BALTIMORE — When the low-budget Detroit Tigers broke camp in Lakeland, Fla., this spring, manager A.J. Hinch bitterly complained about the lack of a starting center fielder.
Espousing the “all for one” philosophy his team has been playing with during the first half of the season, Hinch went to veteran infielder Javier Báez, in the fourth year of a six-year, $140 million free-agent contract, and asked him to make the switch to the outfield. Báez said yes, despite not having played center field since 2015 in winter ball—and for 33 games thus far this season, it’s worked out.
“I’m just trying to help in any way,” Báez said after Tuesday’s game at Camden Yards. “Everything’s getting better for us this year as a team. The only difference for me is that I’m healthy. I’m making adjustments.”
Báez, who had right hip surgery this past September to alleviate chronic back inflammation, was back at shortstop Tuesday night as the Tigers opened a three-game series against the Baltimore Orioles; he made a series of stellar defensive plays and contributed an RBI single as Detroit won, 5-3. His intermittent conversion and .269 batting average is only one good reason why the Tigers—not the big-market New York Yankees—own the American League’s best record at 44-25 even after a 10-1 drubbing by the O’s on Wednesday night.
“It was really taking an incredibly gifted baseball player with great feel and introducing him to a new position so he could help us win,” Hinch said about Báez on Tuesday night. “He did an incredible job. Center field was a big issue coming out of camp, and it turned out to be a big strength.”
The Tigers are Major League Baseball’s anomaly this season, making more out of less than any other team in either league. Behind the pitching of 2024 American League Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal, the Tigers own a seven-game spread over second-place Minnesota in the AL Central, the widest in any of the six divisions. Skubal, with his 6-2 record and 2.16 ERA, is slated to take the mound for the Tigers on Thursday.
This is not the result any longer of a small sample size, with the season nearing its halfway mark. Sure, there’s still a long way to go before the playoffs in October, but the Tigers are doing it with $156.2 million—the 19th-ranked payroll for tax purposes, according to Spotrac—less than half of what the top-ranked Los Angeles Dodgers are spending at $405.4 million.
The division itself is the lowest-spending in MLB. Below the Tigers, Minnesota is spending a 20th-ranked $151.5 million, Cleveland is 25th at $122.3 million and the lowly Chicago White Sox are 29th out of the 30 MLB teams at $86 million. Only the Miami Marlins, with an $84.7 million payroll, are lower than the White Sox. The entire AL Central is spending a combined $686.7 million.
Compare that with the National League West’s spending of $1.25 billion and the AL East putting up $1.1 billion for players this season, and the AL Central is getting a lot of bang for its buck. Three of the division’s other four teams are in contention for the league’s three Wild Card slots, with the 17th-ranked Kansas City Royals at $170.7 million the farthest away right now two games back. The White Sox, who set a record for futility last season with a 41-121 record, are still getting what they’re paying for. They’re 23-45—20.5 games behind the Tigers.
Hinch doesn’t concern himself with the team’s salary decisions.
“The good thing about my position is that I don’t have to worry about that,” he said. “I do know my job on the field is to make the most out of these guys, and leave the payroll and other aspects of that to the people upstairs.”
Hinch has always been adept at that. He took over the Houston Astros in 2015 after a 92-loss, fourth-place finish in the AL West. By 2017, he led them to a World Series win over the Dodgers. The Astros had an eight-year run to either the AL Championship Series or beyond that ended this past postseason, but Hinch wasn’t around for all of them. He was ensnared in the Astros sign-stealing debacle, fired by owner Jim Crane and suspended for a year by Major League Baseball after the Astros lost the 2019 World Series to Washington.
The Tigers gave him a lifeline, and now, like Báez, he’s on a mission to prove that prior iterations in his career were not a fluke.
“I’m proud to be here,” Hinch said. “I don’t downplay what happened to me in Houston. I take responsibility for my part in all that. I’m just trying to be a good manager for these guys.”
He sees similarities to his Astros teams and the current Tigers, who lost 85 games when Hinch took over in 2021, and last year made the playoffs with 86 wins. After losing a tough AL Division Series to Cleveland in five games, Detroit now seems poised to take the next big step.
“In terms of a team learning to grow up, that is similar,” Hinch said. “In terms of having a ton of young talent, that is similar. After we made the playoffs last year I talked to the team about once you play in October, you want to play in all of them. Guys had really good offseasons and came back ready to go. That’s a similarity I’ve also experienced already.”
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