The Detroit Tigers took a kid in this year’s draft. Maybe you think they took the wrong kid — that general manager Al Avila should’ve drafted Marcelo Mayer, a high school shortstop, instead of Jackson Jobe, a high school pitcher.
Maybe you’ll be right in the long run. Maybe you’ll be wrong. The key is you’ll have to wait a while to find out. So will the Tigers. And that’s the point.
They need a shortstop. Now.
Certainly, they need one for next season. And if you’re looking to read the tea leaves about the direction of the franchise, its latest draft picks won’t reveal much. Because even today’s gifted shortstops needed a couple of years — or more — to get to the majors.
Fernando Tatis Jr. spent three years in the minors. Francisco Lindor played a little more than four. Trevor Story needed five.
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Story, who plays for the Colorado Rockies, will be a free agent this offseason. (Though as the lone star on a middling team, he could be traded soon.)
Avila and his major league scouts may or may not want Story’s services next season. Story may have no interest in the Tigers.
But Avila obviously has an interest in getting someone like Story to patrol the left side of the infield because the Tigers have a chance — a small one, but a chance nonetheless — to contend for the postseason next season. And the players Avila’ just selected won’t increase that chance at all.
Knowing even the most gifted prospects need two or more years to make the big leagues, and knowing that’s even truer for high schoolers, Avila went with the player he and his scouts believed offered the best long-term result.
True, that is building for the future. I’m sure you are sick of that phrase by now.
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Yet the nature of baseball makes it possible to build for the future while also doubling down on the present.
As Tigers manager AJ Hinch recently said:
“I think teams should try to win. I think you can try to win even if you’re not deemed a playoff team in July, and you have to balance that need for today with the need for tomorrow. The need for today still matters.”
Avila has to do both. The team’s play the past two months — if you’ll kindly forget the four-game sweep at Minnesota — should force his hand.
Well, not his hand so much, as that of the man he works for: Christopher Ilitch.
Whether or not Tigers ownership planned on spending next year, the buzz his team has created this summer ups the pressure to let Avila pursue a couple of established veterans that will improve the infield defense and add pop to the lineup.
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Shortstop may be the most obvious spot to spend, but the team could surely use more oomph in the outfield, too. And while the Tigers are more than a couple of players away from a playoff run, a couple of the right players could amplify what we’ve seen the past two months.
“This team is not very far away,” former Tigers manager Jim Leyland (who is still on the franchise’s payroll) said recently. “If they make a splash with a free agent or two … a couple of the right additions … well … you can see the light at the end of the tunnel with this ball club right now.”
Leyland was talking about the job Hinch has done this season when he mentioned the talent already on the club. And that consecutive winning months in the majors don’t happen without players.
“They are a more talented team than people think,” he said. “(Jeimer) Candelario’s got some talent. The (Derek) Hill kid, (Daz) Cameron. I truly believe, if (Hill) is healthy, he’s the best defensive center fielder I’ve seen come through the organization since 2006.”
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That’s the year Leyland arrived to manage the Tigers. Though he didn’t want to compare that roster to this one, he did say few people thought that team was close to contention, either.
Not that he wants to put pressure on this year’s team. He doesn’t. But even Hinch acknowledged shortly before the All-Star break that expectations were changing because no one thought the team would do anything this season.
This is a good kind of pressure. For the players that will be back, obviously, who are trying to learn how to win. For Avila, as he approaches the trade deadline and then the free-agent market. For Ilitch, who knows he will be expected to open the bank to ramp up this unexpected momentum.
Sometimes, it doesn’t take as much as you think. If the Tigers find their way to .500 by season’s end? Or better?
As Leyland said, “All of a sudden you’ve got (Riley) Greene coming, (and possibly Torkelson coming). You’ve got the right guy in charge and …”
It’s hard not to get carried away. Just as it was hard for some not to get carried away wondering if the Tigers would regret passing on Mayer.
Avila wanted the prospect he thought had the highest ceiling. He also knows there is much to be done before we ever find out if Jobe can reach that ceiling.
The future is finally starting to look a little closer.
Contact Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @shawnwindsor.