Detroit Tigers: Designing the perfect arsenal based on the 2023 pitching staff

Designing an arsenal based off Detroit Tigers pitchers.

Everyone's seen the memes and pictures where they build the best player in the sport using tools from all sorts of athletes within. I.e., Miguel Cabrera's swing, Aaron Judge's power, Aroldis Chapman's fastball velocity, etc. Let's build the "perfect" arsenal for a Detroit Tigers pitcher, using individual pitchers from the entire pitching staff.

The perfect arsenal does not exist in this regard, and a pitcher utilizing all of these individual pitches would probably get rocked, but given the Detroit Tigers' off-season is likely to be a bland one, why not have some fun and do some thinking? If you take these five individual pitches and teach them to the perfect player, it would be ideally make for a tough look for hitters.

For the Detroit Tigers faithful out there, think about which players have the best stuff on the staff. Which players have the nasty pitches, get some tough swings from opposing hitters, and have that stuff to miss bats? This is not some foolproof assignment. For example, if you taught a whole staff to throw the Mariano Rivera cutter, Joaquin Benoit splitter, or Greg Maddux slider, it won't work the same for each arm, and it won't be some pathway to success.

The point is that this article is about fun and what could be. It's analytical but for fun. There's much more to pitch design and creating an arsenal that works for a pitcher than just picking the outliers. Plus, other factors like tunneling, mechanics, arm action, etc., play a role.

Adopting a four-seam fastball from Detroit Tigers RHP Beau Brieske.

To start things off, we had to adopt a fastball. The bread-and-butter pitch that a Detroit Tigers pitcher could use to command the zone, get ahead early in counts, and rely on as needed. Sure, maybe Beau Brieske is not the first name that comes to mind, but it's a fastball that serves as a good base for the Tigers.

Beau Brieske's fastball averages 96.7 mph, providing some velocity behind it, with a four-seam shape. The pitch has 5.6 inches of horizontal break and 12.5 inches of vertical break per Baseball Savant's metrics, giving it a shape with some separation between the two.

He may not have an absurd 24-inch IVB fastball or anything crazy, but it's not in the dead zone, and he can create some separation in the two numbers and throw it with good velocity. On top of that, Brieske spun the fastball up above the 2,400-RPM mark.

Brieske got hitters to chase the fastball over 20% of the time on out-of-zone fastballs and held opponents to a .271 batting average overall. He was able to use the heater as a putaway pitch at times as well, with a 13.5% PutAway rate.

Sure, it's not 104 mph and is not the high-IVB pitch that some elite arms have in their arsenal, but it's the base for this arsenal and can be built around.

Snapping off Detroit Tigers RHP Reese Olson's sliders.

As we dive into our first of two breaking balls, it was an easy choice when looking at the Detroit Tigers pitching staff for both of these. First up is Reese Olson and his filthy slider. The pitch has exceptional shape and will be an out-pitch in this arsenal that can be used for swings and misses, especially given how well the pitch performs at the big-league level.

Heck, Olson throws his slider as his primary pitch for the Tigers, using the pitch 30.6% of the time in 2023, per his Baseball Savant data. The pitch averages the mid-80s and is a really productive pitch for Olson to rely on. It held opposing hitters to a .217 batting average with 41 strikeouts recorded via the slider. He also managed a 41.6% whiff rate and a 22.8% PutAway% during the 2023 season, using the slider for tons of success.

But the stats are not the only exciting part about this pitch. While he averages the mid-80s on the slider, throwing it for strikes, the pitch has absurd spin numbers. He has been up above 3,000 RPMs a ton, and per Baseball Savant, the slider averaged 2,989 RPMs during the 2023 season. The breaker has 40.8 inches of vertical and 7.8 inches of horizontal, with a pretty shape.

It takes a quick search on X/Twitter to look up "Reese Olson Sliders" to fall in love with the pitch. He spins it well, spins it often, and spins it for success. With that in mind, it was an easy decision to include Olson's slider as part of this arsenal. His slider is pitch no.3 on the list, being the first of two breakers.

Flipping the big breaker that Detroit Tigers RHP Alex Lange uses.

Moving on with the arsenal, we have one filthy breaker in the mix. Why not add another? For the Detroit Tigers, look no further than Alex Lange to add another filthy breaking ball to the mix. The right-handed pitcher has an exceptional curveball that he can use for success and that we will be adding to our arsenal to help attack hitters.

While Olson's slider has more sweep to it, Lange's breaker has more of a vertical attack, being depthy with a bigger break. He can land the pitch for strikes and utilize it to get ahead at times, using it early or can use it to finish at-bats as a putaway pitch. It's a pitch that will prove beneficial for this arsenal, as it's one of the reasons Lange has been so effective working out of the Tigers bullpen.

Lange's curveball can get some velocity to it, working into the upper-80s. He throws it harder, with a really good depthy shape to it. With less than an inch of horizontal on average, his average of 39.8 inches of vertical drop makes it a pitch that can disappear on hitters. He can locate it in the bottom third as a starting point, letting it disappear below the zone to induce the swing and miss.

Looking at the effectiveness, Lange was able to utilize his curveball to a 48.4% whiff rate and a 30.0 PutAway% in 2023, which is quite impressive. It's part of the reason I selected this breaker for the arsenal. Lange's breaker is a big piece of the puzzle for this arsenal. If it could tunnel well off of the Brieske fastball from the beginning, it would be a deadly combination, being able to see hitters lose it below the zone, fictitiously, of course.

Pronating a changeup like Detroit Tigers RHP Mason Englert.

Now, it might be a bit more shocking to select the changeup from the Detroit Tigers Rule 5 Draftee, but Mason Englert has a nasty changeup with tons of arm-side fade. We do not need Englert's whole arsenal, so adding this into the arsenal as one pitch could be beneficial. Again, this is all fictitiously thinking, but it could make for a threatening arsenal to add this changeup in with a Jason Foley power sinker already covered.

That being said, let's take a look at what Englert has to offer with his change piece. Englert utilized the changeup just 6.7% of the time during the 2023 season in his first go-round with the Tigers. But make no mistake, the movement is great and plays to the advantage of this arsenal that is being pieced together.

The changeup averages around 83.6 mph with the ability to kill spin down into the 1,900s, which is what you want from a changeup, an inefficient spin to create some fade. He got a 29.0% whiff rate and a 16.0% PutAway % in 2023 on his changeups, which speaks to the good movement that he can create.

If you look at the video of Englert on the mound courtesy of Baseball Savant, it's easy to see why this pitch was selected. It has some hump to it, fading well with good depth to it, which is part of the reason that this pitch was added to the arsenal. Rounding things out on the arsenal.

Final Thoughts

Now that we have discussed what the arsenal looks like, the Detroit Tigers have a litany of pitchers. There are a bunch of pitches that help make up the Tigers' starters and bullpen, but for the purposes of this, there are six pitches. All five of these are pitches that are unique in their own regards.

With that being said... the final arsenal looks like...

1. Jason Foley - Sinker
2. Beau Brieske - 4-Seam Fastball
3. Reese Olson - Slider
4. Alex Lange - Curveball
5. Mason Englert - Changeup

While the Detroit Tigers have had a busy off-season early on, here's a nice change of pace from the usual off-season content. As the Tigers head into 2024, think about your favorite pitchers, starters, or relievers and which pitches stand out the most to you. It's always fun to key in on individual pitches in an arsenal, looking at movement profiles.

This article certainly is only possible with the tools that Baseball Savant places at its fans' disposal. There's a ton of data available on metrics for individual pitches in a pitcher's arsenal. There are plenty of things to think about this off-season, but if the hot stove is not your fancy, why not dive into some data and look at some of your favorite Tigers pitchers?