3 Detroit Tigers players who'll be better in 2023 and 2 who won't

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Some Detroit Tigers players are due for bounce-back seasons, while others won't be as fortunate

The Detroit Tigers had a number of players underperform last season, whether that be due to injury or other cirumstances. All of these underperformers largley contributed to one of the worst offenses in franchise history.

Since little has been done to address it, the Tigers will be banking on some of those players to come back and perform closer to their career norms in 2023. There are a lot of them, and not all of them will come back to put up better numbers. Some of them just may just be toast.

In this piece, we're going to go over who those players will be and why. Let's get started.

3 players that should be better: OF Austin Meadows

Meadows wasn't healthy last season, both mentally and physically, but in the 36 games he did play, he wasn't very effective. He still put up some good at-bats, but he was known for his power in Tampa Bay, and he didn't hit a single home run in 2022.

Assuming he's back to full health, I expect a full rebound in 2023. The Tigers could sure use a healthy Austin Meadows. He has the potential to be the best hitter on the team.

After all, he was an All-Star in 2019 when he hit 33 homers and put up a 144 wRC+. He wasn't as good in 2021, but he still hit 27 bombs and put up a 113 wRC+ while walking at a 10% clip. Combine this with the fact that he'll turn 28 in May, and there's really no reason to think he's toast barring another injury.

Meadows is still a very good hitter. If he hits, and he should, that would be a massive boost to the Detroit Tigers lineup in 2023.

SS Javier Baez

I went back and forth on this one for a bit, but I decided that Baez should be better in 2023 than he was in 2022. He was good enough in the second half of last season where I think that's a distinct possibility. He hit .268 in the second half of the season compared to just .213 before the All-Star break.

I think people forget that he injured his thumb in April and it clearly still bothered him for a good chunk of the season. It still didn't affect his general approach at the plate, but his ability to make hard contact—something he's usually pretty good at—was clearly diminished.

Now, he's had a whole offseason to let that thumb heal. If he can get back to making hard contact consistently and hitting for more power, that should help Tigers fans deal with all the whiffing and strikeouts.

He'll also have some new hitting coaches to work with. It was clear that Scott Coolbaugh's approach wasn't working well for anyone, especially Baez. He actually struck out less than he ever has. I don't know about you, but I'd be willing to sacrifice more strikeouts for some more power.

If he stays healthy and the new coaching staff can help him, Baez should be better in 2023.

1B Spencer Torkelson

Yes, Tork was pretty bad last season. But I'm not ready to give up on him—and neither should you.

He was the No. 1 overall pick in 2020 for a reason. Nobody else would have been taken if a different team held the No. 1 pick that year. Torkelson was the consensus top pick in the draft.

He has all the talent and ability in the world. If anything, it seems like it could be all in his head

Our Jake Boes pointed something out back in Spring Training before the 2021 season, where Tork was struggling mightily. He tweeted out a thread where he explained that Tork added a little timing mechanism to his swing, and it may have had the opposite effect of what he was looking for.

The issue doesn't seem to be the timing mechanism itself, it's when he starts it. It starts way too late. He needs to get his hands going much earlier. Or, he needs to get rid of it entirely.

It'll be interesting to see if the new hitting staff has talked to Torkelson about that, or have suggested another alternative. It would be a shame to let a talent like him go to waste.

That being said, there's just no way he's going to be as bad as he was last year. He just can't be. If he is, the Detroit Tigers are in deep trouble.

2 players that won't be better: 2B Jonathan Schoop

I've gone back and forth on this one as well. In fact, I wrote a piece a while back where I compared both Schoop and Baez to see which one I thought had aibetter chance of bouncing back, and the conclusion I came too at the time was that Schoop had a higher chance simply because there's no way way he can be that bad again.

He had a 58 wRC+, which was the worst in all of baseball. At age 31, there's a possibility of him being completely cooked. However, he does have a history of being bad one year only to bounce back the following year.

I just don't see that happening this time around. He was just so pitifully awful last season. He may put up better numbers than he did in 2022, but it won't be by much.

If he hasn't figured it out by Memorial Day, I think there's a strong chance the Detroit Tigers just DFA him. They have plenty of younger infielders they can give his at-bats to.

INF Ryan Kreidler

I've never been very high on Kreidler, even when he was mashing in the minors in 2021. I thought he struck out too much and didn't walk enough for the big league level. During his cup of coffee in 2022, my fears came to fruition, although it was just 84 plate appearances. But he was pretty bad in those 84 PAs.

He hit just .178 with a 38 wRC+ during the month of September and part of October. It is possible that he was still being effected by the hand injury he suffered last season, but I think this is just who he is as a hitter. He's just not very good.

Despite what I think, it sure sounds like the Tigers are going to give him every opportunity to succeed (or fail). He's going to get a lot of ABs in 2023, for better or worse.

He may just be 25 and still largely unproven, but I'm just not a Ryan Kreidler guy. I'm more than happy to proven wrong, though.

Next. Detroit Tigers: Looking at the options to play third base in 2023. dark

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