The Tigers Offensive Turnaround Has Been Pretty Remarkable

I have never seen an offense look worse than the 2021 Tigers did in the first month of the season. Everything you could possibly want a major league offense to be, they weren’t. They struck out all the time, all they ever did was chase pitches out of the zone. They couldn’t get runners into scoring position and when they did, they couldn’t advance them. You were not out of your mind to think that they were a team capable of losing 110-120 games solely based on the ineptitude of their offense. I don’t know what kind of team meeting went down on May 7th, but for whatever reason, the Tigers seemingly overnight went from a complete embarrassment to a pretty respectable baseball team. I think a lot of that has to do with the overhaul on the roster. A heavy amount of dead weight has been eradicated from the lineup since the summer months began. In some ways, water found itself level. The young pitching core has started to emerge and the steady influence of A.J. Hinch and pitching coach Chris Fetter has certainly helped, but a fair amount of credit belongs to hitting coach Scott Coolbaugh, who has done a solid helping turn around an unproven and young offense.

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This is where the Tigers offense ranked in the following categories on May 7th

• BB%- 28th out of 30
• K%- 30th out of 30
• BA- 28th out of 30
• OBP- 30th out of 30
• SLG%- 30th out of 30
• OPS- 30th out of 30
• wRC+- 30th out of 30

That was a level of historical awfulness that the Tigers organization had never seen before. Even the 119 loss 2003 Tigers got an All-Star season out of Dimitri Young. This team had nothing…until they didn’t. Here’s where the Tigers rank in this same categories since May 8th

• BB%- 12th out of 30
• K%- 17th out of 30
• BA- 4th out of 30
• OBP- 9th out of 30
• SLG%- 13th out of 30
• OPS- 11th out of 30
• wRC+- 9th out of 30

That is a remarkable turnaround considering where they were. You have to give a lot of credit to the guys on the roster. Jonathan Schoop has turned things around since an awful first month. It’s been well documented how much of an impact rookies like Eric Haase and Akil Baddoo have had on the lineup, but I don’t think you can go from being a historically bad offense to above average in a matter of months without having guys in the dugout who know what they’re doing, because this is not a team that has just randomly started winning games by clubbing home runs (they rank 18th in homers since May 8th), but they’ve done a substantially better job of advancing runners and beyond that, they’ve done a better job of putting runners in scoring position. No team in the American League has stolen more bases than the Tigers have since May 8th. You put pressure on the pitchers, it makes things easier on the hitters, I think A.J. Hinch, Scott Coolbaugh and company have understood that. I hope soon the day comes where manufacturing runs doesn’t have to be a thing anymore. Nothing would make me happier than to see a Tigers lineup loaded with guys who can hit 25+ bombs a year. But for the time being, I think what this staff has done with this roster is admirable.