Detroit Tigers News: Out with the old and speculating the new

We’re waist deep in playoff baseball! For as interesting as the National League is keeping it in the early rounds, the American League is doing something of the opposite. Heading into Monday’s games, Minnesota and Tampa Bay find themselves in a tough spots, with both teams trailing two games to none.

The Detroit Tigers, of course, are playing golf — or video games, or whatever it is you do when your team doesn’t sniff the playoffs. Reflections on the past season and speculation of what is to come are both in full swing as we head into week two of the offseason. Let’s take a look at how that is going.

Making the grade

Last week, I brought you the final season scores from Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press. This week, we have some additional grades to add from the cards of Chris McCosky of The Detroit News and Evan Woodbery of MLive. Ever the optimist, McCosky opens by hoping 2019 signified rock bottom for the rebuild of the Tigers. The actual grades for the players are in the gallery within the article. The written words address speculation about who the Tigers will keep and what the team might do in free agency. As far as grades go, there were only three guys who graded above a C level: Buck Farmer with a B-minus, Harold Castro with a B, and Victor Reyes with a B-plus. No failing grades were given out — although they would have been warranted.

Woodbery is far more generous. On the pitching end of things, he hands out A’s to Buck Farmer and Shane Greene, sprinkles a fair amount of B’s and C’s in there, and then dumps a cartload of D’s on folks the likes of Ryan Carpenter, Victor Alcantara, and Jordan Zimmermann. On offense, only one A was awarded among a sea of C’s and D’s. Like McCosky, Woodbery loves him some Victor Reyes.

Yes, Victor Reyes is getting the only A on the club. Who would have predicted that? It’s easy to find flaws in Reyes’ game, but the fact is he provided real, measurable offensive and defensive value in the two months in which he played regularly. He made small strides in plate discipline and larger strides in power. Defensively, he’s far better than anyone gives him credit for at all three outfield positions.

It looks like the former Rule-5 pick turned some heads in his limited stint to close out the year. I imagine we see more of him in 2020.

A surprising iron man

It may surprise you to read that the player on the 2019 team who logged the most games played was none other than Miguel Cabrera. The man who, as he ages, seems to demonstrate a lower body made mostly of balsa wood and disappointment logged 136 games this year. Playing a good number of them out of the designated hitter spot was certainly helpful. There’s a cool infogram in Evan Woodbery’s article that shows pie charts of how playing time was split among the various positions. The highest variation was at first base, which saw 10 different players man the post throughout the year. The lowest was at catcher with four.

Man at work

Pitching prospect Casey Mize finished out 2019 with disappointment. That feeling didn’t lie with his performance over his first full season of professional baseball, but with his inability to pitch through the end of the season. A pitch limit that everyone expected caused the young hurler to be shut down as his Erie SeaWolves were making a playoff run, a push he wanted to be part of. The 2019 season was far from a disappointment for Mize, but he is already looking to improve for 2020. He is working on firming up his cutter, slowing down his splitter, and establishing his fastball higher in the zone.

Critical questions

Moving into the future speculation category, Evan Woodbery has three critical questions for the Tigers as they look to 2020. The first question — will Gardenhire and his coaching staff be back? — has already been answered, and it’s basically a yes. There have been some Titanic deck chair references made to this, but I’m not sure 2020 is the year new blood is going to be wanted or warranted for this organization.

The second question is which players won’t be returning. The answer basically assumes anyone who isn’t currently contractually tied to the team has a good chance of not being around when the team breaks for Detroit in the spring. The final question is how active the team will be in the free agent market. Evan sees the addition of a veteran catcher and shortstop as must haves, and while Ron Gardenhire has made some statements about bringing in a run producer, it’s hard to see where or how that happens.

Around the horn

Some early speculation on where some big names might land in the off season, and no, there are no Tigers on this list. Houston Astros pitcher, Zack Greinke embraces brevity in a 43-word press conference. A missing major leaguer: what happened to Fred Osborne? Watch Mets slugger Pete Alonso smash random things with a bat.