Detroit Tigers: The Akil Baddoo experiment needs to end

Detroit Tigers should cut ties with outfielder Akil Baddoo.

The Detroit Tigers need to come clean and finally cut ties with Akil Baddoo. The 2022 season was enough of the experiment, and there is reason to think he should be included in the impending offseason roster purge.

The Detroit Tigers brought in Baddoo during the Rule 5 Draft, and he took the league by storm. It was a heck of a start to the 2021 season and Baddoo’s career after he started performing overly well once being called up.

But in 2022, things did not exactly work out the way Baddoo was expecting, and the 2022 results could have been much better. While he was not the only hitter who underwent some adversity in 2022, if the Tigers are looking to clear space and shake things up, cutting ties with Akil Baddoo is not the worst thing in the world.

Maybe it’s a premature thought, and a new hitting development staff could change things around, but it felt like things trended downward, and Baddoo never really performed at the level he was at during the 2021 season.

The Tigers are going to switch up their roster this off-season. There will players who are on their way out of the Motor City, and ending the experiment with Baddoo might just be on the table for discussion.

Akil Baddoo’s struggles with the Detroit Tigers in 2022 are a problem moving forward.

As Scott Harris continues to build his team for the future, it’s hard to think that Akil Baddoo can still be a part of the bigger picture. Baddoo is coming off a summer with the Tigers, where he produced a measly .204/.289/.269 slash line with all over seven extra-base hits over 225 plate appearances.

This comes after the 2021 season where he registered 461 plate appearances and managed a .259/.330/.436 slash with 20 doubles, seven triples, and 13 home runs for the Tigers. He looked like he would be a beneficial piece of the outfield moving forward.

Instead, Baddoo regressed big time in 2022. It felt like he was doing too much in the box, trying to get to pitches he would not be able to drive. But it’s more than that. He was trying to pull and drive pitches that he should be taking the other way. Instead of spraying the field or even just taking those outer third pitches the other way, he was pull-happy.

In 2021, it felt like he was more of a complete hitter, being able to adjust to pitches. Rather than trying to pull pitches, he would flick a single the other way to adjust to what the pitcher offered. While there were times he showed glimpses of being that hitter, he got away from that in 2022.

With the Tigers looking to shake things up, Baddoo should be on the chopping block if they are truly going to make some wholesale changes with the roster. It could be a bold take to start the offseason with several other names who are worthy of getting rid of, but I think Baddoo should be in that group.