A tough 2022 season chased Dillon Dingler all the way to spring camp at Lakeland, Florida.
And then the baseball ghouls socked a 24-year-old Tigers catching prodigy with a second punch: Dingler needed March surgery on his right knee.
Somber stuff — or so it might have been thought.
But look at mid-May and Dingler’s work to date, beginning with a rehab stint last month at Single-A Lakeland (eight games, .448 batting average, four homers, 1.474 OPS) and extending now into his assigned stop for 2023, at Double-A Erie, where in 10 games he was batting .351, with three homers and an 1.104 OPS.
Note, also, that Dingler had a 33% strikeout rate in 2022 at Erie. He’s at 22% in his combined work at Lakeland and Erie, with nine walks in those 18 games.
“Our strength and medical people think the knee surgery (meniscus) might have helped,” Ryan Garko, the Tigers vice president of development, said Sunday. “They think that knee might always have bothered him.
“Now, he’s getting his lower half a little more involved. The surgery might have helped unlock some of those lower movements.”
Dingler is one of the most important roster pieces anywhere on the Tigers farm. An organization light on catching drafted Dingler three years ago as the first player taken in the second round and the 38th pick overall, hoping a right-handed slugger and splendid all-around athlete out of Ohio State would become that franchise catcher championship teams tend to deploy.
But last year was a semi-downer, not only because of Dingler’s .238 batting average, but because of 143 whiffs in 107 games.
Tigers developmental minds thought Dingler’s limited lower body was a hindrance. The offseason plan keyed on making subtle adjustments, which, together with a healthier and more mobile right knee might well have put a billboard prospect back on track.
“He had a really good offseason, and now that lower half really looks good,” Garko said of a man 6-foot-3 and 210 pounds. “He feels right and maybe can control that lower half better. He really is holding his ground and, physically, he feels fine. We’re still monitoring his workload.”
His arm behind home plate is an artillery piece that any MLB team wants in 2023, particularly with the running game having a renaissance. His blocking and receiving skills are endlessly being honed.
Handling pitchers and attacking hitters are Dingler responsibilities being groomed, also, said Garko, emphasizing lessons during spring camp were learned from Tigers manager AJ Hinch, and Scott Harris, the team’s new front-office general.
“They talked with him in spring training about preparation and what it takes to be a catcher in Detroit,” Garko said.
“And he’s taking it to heart.”
Patience and Pacheco
Oh, the Tigers knew there would be stretches like this for Izaac Pacheco: 3-for-31 in games from May 4-13.
They also knew there would be bounce-back days, as there was Sunday when Pacheco slammed a first-at-bat home run at Lansing in a game against the Lugnuts at LMCU Ballpark. It was his fourth home run of the young season.
Pacheco is two years out of high school. He is playing third base at high Single A.
“We have to remember, a few friends from his high-school days are still doing homework while he’s battling every day against professional pitchers,” Whitecaps manager Brayan Pena said before Sunday’s game.
“There’s no excuses, he needs to get better,” Pena said of a left-handed hitter who owns a .214 batting average and .636 OPS.
“But this is a tough league, man. He’s playing against guys 24, 25, with five, six years of professional experience, and he’s battling toe-to-toe with them.
“He’s learning how to be patient. He’s not chasing, and if you see his charts (data), he’s putting good swings on the ball. I mean, you can see why everybody is in love with Pacheco — our coordinators, everyone, understands Pacheco is a great talent. We have his back.”
Garko says Pacheco’s confronting all the barbed-wire that high-Single A is bound to be for a man so young.
“This is where you really get better, during these little lulls,” Garko said, speaking of Pacheco’s past two weeks. “That’s why we have the minor leagues at all levels.
“I think he really dominated the fastball last year at low-A (Lakeland), in a fastball league. Now, we’re getting him to hold his swings a little longer and identify breaking balls.
“He’s getting a pretty steady diet of off-speed stuff. The league’s adjusted to him. But, remember, if he hadn’t signed, he’d be a sophomore in college right now. He’d be on every Top 30 (college prospects) board in the world.
“He’s grinding. He cares a lot. But that’s also why Pena is such a master as a manager when a player is going through a rough stretch.
“Believe me, we’re on it.”
Long, tall and a lefty
Garko calls Cristhian Tortosa “a good development story.”
Persistence, it seems, pays off when there’s some power in a man’s left arm.
Tortosa, 24, signed with the Tigers as a teenager out of La Victoria, Venezuela, but spent his first six professional seasons on the back fields at TigerTown, playing mostly in Florida Complex League games.
Last year, a man 6-4, 170, graduated to low-A Lakeland and pitched fairly undistinguished baseball (22 games, 5.76 ERA, 1.55 WHIP).
He now resides at West Michigan and his numbers are beginning to match his fastball (98 tops, 96 comfortably) and slider.
Tortosa has worked 10 games, covering 14.1 innings. He has struck out 21 — and walked seven, which points to some past strike-zone issues that aren’t necessarily in his past.
“He’s got good stuff,” Garko said, “and he’s a very uncomfortable at-bat, especially for left-handers. He spent a lot of time in Lakeland (Complex League and Single A) but he’s never stopped getting better.”
Pena loves Tortosa, all because he sees that hitters hate him.
“He’s one of the best arms we have — period — in our organization,” Pena said. “He understands he needs to throw strikes in order to grow, but he has a powerful slider that complements his fastball.
“He’s also a left-hander, tall, and very physical, with some deception — and you don’t find those guys out there every day.”
Short hops
▶ Ty Madden continues his Double A-buffing and polishing act at Erie. He had another Madden-like start Wednesday against Richmond: five innings, two hits, no runs, six strikeouts, no walks. On the season: 2.34 ERA, 1.17 WHIP, seven walks and 31 strikeouts in 23 innings.
“His cutter has been a great pitch to add,” Garko said. “He’s got a nice four-pitch mix now. He’s just trying to find the right weapons to get right-handers and left-handers out. And having that cutter, and a change-up, to get hitters from both sides of the plate.:
▶ Wilmer Flores has been ticking upward after a frigid start to 2023. Madden’s rotation co-pilot at Erie has allowed five earned runs in his last four starts (18 innings), which is a 2.50 ERA. That’s the good news. The rough stuff is that his strikeout and walks ratios per nine innings are 7.5 and 4.1, respectively, which isn’t going to scare a lot of opposing lineups or managers.
Flores was last year’s Tigers Minor League Pitcher of the Year, a right-handed sensation at 21. But this year his ERA sits at 6.15, his WHIP at 1.51.
“His change-up, he’s still trying to find it,” Garko said. “We all want him to throw it. In this case, we’re maybe putting development over results, getting him to find that fourth pitch.”
▶ Austin Bergner got a ticket to Toledo last week as acknowledgment he was ready for a return trip to Triple A. He arrived Saturday for his Mud Hens return — he pitched in eight games for Toledo in 2022 — and tossed four scoreless, hitless innings, striking out eight.
Bergner, who two weeks ago turned 26, was a ninth-round pick by the Tigers in 2019 from the University of North Carolina.
Bergner isn’t a gunslinging right-hander — his fastball runs 88-92 and sometimes hits 94. But he’s sharpened a pitch he unsheathed Saturday.
“I think the improvement this year is with his slider, which moves more to the left now,” Garko said. “That was a big goal, trying to find the slider that can tunnel really well and go with his fastball-change-up mix.
Bergner is 6-5, 210 pounds, which suggests his four-seamer isn’t quite matching his physical frame.
“Definitely, one of his development goals is to get his velocity up,” Garko said. “Gaining weight and keeping weight on is certainly something our nutrition group has been working on.”
▶ Yaya Chentouf’s tough spring at Erie last week earned him not a demotion, but a different designation: The right-handed reliever, 25 and last year a reliable option for manager Gabe Alvarez, was placed on Double-A Erie’s developmental list after his season ERA ballooned to 10.25.
“Developmental list” is a new option for players having issues that are believed to be perhaps temporary or easily remedied.
“We have it everywhere,” Garko said, speaking of the “developmental” tag that can be applied to any prospect at any of the Tigers’ minor-league stops.
“We use it as a chance to take a guy out of competition and make adjustments rather than have him go play in a game that night.
“Scott likes it,” Garko said, speaking of Scott Harris, the Tigers’ director of operations. “It’s not punishment, it’s not a demotion by any means.
“It’s what we should be doing as coaches.”
Lynn Henning is a freelance writer and retired Detroit News sports reporter.