John Niyo: After playoff push, time for Tigers to make their big pitch

DETROIT — When you change perceptions, you also change expectations.

That’s the challenge the Tigers are facing now, as the euphoria surrounding their late-season playoff charge fades away and the reality of what comes next starts to set in.

But that’s hardly an unsettling thought for manager AJ Hinch, who has been through these stages of organizational grief and growth before. Ditto Scott Harris, the Tigers’ president of baseball operations, who can say the same, even if that meant saying so Monday morning through the congestion of a postseason head cold.

“I apologize if you get sick at the end of this,” Harris said, fully understanding that’s exactly how many were feeling after that gut-wrenching Game 5 loss ended in Cleveland.

Still, the message both men wanted to send to a rejuvenated fanbase — less than 48 hours after the Tigers’ season came to an abrupt halt — echoed the one Hinch delivered to his players in the visitors’ clubhouse Saturday.

“You know I don't love talking about the future,” said Hinch, whose “win today’s game” mantra often felt like a daily prayer from April through September in years past. “But this is actually the time for us to start moving forward.

“You know, one of my coaches always says, ‘The moment's over. Now what are you gonna do about it?’ And I think it's important for us to take that mindset into the offseason, whether you're talking to a prospect who's going to come to big-league camp for the first time, a returning player who now has played in the playoffs, or someone who joins the organization this offseason. The chance to win here is real. And we need to do our part.”

And that’s the part where everyone’s attention now turns, they both know. Because while everything the Tigers accomplished this season — and particularly over the past couple of months — validates much of what Harris talked about when he was hired here two years ago, from player development to strike-zone dominance, it also changes how this offseason’s moves will be viewed.

Fans and media will focus on payroll numbers, of course, especially after the Tigers spent 2024 with a bottom-five number in Major League Baseball. And while that’s fair, it’s also a bit foolhardy for someone in Harris’ position to view it like that. He won’t make the Tigers better simply by doling out more of owner Chris Ilitch’s money this winter.

“I understand that dollars spent is the most convenient measure of activity in a given offseason,” Harris said. “But it's not really how we think about it. Like, we don't chase payroll thresholds. We chase talent.”

Harris went on to say, rather clearly, that he has no concerns about whether he’ll have the resources to chase that talent, whether it’s in free agency or via trades. And while Harris wasn’t ready to get into many specifics about who or where, “because it's been 48 hours since we played,” he said, smiling, “I do have some thoughts on it.”

He pointed to the obvious need to add another right-handed bat or two to add some punch to a lineup that sorely needs it. This year’s Tigers actually scored 15 fewer runs than the 2021 version did in Hinch’s first season in Detroit. And for all the strides MLB’s youngest position-player group made late in the season, the offensive shortcomings were glaring at the end: The Tigers struck out 16 times — with 39 swings-and-misses — in that Game 5 loss to the Guardians.

The Tigers’ president also made it clear he’ll prioritize adding pitching, well aware that the chaotic success of Hinch’s bullpen usage in the second half of the season probably isn’t sustainable over a 162-game season.

We’ll spend the next several weeks tossing around names of free agents that would fill that bill at a steeper price, whether it’s Arizona’s Christian Walker at first base or Houston’s Alex Bregman at third or Baltimore’s Anthony Santander … somewhere. Or perhaps a familiar face who’s eager to jump back in like Jack Flaherty, who was shipped to Los Angeles at the trade deadline as a playoff rental.

But there are plenty of others out there that would cost less. And still more options that aren’t free, but would cost the Tigers prospects instead. Which is fine, because as Harris noted Monday, the Tigers’ farm system is now filled with produce that’s ready for market.

“If we find a talent we have conviction on and fits how we play and fits our clubhouse,” he said, “we should have the prospects to be able to make a trade like that.”

And they have to try, because the bottom line here finally has shifted.

So is the way this free-wheeling young team on the rise is viewed from the outside, which should help the Tigers’ front office in much the same way the Lions’ breakthrough did a year ago.

“I have found in my career that when you see those teams out there, you want to join them as a player,” Harris said. “We had that in Chicago. We had that in San Francisco as well. So I think it's going to change the conversation with players. I hope we are an attractive destination, both because we've demonstrated we can help players get better here, but also we demonstrated what it feels like to be on a winning Tigers team here for the first time in a decade. And anyone who was watching us play down the stretch should want to be here.”

Anyone who was listening to Hinch down the stretch and into the postseason probably heard that, too. Because he wasn’t just talking to his players.

“I'm also speaking to the rest of the league,” he said Monday. “We want to be known as a winning organization. Well, we are. We want to be known as a playoff team. Well, we are. And now the work really begins. When I say that that this 2024 team is the ‘floor,’ it doesn't guarantee anything. We need our internal guys to take that seriously and use it as fuel moving forward. And we also need anybody that that we trade for, that we acquire, that we that we sign, understands the expectation of being a Detroit Tiger.”

They all should now, from the top on down. Because after a decade of waiting, the baseball fans in Detroit won’t accept anything less.

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