Since the All-Star break, just about every lever Detroit Tigers manager A.J. Hinch has pulled has been the right one. From pinch-hit decisions, to defensive replacements, to pinch-runners, just about everything has come up aces. Nowhere has that been more evident than in the decisions they’ve made with the pitching staff. Now an American League Divisional Series with the Cleveland Guardians looms, and the Tigers have an interesting decision to make as they reset their postseason roster.
The Tigers only took 12 pitchers into the best-of-three Wild Card Series, taking advantage of their deep stable of quality pitching options to bring along an extra position player. Whether that extra player was Justyn-Henry Malloy, who put together a good series against the Astros, or Jace Jung, who didn’t get into the series, the short series made it easy for the Tigers to bring along that extra position player. That might change in the ALDS.
In a best-of-five series, Hinch and head pitching coach Chris Fetter will need a roster prepared to pitch a full week of games, potentially. With only Tarik Skubal working as a traditional full-time starter, piecing together those innings will be a little trickier if the series goes the distance. They might decide to adjust the roster, taking along 13 pitchers and 13 position players to face Cleveland.
The question is who to add into the mix.
There are some positives from the Wild Card round in terms of pitcher usage. Their second best starter on the Wild Card round roster, right-hander Reese Olson, who hasn’t been able to get fully up to speed in his starting role since returning from a shoulder injury suffered in July, didn’t end up pitching in the series. That extra rest is probably good for him.
We might say the same about Casey Mize, whose return from Tommy John surgery this year went decently well, with a 4.49 ERA and a 3.95 FIP over 102 1⁄3 innings of work. Mize looked to really be rounding into form with a strong month of June, but a left hamstring injury cost him about two months, and since returning in late August the former first overall pick out of Auburn hasn’t been very sharp, struggling with home runs a bit in particular.
With Skubal likely starting Game 2 on Monday, October 7th, rather than going on short rest in Game 1, Olson will almost certainly be in the starter or in the “bulk guy” role on Saturday, depending on whether Hinch and Fetter use an opener to handle the top of the Guardians lineup in the first inning. In fact, we expect that at this point. No one but Skubal is likely to pitch like a traditional starter the rest of the way.
The Tigers will have Skubal, the presumptive AL Cy Young winner, ready to go in Game 2, and he will then be available for a potential winner-take-all Game 5 against Cleveland if it comes to that. Olson will be on the mound in Game 1, and potentially Game 4 as well if needed. This will all get more complicated should the Tigers advance to the League Championships and the World Series, where seven-game series will make this even more interesting, but in the divisional round, Game 3 is the obvious pivot point for the pitching staff.
The Tigers don’t necessarily need to add another arm, of course. Lefty Brant Hurter has done a whale of a job since his call-up in August, and not only did he get some postseason experience under his belt in the Tigers’ clinching performance in Game 2 of the Wild Card Series, but he’s also well familiar now with coming in after an opener has set the table. The same is true for right-hander Ty Madden, though he hasn’t been as good as Hurter. Jackson Jobe is a starter, but we’d be very surprised to see him used for “bulk” innings. Most likely the game’s top pitching prospect will continue to get his feet wet in a strict, one-inning relief context.
There’s also the Guardians pitching staff to consider. Right-handers Tanner Bibee and Gavin Williams would appear to be their two main starters, with lefties Matt Boyd and Joey Cantillo either pitching Game 3 or working out of the pen. They do have one really tough lefty reliever in the pen in Tim Ferrin, They aren’t overly stacked with left-handed pitching, but there’s enough there to ensure that Justyn-Henry Malloy will be on the roster along with Andy Ibáñez.
Ultimately, the question for Hinch and Fetter is whether they can make this work with a 12-man pitching staff. Hinch’s strategic brilliance all season has relied on plenty of pinch-hitting appearances to help make up for the Tigers lack of obvious star caliber hitters beyond Riley Greene and Kerry Carpenter. The regular lineup, if the Tigers even have such a thing, is heavily stacked with left-handers, so no doubt Justyn-Henry Malloy will be on the roster alongside Andy Ibáñez to tackle left-handers where required. It wouldn’t be a surprise at all to see both of them starting against Guardians lefty Matt Boyd, for example.
That leaves left-handed hitting infielder Jace Jung as the likely odd man out should the Tigers go back to a standard 13 pitchers, 13 position players alignment. Jung is really playing out of position at third base, and I’d be surprised to see him get a lot of time in the field. Still, Jung has good plate discipline and hasn’t been overwhelmed by major league pitching in his 34 games as a major leaguer. He’s struck out a lot, and hasn’t hit for any power at all, but he has been on on-base machine, walking a whopping 16 percent of the time, or roughly twice the major league average, and posting a stellar .362 on-base percentage despite poor batting average and power numbers. Jung will give you an at-bat that fits the Tigers “gritty” identity, and it may be that in a five-game series, Hinch values that more than an extra arm.
Should they want that extra arm, the likeliest addition to the postseason roster in place of Jung would be one of two right-handers. Veteran Kenta Maeda and rookie Keider Montero would be the two vying for the job.
Maeda really struggled in the first half of the season, showing uncharacteristically poor command of his fastball, slider, splitter combination. He was extremely home run prone, and while he’s been better pitching out of the bullpen, his numbers in relief show a 3.86 ERA, and a 3.79 FIP. Perhaps more to the point, in 34 at-bats characterized as high leverage situationally, he’s allowed three home runs, and generally been knocked around badly in big spots. Despite his vast wealth of experience and still with enough control to post solid walk rates, he doesn’t have any compelling case to help the Tigers and bump Jung from the roster. In a seven-game series, perhaps that might look different to Hinch, but in a best-of-five, it’s highly unlikely we’re going to see him pitch.
Montero is a much different case. Pressed into a starting role with the Tigers sooner than he was ready for in June, it’s been a wildly mixed bag for the 24-year-old right-hander. Montero has excellent stuff, with a power fourseamer, good slider and knuckle curve, and a nasty split change, but we’ve only intermittently seen those pitches at their best because his command has been up and down throughout his rookie campaign. But while he needs more work to really get a handle on a rotation spot next season, he’s arguably a more likely candidate for the ALDS simply because of his raw stuff, and because of the Tigers emphasis on youth. They’ll do what they think is best to win the series, but there’s a clear preference for getting the players of the future involved that also likely gives Montero an edge over Maeda.
One final option is starter Matt Manning, who ended the regular season rehabbing in Toledo. While he had a really rocky season with the Tigers, it’s not unreasonable to think that in a short outing, Manning’s history of strike throwing and home run prevention might at least cause some consideration from Hinch, Fetter, and the front office. Work hasn’t stopped, and Manning is presumably continuing to try and get better as he stays loose and ready in case of an injury that requires a taxi squad replacement.
Maybe the Tigers decide they don’t need the extra pitcher in a best-of-five series. In which case the roster will be unchanged. That doesn’t seem all that unlikely considering their matchup heavy approach in all facets of the game. But assuming they want to add another arm and subtract a position player, I would bet on Keider Montero getting the call, with Jace Jung going into the reserve pool. Like all of Hinch and the Tigers’ decisions over the past two months, it will be interesting to see what they decide.