2023 ZiPS Projections: Detroit Tigers

For the 18th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Detroit Tigers.

Batters

Oops! Last preseason, I regularly expressed guarded optimism that the Tigers had enough going for them that I thought they’d handily beat their rather grumpy ZiPS projection of 73 wins. While there are plenty of times when I win my personal disagreements with my creation, there are quite a lot when I don’t, and this was a particularly stark one! The Tigers were basically the anti-Orioles of ’22, with the vast majority of the roster leaving the season with a worse projection than they started it with, and the possibly-too-pessimistic ZiPS estimate turning out to be over-generous by seven games. So what happens now?

The relatively good news is that Detroit will likely get some boost simply from regression toward the mean — the so-called “dead cat bounce,” or what Bill James coined “the Plexiglass principle.” Jonathan Schoop, at 30, sported an OPS more than 160 points off his career numbers, and even if I feel worse about him, he would be hard-pressed to be that bad again. Similarly, Spencer Torkelson, a preseason contender for the Rookie of the Year last season, has lost a lot of the shine, especially given that his return to the minors was similarly bleak, but it would be hard for him not to improve on a .604 OPS.

Javier Báez had his worst full (normal-length) major league season offensively, but he still managed two WAR and is only a year removed from a legitimately All-Star level season (and just turned 30). ZiPS projects muted rebounds from Akil Baddoo and Austin Meadows, though injuries will always be a concern with the latter. The team’s multi-headed catcher situation would have to try to hit worse than Tucker Barnhart did. No similar bounceback is likely for Miguel Cabrera, though Albert Pujols looked toast-like and had a solid finale; the Tigers just aren’t likely to make a push to maximize his playing time with his milestone moments behind him.

So, if the Tigers’ offense is likely to be better, is it likely to be good? Not really. While the roster has a lot of players who you’d expect better from given their established abilities, having so many known quantities also limits just how much upside there is. Báez could be very solid, if flawed in many ways; there’s still hope for Torkelson; and Riley Greene, better than most Tigers in 2022, doesn’t have an appreciably diminished ceiling from a year ago. But where is the dream scenario? Bad teams have to be run so they at least have some future hope, and it’s hard to see an actual good offense constructed from the players currently within the organization. Detroit is more likely to spend money someday than the rest of the division, but this lineup is too flawed to be fixed by slapping on a high-priced player or two. It’s a mess, and new team president Scott Harris has a huge task ahead of him.

Pitchers

At least here, the Tigers can more accurately blame injuries for some of the bleakness. Going into the 2021 season, we had them with three of the 10 best pitching prospects in the majors: Matt Manning, Tarik Skubal, and Casey Mize, with players like Alex Faedo, Joey Wentz, and Beau Burrows looking like they had solid odds of being valuable back-of-the-rotation options. We were far from alone in this optimism, and while the team’s drafts had frequently failed to produce hitters, it looked like there would be a good pitching core to build around.

Manning showed some flashes in 2022, but he was also plagued by shoulder inflammation that cost him nearly four months of the season. Mize underwent Tommy John surgery in June. Skubal, who has showed the most in the majors, is out for a sizable chunk of 2023 due to his own flexor tendon procedure. Beyond those three, the rotation remains relatively unexciting. Spencer Turnbull was a highly interesting success story, but he’s coming back from his own Tommy John surgery. Matthew Boyd and Michael Lorenzen are stopgaps that would seem more fitting on a contending team that needs fifth starter/swingman depth. I’m still a fan of Eduardo Rodriguez, but he’s a definite question mark, though he may have the best short-term upside of any healthy pitcher on the team.

In other words, it’s not a bad group, but it’s also a very veteran one without a ton of upside (with the exceptions noted above). While I think the dream scenario here is a rosier one than that of the lineup, I don’t think it’s so compelling that it can overcome the run scoring. It just doesn’t feel great for what is largely a veteran team to have .500 upside.

Moving over to the bullpen, this was basically the only area of the team that had success in 2022. In terms of total WAR, it ranked seventh in baseball and finished just as highly in both ERA and FIP (so it wasn’t just a WPA quirk). Joe Jiménez and Gregory Soto are gone, but ZiPS still likes the returning Alex Lange and Jason Foley. The problem in the projection comes with the depth; the computer literally hates most of the options once you get past this point. If the projections are right, the Tigers will see their relief corps fall considerably down the ranks from 2022, but in truth, a bullpen doesn’t really matter until the lineup and rotation are functioning, and they will not have a whole lot of leads to protect.

Overall, there’s enough to like about the Tigers that ZiPS still sees them as a mid-70s win team, and this time I think my creation and I are in accord. Detroit does have a challenging road ahead; the problems that the new front office has to tackle are no less daunting than those of the Reds, Pirates, Royals, or Nationals, though not identical. With a great deal of similarity in how baseball’s top teams are constructed, MLB is becoming a good example of the Anna Karenina principle: happy teams are all alike; every unhappy team is unhappy in its own way.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned or have retired, players who will miss 2023 due to injury, and players who were released in 2022. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Norwegian Death Dixieland Bubblegum Ska-Funk band, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.22, above 2022’s level of offense but lower than other years. Pitchers who appear to have a fairly definite change in the majors from start-to-relief or vice-versa from these projections will receive reconfigured updates in the spring.

Hitters are ranked by zWAR, which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those that appear in the full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR.

As always, incorrect projections are either caused by flaws in the physical reality of the universe or by skillful sabotage of our friend and former editor. You can, however, still get mad at me on Twitter.