Since taking over the Detroit Tigers from Al Avila, Scott Harris has done an outstanding job building up the farm system. While he hasn’t done much to address the active roster, the acquisition of shortstop Trey Sweeney was one trade that bridged the gap between those two goals. He’s technically still a prospect per Baseball America’s standard, but Sweeney already played a pretty crucial role in the run to the postseason in 2024. Unless there’s a Javy Báez miracle in store this spring, the Tigers will need him even more this year.
The New York Yankees initially selected the then 21-year-old Sweeney in the first round of the 2021 draft out of Eastern Illinois. That was already an unlikely success story for a smaller northern school. The young shortstop signed for a $3 million bonus and quickly had success moving through High-A in 2022 and doing decently well in his first look at the Double-A level. He always whiffed too much to be a fast riser onto various national top 100 lists, but he drew plenty of walks and showed solid raw power. Sweeney six-foot-three, 212 pound frame wasn’t exactly gifted with the speed of a natural shortstop, but his hands and arm strength continued to keep him in the mix as a viable future major league shortstop.
In 2023, Sweeney smacked 13 home runs in 100 games, and he managed to trim his strikeout rate down just under 20 percent. He continued to walk enough to support his offensive profile, though his struggles hitting left-handed pitching were more pronounced. However, his defense didn’t advance enough at that level for some evaluators taste, and renewed concerns about his likelihood to stick at shortstop continued to undercut his profile to a degree.
The Yankees clearly weren’t that enthused. Despite an aging infield and a pretty average at best farm system, they flipped Sweeney in December of 2023 to the Los Angeles Dodgers. In exchange, the Yankees got a a light-hitting third base prospect with more contact ability than Sweeney in Jorbit Vivas, as well as a mediocre veteran reliever in Victor González.
Sweeney had more upside that either, having developed above average raw power and with more chance of playing shortstop that Vivas. However, many evaluators were still concerned with Sweeney’s size and overall athleticism for the position. The Dodgers appear to have helped improved his footwork and fundamentals, as he played quite well after coming over in the trade even if he’s still not the prototypical twitchy defender at the position. Still, hit tool concerns have persisted, and they were willing to add Sweeney to the Thayron Liranzo package when the Tigers traded Jack Flaherty to them in July.
Trey Sweeney 2023-2024
Season | PA | wRC+ | K% | BB% | ISO | HR | SB |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Season | PA | wRC+ | K% | BB% | ISO | HR | SB |
2023 (AA) | 472 | 118 | 19.1 | 13.8 | 0.159 | 13 | 20 |
2024 (AAA) | 487 | 98 | 26.7 | 10.1 | 0.183 | 15 | 20 |
2024 (MLB) | 119 | 81 | 26.9 | 5.9 | 0.155 | 4 | 2 |
More important than Sweeney’s game saving catch as he tumbled over Riley Greene back in mid-September against the Baltimore Orioles, were his overall grades at shortstop. Sweeney only played 36 games, so the sample is small, but he posted a plus two defensive runs saved (DRS) and a plus three outs above average (OAA). It proved to be true that he doesn’t have the classic reactions and first step of a good major league shortstop, but he held his own and his hands and arm helped him make up for somewhat subpar range.
He’s potentially just shy of average at the position, but as he got comfortable taking control at the major league level in the wake of the Javy Báez hip surgery, he seemed to be coming into his own. Expecting average defense is not unreasonable at this point. The Tigers probably wouldn’t have reached the playoffs without him last season. However, there are still a lot of concerns in trying to project Sweeney as an average everyday player.
The flaw in the ointment continues to be the amount of chase and overall swing and miss in his game. Sweeney did a few good things, showing his above average raw power up the gaps and with enough juice to take pitchers deep to center field in most parks. Comerica isn’t exactly optimal for him, but the porch in right certainly suits him well if he can start pulling a few more fly balls. However, he also chased outside the zone quite a lot, with a 32 percent O-swing rate, and a very high swinging strike rate of 16.3 percent. He struggled with left-handers again at the Triple-A level, doing his good work against right-handed pitching only.
Sweeney is a solid fastball hitter, though he has struggled a bit with higher velocity stuff and is decidedly a better high ball hitter. Sinkerballers are not really his jam. The real weakness is that he continued to get carved up by good breaking balls and changeups, and major league pitchers are quickly going to try and exploit that in 2025.
His recognition isn’t even that much of the problem. Sweeney does chase too much, but even when he’s on a breaking ball or changeup in the zone, he tends to foul them off or swing and miss, often squandering his hangers. That is going to have to improve enough to at least do damage on more mistakes in order for his power potential to balance out the strikeouts.
Sweeney likes the ball up, and does his best work middle up or spinning on pitches up on the inner edge of the zone. He can climb the ladder to handle pitches up and away in the zone or just outside, but he struggles to do much with anything at the bottom of the zone or under his hands. He can be tied up inside quite a bit by good fastballs or by right-handers targeting back foot breaking balls against him.
Finding ways to handle more pitches is going to be a trick, and the answer may lie more in his legs. Sweeney is a bit stiff in the box, with waist-bender allegations more prominent at the plate than in the field. His upright, flat stroke is pretty oriented to line balls back up the middle and handle the ball up. When he has to cover a pitch at the bottom of the zone, he struggles to get down and create good bat angles and rarely can do more than slap ground balls around even against pitchers trying to drop breaking balls and changeups in for strikes. He also has a tendency to let himself get jammed inside by right-handers with good sliders, and doing a better job recognizing those attempts out of the hand is a struggle for him at this point in his career.
In short, there are numerous ways major league pitchers can potentially get him out. Sweeney has a reasonably good feel for the strike zone, but he’s going to have to be really patient and disciplined in his approach to wait for pitches he can actually drive. If he can improve his overall athleticism in the box and get his legs involved a bit more, something that the Dodgers were working with him on, there may be another gear to unlock to help him get to more of his good power potential and cover more of the zone effectively. Probably he’s not going to see a lot of left-handers this season as A.J. Hinch tries to matchup at-bats with opposing managers.
Obviously the hit tool remains the obvious weakness, and it’s possible that long-term Sweeney will take over Zach McKinstry’s role as a versatile utility infielder with power and modest base-stealing ability, rather than playing shortstop everyday. However, until the Tigers have another answer at the position, the job is certainly Sweeney’s to lose. At very least he brings more power potential to the role than McKinstry can, while both play pretty heads up baseball and can take some extra bases as well.
2025 Outlook
It’s really hard to have any hope that Javier Báez is going to contribute in 2025. The shortstop job is essentially Sweeney’s to lose, and McKinstry himself is really the only feasible option otherwise. Either Báez, or in case of injury or incapacity, perhaps Ryan Kreidler will probably get some of the looks against left-handed pitchers to protect Sweeney there.
A left-handed hitting shortstop with good raw power is a nice acquisition on the surface. Sweeney may have a long career as a role player in the Tigers infield even after they eventually find a full-time shortstop. For now, his defensive abilities will give him plenty of chances to learn to deal with major league pitching.
To last and put together a long career in the majors, Trey Sweeney will have to be really disciplined in his approach in order to get pitches he can handle without finding himself fighting from behind in the count regularly. His walk rates in the minors give some hope that he can improves his takes, hang in there in more at-bats and perhaps unlock some added power production. Just don’t expect too much. If he can put up anything close to league average production, the Tigers will be very pleased with that.