Spencer Torkelson’s offseason is crucial for the Tigers’ path forward

SEATTLE — Before Wednesday’s season finale at T-Mobile Park, a contingent of Detroit Tigers players walked the streets of Seattle wearing their gray road uniforms. The trek south to fetch a long coffee order was the brainchild of Eduardo Rodriguez and Andrew Chafin, an end-of-year prank on the team’s rookies and anyone with less than two years of service time. Miguel Cabrera, at age 39, tagged along to supervise the kids.

So there at a Seattle Starbucks, Spencer Torkelson stood at the counter, a sheet of paper in hand, reading off the coffee orders for his older teammates and coaches. There were about a dozen players in the coffee shop with him, a sign of this team’s youth and how much the organization’s future is still to be determined.

Torkelson was the one at the counter doing the difficult work of reading off ridiculous orders meant to make the job harder on the rookies. Fitting if you’re a fan of stretched metaphors.

Because as the Tigers enter the offseason after a woefully disappointing 66-96 record — a season that finished with a 5-4 loss to the Mariners after another Gregory Soto meltdown — perhaps no player has more to prove than Torkelson. He’s central to the future of this franchise.

While Riley Greene has much room to grow, he has also looked the part of a future star. Unproven players such as Ryan Kreidler have always been upside bets. Torkelson, though, is the guy everyone has talked about all year — the hitter who was supposed to be a sure thing, the guy who instead has finished his rookie season with a .203 batting average in 360 at-bats. It is a frustrating stat line for a season full of valleys.

But Tuesday, the Tigers played a doubleheader against the Mariners, and Torkelson reminded everyone watching what he can do when he connects. The easy power. The majestic Tork Bombs. In the first game, Torkelson belted a 426-foot home run to left field. In the second game, he turned on an inside slider and blasted it 409 feet. Those two home runs served as reminders of his prodigious talent, a talent we did not see put into action enough this season. Torkelson hit only eight home runs. Each one was a hint of what he could be, enough to incite a little more optimism for next February when players will report to spring training with clean slates.

Put that home run swing on repeat for @spennyt. 🔂
— Detroit Tigers (@tigers) October 5, 2022

“I think it’s gonna be really fun in the month of October to have some exit interviews,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “To talk to these guys and listen to what they experienced this season, and we’ll have a better feel for what our impact can be after that.”

For Torkelson and the Tigers, there is much at stake here. Torkelson will venture to Arizona this offseason, where he has lived since his college days at Arizona State. He hopes to take a couple of weeks away from all baseball activities to decompress. He has a French bulldog puppy named Coco, so there’s potty training to do.

By the middle of November, Torkelson says he will begin hitting again. He won’t seek the wisdom of some guru or attempt to reinvent the swing that made him a No. 1 pick. He says he will hit at ASU and might pay a visit to old college hitting coach Mike Earley, who is now at Texas A&M. But despite the struggles of his rookie season, Torkelson said he has no massive overhaul planned.

“There won’t be any huge mechanical changes other than just cleaning stuff up,” he said. “My swing works. At this point, it’s all approach and just the mental side of the game, I think.”

It will be interesting to see if the Tigers have a different plan in mind. They demoted Torkelson at the All-Star break and sent him to Toledo, both to clear his head and also to fine-tune a grooved swing that was getting exposed by major-league pitching. As had been well documented, Torkelson struggled not only with elite breaking balls and pitching at the margins, he hit only .226 against fastballs and .212 on middle-middle pitches.

(Baseball Savant)

Torkelson showed signs of his improvement upon his September return to the majors. But by month’s end, he was returning to some old habits, getting stuck on his back foot, hitting the top of the ball, swinging at a few bad pitches and taking too many good ones.

Before his first home run Tuesday, Torkelson was mired in a 1-for-31 slump. That cold stretch featured several bad at-bats but also several instances of hard contact that were not rewarded.

The Tigers are expected to overhaul their hitting department and make changes at the big-league level and maybe beyond. So it might be up to the new staff to lay out a plan for Torkelson going forward. Regardless, the Tigers plan to keep close tabs on Torkelson this offseason.

Hinch made clear the team won’t handle him with kid gloves.

“I don’t think it’s time to be delicate,” Hinch said. “I think he has a large enough sample size to have to address some things to be a better player now. We want to instill confidence in him. We still believe in him. He’s gonna be a really good player. This has been a tough year for him, but I think we need to go in the front door and not try to go in a side door or back door and let him know what he needs to be productive.”

Torkelson’s difficult rookie season came with some mental wear and tear. He admitted to getting overloaded with video and data, searching too hard for a solution. On multiple occasions, he slammed down his bat and cursed after a strikeout or popup. It was strange at times, to see a generally positive and laid-back guy stuck in the mud. Even Wednesday, as he stood in the visiting clubhouse and looked back on his year, you could tell there was a part of Torkelson that was tired of revisiting the difficulties.

“Gosh, it’s not easy to be under a microscope and struggle,” Torkelson said. “Just to show up every day with somewhat of a positive mindset sometimes was a win for me.”

Behind the scenes, he has remained friendly, a hint goofy, eager to please. But there’s a part of him desperate to change the narrative, to make sure he is fielding different questions this time next year.

For the Tigers and new baseball operations boss Scott Harris, there might be interesting decisions ahead, too. First base is supposed to be a premium offensive position. Torkelson this season produced an OPS of only .604. Tigers’ first basemen as a whole entered the final game of the season with a combined .625 OPS, 27th in the league.

So could the Tigers seek a contingency plan in case Torkelson doesn’t pan out next year? Might starting Torkelson in Toledo unless he arrives at spring training a changed man be an option? It has to be a consideration. Yet Cabrera’s return and occupancy of the DH spot make bringing in another corner infielder a difficult proposition. That will be among a long list of questions for Harris and Co. to address when free agency begins in November.

In the meantime, Torkelson says he will trust his swing, will stick to much of what got him here. He will focus on his plate approach and the mental side of the game. He set small goals for the final month of the season. One of them was simply to show up to work with confidence every day.

“I think that’s a huge key in this game,” Torkelson said. “If you could bring one tool to the ballpark every day, it would probably be confidence. It’s not a good swing, it’s not a good arm. It’s confidence in whatever you got that day.”

Talking Tuesday evening after his two-homer day, it was tempting to paint this as a step forward, a sign that 2023 could be different. It’s an enticing notion. But the reality is it will take an offseason of work and a spring of results for Torkelson to reclaim his status as a beacon of hope.

He wheeled his bags out of the clubhouse Wednesday, the first steps toward redemption, with a season’s worth of lessons in hand.

“I definitely figured out that I’m pretty tough,” he said.

(Top photo: Lindsey Wasson / USA Today)