Detroit Tigers: Is Spencer Torkelson a late bloomer to big leagues?

Detroit Tigers first baseman Spencer Torkelson is a late bloomer.

While scrolling through Detroit Tigers' Twitter on Wednesday, I came across a piece on The Athletic ($) from Cody Stavenhagen, mentioning the Tigers' woes at the plate and talking through several of the players, not just Spencer Torkelson, who is the topic of this discussion.

Paired with that piece on Twitter was a quote tweet from a "friend of the program," Chris Brown, showing a graphic of former first-round picks and their performances through 168 games played. The results, sorted by OPS, are quite interesting, especially for the Detroit Tigers youngster.

In Brown's tweet, the graphic shows Torkelson pretty darn low on that list, being ahead of only Shawn Abner and Tim Foli. As Tigers fans know, Torkelson's numbers have not been the prettiest in his early performances with the team.

The regular statistics have not been akin to that of a first-overall draft choice like Adley Rutschman, who is much higher on the graphic from Brown above. Torkelson's advanced metrics have seen much more of an uptick and continue to be more impressive in 2023.

That was the basis of the brief analysis by Stavenhagen. He concluded that while the batted-ball metrics have been impressive and encouraging, the approach at the plate still seems to lack MLB-caliber performance. As Cody said in his piece, he's been "inconsistent, overly passive, or simply not dialed in."

But there's more to the story. Bridging the tweet from Brown and Stavenhagen's conclusions, one could get ready to hammer the "bust" button. Pump the brakes. He may not have entered the league like Rutschman did for the Orioles or have top-tier numbers like Joe Mauer or Chipper Jones, but it's not time to hammer the bust button yet.

Frankly, it seems that Torkelson has really just been unlucky. He's putting good swings on balls and working counts deep. But it looks like something about the approach is still green or new. He's still trying to get his feel for that 4ft x 6ft chalk box wearing an MLB uniform under the bright lights.

Hitting is mental. Hitting is hard. Even when he's tattooing baseballs, they're being caught. He's got to be noticing that he's hitting balls 100+ mph, and they're being run down, which has to be frustrating. He's been passive, which is great for the OBP, but it's not the extra-base hits or the flashy bombs that make him look like a generational talent.

But I've been up on Torkelson since the team took him. I thought he had juice upside, similar to Pete Alonso when he broke into the league with the New York Mets. But now, I think he's got more of that 20x20 upside, being a better overall hitter.

Given some time as he continues to find his way, he will be a late bloomer. He's got a great teacher in the clubhouse to bounce ideas off of in Miguel Cabrera, and he needs to capitalize on this during Miggy's last season.

But seriously, Torkelson has the tools showing. For him, it's just putting it all together and reaping the benefits. There are still plenty of reasons to love Torkelson's profile, even if his OPS through 168 games is not in that top tier or his 2023 numbers are slowly climbing in the right direction.

He's doing things right. If he can tighten up the passive approach, he will be solid. Not to say he needs to be free-swinging, but tightening things up to be a little less passive might be something to consider. Do not panic with Torkelson; he's got the potential to be an exciting late bloomer.