AJ Hinch's comments on pitching shortage offer no confidence in Tigers organization

There's really just no other way to put it: the Tigers' starting pitching is in an awful place. It wasn't great even before they traded Jack Flaherty, as Kenta Maeda had been relegated to the bullpen, and Reese Olson and Casey Mize were on the IL, leaving Detroit with Tarik Skubal, Flaherty, and Keider Montero, alongside very few (if any) good options to turn to in Triple-A. Letting Flaherty go to the Dodgers left the Tigers even more shorthanded.

On Thursday, the Tigers called up two relievers, Brenan Hanifee and Sean Guenther who, first of all, aren't even two of the best relievers the Mud Hens have to offer, and second, do not solve the rotation crisis, unless the Tigers decide to make one of them a starter (which would be a bad idea).

It's chaos, but Tigers management doesn't seem willing to admit that there's a problem at all. AJ Hinch said after Thursday's roster moves, "We have plenty of pitching. We do have a plan in place. It will develop as we get deeper into the weekend."

Is "plenty of pitching" in the room with us? No? Okay, that's what we thought.

AJ Hinch refuses to acknowledge the Tigers' massive pitching problem

The plan "developing as we get deeper into the weekend" definitely feels like a thinly veiled way of saying that the Tigers are winging it, that they've called the rest of this season a wash and have resigned themselves again to the "maybe next year" mantra that we've been listening to for a decade now (subscription required).

It seems that the hope fans had for this Tigers team at the beginning of the season is gone, but not only that — the organization has given up as well. Instead of taking a look at the current state of the pitching staff and saying, "Wow, that looks bad, maybe we should keep Flaherty or actually be aggressive and buy a starter," they resigned themselves to picking interim arms from the International League's third-worst pitching staff.

It doesn't seem like it'll get better in the offseason, either. When asked if keeping Skubal meant that the Tigers would be more aggressive on the free agent market, Scott Harris skirted the question (subscription required). Something will have to be done; they'll probably go out and sign two more veteran arms on short-term contracts, but what will they do to avoid this exact situation in the final stretch of the 2025 season?

Realistically, this non-strategy means that the Tigers will likely go from bullpen game to bullpen game and so on, and that means blowing out their relievers' arms and slipping further and further away from .500 over the next two months. That's a wrap on the 2024 season, folks -- and perhaps this overuse invites injury risk that threatens 2025, too.