The Detroit Tigers also hired four new coaches

Detroit Tigers outfielder Riley Greene now has two awards on his trophy mantle from the 2022 season. The Rookie of the Year award is voted by the Detroit Sports Media Association, and Greene received 95 percent of first place votes. Earlier in the month, the Detroit Baseball Writers Association voted him as the Tigers player of the year. He became the first rookie to win the award since Mark Fidrych.

Greene had a 13-game hitting streak from August 20 to September 4, which was the second-longest by a rookie in the Majors this season, and the longest by a Tigers rookie since Milt Cuyler had a 15-game streak in 1991. He also had a 20-game on-base streak from August 20 to September 14, which was the longest by a Detroit rookie since Austin Jackson reached base in 25 straight games in 2010. Greene didn’t begin his season until June because of an injured foot, which makes winning two awards all the more impressive.

A former Wolverine joins Chris Fetter on the Tigers coaching staff

The Detroit Tigers announced four new members of the Major League coaching staff for the 2023 season. A trio of hitting coaches were hired. Michael Brdar and Keith Beauregard will serve as the team’s new hitting coaches, and James Rowson will be the team assistant hitting coach. Robin Lund will be an assistant pitching coach, joining Juan Nieves and Chris Fetter.

Brdar, who was the San Diego Padres hitting coach in 2022, played at the University of Michigan for two seasons after playing junior college ball at Diablo Valley in California.

Beauregard spent the previous four seasons in the Los Angeles Dodgers organization, most recently as the Minor League Assistant Field Coordinator in 2021-22, and as a minor league hitting instructor in 2019-20.

Rowson is familiar with the AL Central, as he was the Twins hitting coach for three seasons before going to Miami to serve as the Marlins bench coach. But he also had the title of offensive coordinator for manager Don Mattingly.

According to a 2020 article from NBC Sports, Rowson was once under consideration for the Boston Red Sox manager position. He was credited for his work in developing former Tigers outfielder Austin Jackson, Gary Sanchez and Jesus Montero. The Tigers struggled to hit home runs in 2022, so Rowson seems like a good addition. After all, he was the hitting coach for the 2019 Twins, who set the major league record for most home runs in a season (307)

“The approach is not to hit home runs,” he told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune in 2019. “The approach is to get good pitches and hit them hard, and more than anything to be yourself in each at-bat.”

His quote makes sense in terms of applying that philosophy to the Tigers batters. They finished 24th in hard hit rate (36.2%) and the team batting average was .231. In the final hire for the staff, the Tigers named Ryne Eubanks as their Head Athletic Trainer.

Detroit Tigers minor league deals

The Tigers added five players to the 40-man roster yesterday. Chris Brown highlighted each player yesterday, and on our podcast we broke down what each player will be bring to Detroit. The five players are:

INF Andre Lipcius

INF Wenceel Perez

OF Parker Meadows

RHP Reese Olson

RHP Brendan White

After all the movement of the roster, the Tigers made a minor-league trade with Scott Harris’s old team, the Giants. They traded for outfielder Steele Walker. The left-handed hitting outfielder batted .268/.333/.421 between his two Triple-A stops last season. He was designated for assignment by the Texas Rangers in August before the Giants picked him up. He provides some minor league outfield depth.