Many of the Tigers position players have already been in camp since Wednesday, but Sunday marks the first official full squad workout where everyone has reported. Now baseball is really back. The Tigers beat writers on hand picked up some interesting notes over the past two days, so let’s run through a few things.
A.J. Hinch mentioned on Sunday that Colt Keith will be focused on third base, while getting some reps at first base as well. The Tigers had him prepping for first base last year with Spencer
Torkelson still not fully established as the everyday first baseman. Looks like they’re keeping a few left-handed hitters involved at the position anyway just in case. Hinch mentioned that they don’t expect Keith to play second base at all except in a pinch.
Meanwhile, former prospect Jace Jung, who has stalled out the past two seasons in a few looks at the major leagues, is also preparing to play first base. Of course, he’ll have to finally start hitting. Jung did make some swing adjustments, lowering his hands and trying to be shorter and quicker to the baseball. He came out of the All-Star break hot, cooled in August, but finished September with a 1.162 OPS and three home runs for the month in 14 games. Still only 25 years old, Jung’s story may not be written just yet, but Triple-A pitching does tend to get pretty thin down the stretch as well. He needs to do something big this season.
Hinch addresses the full squad
As always, the first full gathering of everyone in major league camp is an opportunity for manager A.J. Hinch to set the tone for the season. The only player not in attendance was Justin Verlander, who got a week of work in with the club before bowing out for a few days for a family commitment. Hinch expressed his enthusiasm for the club, but as always cautioned everyone that what they’ve done before is now in the past, and they have to lean back into the day-to-day grind to get better. He’s made a consistent habit of emphazing the need to stacking success bit by bit over the course of a the long season to reach their goals, and the message didn’t change on Sunday.
Riley Greene focused on his approach
Riley Greene spoke to reporters on Saturday, talking about his monster first half of the 2025 season and the deep slump that followed him down the stretch and into the playoffs. His take on it was that he’s was swinging the bat so well and running so hot that he started feeling like he could crush anything near the zone. That was true for a while, but once pitchers started staying away from him, recognizing that he was swinging a ton, Greene’s confidence got the best of him as his plate disicpline fell apart. His take on this, which is also A.J. Hinch’s take, is that he just needs to take a breath and be more conscious of situations, recognizing when a single will do and when pitchers are just going to stay out of the zone against him out of concern for his power.
The key quote from Cody Stavenhagen’s piece on Greene for The Athletic Detroit sums it up. “If you have two strikes and a runner on second base, maybe try not to hit a ball 5,000 feet.”
This checks out to me. Greene is one of the game’s more dangerous hitters, ranking 25th in wRC+ across 2024-2025. Excessive tinkering may screw up everything that turned him into that hitter. Modest adjustments to his approach and better situational awareness may be all that’s required to get him into that top tier. He was already there until crumbling for long stretches after the All-Star break. Taking his rips early in counts is a must, but so is settling down and just putting the bat on the ball deeper in counts and with runners in scoring position. Now 25 years old, hopefully the Tigers slugger can just mature that approach somewhat. He’s in for a huge year if he can.
Odds and ends
Evan Woodbery with MLive has the story of Jack Flaherty’s decision to opt-in for 2026. Sounds like he had more guaranteed money available to him in free agency, as you’d expect. But he’s comfortable in Detroit and knows they have a chance to win. That was apparently worth more than another uncertain look at free agency, and Flaherty is perhaps one good season from finally getting the type of offers he was expecting last offseason.
Evan Petzold of the Freep has a story on Reese Olson explaining his shoulder injury and why they tried to rehab it again before finally acquiescing to surgery. Essentially, he was going to miss all of 2026 whenever he had the surgery, so it was worth trying to rehab it fully and avoid going under the knife.
Minimal injury news
Everyone is rehabbing their hips and elbows, everyone is advancing on their return to play progressions
