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One of the more important arrivals in an quiet offseason won’t be throwing any pitches or taking any at-bats, but he will be making the occasional trot out to the mound. I’m talking about new pitching coach Chris Bosio, who joins the Detroit Tigers after six years with the Chicago Cubs.
While it can be tough to gauge the exact impact of a pitching or hitting coach, Bosio built a solid track record with the Cubs. He has two major success stories in the emergence of Jake Arrieta and Kyle Hendricks, something that bodes well for the development of the entire staff, especially Daniel Norris, who has struggled with location issues just like Arrieta.
As we inch ever closer to spring training, TigerFest allowed for some access to the coaching staff. It gave us our first taste of Bosio’s coaching philosophy. His first comments highlighted the mental aspect of pitching, pitching inside, and dictating tempo to batters. Bosio will look to use these virtues to mold a young Tigers staff into an above-average unit.
He has already had an effect on the Tigers. The decision to reunite Mike Fiers with Bosio wasn’t a coincidence. You can bet that the signings of James Russell and Travis Wood, two former Cubs, were made with strong recommendations from Bosio. Either emerging as a solid bullpen piece would be a big win.
Shane Greene is aware of obvious facts
Specifically, that he will be the closer for next year, which, yeah. He also offered the ultimate hot take.
“All we gotta do is score more runs than the other team,” Greene said. “It’s a pretty easy game. We’re going to show up and compete and see how it goes.”
I predict that the other team is going to score more runs often.
The Ian Kinsler mentality lives on
Castellanos on what he learned from Ian Kinsler: "The dirtbag mentality: I'm here to beat you. I'm not here to be your friend. I'm not here to pow-wow on the bases. I'm here to score, I'm here to put more runs up than you and I'm here to get a win."
— Evan Woodbery (@evanwoodbery) January 27, 2018
A whole lot of meh
The Tigers have signed a lot of players. None of the them are particularly inspiring, but in case you missed anyone, Rob was nice enough to compile a comprehensive list. I, for one, completely missed the signing of Pete Kozma. That would have been marginally exciting in 2014!
That sounds about right
In Dave Dombrowski’s last three seasons as Tigers’ GM, Baseball America ranked Detroit’s farm system 27th, 28th, and 30th. Since Dombrowski took over in Boston, the Red Sox system has gone from 4th to 14th to 24th.
— David Laurila (@DavidLaurilaQA) January 29, 2018
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Last point on the hat
I know John took the “old man yells at cloud” approach on the hat, and there have been 30 think-pieces on the change already, but I have to have my say. It looks awful. There was no reason to change it, and I simply don’t understand the motivation. That said, mission accomplished on the money side, because I’ll be buying a couple hats before the change so that I don’t have to have that new monstrosity on my head.
Around the horn
Comerica extends its naming rights deal with the Tigers until 2034. Here is the Tigers invite list for spring training. Alex Faedo will be making an appearance at spring training. I did not know I was interested in this Royals-A’s trade.