Henning: Some Rising Stars on the Tigers' Roster

Pitching rotation ace Matthew Boyd (Tigers photo)

All seems to be forgiven in a losing Tigers season when you affix the "rebuilding" word.

Yes, 2018 was clearly a year that was designated as a rebuilding year, but that doesn't mean there weren't some bright moments.

Detroit News columnist Lynn Henning assesses some of the players;

There was enough vigor and enough new blood — and often sufficient pitching — to have made this year’s Tigers more entertaining, perhaps, than would be suggested by their final record, which could be as bad as 63-99 or as good as 69-93, with Ron Gardenhire’s team heading into its final two series at Minnesota and Milwaukee.

Here's a sampling of Henning's assessments:

♦ Niko Goodrum. He was signed last autumn as a minor-league free agent after his former team, the Twins, had not regarded him overly seriously. Goodrum was supposed to go to Tigers spring camp and contend for a bench job. He instead made the team and stayed with it the entire year. He has smacked 16 home runs. He has 29 doubles, a .748 OPS (plus-102) and a 1.6 WAR. He has played every position except catcher and center field. He is 26. This was good scouting and analytics work by the Tigers.

♦ Pitcher whose stock was a smart buy in April: Matthew Boyd. Take a gander at his jump in strikeouts. He’s at 11.4 per nine innings during four September starts and 8.4 on the year, with a 3-to-1 ration on whiffs to walks. He has four pitches and a better fastball than some imagined. He is the team’s present-day rotation ace.

♦ Reliever who came around, pleasingly: Joe Jimenez. Everyone wants kids to perform during those early weeks and months as if their skills alone can make them instant big-league weapons. Doesn’t work that way, even when you have Jimenez’s palette of pitches. He’s durable and can blow away three batters with 10 pitches. Tigers were so smart to have followed him in 2013 and signed him post-draft.