Patience is touted as a virtue, but in professional sports it too often morphs into an excuse.
The Tigers have one of the best pitching staffs in MLB.
Yet, their record has fallen below .500 after losing back-to-back home series vs. the Astros and Marlins, who arrived among the worst MLB clubs so far in 2024.
This is now more than a sluggish start offensively. It’s a full blown crisis, the type which could soon fade into another summer of the Tigers being deemed irrelevant by all but hardcore baseball fans in this town.
And the effect has been enhanced by Xfinity no longer carrying Tigers’ games because of a dispute with the hot mess known as Bally Sports Detroit.
The underlying message so far has been of not really missing the Tigers. That would not be the case if they were winning rather than frittering away quality pitching.
We are about to discover what type of chops Scott Harris has in his role as president of baseball operations, which is essentially a fancy way of describing the traditional general manager.
Sorting out the nuts and bolts and pouring a foundation is only part of the job, and not what is necessarily most essential. As important is reacting correctly when the best laid plans of mice and men go awry.
Rookies Colt Keith and Parker Meadows were supposed to be reasonably able to handle MLB pitching this season. Instead they have been completely overwhelmed by it.
It was anticipated Spencer Torkelson was over the issues which caused him to struggle so mightily for a season-and-a-half before his red hot finish in 2023. Evidently, that isn’t the case.
Javy Baez has been an unmitigated disaster since Day 1, but this season it has taken on epic proportions.
Manager A.J. Hinch’s comment about the Tigers not turning their back on Baez was reprehensible. The Tigers are paying Baez an extraordinary amount of money to help them lose games based on advanced metrics. They’d likely be above .500 with a mere replacement level shortstop.
While it’s true the Tigers don’t currently have one in their organization (not exactly good planning), Harris could trade for one. It’s allowed, you know. The biggest role for the head of baseball operations is to adjust the roster in-season so the MLB club, which ultimately is all that matters, is successful.
Because of their pitching, the Tigers should be in genuine contention. To keep throwing the same lineup out there each day, only shuffled differently like the deck chairs on the Titanic by Hinch, and expecting a different result, isn’t only the baseball definition of insanity, it’s sacrilegious.
And to consistently and correctly preach the importance of strike zone discipline like Harris, and then play the poster player for the lack of it without any accountability because of his salary, is hypocritical. It sends a terrible message to the Tigers’ younger players and to fans. Baez would be addition by subtraction, the financial repercussions be damned.
The Tigers have had two outstanding general managers the last 40 years, Bill Lajoie and Dave Dombrowski, a likely Hall of Famer.
The managers from those eras, Sparky Anderson and Jim Leyland, were Hall of Famers.
None of them settled. Each season, good, bad or indifferent, was a game-by-game fight. If there was any type of strength, especially one as formidable as the Tigers’ current pitching staff, they’d find ways to enhance it, not waste it.
Lajoie and Dombrowski made numerous trades, far more good than bad, to keep the ship afloat.
After a promising start, the Tigers quickly lost focus. More than a quarter of the season is gone and it’s been revealing.
Time for action, not hand sitting, and with purpose, not symbolism.
Scott Harris and A.J. Hinch are being tested.
It would be beyond disappointing if they continue to act as if they are not.
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