We expected the pitching to be great, but the Tigers are thriving in every aspect of the game.
We’re encountering a strange and unfamiliar problem in trying to write about the 2025 Detroit Tigers . Very little is going wrong, and the things that seemed like they would be big problems have barely registered as bumps in the road. Your Tigers have the best run differential in baseball. They have the second best record at 22-13 through 35 games.
After an 8-2 homestand in which they took out the Kansas City Royals and the San Diego Padres , losing one game apiece in those series, they wrapped things up with a convincing sweep of the Baltimore Orioles last weekend. A 2-1 series loss to Houston followed in which the pitching melted down a little bit in the middle innings. They followed that up by scoring 34 runs in four games to torment the Angels through the weekend.
The strength of this team is supposed to be the pitching staff and strong fundamental baseball on defense and on the basepaths, as well as in the batter’s box. Those are all holding up despite both Parker Meadows and Matt Vierling missing, but other than Tarik Skubal’s dominance, the pitching hasn’t really taken center stage. The Tigers are third best in ERA and eighth best in FIP. So they’ve been very good but not quite great yet overall. Instead, the power potential and depth of lineup this team is rocking right now is stealing the show.
The Tigers are tied for the sixth most home runs in the major leagues with 44. Spencer Torkelson, Riley Greene, and Kerry Carpenter are all in the top 30 individual leaders in home runs. Torkelson’s 10th long ball, hit off of Kyle Hendricks in Saturday’s loss, left him in a tie for third most in baseball along with Eugenio Suarez and Kyle Schwarber. If you had that on your bingo card, congrats. Still, as eye-popping a start as the former first overall pick’s breakout has been, the Tigers currently have eight hitters with an OPS over .800.
The Tigers lost their ace center fielder and the utilityman that held the roster last season, and they those them right at the beginning of spring camp. So we had almost six weeks to worry about it before the season began. Instead it’s been little to no problem at all.
They signed Manuel Margot to fill a gap in the outfield, and played Ryan Kreidler in center field despite neither of them doing much at the plate. When Margot got hurt, and they’d played Kreidler long enough to have no hope that his bat would come around, they simply made Javier Báez their usual center fielder. Exactly as you’d expect, right?
Wait there’s more. Zach McKinstry, 30-year-old journeyman bench player, has transformed into a minor terror at the plate as well. Holding a 140 wRC+ after posting 82 and 73 marks in his first two years with the Tigers, he’s playing all over the field, living on base with a .387 OBP, and chipping in some power along with some timely hits.
As Werner Herzog might say, madness reigns.
Javier Báez now has 90 innings in center field, a position he’s never played outside of a few minor league games a decade ago. He holds a plus three defensive runs saved mark (DRS), and is a plus one in outs above average (OAA) as well. With his hip finally repaired after over a year struggling with the injury and its cascade of effects in his lower back, the long-time shortstop and second baseman, mainly known for his outstanding glove work, is running all over the place in center field and generally looking smooth in doing so. He also turned in one of the best catches by a center fielder so far this season in the process.
Of course Báez wasn’t going to hit after two rough seasons and a particularly brutal one at the plate in 2024, correct? Yep, we thought so too. The hip repair, combined with two years of work with Hinch and the hitting coaches to improve his swing decisions, have suddenly resulted in a striking resurgence for the bat as well. Báez had some batted ball luck early on, but as he’s gotten more comfortable the hard contact and now the home runs are starting to accrue. He holds a 132 wRC+ with three home runs, and a clean .300 batting average, adding a single and a double and scoring four runs in the Tigers 13-1 bludgeoning of the Angels on Sunday.
The Tigers just can’t miss right now. It’s too early to forecast that Báez is going to go on to a great season, and the underlying numbers would suggest he’ll cool off to roughly average run production. But just a useful Báez, who can apparently play genius level defense anywhere on the field, contributing some power and working as another weapon against left-handed pitching off the bench, would be a big win for all parties involved. He’s already been worth 1.5 WAR per Baseball Reference.
The real killer, and something few teams can easily overcome is losing their starting catcher. On April 7, Jake Rogers went down with an oblique injury. For a month, the Tigers could have been struggling at the position. A manager and a pitching coach who heavily emphasize framing, blocking, and game calling from their catchers, simply turned to 26-year-old Dillon Dingler. For years the Tigers top catching prospect, Dingler has always had the skills behind the plate and continued to develop very well in the upper minor leagues. However, until the 2024 season, the progress with his bat was pretty slow in coming. Finally, he broke out at the Triple-A level last year only to really struggle at the plate during his major league debut.
Again, not a problem. Dingler has been great behind the plate, ranking as one of the best defensive catchers in baseball. He’s also got four homers and is rocking a 129 wRC+ at the plate. Only the Mariners star catcher, Cal Raleigh, and our old friend Carson Kelly, who notably got a lot better under Hinch’s coaching staff, have been more valuable at the catching position than Dingler.
Oh, and as a little seasoning, 31-year-old depth catcher Tomas Nido, whose bat has always overruled his excellent defense work and kept him largely at the Triple-A level as the third catcher on a roster, has put up a 118 wRC+ in his seven games behind the plate. Sure, his batting average on balls in play is a cool .500 and there’s no chance this lasts, but it’s just an example of how many things have broken the Tigers way so far.
Can Dingler continue to hit for power despite zero walks and a distinct love of swinging the bat at all comers? Will McKinstry continue to spray line drives all over the ballpark? It’s all a lot to ask, but the beautiful thing is that the Tigers are built for the long haul. They don’t need all these shockingly hot starts to continue. It would be nice, but with help on the way off the injured list, and a pitching staff that holds the best ERA in baseball this season, as well as the best in baseball since the beginning of the 2024 season, getting this big early lead is huge for the program. Their ability to pitch should keep the losing stretches short, even if many of these bats cool down somewhat.
Kenta Maeda’s brief spring resurgence quickly evaporated in the regular season, and he was immediately relegated to mop-up duty only. How could the Tigers overcome having to work with a seven-man bullpen? Well, they don’t have too. As the off days become more scarce during the long stretch from May 1 until the All-Star break in July, it’s simply too hard to carry a reliever on the roster that you can’t use in a close game, and so the Tigers made the decision to designate the veteran right-hander on May 1. Problem solved. Now they have several options at the Triple-A level that at least have more chance of long-term success than Maeda that they can turn to, and flexibility is restored.
The Tigers can ride a hot hand from Toledo, and then return them for someone else in a good groove. They can comfortably call up Keider Montero again to build an extra rest day in for the starting rotation, and then rotate in another reliever after he returns to Toledo. They’ve thrived on this ability to cycle in a deep pool of pitchers that extends into their Triple-A ranks since the beginning of last season.
What about Trey Sweeney? A week ago, a couple of yippy throws to first base had everyone on edge and planning a return to shortstop from Báez when Matt Vierling and then Parker Meadows return. Sweeney’s bat remained pretty cold as well. Five days later and he’s hit in five straight, with two home runs to his total.
We’ve run plumb out of whipping boys, folks. Of course, it’s baseball. Things can’t be this perfect forever. I’m not here to tell you that the Tigers are going to win 116 games like the 2001 Seattle Mariners , or the 1906 Chicago Cubs for that matter. Even now the Tigers winning percentage is .629 and well off the .716 pace set by the Mariners. Still, there are plenty of reasons why this hot start isn’t much of a fluke, and plenty of reasons to believe that this team can hold up through any adversity that comes throughout the rest of the regular season.
This all starts with A.J. Hinch and his coaching staff, and Scott Harris and his front office. Particularly over the last year, their ability to solve what looked like catastrophic problems on the run has been remarkable.
That starts with the legend of pitching chaos last summer to deal with serious injury issues on the roster and the trades at the deadline. It extends to other strategic wins like their excellent use of platoons and lineup construction to put opposing managers in difficult spots. But it also extends to the reclamation projects we’ve seen them turn into solutions. Pro scouting and player development have become a real strength. From turning Tyler Holton from a vaguely interesting lefty into one of the more valuable relievers in baseball, to helping Parker Meadows and now Spencer Torkelson and Javier Báez address their issues at the plate, the Tigers are solving problems in player development as well as both the usual and the unusual roster problems that occur during a long major league baseball season.
The Tigers braintrust is finally one step ahead of most teams, and it’s been as thrilling to watch that evolve as it was with the Detroit Lions . The Tigers are innovative when they need to be, but they also really successfully push some of the most fundamental elements of the game, from aggressive baserunning to plate discipline to simply throwing strikes. When the national media caught on to what Hinch and pitching coach Chris Fetter were doing late last summer, the fuss continued all throughout the offseason and remained a big part of some lazy storylines in spring camp.
What would the Tigers have in store for their pitching deployment in 2025? What newfangled trick would they employ? How about five dogs in an entirely traditional starting rotation instead?
We’re at a point, nearing the 40 game mark, where it’s becoming a little more worthwhile to really dive into individual player’s performance and trying to sort out what’s already happened from what is most likely to come over the rest of the season. But it’s still pretty early. My fan brain says that when a lot of guys are hot at the same time, they may well be cool at the same time at points as well. After all, hitting is never that consistent from player to player, or from a team as a whole.
The biggest single reason I’m very confident in this team is their leadership, but of course it’s the pitching staff that is going to keep them in the playoff hunt all year long. Couple that with an outstanding start to the year, and the Tigers could potentially play .500 ball the rest of the way and get a Wild Card, possibly even win the division. I really like their chances to beat that mark. If the offense ends up relying more on the core group of Greene, Torres, Carpenter, and Torkelson, at points along the way, so be it. Right now that looks like a group that you can build an October threat around, and the Tigers should be able to get some production up and down the batting order even if some of these hot starts cool dramatically on the hitting side.
The combination of a talented young team with a lot of players just coming into their prime years, along with excellent coaching and good front office work to reinforce the roster is now paying real dividends. The Tigers have some players due back from the injured list who can contribute for them even as others cool off. They have pretty good pitching depth when needed, and right now this pitching staff is just too good for them to really go into a serious funk.
Whether this hot start predicts a season long run of dominance is impossible to know, but the Tigers under Hinch and even more since Harris took over, continue to develop and improve the club over the course of each season. They’ve been better in the second half every year. With a hot start finally under their belts, the odds that they’ll be right there in the playoff mix in the end have gone from better than average as the season started to very good already in early May. Hopefully they stay aggressive and keep building up that margin for error. As any longtime baseball fan knows, things rarely go this well for a full season.