Torres, Baez, Meadows & Carp

[Peter Welch]

The Tigers were 6^th in MLB in wRC+ before Torres got injured.  They are now 28^th in wRC+.

It's not that Torres was hitting that well (.716 OPS), but he was drawing a lot of walks (.389 OBA), not striking out that much, and driving up pitch counts of opposing pitchers.  Just having him in the lineup gives guys like Greene, McGonigle, Dingler and Keith (and even Tork & Carpenter) more opportunities.

Even Torres's defense was decent before he got hurt.

Baez and even Meadows were not good as hitters, but at least they are major league-level hitters of varying degrees and play competent defense (despite Javy's occasional wild throws).  Their replacements have been absolutely sub-replacement level both offensively and defensively.  Meadows (.641 OPS) looks like Al Kaline compared to Wenceel Perez (.448 OPS and horrible defense).  Meadows and Baez are also good baserunners so their smarts on the bases have been missed.

Even Carpenter being out has an impact.  Yes, Carpenter wasn't doing a lot (.216 batting average and 34% strikeout rate), but at least he was a homerun threat against righties (6 homers and .451 SLG).

Yes, the Tigers obviously miss Skubal (and missed Mize while he was out), but losing those guys from the lineup has had an impact.  The Tigers don't have the position-player depth in AAA to cover for losing those guys.  I was worried about that before the season.  The Tigers looked thin in both pitching and hitting depth in the upper minors and Harris didn't seem to recognize it and gambled that we would stay healthy.  We needed to stay healthy, but we haven't.

Peter

[Roger King]

Yeah, who knows how many more games they would’ve won but certainly having your middle infield on the DL - Baez and Torres - really hurts the team. Especially when the replacements are Zach Short & Lee. 

Carpenter over Perez an obvious upgrade as well.

Once they get those guys back and Skubal, it should give the team an jolt morale-wise. Might be too late to climb back to .500 but it should make them more competitive.

Looking forward to Melton getting back on the hill. He is possibly going to start Sunday in Baltimore.

Roger King
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[Peter Welch]

Tigers have gone 4-14 since Torres got hurt.  Even if they had gone, say, 8-10 or even 7-11 in that stretch, they wouldn't be in such a hole.  If Torres (plus Baez and/or Meadows) had stayed healthy, I think we had a decent chance to go 8-10 or 7-11 in the last 18 games.

It's very possible that even if Skubal hadn't needed the surgery, the Tigers would still have a bad record in the past 3 weeks because of the loss of Torres, Baez, Meadows and Carpenter and the lack of decent alternatives from AAA.

Peter

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From: Roger King <pnag...@pnagency.com>
Sent: Friday, May 22, 2026 3:26 PM
To: Peter Welch <pw...@hotmail.com>
Cc: detroit...@googlegroups.com <detroit...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Torres, Baez, Meadows & Carp

 

[Paul Meloche]

Skubal has missed only three (maybe four...?) starts so far. He could have pitched no hitters in all of them and we'd still be in a bad place. 

There's possibly some psychological impact on the team from having their ace get injured, but it's Hinch's job to manage that and regardless a mental hangover shouldn't last three weeks.

 

With some notable exceptions, the pitching hasn't been that bad since Skubal got hurt, and frankly it's been better than I expected overall during the losing streak. But these hitters.... oof. I think right now they have nine guys on the 26 man roster that are batting .200 or below.

Paul M.

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