Mason Englert is spending his offseason in Grand Rapids.
His morning routine is one of the reasons for his improved mental health. He wakes up early in the morning, eats breakfast, hurries out the door and travels to the Grand River, the longest river in Michigan, where he sets a timer and jumps in the water. His body is submerged but his eyes remain open.
“I focus on a point in the distance,” Englert, a new right-handed pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, said Friday. “Breathe and allow myself to feel what I’m feeling but not react to it. I try to create a good space of reaction. I’ve noticed that in games, when (expletive) is hitting the fan, I don’t feel the old surge I used to feel. It’s more of an observant view on the situation.”
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Englert grew up in Texas, and 11 months before he was born in November 1999, his parents’ first two children — daughter Madison and son Morgan — died of injuries sustained in an automobile accident in Canada. He is the oldest of three children in the family, set a Texas record with a 55⅓-inning scoreless streak as a senior at Forney High School and was selected by the Rangers in the fourth round of the 2018 draft.
His first professional season, in 2021, felt exhausting.
“I had some pretty tough mental health problems my first full season, outside the field things and stuff that runs in my family,” Englert said. “I came to a point where it was so rough. I was like, ‘I can’t accept that this is how I have to live for the rest of my life.’
“So I did a deep dive into a bunch of areas, like dieting and cold meditation. None of it was done with the intent to improve my performance as a baseball player. If my mind is not healthy, I couldn’t care less about what I do on the field. But luckily, all that stuff also translates to being a better baseball player.”
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The Rangers left Englert unprotected ahead of the 2022 Rule 5 draft this past week in San Diego, and on Wednesday, the Tigers picked him up. The 23-year-old must stay on the 26-man roster for the entire 2023 season or be offered back to the Rangers.
“He pounded the zone throughout the minor leagues,” Tigers president of baseball operations Scott Harris said Wednesday. “He flashed four swing-and-miss weapons, and it felt like he was getting better throughout the season. … We think he has the (pitch) shapes and the power that can compete against major league hitters. We’re going to see if he can do it.”
Last season, Englert posted a 3.64 ERA with 31 walks and 136 strikeouts over 118⅔ innings in 24 starts for High-A Hickory (21 starts) and Double-A Frisco (three starts). He averaged 10.3 strikeouts and 2.4 walks per nine innings.
He will enter spring training as a starting pitcher.
Most pitchers selected in the Rule 5 draft join their new teams as relievers for several reasons, but Englert is eyeing an opportunity in Opening Day starting rotation. The Tigers currently have four starters: Eduardo Rodriguez, Matthew Boyd, Matt Manning and Spencer Turnbull.
“The absolute goal is to come in with better stuff than I’ve ever had, open some eyes, win a spot and stick,” Englert said. “At the end of the day, any role on the big-league team that they want to give me, I’d be happy to help the team win in any way I can. But I want to be a solidified big-league starter, so that’s the goal.”
THE NEWS: Tigers select right-hander Mason Englert from Texas Rangers in 2022 Rule 5 draft
Before joining the Tigers, and before his breakout 2022 season, Englert underwent Tommy John surgery in April 2019. The low-mileage on his arm — less than 200 innings in the minors — encouraged the Tigers to select him. Coming back from elbow surgery, Englert struggled to throw strikes as hitters crushed all his offerings in the Rangers’ instructional league.
It was the lowest point in his baseball career.
“I learned more (about pitching) in the last two weeks of instructs than I did the entire 18 months with Tommy John,” Englert said. “I was struggling with sleeping. It was the first time I experienced anxiety from not performing. My mind was a wreck. I was able to look inward and develop some practices that really helped. The biggest thing was the mental change in those last two weeks of instructs.”
Englert, thanks in part to meditation and cold exposure, rediscovered his confidence as a pitcher at Low-A Down East in 2021. Practicing mindfulness in cold environments, such as the Grand River, improved his mental and physical resilience. The Rangers promoted him at the end of August 2022 to Double-A Frisco, where he logged five walks and 20 strikeouts in 15⅓ innings.
He throws a fastball, changeup, curveball and slider.
His fastball, which he is confident in throwing at the top of the strike zone, averages 92 mph. Command is Englert’s calling card, and his release angle is an outlier compared to other right-handed pitchers.
“I want to maintain the pitchability that I had all year,” Englert said. “My velocity was pretty average for a starter, but the angle that I could create was pretty decent up in the zone. I had a better ability than most to throw the pitches where they play optimally, to where they’re crossing the zone at the most challenging angles for the hitter. My strength is definitely the ability to locate.”
He also taught himself a new grip that enhanced the spin efficiency on his changeup based on research from Utah State University mechanical and aerospace engineering professor Barton Smith.
“It grades out as my best pitch,” Englert said. “I was able to knock off a bunch of vertical break, and it became almost splitter-ish.” He spent last season testing several sliders, but in early July, the Rangers’ player development department told him to scrap the slider.
Instead, Englert learned a cutter.
It morphed into a new slider.
“I started trying to throw a cutter, and it ended up developing into a mid-80s (mph), more of a slider-type pitch,” Englert said. “We kept the velo where it needed to be, and I just started throwing that a little more. I went with it from there, and it played really well.”
Beginning July 17, Englert recorded a 2.26 ERA with 13 walks and 61 strikeouts over 51⅔ innings in the final 10 starts of his season. Now that the season is over, the 6-foot-4 right-hander is training at Elite Performance in Grand Rapids.
His fastball is getting faster.
“I’m not promising I’m going to come out throwing 97 (mph) or anything,” Englert said. “But I just beat my personal record by over a mile an hour, and it’s the second week of December. I’ve never had that happen before, so I’m looking forward to it.”
Mentally, Englert plans to win a job in the starting rotation.
The Tigers could use a boost to their pitching staff, especially from a low-cost Rule 5 draft pick, as Joey Wentz, Beau Brieske and Alex Faedo compete alongside Englert for the final opening, barring a trade that reshuffles the rotation. If he isn’t a starter, a long-relief role out of the bullpen would be the next-best opportunity coming out of spring training.
But the Tigers picked Englert for a reason: They think he could be a back-of-the-rotation starter now and in the future.
“The biggest thing is I got to win before I get there,” Englert said. “There’s a good quote (from Chinese military general Sun Tzu): ‘Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.’ The best thing I can do is prepare my mind as much as possible, become as clam and nonreactive as possible. Physically, it’s going to be there. It’s just all about getting the mindset right, being quiet and being still.”
Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @EvanPetzold.