1 metric Tigers fans probably never heard of could be key playoff difference maker

At the beginning of the season, the Tigers were asked a lot — to a bit of an annoying degree — what their team identity was. It's sort of a fair question; the Tigers are one of the youngest and most inexperienced teams in the league, but they still managed to do the impossible at the end of last season and break a decade-long postseason drought.

The answer to that question has clarified itself this year. The Tigers have had pitching chaos straight from the mind of AJ Hinch, but third base coach Joey Cora is responsible for the other real identifier that's emerged for Detroit.

The Tigers' offense doesn't take an exceptional amount of walks or collect a ton of extra-base hits. They strike out a lot and are dead last in stolen bases. But they're far and away MLB's leaders in XBT% — extra bases taken (going to first to third on a single or first to home on a double) — at 54%.

Literally everything in baseball is ascribed some kind of number, but this is an obscure, underlying one that you won't find unless you dig pretty deep into Baseball Savant.

Riley Greene recalled a message from an angry Cora in August of last year, when the Tigers were in Seattle and their playoff odds were basically nonexistent. "I can't say the exact words he said. [...] Something along the lines of 'Just go.' So we just started going."

Obscure extra bases taken metric explains the secret to Tigers' success

The Dodgers are second in baseball in XBT%, trailing the Tigers by 7%. The Brewers are behind the Dodgers by just one, and the Red Sox and Rockies behind Milwaukee by another.

Parker Meadows, the Tigers' fastest runner this year who has been on the IL for the majority of it, only has 86th percentile speed. Trey Sweeney, their next fastest, is in the 78th percentile. Still, the Tigers are running at a rate that hasn't been seen since the '70s. The 1975 Oakland Athletics finished their season with a 55 XBT%, and the 2025 Tigers are tied with the 1970 Yankees at 54%.

What this is really all about is opportunism and heads-up baseball. It's not a flawless strategy, especially when it comes to risky plays at home with slow baserunners, but it clearly works when implemented correctly. The Tigers' 2024 season turned around right after that Mariners series when they beat the Yankees in the Little League Classic. Their MLB-best record since that date has a lot to do with how much they're ready to run.