DETROIT — A.J. Hinch was not subtle when speaking with reporters Saturday in New York. Spencer Torkelson, the Detroit Tigers’ struggling first baseman, had been demoted to the No. 7 spot in the batting order.
“You see him steadily moving down in the order,” Hinch said, “and the next stop is next to me. We’re trying to keep supporting him because he’s a good player. But he’s not in a good spot.”
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Torkelson entered the day with only six hits in his past 40 at-bats. He then went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts, compounding the complaints from fans and critics. He finally showed signs of life with two hits Sunday, including a big RBI double in the seventh inning.
In the bigger picture, though, Torkelson’s struggles have been perplexing. He is a No. 1 pick who hit 31 home runs last season. He has an athletic build, a mechanically sound swing and an even-keel demeanor. Yet the more pitches Torkelson watches go by and the more balls he botches in the field, the more questions and concerns arise. Torkelson entered Sunday with 1,224 plate appearances in his major-league career. And despite his power breakthrough last season, he is hitting only .220 with a .684 OPS for his career.
He’s off to a brutally slow start for a third consecutive season. What’s eating Spencer Torkelson? Here’s an attempt to understand:
Middle-middle pitches
One of the surface criticisms often seen on social media is that it feels as though Torkleson lets too many middle-middle pitches go by. In truth, Torkelson is swinging at 77 percent of middle-middle pitches. That is higher than Riley Greene’s 69 percent.
Torkelson, however, has failed to do damage on the most hittable of pitches. He has whiffed at 9 percent of middle-middle pitches. He has put 18 of 43 middle-middle pitches in play and averaged an exit velocity of only 91 mph with a 13-degree launch angle. He is credited with a hard hit — a ball with an exit velocity of 95 mph or greater — on 10 of those 18 batted balls but has only produced one barrel, defined as a ball where the combination of exit velocity and launch angle leads to a minimum .500 expected batting average and 1.500 slugging percentage.
Torkelson overall has a 16.3 percent popup rate, the fifth highest in the league. When pitchers have made mistakes, Torkleson has not taken advantage, which makes his weak points all the more glaring.
Handling outside pitches
Torkelson came through the minors hailed for his ability to cover the whole plate. During his time in the major leagues, we’ve seen that ability only rarely. In 2022, Torkleson struggled to turn on inside pitches. He began leaning into his pull-side power last season, but now he has been totally exposed on the outer third of the plate. Torkelson is getting pitched heavily down and away and has a negative run value on all three boxes on the outer third of the strike zone — though he did double off an outside sweeper Sunday against New York Yankees left-hander Nestor Cortes.
The graphics tell the story clearly:
(Graphics via Baseball Savant)
“I know he’s gonna come out of it,” Greene said. “I feel like no one is worried about him. Just stay positive, be a good teammate and just help him out when I can.”
Struggles against fastballs
Opposing pitchers have been unafraid to attack Torkelson with fastballs. Torkelson is seeing fastballs on 53.7 percent of pitches, and he is hitting only .197 with a .262 slugging percentage against them.
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Anecdotally, Torkelson has simply struggled to be on time. It’s another puzzler because there’s no glaring mechanical flaw causing Torkelson to be late. If anything, people around the Tigers wish Torkelson would be more athletic and less mechanical in the box. Despite his timing issues, Torkelson has never implemented a leg kick or any other sort of noticeable timing mechanism. Even when he gets his front foot down early, his bat seems to lag behind.
Fastballs are the root of his struggles, but he’s also been caught in between, hitting only .235 against breaking pitches and .100 with a 47.6 whiff percentage against 41 offspeed pitches. His pull rate is at a career-high 52.5 percent, but that 16.3 percent popup rate is also a career high.
“He’s been trying to work on timing and being more consistent,” Hinch said. “It feels like, and certainly recency bias will be, that he’s fouling off a lot of pitches or he’s popping pitches up, which means he’s a little bit late, and that can be a late load, it can be a late foot, it can be a late decision, and that’s where you can get caught in between.”
Behind in the count
Torkelson is swinging at first pitches only 25 percent of the time, down from 29 percent last year. For some context, Greene only swings at the first pitch 26.1 percent of the time. Torkelson, however, has been down in counts 0-1 52.9 percent of the time (this includes first pitches that were fouled off). Greene has been down 0-1 48.6 percent of the time.
The swing decisions stand out when Torkelson watches an enticing first pitch go by, but more aggressiveness might not be as simple a solution as it might seem. On the occasions Torkelson has put the first pitch in play, the results haven’t been stellar — he is hitting .212 with a .538 OPS.
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“You go up in swing mode, you’re going to pound the ball into the ground if you don’t get a good pitch to hit,” Hinch said. “You go up in take mode and he misses middle-middle, then you fall behind. So it should vary day by day for all our guys, not just Tork. You can’t have a one-size-fits-all (approach) at this level.”
The defense
Torkelson entered Sunday at minus-6 defensive runs saved, tied for the worst total in Major League Baseball. Last season Torkelson’s minus-11 defensive runs saved made for the worst total by a first baseman since 2017.
Torkelson talked in spring training about diving into the metrics and working with hitting coach Michael Brdar in Arizona, doing “shortstop” drills to improve his range toward his backhand side. Torkelson was worth minus-8 outs above average on balls fielded laterally toward third base last season. So far this year, there has been no improvement. He is already worth minus-4 OAA on balls toward third base. Torkelson’s fielding struggles have been confusing because he is a good athlete for a first baseman. His ability to handle throws in the dirt hints at soft hands and good glovework.
Torkelson, though, has long displayed a head-scratching inability to make basic plays. Some of this could be rudimentary fielding ability. It might also be decision-making on which balls to go after and which to let the second baseman handle. We have seen Torkelosn put himself in bad positions, like against the Kansas City Royals when he tracked a ball to his right and misfired badly attempting to hit Casey Mize on the run. Awful as the throw was, Hinch later said he thought Torkelson should not have fielded the ball in the first place.
“Some of the mental grind of the offensive struggles can be taken out not so much in missed plays, but just in the trying to be a hero trying to make bigger and better plays,” Hinch said.
Is there reason for hope?
Tough to say.
Torkelson’s 31 home runs last season give him some track record. When he does something positive like he did Sunday against New York, it is an encouraging reminder: There is a hitter in here somewhere.
Torkelson got off to a rough start last season, too, before finally unleashing his power (though he still had only a .313 on-base percentage and 1.3 fWAR). After May 3 of last season, Torkleson was hitting only .210 with a .579 OPS and two home runs. The surface numbers now are not dissimilar.
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The underlying numbers, however, are more concerning. Torkelson, for instance, had a 45 percent hard-hit rate, a 90.6 mph average exit velocity and a .251 expected batting average (xBA). This year, the encouraging signs are not there. His hard-hit rate is only 35.9 percent. His average exit velocity is 88 mph. His xBA is .181, worse than his actual .205 batting average.
“I think for him, being a threat and selling out to whatever the approach is that day will benefit him,” Hinch said. “And I think he’s gonna do it. He didn’t stumble into solid performance last year. He worked to get that timing. When the timing clicks, he can carry you for a really long time.”
(Top photo: Duane Burleson / Getty Images)