The Tigers enjoyed an incredible late-season surge and rode a strong September to not only an 85-win campaign but a playoff berth that brought them within one game of their first ALCS appearance since 2013. With a bona fide ace in Tarik Skubal and a core of talented young hitters like Riley Greene, Kerry Carpenter, and Parker Meadows in place, it seems clear that the time has come for the club to be aggressive in supplementing that impressive core. To that end, president of baseball operations Scott Harris highlighted two major needs for the club at his end-of-season press conference: a quality right-handed bat and starting pitching help.
For a club that was reluctant to rely on any starting pitchers aside from Skubal in the postseason, finding rotation upgrades this season should be fairly easy. Adding a bat to the lineup, however, could be a bit more complicated given the club’s current construction on offense. The aforementioned trio of Greene, Carpenter, and Meadows are all outfielders, though Carpenter typically finds most of his playing time as a DH rather than on the outfield grass. The club is also deep in other potential outfield options, such as Matt Vierling, Justyn-Henry Malloy, Wenceel Perez, and Akil Baddoo.
While it’s certainly possible to squeeze a big bat such as Tyler O’Neill or Teoscar Hernandez into the lineup in right field, doing so would be a sub-optimal solution given the club’s deep cache of outfield options. Second base seems like an even more unlikely spot for an upgrade given the club’s six-year commitment to Colt Keith at the keystone, which they made last winter prior to his MLB debut. With a 97 wRC+ overall during his rookie campaign thanks to a .285/.338/.437 slash line in the last three months of the season, Keith certainly seems to have earned another crack at regular at-bats at the position.
That leaves few obvious places where the club could upgrade its offense. Perhaps there’s room for an offensive upgrade behind the plate, and rumors that Willson Contreras could be available as the Cardinals look to reduce payroll this winter would make for an on-paper match. As impressive as Contreras’s 133 wRC+ over the past three seasons has been, however, he’s a lackluster defender behind the plate and is headed for his age-33 season next year. Given that, it’s reasonable to wonder if Detroit would prefer to stick with the defensively excellent (if offensively lacking) Jake Rogers and youngster Dillon Dingler behind the plate next year. Dingler struggled in his first taste of big league action this year, but impressed with a 139 wRC+ at Triple-A this year and could improve offensively as he gets his feet wet in the majors.
That leaves the infield as perhaps the most likely place for the Tigers to find the right-handed offensive upgrade they desire, and free agency figures to play host to a handful of intriguing options should they be willing to spend. Willy Adames would certainly be a substantial upgrade to the club’s current shortstop mix, though adding a nine-figure commitment at the position when Javier Baez is still guaranteed $73MM over the next three seasons could be difficult to stomach. Meanwhile, third baseman Alex Bregman stands out as perhaps the other top free agent infielder and could be a somewhat clean fit for the Tigers if they’re uninterested in holding out a position for 2022 first-rounder Jace Jung, who posted a 102 wRC+ in his first taste of big league action this year but struck out at a 30.9% clip.
There is one other position where the club could clearly upgrade in free agency, and it’s one that would be shocking to suggest a few short years ago: first base. 2020 first-overall pick Spencer Torkelson was a consensus top-five prospect in the game prior to his MLB debut, dubbed virtually from the day he was drafted as a can’t-miss hitter with superstar potential. That hasn’t panned out to this point, however, as his offensive contributions through his third season in the majors have actually been below average overall. In 361 career games in the majors, Torkelson has hit just .221/.300/.392 with a wRC+ of 95. Perhaps that would be acceptable for a player with more defensive value, but Torkelson has generally been a below-average defender at one of the least demanding defensive positions on the diamond to this point in his career, leaving him with just 0.8 fWAR accumulated in his big league career to this point.
Of course, that’s not to say that there’s no reason for optimism regarding Torkelson. Perhaps the most significant factor in the slugger’s favor is his age, as he’ll play next year at just 25 years old. By comparison, rookie first baseman Michael Busch delivered a solid inaugural season (119 wRC+, 2.3 fWAR) with the Cubs this year but is currently just two weeks shy of his 27th birthday. Fellow 1-1 pick Adley Rutschman had just 410 big league plate appearances under his belt on his 25th birthday, a mark Torkelson eclipsed in just the second game of his age-23 season.
It’s also worth noting that Torkelson has managed to deliver quality offense over shorter stretches. Just 13 months ago, MLBTR’s Darragh McDonald wrote about Torkelson’s mid-season improvements at the plate that allowed him to slash an impressive .242/.322/.500 (124 wRC+) with 20 home runs in his final 80 games of the 2023 campaign. A similar late-season surge occurred when he was called back up in mid-August of this year following a mid-season demotion: over the final six weeks of the season, Torkelson hit .248/.338/.444 with a wRC+ of 125.
That type of offense would make him exactly the sort of impactful right-handed slugger the Tigers would like to add if he was able to sustain it over a full season. That hasn’t come to pass so far, however, and Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free-Press recently suggested things could be trending toward the sides parting ways. Petzold noted that “all signs point” to Torkelson no longer being the long-term solution at first base with a possibility that the club changes gears as soon as this winter.
Should the club decide they’d be better off pursuing a more established, reliable bat in free agency this winter, there’s a handful of options worth considering. Pete Alonso, Christian Walker, and Anthony Santander all have first base experience and could help to transform Detroit’s lineup, though Santander’s experience at first is somewhat limited. Alonso, in particular, seems to be a strong fit for the club’s needs if they decide to move on from Torkelson. He’s never posted a wRC+ below 120 in a season and will be just 30 years old next year, offering a consistency that’s difficult to match, and sensational campaigns in 2019 and 2022 saw him flash the MVP-candidate upside Tigers fans were surely dreaming on when they first drafted Torkelson.
Pivoting towards another player at first base would leave the club with a dilemma regarding what to do with Torkelson. It’s possible that semi-regular at-bats could be found for him even with an addition at first base; Carpenter has typically sat against most left-handed pitchers and played more than half of his games in the outfield this year, leaving room for Torkelson to start find frequent at-bats at DH, including starts against virtually every southpaw.
The club might be better off exploring what’s out there on the trade market, however. After all, Torkelson’s youth, pedigree, and impressive results at the big league level in short stretches could make him an attractive change-of-scenery candidate for an up-and-coming team with a hole at first base like the Nationals, or even a more established club with a need at the position like the Astros. If a club was willing to offer big league pitching in return for Torkelson’s services, that would surely be a difficult proposition for the Tigers to turn down if they were already eyeing an upgrade over Torkelson at first base.
