STORYLINES TO WATCH AS 2024 SEASON BEGINS
It’s been a decade since the Tigers last made the playoffs, a drought that feels like an eternity, especially after they made the postseason five times in the previous nine years back then.
Maybe, just maybe, this is the year the Tigers finally sneak back in, given a soft American League Central, and some shrewd — if not exactly earth-shattering — moves made over the offseason by the team’s brain trust, led by president Scott Harris and general manager Jeff Greenberg.
There are fewer question marks than in recent years, but some remain.
Here’s a look at some top Tigers storylines entering 2024:
The big bet
Colt Keith is among the most fascinating stories entering this season, because the Tigers did something they’ve never done before: extend a player who had yet to make his major-league debut. That debut is coming fast for the projected starting second baseman, a fifth-round pick in the 2020 draft.
Keith, this offseason, was given a contract worth a guaranteed $29 million, and worth as much as $82 million over nine years, if all the options are exercised. This is a chess-over-checkers move by Harris and Co., because if Keith, 22, is a bust, it costs the Tigers $29 million, or a little over what they’re paying Javier Báez every year. No biggie. And if Keith turns out to be an absolute stud
with Detroit, well, then the Tigers stand to save tens of millions of dollars on the back end.
Báez conundrum
You can’t talk about the Tigers without discussing the elephant (or the albatross?) in the room. That is Báez, the last big signing of the Al Avila era, and maybe the one that ultimately did him in. Báez has been a negative-0.8 player in his two years in Detroit, and despite all the talk of retooling his swing, what are the chances he actually turns this around in his age-31 season? When he was signed, Tigers fans were told he’d struggle in stretches, but make up for that by carrying the team for weeks at a time. There has been no sign of that. He swings at everything, and it’s remarkable pitchers throw him anything within a foot of the plate. He’s owed $98 million over the next four years, thus he’s not going anywhere right now. But a bench role has to be in play if he’s awful again.
Surplus of pitching
The Tigers have the makings of a pretty good rotation, with a potential ace-in-the-making, Tarik Skubal, at the top. Former No. 1 overall pick Casey Mize looked this spring like he’s finding something. And then there are two