BACK TO THE FUTURE
Torkelson’s past just as valuable to Tigers as his potential at the plate New breaking pitch has Tigers’ Brieske ready for whatever 2024 brings
LAKELAND, Fla. — There’s no perfect formula for success in baseball. Let’s be clear about that.
No matter how much we want to worship at the altar of analytics or reach back to the old-fashioned notion of old-school coaching basics, no one knows the secret to how to get the most out of every individual player.
Yet there is one person who stands out as a shining example, maybe even a beacon, among the Detroit Tigers — someone who could provide something that approaches a blueprint for success as the team embarks on a season of growth and methodical improvement for a lineup that will be filled with young hitters.
That person is Spencer Torkelson.
No one has come into this organization with higher expectations for quite a while; no one has flopped and then found his way back so well and so quickly.
In a sport defined by failure, Torkelson should be the model within the organization for how a player deals with the inevitable
LAKELAND, Fla. — Detroit Tigers righthander Beau Brieske, a former 27th-round draft pick, has tasted a little bit of everything as a pitcher in two MLB seasons.
A starter? He started all 15 games in 2022. A reliever? He came out of the bullpen in 24 of 25 games in 2023. A high-leverage reliever? He pitched 152⁄3 innings in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings in 2023. A closer? He picked up two saves in 2023.
Brieske is confident in every role.
“I think I provide a unique ability to start, middle relief, long relief, leverage innings and close,” said Brieske, whose role for the 2024 season hasn’t been defined yet. “If I don’t get caught up in what could be and allow things to unfold, and if I just focus on pitching, being a good pitcher will lead to success in any role that I have.”
The best role for Brieske, who turns 26 in early April, appears to be as a multi-inning reliever with the Tigers, but depending on how the rest of the roster is constructed coming out of spring training, Brieske could also end up as a starter or a closer in Triple-A Toledo.
He seemingly fits best as a reliever with
struggles to conquer his shortcomings and succeed. In this way, Torkelson could be and should be the key for all young Tigers who follow him — albeit on their own paths to potential success — in the lineup.
Not that Torkelson wants to be considered the poster boy for the whiffs-to-wallops success the Tigers would like for their younger players. Because, really, who wants the pressure of being the model for anything?
But he did acknowledge that there are parts of his process that could help younger teammates.
“I think it’s definitely something that a lot of people can take away,” he said, “because I think young guys, you know, don’t have a lot of success early and they almost give up.
“And it’s like, ‘Oh, maybe it’s just not in there.’ It is in there. It’s just like you’ve got to just grind that extra mile to figure it out, and it’s not easy.”
Torkelson knows all about things not being easy. He was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 draft, made the team out of spring training in 2022, struggled, was sent down to the minors at the All-Star break, then struggled again at the start of last season. And then? He finished with a whopping 31 home runs and 94 RBIs, including a final five months with 29 homers.
But throughout that time and tumult, Torkelson consistently did extraordinary things, such as reconnecting with his college mental performance coach and adding a weight room to his garage. That’s on top of all the regular
stuff other players might do, such as changing a bat or working intensely with a hitting coach.
“I think a lot of when it’s on TV, a lot of us make it look really easy,” he said. “And behind the scenes, it’s not easy at all.
“I think we can fall into the trap of looking at highlights of other people or looking at just watching a game and being like, ‘How is it that easy? How are they doing it?’ ”
I smiled and briefly interrupted him. “Tork Bombs,” I mentioned, invoking a contributor to GIF-worthy grist that feeds the alwayshungry hype machine.
“Yeah,” he said with a small smirk, “it’s not that easy.”
One person who didn’t push back on Torkelson-as-role-model was A.J. Hinch, who knows exactly how hard his first baseman has worked.
“Yeah, so I think he’s a model and a couple of ways,” the Tigers manager said. “One is as a player, you know, you have to always continually make adjustments, whether you are highly drafted, undrafted, prospect, non-prospect, veteran player, whatever.
“I think the other lesson is more for us: coaches, managers, fans, everybody, to have patience. He needed a ramp to success in order to learn how to play at this level, and our patience as an industry has grown thinner and thinner.”
Hinch is right about the benefit of patience. But asking for the world to slow down and become more judicious is like asking the genie to voluntarily stuff himself back inside the bottle — and put his toothpaste back into the tube once he gets there.
The point is still well-taken, because it took time for Torkelson to find his way and go from an Al Avila draft pick to a product of the system Hinch and team president Scott Harris have instituted.
“I think there’s just a little more clarity of the plan,” he said, “and, like, what they want out of me to where it’s like I wasn’t going to the offseason blind and be like, all right, there’s a million things I need to get better at.
But they gave me, like, five things.”
Consider the difference between Torkelson’s offseason and that of his teammate, Riley Greene, as a case study in how friends with similar expectations placed on them — who sit right next to each other in the clubhouse — can take unique paths on the same journey.
Torkelson worked with Tigers hitting coach Michael Brdar in Arizona, while Greene didn’t while spending his offseason in Florida. (Greene still got the information from his hitting coach relayed to Brdar. )
“I feel like it’s different just player to player,” said Greene, the fifth overall pick in 2019. “You know, what works for Tork might not work for me and what works for me might not work for Tork.
“So it’s just kind of what makes you feel comfortable and what really gets you ready for the game and for the season.”
No one expects any player to copy Torkelson exactly. But whether it’s Colt Keith now or Jace Jung later, Torkelson’s model of the unflinching effort it took to wade through the muck of failure could be invaluable in helping young players — and, as a result, the team — take a step forward.
“I’m happy to talk to anybody because I never want anyone to go through what I went through,” Torkelson said. “It sucked, but you know it’s gonna happen to somebody in this league because it’s not easy.
“I think everyone knows that I’ve got their back in this clubhouse and I can help them out as much as I can.”