The 2022 Detroit Tigers Might Have The Worst Offense Of All-Time

When you’re a fan, especially a fan of a team that is going through a rough patch, we tend to be a bit hyperbolic. I had a Yankees fan in my mentions last night saying that New York has the worst offense in baseball. That obviously comes from a place of extreme frustration, but anyone with a brain knows that’s objectively wrong. It’s easy to exaggerate when you’re frustrated. But I’m not exaggerating here. The 2022 Detroit Tigers might have the worst offense of all time. Will the numbers say they scored the fewest runs? No. Will their ineptitude lose them more games than the expansion Mets? Definitely not. But I believe, relative to the era they play in, this is the worst offense of all-time.

Let’s break it down here. The Detroit Tigers currently have a team OPS of .611. If that holds, that will be the lowest we’ve seen by a baseball team since the Texas Rangers in 1972. They have been shut out 17 times. By comparison, the 2003 Tigers, who nearly set the record for most losses in a season, were also shut out 17 times. Aaron Judge, in 433 at-bats, has 46 home runs. The Detroit Tigers, in 3,986 at-bats, have hit 71 home runs. They are dead last in baseball in home runs, RBI, runs, walks, and slugging percentage. Their current team leader in home runs is Javier Baez, who, in the time in which I’ve been writing this, has swung and missed at three sliders that landed in the left-handed batter’s box.

I’m kind of done playing the blame game at this point. Yes, hitting coach Scott Coolbaugh should’ve been fired in early May, and while I like A.J. Hinch, his insistence that there is no quick fix and that the Tigers should stay the course with their current staff is infuriating. The roster isn’t talented, but there is no way it’s this untalented. There is no way that every player on this team regressed instantly overnight. The Tigers came into the year believing that Spencer Torkelson and Riley Greene, two of baseball’s top 5 prospects, would have a massive impact. Riley Greene has a .542 OPS since July 4th (that’s a 42-game stretch), and Spencer Torkelson has a .216 batting average…IN TRIPLE A. I’m not going to bury the kids, but can something go right? Can one guy hit a baseball in the air? Where’s Detroit’s Julio Rodriguez? Where is there Adley Rutschman? Right now, it looks like that person doesn’t exist. This is a baseball team that has scored two runs or fewer in 54 of 121 games. Do I need to continue, or have I made my point? 

I feel so sorry for the next GM of the Detroit Tigers. Andy Dufresne had to trudge through less shit. I complain all the time about how this organization, for the better part of 30 years, has sucked at developing hitters at the minor league level, but they suck at doing it at the major league level too. At least in the past, they could mask the problem by trading for and signing really good players. And A.J. Hinch can continue to talk about how good the effort and preparation are, but if the effort and preparation are so good, why do they never make adjustments? They chase every single pitch. When they don’t chase, they hit everything into the ground. This is one of those situations where everyone is to blame. You don’t get to be this bad because of the faults of one person. It’s a collective failure, and it’s absolutely maddening.