Minnesota Twins AL Central Competitor No. 2: Detroit Tigers
The Detroit Tigers are the better of the lesser teams at the bottom of the Central that are continuing on with their rebuild. There won’t be a lot of change in the Motor City, except for one big one: former Minnesota Twins’ manager Ron Gardenhire has retired due to health reasons, and the organization has replaced him with former Astros boss A.J. Hinch.
Hinch has had a lot of success managing both rebuilding and championship caliber squads in Houston (though it’s now tainted due to the cheating scandal), so bringing him in seems like a really good move. The only question is it whether he can turn things around in Detroit as well and prove that he has some managerial ability and it wasn’t just cheating.
On the player side, all of the losing has had some advantages in the form of high draft picks, including two number one overall selections. Those two selections, Arizona State 3B Spencer Torkelson and Auburn SP Casey Mize, are the key to the Tigers getting back into a competitive situation.
Mize, who made his big league debut in 2020, struggled a bit in his first glimpse of big league action, pitching just over 28 innings in 7 starts and accumulating an ERA of nearly 7. He did strikeout 26 batters, and his potential is massive, so the Tigers have to hope that he can start to develop and get some quality reps against some big league lineups.
For current players, they do have some talent on their roster. Spencer Turnbull was the ace of the Tigers staff in 2020, and while his strikeout rate may have been low, he nearly did the impossible by keeping the ball on the ground in today’s game with a 50% ground ball rate.
In the lineup, Jeimer Candelario (.297/.369/.503), Victor Reyes (.277/.315/.391), and former Twin Jonathan Schoop (.278/.324/.475) are all solid side pieces around budding star Willi Castro (.349/.381/.550) who will have to carry the offense.
Overall, the Detroit Tigers are still a few years away from truly being back in contention. The only way this team gets into contention is another star emerges alongside Castro (maybe Torkelson?) and Matt Manning, Casey Mize, and Spencer Turnbull turn into a dominant trio atop the rotation.
Their future is bright with the prospects they have, and if they convince a few reclamation projects to come aboard that turn around, they could be better than the bottom-feeder they have been. Detroit faces an uphill battle to be a threat in the AL Central in 2021, but if a lot comes together in 2021, and we mean a lot, than the Tigers can turn this bus around.