Grading Scott Harris and the Detroit Tigers front office at the season’s midway point

When Scott Harris agreed to leave his job as general manager of the San Francisco Giants to replace the fired Alex Avila as president of baseball ops for the Detroit Tigers, expectations should have been high. Harris was a key figure behind San Francisco’s remarkable 107-win 2021 season and NL West division title.

He was also leaving a strong division for a weak one, and joining a team with what was perceived to have a lot of young talent.

The first half of Harris’s first season with the Tigers can only be described as a disappointment. It’s not the Tigers who have been disappointing; at 35-46 and third in the Central, they’re pretty much where everybody figured them to be.

The disappointment has been Harris’ impact on the talent base in Detroit.

Grading the Detroit Tigers at the midway point of the 2023 season

What follows is a mid-term assessment of Harris’s personnel decisions since the conclusion of the 2022 World Series with a particular focus on the extent to which those decisions have helped or hindered the team’s performance.

The standard of measurement is Wins Above Average (WAA), a variant of Wins Above Replacement (WAR). For this purpose, WAA is preferable because unlike WAR, it is zero-based. That means the sum of all the decisions made by Harris impacting the 2023 team gives at least a good estimate of the number of games those moves have improved (or worsened) the team’s status this season.

A team’s front office impacts that team’s standing in five ways. Those five are:

1.       By the impact of players it acquires from other teams via trade, purchase or waiver claim.

2.       By the impact of players it surrenders to other teams in those same transactions.

3.       By the impact of players it signs at free agency or extends.

4.       By the impact of players it loses to free agency or releases.

5.       By the impact of players it promotes from its own farm system.

Here’s how Harris stacks up by those five yardsticks.

Acquired or traded

The trade market was a major source of activity for Harris, and also major stumbling block. In his first season, the new Tiger president brought in 11 major leaguers via dealings with other teams. Almost without exception, those acquisitions have proven to be at least short-term failures.

The one exception was the February 23 waived claim that plucked pitcher Tyler Holton away from the Arizona Diamondbacks. A minor league veteran, Holton has pitched in 25 games for Detroit, mostly in a multi-inning role, and he’s been very good at it. He’s carrying a 2.11 ERA that translates to a +1.1 WAA.

That’s the good news; now for the bad.

In January, Harris swung a trade with the Phillies that landed infielder Nick Maton, outfielder Matt Vierling and Donny Sands in exchange for Kody Clemens and Gregory Soto. Not that Soto and Clemens have been dynamos in Philadelphia (their combined WAA is -0.9) but this was a deal that put a significant crimp in the Tigers.

Maton has gotten 239 plate appearances (that’s close to full-time duty) as a third baseman and second baseman. He’s batting .163 with a .576 OPS. That creates a -2.1 WAA. There probably hasn’t been a less productive regular infielder in the majors in 2023.

Vierling has been better, but, with a -0.2 WAA, still below par. On the plus side, he’s hitting a respectable .279 with seven homers but only 22 RBI.

Free agency

Harris signed, re-signed or extended four players, all of them pitchers, and again he’s run in to nothing but trouble. Through the season’s first half, only one of the four has produced a positive WAA.

That one is Michael Lorenzen, a free agent who signed with the Tigers in December for $8.5 million. Formerly with Cincinnati and the Angels, Lorenzen is on his way to the kind of season that ought to get him a longer and larger deal from somebody.

He’s only 2-6 with a 4.28 ERA. However, on the Tigers, that’s actually pretty good. So are his 14 starts and team-leading 82 innings of work. Home run have been an issue (he’s thrown 11 of them). But Lorenzen is carrying a +0.2 WAA into the second half, which is something few of his peers can say.

The big signing was expected to be Matthew Boyd, a former Tiger who left as a free agent after the 2021 season, signed with San Francisco, was immediately traded to Seattle, and made only 10 appearances for the Mariners in an injury-shortened 2021.

The homecoming has been bittersweet, also for health reasons. Boyd has made 15 starts with the Tigers, but he’s carrying a 5.45 ERA and last week went on the 60-day IL with an elbow strain. He underwent Tommy John surgery and will not pitch again until at least late in 2024.

Eight 2022 Tigers either walked away as free agents or were jettisoned, the most noteworthy being infielder Jeimer Candelario. He signed with Washington and is having the kind of year his fans in Detroit and before that Chicago have predicted for him for five years.

Farm system

Harris has not called on the Detroit Tigers farm system for any significant level of assistance. Only four first-year players have made contributions during the first half, and only two of them are still on the active roster.

Those two are starter Reese Olson and reliever Brendan White.

Since being called up in early June, Olson has gotten regular rotation work. He’s 1-2 with a 4.78 ERA across 26 innings, stats that probably won’t have him in the running for Rookie of the Year.

White is a reliever who’s in his second stint with the Tigers. A last-ditch, everybody-else-is-tired option, he’s pitched 10 innings in seven games with a 5.23 ERA. Presumably that will improve, or else.

Joey Wentz may eventually be the guy to watch, although he hasn’t shown it this season. Making the team out of spring camp, Wentz started 15 games and covered 71 innings before his 1-9 record and 6.78 ERA prompted the Detroit front office to conclude that he might for the present anyway be better suited for Toledo.

Since the Tigers obviously think he has potential, he’s likely to get at least one more shot.

Just to complete the yearbook picture the fourth rookie is outfielder Ryan Kreidler, who was batting .111 when he went on the injured list.