A.J. Hinch is a one-of-a-kind manager.
He won it all, lost it all and found his way back. He has proven he can transform an entire franchise by reshaping the culture behind the scenes, helping prospects develop into stars and winning in the margins on the field, establishing himself as one of the best minds in baseball. He is an honest communicator, and in turn, he has earned the trust of his players.
“I don’t know what it is, but he finds a way to get guys to buy-in — to make you want to run through a wall for him,” said Toronto Blue Jays outfielder George Springer,
“Buy-in is not for free,” Hinch said in early October, after the Tigers swept the Houston Astros in the American League wild-card series. “You’ve got to get players to understand the bigger goal. If you can switch the psyche and maybe take a tick of the pride and ego out of it, anything is possible.”
Not only has Hinch’s buy-in captured the attention of Tigers players, but the culture he fostered entering his fifth season in Detroit is also a topic of discussion across the game, with fellow managers impressed by how he did it.
It’s something every manager wants.
“You’re trying to maximize your roster and your team to win games,” said Kevin Cash, manager of the Tampa Bay Rays. “In that moment, he was doing it better than anybody.”
“But I think that all starts with the leadership of making sure you get the buy-in, that’s the big thing,” said Aaron Boone, who manages the New York Yankees. “It’s one thing on paper to play things out, but to be able to get the team behind it, that’s what the Tigers had last year. It was about Tigers.”
“Even in the playoffs, I talked to him,” said Derek Shelton, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ manager. “I was like, ‘How are you scripting it?’ And he told me. It was really cool to see, but the most important part when you do that is you have to have player buy-in. You don’t have player buy-in unless your manager is a really good communicator.”
“He told me right before they started that run,” said Shelton, one of Hinch’s closest managerial peers, with their connection dating back to 2003, when Shelton was a hitting coordinator for Cleveland and Hinch joined the organization in spring training after signing a minor league contract. “He’s like, ‘We’re going to start doing some things differently.’ To be able to see it and execute it and stick to it, that’s extremely impressive.”
… It was “pitching chaos,” just six years before Hinch uttered the phrase with the Tigers.
“The opener strategy, he helped make it mainstream,” Hinch said of Cash, who won AL Manager of the Year in 2020 and 2021. “Studying him, he’s really good at the entry part of the pitcher, so the matchup that he wants is certainly the first hitter that a pitcher is going to face, which is something I really believe in.” …
The pitching strategy frustrated opposing teams.
“Our hitters did not see a freaking pitcher more than one time,” Cash said. “He got the right matchups the way he wanted. He made the right decisions with guys off the bench. Everything was spot-on. You admire that from afar, but you just don’t like it when it’s happening against you.”