We thought we’d escaped it, we really did.
Back at the end of April, an act of god — or nature, or both, depending on your viewpoint — washed away the Detroit Tigers’ theme-night attempt to celebrate the ’90s .
Done and dusted, we thought. No need to relive that decade, when yours truly was going through puberty and other painful times and the Tigers, well, they were just painful: eight losing seasons, 150 games under .500, an average of 85 losses per year (and that was only because the 1994 players strike and 1995 owners lockout wiped out nearly 70 games) and just one finish higher than third place in the AL East and/or Central.
Sure, there were some good times that decade, too in Detroit: Cecil Fielder hit a lot of homers, the 1999 Tiger Stadium finale was nothing short of magical (we’re told), the Pistons won an NBA title, the Red Wings won a couple Stanley Cups and, hey, the Lions actually won a playoff game. (One. In Pontiac, technically.)
But overall? We’re OK with leaving the hypercolor era where it was — in the past. Too much looking back at that decade and we start to feel old — old enough to remember when Jim Leyland was a Pirate (and a Marlin, and a Rockie — it was a long decade), A.J. Hinch was at Stanford and Riley Greene was … non-existent, actually.
Greene, of course, is the youngest active Tiger, born in September 2000 and one of only three members of the 26-man roster not born in the ’90s. (The other two, José Cisnero and Miguel Cabrera, were born in the <gasp> ’80s!) But Greene will soon have company on the younger side of the 26-man roster; the team announced the call-up of his former housemate, outfielder Parker Meadows, from Triple-A Toledo ahead of Monday’s game. (In a true Gen Z move, Greene confirmed the call-up by sharing the Tigers’ announcement on his Instagram page.)
(Relive Meadows’ semi-meteoric rise from draft bust to top-10 prospect in just one season.)
Hello, and welcome to the Remember the ’90s Newsletter!
Meadows, born on Nov. 2, 1999, just barely makes the cutoff as a ’90s kid — born one day after his fellow Tiger, reliever Mason Englert. And yet, despite Meadows’ status as the Tigers’ latest prodigy — sorry, Riley — the lefty- hitting outfielder won’t quite be among the youngest players in the majors this season; we counted nearly 80 younger — what, how did you spend your Sunday night — including recent call-ups Nathan Schanuel (Angels, born Feb. 14, 2002) and Masyn Winn (Cardinals, born March 21, 2002).
But we’re not going to dwell too much on them, lest we drift ever farther into “Remember the 2000s” nostalgia. Instead, here are three things to know about Meadows ahead of his Tigers debut vs. the Chicago Cubs:
HE HAS SPEED: Meadows has done a fair amount of jogging around the bases since the start of the 2022 season, with four homers in High-A ball, 16 more in Double-A and 19 in Triple-A this season. But he has also gotten pretty good at moving quickly between them. After getting caught eight times in 17 steal attempts in 2021, Meadows swiped 17 bases in 19 tries last year. It has been more of the same this year, with 19 steals in 21 tries. (He also has seven triples this year — as many as the next two Mud Hens combined.)
BE READY FOR SOME WHIFFS (AND SOME WALKS): No Mud Hen racked up more strikeouts this season than Meadows’ 123 (in 517 plate appearances). That included a whiff in his final at-bat in Toledo, going down with runners on first and second and two outs in the Mud Hens’ 5-3 loss to the Kansas City Royals’ affiliate in Omaha on Saturday night. Still, Meadows has shown solid plate judgment; his 57 walks were second among Mud Hens, with more than half (31) coming just since June 1. “Obviously the pitching is better here,” Meadows told the Freep’s Jeff Seidel in late June, “and it took me a while to get used to that. When they miss, they miss small.”
HIS MOM MIGHT BE THE BEST ATHLETE IN THE FAMILY: Sure, big bro Austin was a first-round pick in 2013 (No. 9 overall) before making two AL All-Star squads (and, unfortunately, playing in just 42 games over two seasons since joining the Tigers in April 2022, due to injuries and anxiety). And dad Kenny played baseball (earning All-Ohio Valley Conference honors at third base) and football (including double duty as a punter and a safety) at Morehead State in Kentucky. But mom Staci was a slugger while playing softball for Georgia Southern and Georgia State. “I would consider myself a power hitter,” she told Our Man Seidel in spring 2022. But Parker remembers her arm. “She would always throw with some of the dads and show off her arm,” he told Our Man Seidel. “You never really knew where it was going, but she could throw the crap out of the ball, and I think she still has it a little bit.”
Want more Tigers news and analysis in your inbox every Monday? Sign up for our Tigers newsletter.
Heeeere’s Carson
Meadows — Parker, not Staci — won’t be the only player making a Tigers debut this week. Over the weekend, the team signed free-agent catcher Carson Kelly to a deal for the MLB minimum this season, with a $3.5 million option for 2024. Unfortunately that left the Tigers with, uh, one catcher too many. And that left Dearborn Divine Child alumnus Eric Haase, Westland native, Dearborn Divine Child alumnus and Livonia resident, as the odd man out in the backstop rotation. As the Freep’s Evan Petzold put it here, Haase’s issues with lefties and fastballs made him “almost unplayable” this season, especially as he was on the wrong side of 30, in baseball terms.
That’s not to say that Kelly is an instant fit, though. The 28-year-old has struggled since his 2019 breakout campaign (.826 OPS in 111 games) and was released by the Arizona Diamondbacks on Tuesday. But A.J. Hinch and the Tigers are confident they can help Kelly find his form again, at the plate and behind it, and they have a plan, as Our Man Petzold details here. And in the meantime, he’ll share the workload with Jake Rogers; head here to find out how that’s going to work (a lot of note-taking, according to Kelly).
Triple threat
Clearly, the Tigers aren’t satisfied with their offense. Nor should they be: After averaging 3.89 runs a game before the All-Star break, they’ve boosted that, post-break, all the way to … 4.11 runs a game, well off the league average of 4.64 runs. And yet … there are parts of the Tigers’ attack that are clicking. Three parts, to be exact: Kerry Carpenter, Riley Greene and Spencer Torkelson. That trio has posted OPSes of .952, .843 and .866 since the All-Star game. We’re working on a nickname for the trio — The Power Line? — but for now, we’ll follow the lead of Our Man Petzold and go with “The Big 3.” Though, they’re not immune to verbal jinxes. Head here to find out the words that depowered a pair of them, at least for one at-bat.
Power tools
Carpenter, of course, celebrated the one-year anniversary of his call-up from Triple-A on Aug. 10. Since then? His bat is suggesting he won’t be seeing Toledo again anytime soon: Carpenter has six homers in his past nine games, hitting three in Boston, one in Minneapolis and two in Cleveland as part of a breakout August in which he has a 1.132 OPS. So how did he go from a Double-A slugger two years ago to an integral part of the Tigers lineup? Head here to find out from Our Man Petzold why manager A.J. Hinch has “the right amount of stubbornness in him.”
‘Another person I’m going to play for’
Motivation can be key, as Tigers shortstop Javier Báez showed over the weekend in Cleveland. In his first three games back from bereavement leave for his maternal grandfather’s funeral, Báez went 3-for-10 with a homer, a walk and no strikeouts. Head here to find out from Our Man Petzold why Báez gained an extra level of focus from his family.
3 to watch
Some dingers, a Dingler and a zinger (hopefully) this week:
DILLON DINGLER: The 2020 second-round pick is on the move from Double-A to Triple-A, but he still has some work to do.
CASEY MIZE: The 2018 No. 1 overall pick will face live hitters sometime soon. But will he be back in the majors in 2023?
Happy birthday, Tork!
Tigers first baseman Spencer Torkelson turns 24 on Saturday and, well, we should all strive to have birth months as good as Tork’s. With 10 days (not including Monday) remaining in the month, the righty has a .254/.365/.651 slash line — that’s a 1.016 OPS, for those not bothering with the math — fueled by seven homers and four doubles (plus five singles) in 63 at-bats. At 22 homers on the season, he needs just eight more — in 38 games — to become the fourth Tiger with 30 homers in his age-23 season or younger (as of July 1). (The others? Matt Nokes, with 32 in 1982; Jason Thompson, with 31 in 1977; and Rudy York, with 35 in 1937.)
Other Tigers birthdays this week: J.D. Martinez (36 on Monday), Drew Hutchison (33 on Tuesday), Jeff Weaver (47 on Tuesday), George Kell (would have been 101 on Wednesday; died 2009), Justin Upton (36 on Friday), David Price (38 on Saturday).
Mark your calendar, Part I
We’re not saying the Tigers’ schedule gets easy over the final 38 games of the season — we’ve lost more than a few tires to the potholes down that road before. Buuuuut … they face just four teams with winning records the rest of the way: The Cubs, the Houston Astros, the Cincinnati Reds and the Los Angeles Dodgers. The bad news? Two of those teams hit town this week, with the Cubs for three games Monday-Wednesday and the Astros on Friday-Sunday. At least the ’Stros bring an old friend with ’em: Justin Verlander, who’s on track to start Sunday. (He’s slated to start for Houston on Tuesday, first.) J.V., by the way, hasn’t quite been sharp in his return to H-Town, with a 4.50 ERA and just 13 strikeouts in 18 innings. (And if you want to catch up with the first series of the week, head here to find out how the Cubs went from All-Star break busts to wild-card contenders and here to find out how right-hander Alex Faedo is learning to harness his changeup.)
Mark your calendar, Part II
It’s a ways off — 362 days away, in fact — but you might start looking into travel plans to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, for Aug. 18, 2024. The annual home of the Little League World Series will play host to the Tigers that day, as they host the New York Yankees in MLB’s annual Little League Classic. You can head here to get the details, or just start wondering where Tork and Greene are gonna find a hockey-styled bat to top the Philly Phanatic and No. 2 pencil-styled lumber the Phillies broke out on Sunday night.
TL;DR
’90s Night, by the way? That’s getting a call-up, too — rescheduled for Friday night’s visit from the Astros, as unescapable as Tommy Lee Jones’ U.S. Marshal in “The Fugitive” (which, come to think of it, is also nearly a decade older than Greene or Meadows).
Contact Ryan Ford at rford@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @theford.