Robbie Grossman is suddenly a true switch-hitter again.
The Atlanta Braves, the reigning World Series champs, acquired the veteran outfielder Grossman from the Detroit Tigers at the trade deadline, planning to platoon him with Eddie Rosario. Grossman, batting right-handed, would play against left-handed pitchers, while Rosario, batting left-handed, would play against righty pitchers.
Grossman had struggled from the left side (against righties) in four months with the Tigers this season — posting a .430 OPS in 224 plate appearances — but the Braves’ analytics department found a solution and relayed the message to the coaching staff. Three weeks later, the 32-year-old is an everyday player for the Braves and crushing the ball from both sides of the plate.
So what changed? The answer speaks to what the Tigers should be looking for in their next general manager.
“The first day when I got here they kind of set me down,” Grossman told The Athletic‘s David O’Brien. “It was like, ‘Here’s the difference we saw in your swings from this year and the previous two years. This is what we think you should do.’ And we just got to work, hit the ground running with it, and I feel a lot more normal now.”
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The answer to Grossman’s problem, as detailed by O’Brien for The Athletic, was something the Tigers completely missed. The organization’s future general manager — Al Avila was fired Aug. 10 — will be tasked with building a front office that doesn’t flub these cases. The goal is figuring out how to get the most out of every player within the organization.
When asked about Grossman and the Braves, one source with knowledge of the situation said, “(The Tigers) just aren’t equipped for that in Detroit like the Braves are. Unfortunately, doesn’t surprise me.”
The Tigers have sought out new-school technology and data, but they’re not consistent in conceptualizing and applying information to boost on-field performance (for struggling players such as Grossman and Javier Báez) and off-field decisions (such as amateur and international scouting, free agency and trades).
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What happened to Grossman has less to do with hitting coach Scott Coolbaugh and more to do with the organization’s overall process. The Tigers, who under Avila were known as one of the most old-school clubs, must improve their analysis of analytics and biomechanics — and their expression of that analysis to players.
“I think we need to take a look at how we can expand our things for players: the people, the influences from above and inside the clubhouse,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “It’s something that we weren’t going to talk about publicly until Robbie mentioned how much help he’d gotten. I’m happy for him and certainly aware that we need to get better in a lot of areas in and around the organization.
“All the unknowns moving forward, that’s a big one: Making sure we have the resources for the players that can bring the most out of them, both downstairs and quite honestly upstairs.”
Finding a new path
On Grossman’s first day with a new organization, the Braves called the 10-year MLB veteran into a meeting to share what Atlanta’s analytics team dissected and Detroit’s analytics team looked past over a four-month span.
They watched videos that compared Grossman’s left-handed swing from 2020, 2021 and 2022.
“Our (analytics) guys upstairs have this program that they can break down with stick figures and measurements and movements of every part of his body through his load and his swing, from year to year,” Braves hitting coach Kevin Seitzer told The Athletic. “We showed him some stuff and got the ball rolling, and then along the way trying to get some tension out of his upper body.”
The adjustment involved Grossman’s bat path and hands — as Seitzer told The Athletic, Grossman went from “sawdust coming out” of his lefty swing to more length after “releasing his top hand.”
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In 2021, Grossman hit .239 overall with 98 walks and 155 strikeouts over 156 games for the Tigers. Facing righties, Grossman hit .221 with 15 homers and a .734 OPS in 465 plate appearances. Facing lefties, he hit .279 with eight homers and a .857 OPS in 206 plate appearances.
“Last year, he was 20/20 for the first time in his career,” Hinch said, referencing Grossman’s 23 homers and 20 steals. “Us not being able to unlock that this year was a frustration for all of us.”
As a Tiger this season, though, Grossman hit .143 (28-for-196) left-handed with one home run. He continued to demolish lefty pitchers — why the Braves acquired him — as he posted a .999 OPS from the right side of the plate, albeit in just 96 plate appearances. In total, he hit .205 with a .595 OPS and two homers in 83 games.
Since switching organizations, Grossman is back to teeing off against right-handed pitchers, improving on his 2021 numbers. Facing righties as a Brave, a left-handed Grossman entered Sunday with a .995 OPS in 27 plate appearances over 11 games — including two homers to match his season total with the Tigers.
Those homers from the left side came in consecutive games last week against the New York Mets. Then, on Saturday, Grossman — batting again from the left side — tied the Braves with the Houston Astros with a 10th-inning RBI single; the Braves went on to win in 11 innings.
Overall, Grossman is batting .237 with two homers and a .788 OPS in 14 games for the Braves.
“Watching Robbie, it looks like he’s exhaled a little bit,” Hinch said. “Some of that is going to come from going into an environment that already has an expectation of winning and the subtle adjustments that are made that can kind of unlock the player that we knew we had with Robbie.”
The Tigers have the analytical and biomechanical infrastructures in place for Grossman-like revelations. But the franchise needs a conductor — a forward-thinking general manager — to orchestrate a progressive ensemble.
That’s the next step.
“We can get a lot better,” Hinch said. “I think we can address it at the end of the season when we get new leadership. I think the vision of the new general manager is probably going to include some of those things that we can enhance. It’s not as if we are void of things, but I think we can all look ourselves in the mirror and know we got to get better.”
Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @EvanPetzold. Read more on the Detroit Tigers and sign up for our Tigers newsletter.