First baseman offers glimmer of hope for dreadful Tigers

Little has gone right for the Detroit Tigers to start the season. The team is 2-7, offensive struggles from 2022 have carried over, top prospects are far away from the bigs and the schedule doesn’t get easier.

One of the few bright spots is first baseman Spencer Torkelson, the No. 1 overall pick from the 2020 MLB Draft.

In 2022, Torkelson had a disastrous rookie year, compiling a .203/.285/.604 slash line. This year’s slash line is almost identical, but there's reason to be hopeful.

Per Baseball Savant, Torkelson's average exit velocity of 91.4 mph is up from 90.5 mph last year. His hard-hit rate of 50 percent is also up from last year's figure (41.8%). The sample size is small, but the trend is positive.

The marks haven’t led to a dramatic jump in stats yet, but history shows that should happen soon. Hard-hit rate and average velocity tend to correlate to success, so a player posting strong numbers there but not seeing statistical correlation is usually the victim of bad luck. Some of those hard hits for Torkelson should start falling for hits.

Torkelson’s stats were also brought down by a three-game slow start against the Tampa Bay Rays (10-0) to open the season. Since then, he has a hit in four of six games.