Detroit Tigers: 5 minor-league storylines to follow

The 2021 minor-league baseball season began yesterday, offering a welcome distraction for weary Detroit Tigers fans (and beat writers). Rogelio wrote a recap of yesterday’s results, and we hope to offer daily content on the happenings with Detroit’s farm teams.

But there are some specific storylines we’ll be focusing on this season, and we thought we’d share them with you in case you’d like to follow along.

Detroit Tigers Minor-League Storyline: Matt Manning’s 3rd Pitch

Matt Manning is widely considered one of the top 25 prospects in all of baseball. Here at Motor City Bengals we ranked him 5th in the Detroit Tigers system, but there is sentiment among some fans (and evaluators) that Manning is the top pitching prospect in the system. Manning certainly looks like a potential ace, with a statuesque frame, plus athleticism, and good control of a pair of plus pitches.

But Matt Manning isn’t a finished product by any means, and we need to see a lot more from him before he can become the top-of-the-rotation starter some envision. For starters, his stuff isn’t really that impressive, at least not by 2021 MLB starter standards. Manning can run his fastball up to 97 MPH and has touched higher before, but he mostly sits in the 92-95 MPH range. This spring his fastball averaged 93.8 MPH, just a tick above the MLB average this year (93.4), and while he does get elite extension, his spin rates are unremarkable. His curveball has been a plus pitch for him in the past, but it didn’t look great this spring, or in his Mud Hens debut yesterday.

Taken as a whole, right now Matt Manning’s stuff doesn’t seem any better than Alex Lange’s, and Lange currently owns a 7.88 ERA in eight big-league innings. Manning needs a viable third pitch, and to his credit, he knows that ($). But it’s at least mildly concerning he hasn’t developed a better changeup to this point, and is instead opting for a second breaking ball.

Some pitchers never master the feel for changeups (hello Jeremy Bonderman), and some who try to throw two good breaking balls often find themselves with one bad breaking ball. It is vitally important for Manning to find a quality third pitch this season. Otherwise he may be looking at a future as a middle reliever.

Detroit Tigers Minor-League Storyline: Spencer Torkelson’s Strikeouts

Spencer Torkelson may be the most important player in the entire Detroit Tigers organization. The top overall pick in the 2020 draft, Torkelson projects to be exactly the kind of middle-of-the-order masher the Tigers desperately need. But Torkelson looked downright bad at the plate during spring training, going just 1-for-27 with 16 strikeouts, for a ghastly 52% K rate. It wasn’t shocking to see him scuffle — the jump from college to MLB spring training is enormous, and he hadn’t played real games in nearly a year — but the extent to which he struggled was surprising.

And then yesterday he went 0-for-3 with a walk and three strikeouts in his official pro debut. It’s far too early to be alarmed by any of this. From watching him play, it’s clear Torkelson has a very good eye at the plate, and he has already been victimized by some questionable minor-league strike zones. So far Torkelson seems to be struggling in the same way Akil Baddoo has for the past few weeks: they both swing and miss at a lot of hittable pitches.

But it’s important to remember failure often teaches prospects much more than success. Kris Bryant, a player to whom Spencer Torkelson has been compared, went 0-for-5 with 5 strikeouts in his third professional game back in 2013. Bryant quickly adjusted, and by 2015 he was one of the best players in baseball. There’s no reason to think Spencer Torkelson can’t follow the same path.

Detroit Tigers Minor-League Storyline: Toledo’s Position Players

It’s no secret the Detroit Tigers offense is bad. They rank last in the Majors in team batting average (.199), on-base percentage (.260), and slugging percentage (.341), and they combine the highest strikeout rate in baseball (30.9%) with the second lowest walk rate (7.3%). It’s ugly.

A.J. Hinch is not going to just sit around and watch his players continuously fail all season, and this year’s Toledo Mud Hens squad has an unusually high number of potential replacements. Few of them have high ceilings, but it wouldn’t be shocking to see just about any hot Mud Hens hitter get called up on the remote chance they provide a spark to Detroit’s lifeless offense.

We’ve already seen Derek Hill, Renato Núñez, and Zack Short this season, and we expect to see Daz Cameron (once he’s healthy), Isaac Paredes, and Jake Rogers. But also don’t be surprised if we see Kody Clemens, who looked pretty good this spring, as well as former members of the 40-man roster like Eric Haase and Christin Stewart. It’s all hands on deck for the Tigers now, and it seems like anyone with a pulse will get a shot to help.

Detroit Tigers Minor-League Storyline: Finding More Pitchers

If there’s one persistent misconception about the Detroit Tigers, it’s that their farm system is “loaded with arms.” Yes, a plurality of their top prospects (or young big leaguers) are pitchers, but once you get past the top four names, the system is surprisingly barren. We’ve already seen Casey Mize and Tarik Skubal struggle early in their MLB careers, and we detailed some of the concerns about Matt Manning earlier in this piece. The fourth big arm is Joey Wentz, who had Tommy John surgery last year and probably won’t see game action for another month or two.

You don’t have to be some prospect expert to notice the dearth of arms in this system. MLB Pipeline lists just six other pitchers among Detroit’s top 30 prospects, and four of them are already relievers. The other two are Franklin Perez, who is hurt again, and Alex Faedo, who won’t pitch this year. Finding another potential big-league starter in the minors this year is vital for the team’s future success.

So who are the candidates? Rony Garcia, Detroit’s 2019 Rule 5 pick, will likely work as a starter in Toledo this year, but he looked more like a middle reliever in his time in Detroit last year. Down in Double-A the Tigers have Paul Richan, who shows good control but lackluster stuff. He gave up three home runs in four innings in his Erie debut last night. Keider Montero pitched for the West Michigan Whitecaps yesterday, flashing an impressive low-90s fastball and a breaking ball with above-average potential But then his control fell apart and he allowed 5 runs in just 2.2 innings. He looks like a future reliever.

There just aren’t many interesting arms in the system this year, so we’ll be watching closely to see if anyone makes progress.