Jack Flaherty looks dialed in and other news from the Tigersphere

No major news is good news at this time of year. The Tigers are in really good shape heading into the final games of the Grapefruit League calendar. Knock on all the wood, throw all the salt, do whatever your belief system permits to help the club stay healthy. Instead of injuries or roster moves, the talk on Tuesday night revolved around the ongoing velocity and stuff boosts for so many of the Tigers pitchers this spring.

Jack Flaherty, sitting 94-95 mph and topping 97 mph occasionally, has been a prime example in camp. The former Cardinals and Orioles starter had those fanbases wondering what is going on in Detroit to have his velocity up over a mile per hour up over his last few seasons. That velo has sustained as the veteran right-hander has stretched out into longer outings as well. What’s going on in Detroit, of course, is a process now known as Fetterization.

Either way, Flaherty’s seven strikeouts over five innings against a fairly major leaguer heavy Phillies lineup, along with a little help from the Pitching Ninja, had people taking notice due to his familiarity to several other fanbases.

Chris Fetter pitching laboratories

In fairness, the velocity and extension gains this spring might have extra to do with assistant pitching coach and former biomechanics professor, Robin Lund, specifically. With a full year under his belt as a major league assistant, the impact of his background is only now being fully felt in the Tigers’ system and the way they are conditioning and training their pitchers and refining their throwing mechanics.

I wanted to single out Lund for a moment, but no doubt huge credit is due to pitching coach Chris Fetter, who has revolutionized pitching development in the Tigers’ organization over the past few seasons. This all flows from him. Assistant Juan Nieves and director of pitching development, Gabe Ribas, are doubtless playing a big role in all this as well, and the group seems to really collaborate well together, working with both the major league pitchers and the prospects as well in camp.

The sudden rash of cutters and splitters being developed by Tigers’ pitchers smacks of Ribas. There are now plenty of notable examples of new split changeups coming from prospects like Jackson Jobe and Keider Montero, while both Troy Melton and Sawyer Gipson-Long developed new cutters last season, among others. Now Matt Manning is working on a split grip, and the Tigers already have Kenta Maeda, Shelby Miller, and Casey Mize featuring the pitch prominently. It’s going to be a pretty different looking staff than Tigers fans are used to, although the power fourseamer continues to be the focal point for most.

As widely discussed, we’ve seen velocity and stuff metrics up significantly this spring. From Tarik Skubal, Jason Foley, and prospect Wilmer Flores scraping 100 mph, to Jackson Jobe blowing everyone’s mind by topping out at 101.8 mph in his last spring outing, to veterans like Flaherty and most of the bullpen showing an extra tick or two over their 2023 marks, velocity is up. Induced vertical break on fourseamers is also up for most of the likely active roster and several prospects. Extension is improved, and from Casey Mize and Matt Manning down to Jobe and the other top pitching prospects, much is going very right with the Tigers at the moment.

There’s no telling how much of this will carry over into the season, and the Tigers will no doubt have their pitching problems, but you couldn’t ask for much more in spring camp. Hopefully the offense is worthy.

Of course, it goes beyond the coaches as well. The strength and conditioning coaches, trainers, nutritionists, Dr. Georgia Ghiblin’s sports science department, now actually filled out with a full staff, and a broad range of analysts and support staff are all playing a role. This has all been coming together for a few years, but at this point it feels like the Tigers are doing a really good job integrating all those perspectives to improve conditioning, mechanics, sequencing, and pitch design, all in one.

Wilmer Flores gets a tune-up

From a mechanics perspective, pitching prospect Wilmer Flores makes for an interesting case study to follow this season. After bursting on the scene with tons of high 90’s heat in 2021-2022, Flores had some forearm issues and fatigue last season, and sat 93 mph most of the season, rarely topping 95 mph. He’s emerged this spring leaner and stronger, and with his mechanics looking much cleaner. Suddenly he’s got his extension back, his balance is improved, and he isn’t pulling off to the first base side. He’s driving right at hitters while pumping 95-96 mph again with consistency, and he’s topped out at 99.9 mph.

A few changes to his delivery are obvious. Flores used to come set facing home plate. The Tigers now have him facing third base. As a result there’s less rotation in his lower half as he loads into his right side. All that hip rotation uncoiling into foot strike used to send him flying open to the first base side, producing poor command and erratic shape on both his fastball and power curve.

In its place is a much cleaner motion. Flores just lifts his front leg, gathers himself into his plant leg, and drives down the mound stretching out for all the length he can get with his left leg and stepping just slightly closed to his target line. That lead foot blocking with the slight crossfire and more straight line delivery have him stabilized and able to direct all his force to the plate rather than over-rotating out of his posture as he throws.

Here’s a few clips from 2022 and 2023 where you can see the over-rotation with his left shoulder opening a little early and a less balanced position out on his lead leg. The 2024 clips show a much simpler, balanced motion, and yet he is absolutely throwing gas in short bullpen outings. Whether that’s his future role remains to be seen, but at least this year it has to look like an attractive possibility if he can keep it going.

Here are a few samples from this spring.

Part of the velo is no doubt coming from getting healthy and making some adjustments in his strength and conditioning program, but the mechanical changes are really working for him so far as well. He’s just much more straight back and straight on line to the target, getting really good extension again, and staying balanced and on target through his release with the ability to really resist and almost hyper-extend his lead leg to leverage his full power behind the pitch.

Right now, the Tigers are littered with examples of pitchers showing more velocity and better overall stuff than they’ve ever had. Improving extension and getting pitchers to stay behind the ball as they release their fourseam fastballs has been a key in improving spin efficiency. Getting further down the mound also has them throwing from a lower point, almost uphill to the top of the strike zone, improving their IVB marks and getting more “riding action” on those heaters. Matt Manning, Jackson Jobe, and Casey Mize, among others, fall in that category. As a result, the fourseam whiffs in particular have been piling up in bunches for all of them, Flaherty included.

After so many years waiting for the Tigers to figure it out in terms of player development, it’s good to see things clearly trending in good directions. Hopefully they can keep the pitching coaching group intact as long as possible.

Now if they can just find some hitting geniuses.

Interestingly, on that note Richard Schenck, aka Teacherman, Aaron Judge’s swing coach, was in Lakeland on Tuesday evening taking in the game. As a key part of both Kerry Carpenter and now Justice Bigbie’s remarkable breakout stories, it’s good to see him in town to work with his guys. Schenck teaches some really specific moves, so it’s hard to know how well he’d do with a wide variety of major league hitters, but for the guys it works for, it’s really been working.

Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press is seen talking to Schenck in this photo below, so perhaps we’ll get an article on the man and his impact shortly. Early in the offseason, he was rumored to be working with Javier Báez as well this winter, but Schenck put that to rest as just a rumor and said they’d never been in touch.

White Sox name Garrett Crochet as Opening Day starter

As the Chicago White Sox traded right-hander Dylan Cease to the San Diego Padres last week, there was a bit of curiosity as to whom the south siders would send to the bump on Opening Day. Turns out it will still be a somewhat familiar face in left-hander Garrett Crochet.

The hard-throwing southpaw makes a pretty good foil for Tigers’ Opening Day starter, Tarik Skubal. Both can reach triple digits, though Crochet’s best secondary is his nasty slider, while Skubal has his fourseam and changeup absolutely dialed in terms of tunneling action and feel these days. Of course, Crochet struggled to hit the broad side of a barn even as a reliever, and he hasn’t started a game since college. He pitched 12 innings late last summer in his return from Tommy John, and physically looks ready to go, but it’s a tall order moving back into a starting job. I don’t expect he’ll be allowed to go too deep into the game unless his command is way better than we’ve ever seen it.

Minnesota Twins take some early hits

In a reminder of how quick pitching injuries can pile up, we have our friendly neighborhood divisional rivals, the Minnesota Twins. Despite losing Sonny Gray to free agency, the Twins still have a quality rotation and one heck of a bullpen. However, the bullpen isn’t going to be anywhere near full power for a bit.

Ace closer Jhoan Duran went down with an oblique strain over the weekend, and he won’t be ready for Opening Day. Presumably he won’t miss more than half of April, but he’s such a key piece of their pitching staff that it has to hurt. Lefty Caleb Thielbar has a hamstring injury, so that’s another blow to their bullpen.

On the starting rotation side of things, Anthony DeSclafani has a forearm strain and early indications are not good at all. The Twins traded infielder Jorge Polanco to land DeSclafani and a prospect from the Seattle Mariners at the end of January. Now it looks like the right-hander will miss the whole season for UCL reconstruction, although that isn’t confirmed yet. Right-hander Louis Varland is slated to take his place in the rotation for now.

So, it would be a good idea to get off to a strong start and hopefully take advantage of the Twins woes…at least until our own woes begin.

The Tigers can also look to the Arizona Diamondbacks and feel pretty good at the moment as well. Eduardo Rodriguez, the DBacks’ big pitching acquisition of the offseason, left his start Tuesday night with left lat tightness. We saw quite a few minor injuries from E-Rod during his two years with the Tigers as well. Good luck with that, Arizona.

Sheriff Jake Rogers

Despite his good pop times and arm strength, starting catcher Jake Rogers didn’t have such a good year throwing out runners in 2023, whether trying to steal or on do-or-die plays on bunts or soft tappers in front of the plate and down the lines. He’s been working on his footwork and mechanics with veteran backup Carson Kelly, trying to get himself in better positions to throw while on the move and to be more accurate from different angles. We saw a few examples of his work in Tuesday’s night’s first inning against the Phillies.

Trouble in MLBPA paradise involves two key Tigers

Currently, Casey Mize is the Tigers player representative to the MLB players association, while Jack Flaherty is a member of the union’s executive subcommittee. So both are involved in the ongoing story of attempts to oust MLBPA deputy director and Tony Clark ally, Bruce Meyer over concerns that Clark and Meyer are far too close to super agent Scott Boras.

A conference call between some of the 72 player representatives across the major and minor leagues, and Clark and Meyer, turned heated on Monday night. The players, including both Flaherty and Mize on the call, reportedly urged Clark to replace Meyer with former MLBPA lawyer, Harry Marino. Meyer specifically accused Marino of trying to take his job and rejected the idea that Boras had undue influence on the MLBPA leadership, according to reporting by Evan Drellich of the Athletic.

Marino left the union last year after assisting with the first minor league collective bargaining agreement. He formerly headed the nonprofit, Advocates for Minor Leaguers, and has spent years pushing for better pay and working conditions for minor league players and their families. Their work was influential in getting 34 of the 72 player rep spots assigned to minor leaguers to increase their say in union decision-making.

Scott Boras described the whole thing as a coup against Meyer. Marino shot back with strong words of his own. Who knows where it will lead, but it’s fair to say there isn’t too much satisfaction with Clark or Meyer’s leadership of the union right now.

To some extent this feels like Boras desire for his high-end clients to make the most money possible and have the most influence over the union, versus Marino and mainly player reps desire to give younger players more say in the direction the union takes moving forward. Tony Clark doesn’t seem to be in a particularly stable position right now either, as if he’s forced to replace Meyer, that’s a pretty direct shot at his own leadership.

It isn’t helping that free agent spending was way down this offseason, hurting Boras’ argument that his way is the right way, as several of his clients haven’t received anything close to the type of offers they expected. Blake Snell signing a two-year deal for $66M with the Giants was just another example.

As Cody Stavenhagen of the Athletic Detroit noted in his piece on Flaherty and Mize’s involvement in the clash, spending is down to $2.8B from $3.9B last offseason, despite the huge deal given out to Shohei Ohtani by the Los Angeles Dodgers. However as you’d expect, both Flaherty and Mize downplayed any antagonism and described it all as constructive attempts to discuss improvement to the players union. Still, there’s a sense that if the players oust Meyer, Clark is likely right in the firing line, and that such a move might cool Boras’ influence within the union. We’ll see if things go that far.

Flaherty did offer some thoughts on why the players were interested in having Marino involved.

“The minor leaguers really appreciated the way he handled their unionization,” Flaherty said of Marino. “And so guys have listened and paid attention. As leaders and player reps, your job is to listen to the entire league, and now being all under one union, listen to the guys who are coming next. So that’s our job, and that’s kind of how we’ve come to the point where we did yesterday. ”

Presented without comment

Presented with comment

On the minor league side, the big news of the week was top pure relief prospect Tyler Mattison undergoing UCL reconstruction. We wish him a fully recovery. Kevin McGonigle missed the Spring Breakout game with a minor left hamstring strain, with right-handed prep pick in the 2023 draft, Jatnk Diaz, one of our favorite sleeper picks ever, has a right triceps strain and is still working through his throwing program to get back. Shortstop prospect Abel Bastidas is the other notable with an injury, dealing with a shoulder strain.

Minor League spring training begins

While the minor leaguers are practicing and playing scrimmage games all spring, Tuesday marked the beginning of their actual countdown to their respective Opening Days. The Double-A Erie SeaWolves began their spring training schedule against the Reading Fightin Phils as their parent clubs did battle. The SeaWolves begin their regular season on April 5 on the road against the Harrisburg Senators, the Washington Nationals Double-A affiliate. None of the minor league spring training contests will have reported scores or broadcasts, but it’s good to know their countdown has begun as well.

The West Michigan Whitecaps also open on the road against the Lake County Captains in a three-game set from April 5-8. Their home opener is April 9 as they welcome in Quad Cities.

The Low-A Lakeland Flying Tigers open on the road against the Dunedin Blue Jays on April 5, and they’ll also have their home opener on the 9th as they welcome in the Bradenton Marauders.

The Triple-A Toledo Mud Hens will lead the way, opening on March 29th at home in a three-game set against the Nashville Sounds, the Milwaukee Brewers affiliate.