Detroit Tigers: Al Avila is sailing into the 2021 offseason

The end of the season press conference for the Detroit Tigers took place this afternoon as both Al Avila and A.J. Hinch addressed the media.

There was a lot to process today during the Detroit Tigers end-of-season news conference today outside of just the quotes that Al Avila gave to the press as the Tigers continue to make changes behind the scenes.

The Detroit Tigers hire Gabe Ribas as the Director of Pitching

The Tigers continue to hire personal with Los Angeles Dodgers roots as the team announced that Gabe Ribas will be the director of pitching. While in LA, he worked within the minor league system to help develop the pitching using a variety of new techniques that include performance science, analytics, and coming up with pitching plans. He will be working under the new Vice President of Player Development, Ryan Garko. 

Speaking of player development, in Toledo, Adrelin Rodriguez won the Triple-A East MVP award after putting up an impressive season in which he hit 29 home runs and 94 RBI. He hit .290/.362/.927 and spent time between first and third this season.

More news on the Mud Hens front as Jason Beck reported today that manager Tom Prince will not be back at the helm.  For more on who league the minors in the various categories, check out the article Chris Brown put out this morning. 

Baseball America put out the Instructional League rosters as reported by Josh Norris, there will be two camps for the Tigers: Pitch design and skill acquisition.

Al Avila quote translation time

Before we break down his quotes today, keep in mind this translation is good fun. The Tigers had a season worth discussion so this version will be the most upbeat to date compared to last year’s end of the year presser.

“This is not going to be spending like a drunken sailor. This is going to be a very measured process.”

Translation: Smart signings similar to what we saw the Tigers do with Robbie Grossman. With A.J Hinch and now the promotions of Sam Menzin and Jay Sartori, Avila using the word “measured” is dead on. That is the hope at least.

“You can’t have that fear factor at all when you make these decisions, The thing is, we have to be very measured. We have to calculate the pros and cons of everything. And at the end of the day, it comes [down] to the player. You have to believe in the player.”

Translation: They are not going to throw money at a player just because. The vibe I got here was simply put, they are looking for the right players since Avila said they will need to address the rotation with injuries to Spencer Turnbull as well as their number one priority, a shortstop.

“At some point, you can count on Riley Greene being in our outfield in the not too distant future”

Translation: The free-agent push will not include the outfield. The Tigers seem set on who they have and for prospects fans, Greene’s season in 2021 at the age of 20 was quite impressive. Expect him to make a push in spring training. There wasn’t there much for translation as he was pretty direct about it during the press conference. 

He mentioned he was not planning to trade any prospects in the off-season so for Tigers fans who get very animated about the idea of trading prospects, Avila is on your side.

Avila will have help to acquire talent and if we look at the suggestions made by the powers that helped make Akil Baddoo, Robbie Grossman, and Eric Haase into regular contributors in 2021, please continue to use them to navigate the deep waters of the off-season.