Good Luck Trying to Stop Red-Hot Tigers in MLB Playoffs

After going 31–13 to end the season, Detroit is the hottest team in baseball, presenting a daunting challenge to anyone standing in its way this October.

The Tigers have relied on a young core of hitters, including Carpenter (30), to spark their playoff run. / Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

If you believe Newton’s First Law of Motion applies to postseason baseball, there is no more dangerous team than the Detroit Tigers. They have the best pitcher in baseball, enthusiasm, athleticism, strategic unorthodoxy and an irrational exuberance that comes from being one of the youngest lineups in postseason history. They don’t know any better.

And therewith is the reminder to the Houston Astros and, if the Tigers advance, the Cleveland Guardians about the Law of Inertia as it applies here: A team in motion will remain in motion at a constant velocity and in a straight line except insofar acted upon by an external force.

An afterthought with a losing record as late as Aug. 25, apparently headed to an eighth straight losing season, the Tigers raced to a wild-card spot as the hottest team in baseball with a 31–13 finish. Who saw this year coming? After a long conversation I had in Clearwater, Fla., during spring training with Tigers manager A.J. Hinch, and after several days of watching this club, I was sold.

At the start of every season, I pick the teams coming off losing seasons most likely to make the postseason—because it has happened now in 29 of the 30 seasons in the wild-card era.

My preseason picks for the two biggest surprise teams last year were 1) Texas Rangers and 2) Arizona Diamondbacks. They wound up in the World Series.

This year my No. 1 surprise team pick was the Detroit Tigers, followed by the Guardians. Here’s what I wrote about Detroit at the start of this season:

[H]ere’s their path to 87 wins and the postseason: They tread water for a couple of months before becoming a better second-half team as their young hitters—with more coming—start to flourish. The positional core of Colt Keith, 22, Riley Greene, 23, Parker Meadows, 24, Spencer Torkelson, 24, and Kerry Carpenter, 26, could be supplemented with Jace Jung, 23, Justyn-Henry Malloy, 24, and Justice Bigbie, 25. It’s not quite the high-end lode of young hitters the Baltimore Orioles have, but it’s rich with potential.

The pitching is solid. Detroit has an ace in Tarik Skubal, a bounceback veteran in Jack Flaherty, a deep bullpen and possibly 50 innings coming from Jackson Jobe, a 21-year-old prospect who could quicken his timeline for arrival. With a bit more offense, the Tigers can improve by nine wins, which gives them a playoff spot in a weak AL Central.

Okay, so I was off by one win. Otherwise, the Tigers took that exact route to October. Now that they’re here, I have three questions. How did they get here? Do hot teams really have an advantage in the postseason? Are the Tigers too young to keep winning in the playoffs? Time for more answers.

I GUESS WE WANTED TO BE A PLAYOFF TEAM pic.twitter.com/MaaFrcO5st

— Detroit Tigers (@tigers) September 28, 2024

How did they get here?

The Tigers smoothly transitioned toward players that were not just younger but also more talented. Veterans such as Mark Canha, Gio Urshela, Javier Báez, Shelby Miller, Kenta Maeda and Flaherty were replaced by the likes of Meadows, Malloy, Trey Sweeney, Brant Hurter, Keider Montero, Tyler Holton and now Jobe. The Detroit player development system hit the jackpot in terms of timing: a core of young players arriving on the same schedule. The Tigers used 12 players who made their MLB debut this season, the most of any team to make the postseason. They pulled off a transitional year inside two months.

“I made a comment publicly in July that I thought we were going to get younger and we were going to get better,” Hinch says. “Part of that was me thinking we were going to sell, but we also had young players ready to come up and contribute.”

Meadows returned from a hamstring strain in early August. Carpenter was a week behind him. That’s when Hinch began to see the tide turning.

“We had two really good series against the Mariners in August and then the Yankees series,” says Hinch, referring to an 8–4 run against the Mariners, Giants and Yankees, culminating with a walk-off win against New York at the Little League Classic. “The walk-off in Williamsport was when I thought the foundation was good. Skubal pitched … young players thrived … national game. We didn’t win the next series, but we won nine of the next 10 series.”

The younger the Tigers became, the better an offensive team they became. Their batting average went up 14 points.

Tigers Offense

	Record	G	RPG	Avg/OBP/SLG
Through Aug. 4	53–60	113	4.16	.230/.295/.381
Aug. 5 to Clinch	33–14	47	4.4	.244/.311/.400

Do hot teams really have an advantage in October?

Short answer? Yes.

There are many ways to win a championship. Hot teams have won. (The 2004 Red Sox entered October on a 34–12 run.) Cold teams have gotten hot at the right time and won. (The 2023 Rangers went 20–24 down the stretch.) Teams built on starting rotations have won. Teams built on a great bullpen have won. So, if anybody tries to tell you there is only one path to solving the October minefield, just laugh and move on.

But know this: Your odds increase slightly if you come in with momentum. The Tigers are only the 21st team in the 30 seasons of wild-card play to enter the postseason playing .700 baseball over the final 44 games (31–13 or better). Of the previous 20:

• 13 won their first-round series (65%).
• Six won the pennant (30%).
• Three won the World Series (15%: 2004 Red Sox, 2020 Dodgers and 2022 Astros).
• They combined for a 107–89 record in the postseason (.546).

Are they too young to keep winning in the postseason?

One of Hinch’s most-used lineups down the stretch included seven hitters no older than 25: Keith, 23, Greene, Meadows, Malloy, Wenceel Perez and Sweeney—all 24—and Torkelson, 25.

There has been only one team in playoff history that started seven players under 25: the 1914 Boston “Miracle” Braves in World Series Game 2. The youngsters won that day, 1–0, over the Philadelphia Athletics on their way to a World Series sweep.

No team has started six players under 25 in a playoff game since the 2015–17 Chicago Cubs, including Game 2 during their 2016 World Series championship run. Experience is great. Talent is even better.

Not only do the Tigers look like a college team, but they give Hinch the freedom to run his team, especially his pitching staff, like one. Skubal is as old school of an ace as it gets these days. The Tigers are 21–10 when he starts. He hasn’t lost a game in 60 days.

Skubal is a Cy Young favorite after leading the AL in wins and ERA. / Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

On every other day, Hinch can confuse opponents with an unpredictable parade of relievers. He has turned strategic norms on their ear. Short starts, for instance, are anathema even in this age of heavy relief use. Teams won only 34% of games this year when their starter failed to last five innings. Improbably, the Tigers were 18–13 in August and September when their starter was gone before the fifth inning.

Only Milwaukee won more games with abbreviated starts this year than Detroit (31–28), but the Brewers became a more conventional team down the stretch with the additions of Frankie Montas and Aaron Civale while the Tigers doubled down on chaos theory.

“I think the non-traditional usage plan worked because it really featured our strengths,” Hinch says. “We have youth and stuff. Both worked well in that plan. We also got to pick the ‘leadoff hitter’ for each pitcher. We can bring anyone in at any time.

“We paid attention to rest/recovery and never taxed the same guy. Giving guys one to two looks made it hard for teams to game plan or set up their lineup.”

Preparing for Hinch’s pitching plan is like preparing for Kansas City Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnoulo’s blitz packages: It’s hard to know what’s coming and when.

The Tigers may be the sixth seed in the AL bracket with one of the youngest lineups in postseason history, but they look like a difficult out. The Astros need to dent Skubal in a huge Game 1, and they need to solve the barrage of relievers coming their way—including Jobe, who looms as an x-factor like Francisco Rodríguez of the 2002 Angels; stuff and poise make irrelevant a lack of MLB experience.

Detroit is playing with the confidence of the 1995 Mariners, the “Refuse to Lose” gang that also was under .500 in late August only to rip off a 25–11 finish. Seattle rode the momentum through the Yankees in the ALDS and to a 2–1 lead in the ALCS before Cleveland pitching stopped them with three well-pitched games.

It is a truth that was established 337 years ago: Momentum matters until an external force intervenes. Who will stop the Tigers?