Detroit Tigers offer hope for the future but not for 2021

The future is bright for the Detroit Tigers. However, that future is not going to happen in 2021.

Spring training is a time when a fan’s mood can swing back and forth between boundless hope and deep despair. The following is a debate between the optimistic me and the pessimistic me regarding the 2021 Detroit Tigers.

Opti-me: The Tigers have been so bad recently that’s it’s almost impossible to paint a negative scenario for 2021. When you’re coming off two seasons of having the worst and then the third worst records in baseball, improvement is virtually guaranteed.

But Tigers fans have more reasons to be optimistic than just the odds. There is real young talent on this roster. Casey Mize got a taste of the majors last season, and he’ll be a lot better for that experience. The same is true for Tarik Skubal and Isaac Paredes.

Those three kids, none of them older than 24, will be the bulwark of the next great Tiger team. There’s more help on the way; with Spencer Torkelson as the centerpiece, MLB just rated the Tigers farm system No. 2 in all of baseball.

Pessi-me: If the Tigers system begins producing competent major leaguers, that will indeed be a change.  I’ll believe it when I see it. Since Al Avila was named general manager, the Tigers system has produced 36 players for the big league roster. Measured by Wins Above Average, only four of those 36 generated positive value, and only two – Michael Fulmer and Spencer Turnbull – have produced in excess of 1.0 games worth of positive value.

The total impact of those 36 players on Tigers fortunes has been minus 21.1 games. So if you are relying on that farm system to bail your team out, you may want to reconsider your approach.

Opti-me: You can have your numbers; I’ll trust the judgment of MLB Pipeline. They have Torkelson as the No. 3 prospect, Mize at 11, outfielder Riley Greene at 21, Skubal at 24, and pitcher Matt Manning at 25. No other team had more than two prospects in the top 25.

Because Mize and Skubal are already on the opening day roster, improvement should be quick. Mize’s sinker has one of the best drops in baseball and Skubal has a 94 mph four-seamer with elite horizontal movement.

Put those two together with Fulmer and Turnbull for a full season, get even a normal year out of Matt  Boyd, and Detroit’s rotation will be the surprise of the American League.

Pessi-me: Given that the Tigers had the AL’s worst ERA last year, significant improvement would indeed be a surprise.

For the moment, anyway, you don’t even have Turnbull, who hasn’t cleared the Covid protocol. Given that we’re 10 days out from the start of the season, the odds of Turnbull being ready for opening day – or any time soon thereafter — are approximately zero.

As for Boyd, count on him if you wish. But the guy’s been a rotation regular for five seasons now and he has a career ERA above 5.00. The back of his baseball card is telling anybody who’ll listen he’s a below average pitcher. Are you listening?

Opti-me: There’s growth in the regular lineup as well. Signing Robbie Grossman this winter should be a big boost to the offense. The guy found himself in Oakland, he’s coming off a .826 OPS season, and he’s a young 30 with just 725 big league games under his belt. He’s also above average on contact, with a strikeout rate that hangs around 20 percent.

But the guy I really like is Willi Castro. Knock the farm system all you want; Castro hit .349 last year with power. Granted, he still has to improve his defense, but he’s only 24 and that glovework will come.

Put Castro alongside Paredes at third base and the left side of the infield may be set for years to come.

Pessi-me: Again, the data urges caution. The Tigers were 12th in the league in team OPS in 2020, and the only changes of note you made during the off-season were the signings of Grossman and Jonathan Schoop. Neither is known as a dynamic offensive threat.

The same is true of Paredes. You force-fed him into the majors last season because there was no Triple-A to send him to. Offensively he had a rough time keeping up, a .220 average and .568 OPS. Now the projection services are hot on him so you’re hot on him. All I know is he hasn’t done it yet.

This being the Tigers, at some point we have to talk about Miguel Cabrera. He’s 38 now and his OPS has fallen 200 points since 2016. Yet you’re going to pay him $30 million again this season, and he’s going to hit .250 if he’s lucky.

There are, in short, a lot of reasons why the Tigers will finish last in the AL Central again this year. Their system doesn’t produce talent, which is why the big league team doesn’t have any, and they did almost nothing this winter to improve.

That team way ahead in the distance? Those are the Royals; they’re the division’s fourth best team and they’re pulling away from you.

Opti-me: Nobody would argue that the Detroit Tigers are a division title contender this year. But progress? Absolutely. Give Mize and Skubal a full season, let Paredes develop at third, and watch the rest of the kids push for jobs.

The 2021 season may not be a great one in Detroit for victories. But it will be a great one for watching other teams sweat as that young talent base catches teams off guard.