Tigers offseason to-do list: Skubal situation, Will Detroit spend?

00:00:03
Speaker 1: I think it, but turning before we know it. It is time to talk the Detroit Tigers. Cody Stavenhagen on the show with us today. You can of course see him all over the place. He writes for The Athletic. He's the co host of Tiger Territory. Cody, thanks for being with us. We appreciate it. What are the top three things that the Tigers need to do this offseason?

00:00:24
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, thanks for having me on. First of all, I think you can pretty easily narrow the Tigers offseason to do list down into three categories. Probably the most obvious is to fix the bullpen. It was a weakness at many points last year, and more specifically, to add more swing and miss to the bullpen so that you're not living and dying by batting average and balls and play. The Tigers bullpen rank twenty ninth in withfth rate last year, which is unacceptable if you're trying to win a World Series. They need multiple relievers. They I think need at least one legit back in swing and miss type relief. I don't I'd be highly surprised if they would spend one an Edwin Diaz or a Devin Williams, but the tier guys right below that, Pete Fairbanks, some other names in that group makes sense, and again they're gonna have to get more than one. Right now, will vest and Tyler Holton might be or only sure sure things in the bullpen, although you do have some other existing guys who have had success, but you got a lot of work to do in the pin. Number two, you have to add a starter. The Tigers. For now, we're just gonna assume they're gonna keep trek scuble and not trade them for the purpose of this exercise. They're okay. They're in okay shape in the pit or in the rotation. Schooble, Casey, miz Jack Flaherty, Ree Sultan, and Troy Melton, with Cater Montero some other guys in that mix. But they use I think fifteen different starting pitchers last year, including bullpen days. We all know you need more depth. I think they have to get at least one legit starter on a major league deal, and I would argue maybe they should target someone who can pitch almost as a number two to Schooble, because they're not just building for twenty twenty six. You're building for the future. After twenty twenty six, you are likely to lose Trek Skouble, Jack Flaherty, and Casey miz All to free agency, so maybe you could almost work ahead now. One thing I want to note on both of those topics with the pitching the Tigers, as much as it's fun to link them to names like Michael King or whoever else, we know they like to get creative. So I do wonder or just food for thought, might they be looking around the edges is they're a reliever they think they could convert to a starter, or a starter they could convert to a reliever. I would not rule out them doing something more outside of the box. That conventional wisdom, you know, isn't bringing to the top of all our minds. And then the third thing is to improve the offense. For what it's worth, the Tigers ranked eleventh and run scoring last year. They did that with a really young lineup I think the fourth most played appearances of hitters twenty five or younger. But they're awful September and in the playoffs some of their flaws really showed up. There can still be too much swing and miss, a little too much chase. I think a lot of what happens with this lineup will revolve around what glaber Torres does. This afternoon. We will learn whether he accepts or declines the qualifying offer. If he accepts it, that'll be good for their lineup. He's a dependable professional hitter. But you do wonder how they will configure the rest of their infield, especially with a lot of existing young players in place, especially with Kevin McGonagall arguably the top prospect in baseball, and some other guys won the rise. I think they need more, but there's not a beyond glaber Torres. There's not a clear solution, like a clear fit.

00:03:38
Speaker 3: You know.

00:03:39
Speaker 2: They could go after the Alex Bregman's. The Bobaschets in the world makes a lot of sense, but they'll have to do some other shuffling and again, for better or worse, the Tigers tend to be creative, so I'm really interested to see what kind of solutions they will ultimately land on.

00:03:52
Speaker 3: Talked about the bullpen needing more swing and miss. Is there any of those guys besides the two that un mentioned that change maybe their pitch mix, the repertoire, because you're not gonna find six guys that have swing and miss that just are out there available and the Tigers aren't willing to spend that much money. So are there guys that they've said, hey, you know what, we can increase this to increase that swing and miss. Yeah.

00:04:20
Speaker 2: Always a good question, and generally something that Tigers been pretty good at is helping guys tweak their arsenals optimize their pitch mix. Kyle Finigan, who they traded for last year, is the perfect example. He's a free agent again, but I think there could be some mutual interest in bringing him back, and they didn't acquire him necessarily. He was a good reliever, a good closer, but he wasn't a huge swing and miss guy. He got to Detroit almost doubled the usage of his splitter and the swing and miss went way up. So that's a Finnegan's a prime example, and I think that's a reason he would like to maybe return to Detroit, and maybe they would like to have him back because they already made that sort of adjustment. There's certainly more guys in turn, but you look at some of the major names, they're bullpen like Brendan Hanafy. He's more of a sinker ground ball type guy. Brent Herder, he can miss some bats with a slider. You know, he's a lefty, but still more of a ground ball type guy. So I don't know that you can completely change the profiles of some of your existing players in house. That's why it's certainly going to take multiple external additions. While yeah, I guess you get you're hoping, hey, throw the slider, throw the slider a little harder, and maybe you can get a little more swing and miss. So at least you're not ranking twenty ninth. Cody.

00:05:35
Speaker 1: What would it take to trade Trek Scooble? What do you have to get in return?

00:05:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, obviously it's one of the biggest questions of the whole offseason. I think it would take a real haul. You know, I think you're tacking multiple major league ready players top one hundred prospects, if not greater than that. It's hard to see a world where it's not at least a three player package, and all three of those players are going to have to be pretty good. I think you would like some major league ready pitching, starting pitching, and maybe some up to middle athletes. For as much as we look around in free agency, at third basement. Stuff like that, shortstop and center field seem to be some areas the Tigers could stand to improve. Maybe it'd be easier to do that on the trade market than free agency, But I don't know that you can just snap your finger and come up with an offer that makes sense. It would It would really have to be a pretty mind blowing offer. I think for the Tigers to do this doesn't mean they won't, doesn't mean they're not listening, because they certainly have not shut down this talk. Scott Harris, Jeff Greenberg when they've been asked about it, they've basically said no comment, which to me says, hey're they're open to listen, listen to offers, but they don't have to trade them. So I think it would take something that they really would have to feel strongly is worth it, both in the short term and the long term.

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00:07:56
Speaker 5: Cody, I was gonna say, what you missed on that off season to do list was signed Trek School, right, I mean, that's it. And I joked with Scott Harris when we were in Seattle together, like and Terrek walked by, and I go, Scott, when are we announcing this extension here? And Scott, you know, Scott Harris looked at me like I was crazy because I sent in front of Tarek. But you know that's me. Whatever. Anyways, so I thought it was funny. Hinch was there too. He laughed. Everyone kind of had a good chuckle about it. And I think Trek said something like, we'll have Scott call my Scott and we'll figure it out. But I don't think that's gonna happen. It's not that simple. But you mentioned offense at the end, right, And I watched them play five games. I watched them play more than five games, obviously, but the five games against the Mariners, it was swinging, miss, swinging miss, swinging miss, strikeouts, strikeouts, strikeout. And I love I love Riley Green. I think Riley Green could be one of the best hitters in all of baseball if he just cut down his strikeouts. Will he change in order to do that? Because I've talked to some people in baseball that say, this guy could be a three four hundred million dollar guy, or if he could and he's on the path he is, he'll be a hundred which listen, one hundred million dollars is a crazy amount of money, you know, one hundred to two hundred million dollar guy if he stays where he's at. So do you think they can talk him into changing and just cutting down on the strikeouts? Just I mean, just to go from two hundred strikeouts to one hundred and fifty strikeouts and put the ball in play in situations.

00:09:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's certainly attainable. Like when he was coming up as a really highly touted prospect, I never viewed him as a guy who's going to strike out two hundred times. Now, around the time he got to double a, myself and some mothers kind of start noticing, like, this guy does swing and miss a little more than maybe we've talked about. So it started to show up. But he was viewed as like a very pure hitter, a very natural hitter, a line drive, all fields type hitter. And the big question was, like, how's the power going to develop? Is this a twenty homer guy, a thirty homer guy, a thirty plus homer guy, and you look up at age twenty four, he hit thirty six home runs, But I think it's fair to say there was a little bit too much selling out for power. It led to a franchise record for strikeouts. Yeah, he got the home runs, but some other parts of his game really suffered. Playing the game moving the ball forward huge issue. I think he's a good enough and adaptable enough hitter to no that's not gonna fly. His first couple of years in the majors, he was hitting the ball on the ground too much. He adapted, started hitting the ball in the air, tapped into his power again. It seems now fair to say that was probably an over correction. Something's going to have to change. And Shirley Riley knows that.

00:10:33
Speaker 3: I was gonna ask you about Kevin mcgonagal. Yes, he is maybe number two. I think he's ranked number two or number three prospect in all of baseball. They're number one prospect. Is this team able to bring up Kevin mcgonagal to the big leagues and at the same time say we think our team is getting better and we're gonna win a World Series Because normally it's you either keep all your stars and get more. We talked a lot about free agency and if it doesn't go well, then we call up our prospects.

00:11:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's the whole I don't know if it's the problem, but it's the difficulty of trying to thread the needle and build the sustainable winner, right because you get these young prospects and you got to get him to the big leagues at some point. But we all know, young players are prone to struggles. Wasn't that long ago. Colt Keith was not quite Kevin McGonagall level, but he was a very highly touted prospect and he really struggled for the first eighty ish games of his major league career. Got a little better, but probably still hasn't hit what he eventually might be. McGonagall, this guy's really good. I would not be surprised if he has success pretty early on. But is he going to be as good as Bob Baschett is from day one? I mean that's a hard sell, right, It's probably going to take a couple of years, so I don't know. It's why it's really difficult. I think mcgonagall's legit. I think it helps. He can play second, he can play third, he can play some short I'm not sure he's an everyday shortstop though, and so that that's part of the equation that makes it a little bit harder.

00:12:11
Speaker 5: All right, Cody mcgonagall's a super prospect. They have Max Clark who is coming also. I love what the Tigers do with Cole Keith. They're not afraid because they're in the central winnable Division that they can still do this. What I want to know though, is Scott Harris. Okay, Scott Harris is the GM's he's been in charge for a few years now. What's his role. Can he go to Christopher Illich and say, mister Ilich, I need more money, I need ten million and we can get Bragman ambushit and have McGonagall or is he not have that power because he's a young guy. He came from the Cubs. The Cubs are a big market, even though sometimes they don't act like it, right, So does he learn to be stingy or will he Does he have the ability to go to Christopher re Lilich and say I need this much more money and we can get past Seattle and maybe go to the World Series.

00:12:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know exactly how those conversations go down, but oddly enough, for as much as Chrisilich isn't his father and isn't known as a big spender, it seems like he's always been willing to open the pocket books to like a reasonable level. Like people who complain about the Tigers being cheap. It wasn't that long ago they signed Hobby Bias, and they signed Eduardo Rodriguez, and they spent pretty big in the twenty twenty two off season. Now, I do wonder if Chris Hilich hired Scott Harris in part because there was some alignment that they didn't have to be a luxury tax team, that they didn't have to be the Mike Ilitch Tigers. Yeah, Scott Harris, you know, he came up under theo Epstein, but then he worked for far hands ied in San Francisco. It doesn't seem so far like free agency, like spending is necessarily how he views, you know, the best way to build a baseball team. This is a guy who likes the waiver wire, and I think that the challenge of finding surplus value and winning on the margins and all those kind of buzzwords. But to some degree has been pretty good at it. So maybe the answer is somewhere in the middle. I think this offseason can be a test though, for Chris Ilich, how hands on do you want to be? How much do you want to spend? And then Scott Harris, He's done a really good job at a lot of the finer aspects of building an organization, but putting the finishing touches on the major league roster I've always viewed that as the hardest thing to do, and sometimes that means that that means you got to spend.

00:14:26
Speaker 1: I think, Cody, why doesn't Chris spend like Mike.

00:14:33
Speaker 2: I think it's also important to remember Mike Ilich spent big for what less than ten years toward the end of his life. He wanted to win a World Series. But Mike Elich owned the Tigers in the nineties and they didn't really act like that. And in the early two thousands maybe to some degree when they signed Pad Rodriguez, that was a huge deal, but it wasn't really until later in his life and his ownership with the Tigers that he spent at that level of aggression. So it was abnormal and it wasn't his entire ownership. Chrisilich clearly just doesn't view things the same way his dad did toward the ends. Towards the end.

00:15:10
Speaker 5: There, Yeah, that's when they started winning, is when they signed Pudge and they signed Maglio and they had justin Verland, and they brought Kenny Rogers back, and they went got carlos Ki in, and they went and got plus Atoplongo, and they went and got all these guys Max Scherzer and Porcelo and David Price, and that's when the Tigers were good. Maybe they should look in the mirror and be like, we were good and starting six, because four they were four. They were very good when they got Pudgo five. But then six when they all started coming together, that's when they went to the World Series. And then obviously they had that great run in the twenty tennis. Trust me, I played against all those guys. They went to god making Cabrera paid him. They went got Dontro and they paid him, even though he didn't work out right. But they did these things and that was how they won. And Camerica can be awesome. I've seen it. And thank god they got a new well they didn't get a new score. They move the scoreboards. You can now actually see it. So they've done some good things there.

00:16:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, they did all that, and they got to the World Series twice and they didn't win it. And so unfortunately, I think that is like ammunition for the newer class executives who would say, why should we do all that and then having to risk tear it down where we could operate like this and make the playoffs and back to back years and think that we're going to continue to get better now. Obviously there are a million cautionary tales of examples that didn't quite work out. The Orioles last yearn even the Cubs who did win a World Series. They thought they had the makings of a dynasty and that thing fell apart pretty quickly. And that wasn't necessarily that they were you know, they were willing to spend in Chicago too. But I think that's one of the more fascinating, like philosophical debates, because everyone wants to spin, spin, spin, and I think they're like, I think they were taught. The Tigers are at a point where they need to get serious about spending a little bit more. But I don't know, you can spind your heart out and sometimes it still doesn't work.

00:17:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, look at the Mets.

00:17:05
Speaker 2: Cody.

00:17:05
Speaker 1: We appreciate you taking the time to be with us today and all things Tigers. Have a good offseason. We'll talk to you.

00:17:11
Speaker 2: Soon, all right, Thanks guys, All right.

00:17:14
Speaker 5: Thank you.

00:17:14
Speaker 1: Don't forget. You can check out Tiger Territory with Cody and Kieran Steckley on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.