For many years, fans of Midwest and northeast teams wondered why MLB didn’t schedule most early series in warmer weather. Now, for two seasons they’ve made it happen. Just like the 2025 season, when they opened against the Dodgers and the Mariners on the road, the Tigers opening road trip has ended with a 4-2 record after a series victory over the Padres and then getting swept out of Arizona.
Of course, we have the voice of Sparky Anderson in our ears this time of year, reminding us to give it 40 games before making any definitive conclusions about a team. Even that only tells you so much, as teams evolve and change throughout a season to an even greater degree than they did in Sparky’s day. That would put up into the road series against division rivals in Kansas City from May 8-10 before the old skipper would say you really know the team you have for the season. Of course, the 2025 Tigers at the 40, 80, and even 120 game mark didn’t prepare us for the utter collapse of the club over the final five weeks of the season. Baseball.
Personally, while the 40-game thing makes sense as a quality sample before considering too much radical reaction, I’ve started to think more in terms of 10-game blocks, corresponding to two turns through the rotation. That also provides a little easy comparison with the old 16-game NFL schedule most of us grew up on. Thinking of it that way, the Tigers are down two scores early in the third quarter of their first game. Breaking it down like that is just more natural to me, avoiding wild overreactions to any short stretch of games, without just sitting back for a month and a half watching things unfold.
However you break it down, overreactions in either direction are pretty ridiculous at this point. Whether you were pretty confident in the Tigers heading into the season, or whether you think the club still has too many flaws to be a top threat in October, you should probably keep that energy through April. Or you can ride the rollercoaster. To each their own.
Slumber instead of lumber
The argument for the Tigers this year is pretty simple. They won 86 games in 2024, 87 in 2025, and they added one of the better starting pitchers in baseball and called up arguably the best prospect in baseball into their everyday lineup. Of course, Framber Valdez and Kevin McGonigle’s ability to put the Tigers over the top to finally win the division is predicated on the other regulars in the rotation and lineup handling their business as expected.
In the early going, Colt Keith and Dillon Dingler have been excellent, both showing some signs of building on their 2025 campaigns. Riley Greene and Spencer Torkelson, who are needed to provide plenty of power and run production, have scuffled. Kerry Carpenter meanwhile, has started off the year in a deep funk, striking out 12 times in just 25 plate appearances.
Obviously the Tigers need those three bats to give the Tigers similar production to last year, at a minimum. You’d love the three to be more consistent as well, but there aren’t many in the game, even among “All-Star” caliber hitters, who bang out good production month after month without any slumps during a baseball season. As long as they combine for 80 homers or more with a good combined on-base percentage, the Tigers’ run production will be in a good place. Likewise, a really bad year from one of them could really undercut the offense.
Torkelson really seemed to settle into his major league groove last season, avoiding the catastrophic slumps that plagued him from 2022-2024. He’s also the one with the most disciplined approach and should benefit somewhat more from the ABS challenge system than the rest. Of course, he’s got to use those challenges wisely to get the most of it, and that’s a unique new skill introduced to MLB this season.
Greene I just don’t worry about except physically. He’d trended steadily better and better through four seasons in the league until falling apart in the second half last year. At age 25, he’s just into what should be his prime years, but he also lost another step in the speed department last year. If you’re feeling worried about Greene’s ability to get back on track at the plate, that’s fair. I’m not, but it is at least clear that his defensive value has slipped considerably and there’s no injury to pin it on. Seeing Hinch pinch-run Jahmai Jones for Greene in the top of the ninth on Wednesday was just another signal that Greene’s once modestly above average speed is gone and that’s going to continue to ding his defensive profile.
As for Carpenter, this is where I get a little more concerned. Carpenter’s plate discipline and contact ability have always been mediocre, but he’s more than made up for it by pulling the ball in the air a lot and doing plenty of damage. However, he’s also been riddled with back and hamstring issues over the past few years, and unlike the other two sluggers, Carpenter isn’t in his mid-20’s, and is instead closing in on 29 years old this summer. For a baseball player in this era, that’s getting into middle age where hitting smarts have to make up for physical decline. At least Carpenter is moving well and looks healthy right now, so hopefully he’ll get going, but another season trying to play through nagging injuries will do his numbers no good.
Beyond Keith and Dingler, obviously the big story here is McGonigle. He’s shown himself fully ready to handle major league pitching, producing plenty of hard contact, plenty of hits, plenty of walks, and minimal strikeouts. He holds a 187 wRC+ through six major league games, with 12 percent walk and strikeout rates. Even better, he’s been a bit unlucky and his control of the strikezone has been elite in the very early going. As promised since early on last season, the Tigers have an absolute gem here. His upgraded defense and sprint times have just been icing on the cake.
In other, yes it’s extremely early news, Max Clark is off to a nice start with the Mud Hens. He needs that seasoning in my opinion, whereas McGonigle did not, but hopefully Clark will be ready to bring that athleticism, discipline, and contact ability to the Tigers lineup by mid-season if not sooner.
Starting rotation
You can take it as a positive early sign or be frustrated by the fact that the Tigers’ rotation did their job pretty well and yet the team only came away with two wins. They got four excellent starts, one poor one from Jack Flaherty, and one from Justin Verlander that was just bad. The Tigers will do well this season if that’s how most six game stretches play out.
Having Tarik Skubal and Framber Valdez atop the rotation has looked every bit as good as expected. Casey Mize stuggled to spot his fastball and breaking stuff early on in his outing against the Diamondbacks on Tuesday, but he managed to survive with some heavy doses of his splitter and his command improved as he went along. He finished his six inning outing with one earned run allowed, racking up 15 whiffs and seven strikeouts on the night. The interaction between his two fastball types and the splitter has never looked better to me.
Verlander however, just had nothing for the Diamondbacks on Monday. He’s always conserved his energy in early spring and paced himself for a seven month season. The fact that his velocity was down to 93.2 mph from his 2025 average (93.9 mph) isn’t my concern, particularly as he was feeling for his mechanics the whole outing. His fastball command and ability to shape and spot his breaking stuff were wildly inconsistent. We’ll see better command as long as he’s feeling healthy, but for all of us already fearful of a failed last stand for the 43-year-old future Hall of Famer, a little reassurance in the form of some quality starts early on would help the cause over the rest of the month. His margin for error is reduced from even 2-3 years ago, and he’s relying on command of the full pitch mix these days.
Bullpen issues forever
Unfortunately, the reconstructed bullpen couldn’t give us even a week of peace before the Tigers’ unending struggles in this department reared their head again. The Tigers signed Kyle Finnegan after getting some good work from him in the second half last year. That looks like a good addition. The Tigers got the right-hander using his splitter a lot more than he did in Washington, with good effect. This spring his velocity has been up a touch and his slider has looked pretty good as well. After pitching in semi-obscurity for a team notorious for its poor pitching development, the Tigers may have caught Finnegan at the right time to get a peak season or two out of him.
On the downside, Kenley Jansen gave the Tigers one good outing to close out the Padres on Opening Day, but then was called into a desperate situation on Tuesday after Drew Anderson got into trouble trying to hold a big lead for a second inning. Will Vest came on and was wild for a few hitters, digging the hole much deeper, until finally righting the ship and getting the first two outs of the inning. By then he was at 27 pitches, and Hinch decided to turn to Jansen. The veteran relief great fired two cutters down to get to a 1-1 count, and then fired a third right into rookie Jose Fernandez’s sweet spot and it got launched for the second home run of the rookie’s major league debut.
Leaving aside the fact that Jansen’s strikeout rates took a big hit in 2025 and he fits better as a setup level reliever now and shouldn’t be the automatic closer, this was also one of those moments where Hinch gave a new reliever an early test and it really blew up in his face. Anderson is still getting used to relief work. Taking his strong first inning and saying thank you very much, was probably the move. Vest in the eighth, Jansen in the ninth, no one has to enter in the middle of someone else’s jam. Hinch believes in testing guys in unfamiliar scenarios early in the season, and there’s some wisdom in that, but in this case, Vest struggled, and that led to Jansen, who has spent his career mainly pitching with a clean slate in the ninth even throughout the long prime of his career. Now that’s he’s just a setup caliber reliever rather than an ace closer, having to put him into fireman situations is rather less than ideal.
The Tigers boosted their depth and got some insurance for the rotation this offseason by signing left-hander Enmanuel de Jesus and right-hander Drew Anderson after both pitched well as starters in South Korea last year. Quite a few teams have found bargains coming back from the KBO, and both pitchers looked good in spring camp and have had some time to get acclimated to both the bullpen and the MLB ball. They both have enough stuff to start, and should give A.J. Hinch a lot of flexibiity in long and middle relief, but early on their command out of the pen has been shaky. Brant Hurter looks like his usual solid self, while Tyler Holton had a good spring and his velocity has been up.
Overall, this looks like a better bullpen than in 2025, with a lot more depth and flexibility. But the Tigers still lack one killer reliever to pair with Vest, particularly as even the best relievers, and Vest has arguably been a top ten reliever in baseball since August of 2024 tend toward up and down seasons. Finnegan might give them that much, and at least adds some swing and miss that the bullpen has lacked. Still, feeling comfortable with a relief group just isn’t something we’re familiar with, and until Vest illustrates that he’s still got lockdown mode engaged and someone else steps up, we’ll be on the edge holding leads late as usual. We’d also be remiss not to give credit to a pretty dangerous Diamondbacks lineup.
So, after six games, there is still plenty to like over last year, and plenty to worry about too. No different than I felt during spring training. The Tigers have their share of strengths in the rotation and young hitters entering their prime, but the free swinging middle of the order power bats and the need for another dominant reliever in the pen could prove their undoing.
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