has done to my beloved Tigers.
1984 is getting farther and farther behind us.
At this point I would take the heat for hiring Jeff Luhnow.
Al Avila has got to go.
Jackson Jobe?! No!
I would have picked Jordan Lawler SS
who is red hot in the minors right now.
https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/south-texas-el-paso/news/2021/03/15/jordan-lawlar–baseball-s-next-biggest-star
“In my 25 years of coaching, he’s by far the fastest kid I’ve ever seen,” Jones said. “Just his athletic ability alone is off the charts.”
Lawlar is a five-tool player, which is fitting because his baseball journey began at the age of five.
baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=law…
Hopefully, one day, the number of injuries will subside, and he’ll be able to field a big league team here in Detroit…..
Everyone’s problems would be solved by hiring the Superfife……
If they would just hire the Superfife…..