10:00am: The Tigers have formally announced Greene’s placement on the injured list and the selection of Marisnick’s contract. In order to open a spot on the 40-man roster for Marisnick, Detroit transferred righty Trey Wingenter from the 15-day injured list to the 60-day injured list. Wingenter has already missed five weeks due to tendinitis in his throwing shoulder. The move to the 60-day IL doesn’t reset his IL requirements, so he’ll be eligible for reinstatement late next month.
9:30am: The Tigers have placed center fielder Riley Greene on the 10-day injured list with a stress fracture in his left fibula, tweets Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic. Greene exited last night’s game with discomfort in his lower leg, and a subsequent MRI revealed the injury. There’s no firm timetable on his recovery just yet, as he’s headed for a second opinion, but the injury figures to sideline him well beyond that 10-day minimum.
Just hours before Greene suffered the injury, the Tigers had acquired veteran outfielder Jake Marisnick from the White Sox in exchange for cash. Manager AJ Hinch said after last night’s game that the plan had been to select Marisnick’s contract anyhow, but the injury to Greene makes Marisnick’s acquisition all the more important, as the slick-fielding and fleet-footed veteran can provide Detroit with an alternative in center field.
Greene’s injury comes just as the 22-year-old former top prospect looked to be breaking out and reaching his potential. Drafted with the fifth overall selection back in 2019, Greene entered the 2022 season ranked among the sport’s ten best prospects on most publications but delivered a fairly tepid .253/.321/.362 batting line in 93 games as a 21-year-old rookie. This season, he’s slashing .296/.362/.443 with five home runs, nine doubles, three triples and six steals (in six attempts).
The past month, in particular, has been a torrid one for Greene. He’s hitting .365/.435/.573 since the calendar flipped to May, and while he won’t sustain this month’s sky-high .485 average on balls in play, there are plenty of positives amid the hot streak. Greene fanned in 31.1% of his plate appearances in March/April but cut that to 25% in May. His walk rate jumped from 7.8% to 11.1% as he’s cut five percentage points off his chase rate on pitches off the plate.
After averaging a pedestrian 89.4 mph off the bat with an overall 38.6% hard-hit rate in the season’s first month, Greene erupted with a 94.1 mph average exit velocity and 55.1% hard-hit rate in May. Even assuming some regression of that BABIP, Greene has cut back on his chases, struck out less, walked more and radically improved the quality of his batted-ball profile during his recent hot streak.
All of that positive progress will grind to halt for the time being, however, as Greene will require an absence — likely of some note — while this injury mends. His placement on the injured list comes just one day after Detroit put top starter Eduardo Rodriguez and outfielder Matt Vierling on the injured list due to a pulley/tendon injury and a lower back injury, respectively. The injuries to Greene and Rodriguez, in particular, are major blows to the surprising Tigers, who have outplayed expectations and find themselves two games out of the AL Central lead and within arm’s reach (six games) of the final AL Wild Card spot.
Detroit’s outfield has been plagued by health issues all season. Greene will join Vierling, Kerry Carpenter (shoulder sprain) and Austin Meadows (anxiety) on the injured list. That likely leaves Marisnick, Akil Baddoo and utilityman Zach McKinstry as the primary outfield trio, with Tyler Nevin perhaps mixing in against some left-handed pitching in favor of the lefty-swinging McKinstry or Baddoo. The Tigers have some other outfield options on the 40-man roster — namely Parker Meadows (Austin’s younger brother). The 23-year-old has a .239/.327/.410 slash in Triple-A this year but has been rolling of late, batting .289/.353/.578 with three homers, a pair of doubles and a triple over the past two weeks.
For now, it seems Marisnick will be ticketed for a prominent role. He’s a career .228/.281/.384 hitter in 2166 plate appearances, which doesn’t inspire much optimism with regard to his potential offensive contributions, but the 32-year-old is also one of the sport’s premier outfield defenders. Dating back to his 2013 MLB debut, Marisnick ranks eight among 1044 big league outfielders with 76 Defensive Runs Saved — and all seven of the names ahead of him on the list have received greater playing time to accumulate those higher totals. His 48 Outs Above Average since Statcast debuted the statistic rank 12th among all outfielders.
Oh well….it was a nice ride for a while. Look forward to 2024.
Greene, Mize, Manning, Skubal, Turnbull, E-Rod, Brieske, Vierling, Meadows, and Carpenter….amazing they are only two games out of 1st in the division for now.
They would be in last place in the al east and only better than oakland in the west
But they are not on those divisions, so what’s your point?
I think you know the point, he’s right its amazing they were close at all
So would every other Central team, so what’s your point?
Same people pushing the Tigers to call up Meadows, Malloy & Kieth are the same ones saying they rushed Torkelson
With the fourth worse offense in MLB, Hinch has been masterful at exploiting matchups to keep this team within sniffing range of .500. He won’t get Manager of the Year consideration because those awards are usually reserved for championship teams…
Marsinick is a great pickup for the Tigers. He’ll provide some stellar defense in the outfield, which will benefit the pitching.
My major concern is that the offense as scarce as it is now, will be worse since Riley is on the DL. Hopefully Carpenter is on his way back.
And there’s nothing physically wrong with Meadows, so one could only hope he can return in short order.
Probably as full-time or platoon DH. I can’t see him in the outfield again.
And why is that?
Panic attacks.
Oh no, we suck again!
Injuries just decimated the team inside of a week. Greene sounds like he’s going to miss 6-8 weeks. E-Rod could wind up done for the season. And Vierling too, although his injury sounds not nearly as significant. Jake Marsinick sucks. This is an epic disaster to a team that was finally showing some real signs of progress.
All AJ and his magic wand playing matchups. Even when healthy, they had maybe four full time MLB starters among their positions players. I’m being generous.
Damn shame. Gotten to see him play a couple of times this yr, and he was electric. Kid’s got a bright future.
The Tigers have been impressive to say the least. The worst that can happen is they have higher odds for next season’s draft. At least the fans have seen a return to baseball in Detroit, this type of play excites the fans. Having a lead off hitter that gets on, and steals basses is something Detroit has needed for a long time.
The future is looking a whole lot brighter than it did back in early April. Hope, Detroit loves hope, and the Tigers are giving it.
Thanks for your upbeat assessment. I hope you’re right. I was at last night’s game and it was depressing to see Nevin in right and then to have Zack Short suddenly take Greene’s place in CF. And then to learn that E-Rod had gone down as well.
The team will get better next year, but this year’s attempt at mediocrity has suddenly hit a wall.
Well thanks, it’s hard to be down on the team as good as they’ve been playing. So many positives this year, it’s fantastic. They went through like 2 plus years of players last year with the injuries, so that’s tied their hands this year because of it. All those injuries will come back, sooner or later. Harris has done a fine job. He’ll have to make moves as those pitcher’s mostly come back from injuries, but he has some position injured guys as well to think about.
Detroit also finally has two fine catchers on the team, that’s been a decades old problem, and it finally seems to be solved. Skubal and Turnbull may not be here for long haul because they are Boras players, but Mize might come back throwing harder than ever. Lorenzen seems like a guy they might be able to keep for awhile too.
Next year Miguel, Schoop, and Austin Meadows will be off the 40 man for sure. The Tigers are back on the road to being contenders in the division again, and they played a nice game today as well.
Agreed…thanks for the positive vibes. I can’t stand it when fans of the teams in the east or west point out that “they’d be last in our division” for the thousandth time. I like the direction the Tigers are headed, we just need to stay healthy.
Thanks, I agree with you too. The future is looking bright.
And the hits just keep on coming. This year is shaping up to be an injury filled mess for the Tigers, just like last year.
Its a waste calling up Marsnick. He’s not part of the future. Parker Meadows could get regular ABs to prep for next year. If they don’t think he can beat Marsnick’s offense, than maybe they should just cut Parker now. Maybe the opportunity to play with his brother might motivate Austin to start feeling better.
@stymeed it is not about thinking if a person can do slightly better. Meadows is a young longterm piece, he’s somewhat struggling his first season in AAA. Throwing him to the fire would more than likely harm him more than benefit him. And Meadows currently is getting steady ABs and he’s getting them at the proper level for developing talent. If Tigers were legit contenders, then yes take the risk of fast tracking talent would make sense. We know that is not the case though, letting the young talent develop properly is what is paramount at this point. Not worrying about a journeyman MLB nomad filling a void temporarily.
Actually, Parker Meadows has been quite hot lately. Two games back is legit contention. Giving him time in the bigs is just one more step in his developement., and can only help him.
He’s hitting .239 his first time playing at AAA level. No the kid is not ready. And the only reason one could paint a narrative that Tigers are contenders is by default someone from AL Central has to go to the playoffs. If it’s the Tigers they’d get trounced immediately. If they were keeping in the Wild Card race I could see calling them legit contenders. But nobody not trying to back a narrative they re pushing would consider the Tigers legit ontenders, that is absolutely laughable.
Kevin Rand and Doug Teter would like to remind everyone that they are not to blame for yet another season’s wild run of injuries.
Many thought they were. Who gets fired this time?.
Let’s see. Last time it was the hitting coaches, the trainers, the AAA manager and the GM. Hitting still is bad. Injuries are still rampant. Few are progressing in AAA. They are lacking depth and scrambling for other teams non 40. Guess they fixed it. Nice job Harris.
One game under. 500 recently. Harris hasn’t even been here a year. Give the guy a chance dude. How can you not be happy with how McKinistry and Lorenzen have turned out or the return for Joe Jimenez??? I think he is doing just fine and not making stupid high priced signings or trades that don’t fit the competitive timeliness suits me just fine. We’re not getting magic beans like Avila did for most of his trade returns.
Well said Motor City. Harris appears to have finally shined some light at end of the tunnel. At this point there is no need to rush anything or anyone. Spend wisely, don’t rush prospects, no rash trades, etc… Pretty much see the rebuild through properly, not get impulsive.
Detroit Tigers fans!
Don’t lose hope, I for one, am enjoying watching their style, of baseball.
It is very heartening to watch.
Tigers have been playing good ball lately. Hopefully the injuries don’t derail them that badly
Is Xanax considered a controlled substance in MLB??? It does wonders for Anxiety. I remember years ago Chris Davis was a much better player when MLB played him to use Adderall.
Yes it’s a controlled substance and would likely make a person too intoxicated to play at one’s full potential. I would imagine catching up to a 95 mph fastball would be pretty difficult under the influence of Xanax. But yes it does extreme wonders for anxiety.
If you make the playoffs canything can happen. You just need to be hot at the right time. Them making the playoffs (or being 1 game under. 500 after 50 games) is way better than any of us gave them credit for. With these injuries I just don’t see it happening. We lost a good trade chip in Erod. Call up Justyn Henry-Malloy instead of Parker. He should be higher up the depth chart anyway and I for one am excited to see what he’s got.
Tigers are playing inspiring ball.
Can’t wait to see ’em when Skubal and Turnbull get back.
Tigers are cursed.
Jake Marisnick plays with a lot of heart like Zach McKinstry does. I have no problem with this pick up except, I’d rather see youth.