The expectation is that both will report to spring training in February, neither with a guaranteed role or roster spot. Those will have to be earned
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Harris has put some of the blame for Maeda’s struggles on himself. When the Tigers signed Jack Flaherty, there was a full-court press from the pitching department to give him an off-season battle plan, a prescription to fix what was ailing him in St. Louis and in Baltimore the year before.
They didn’t do that for Maeda.
“This is a commentary on myself,” Harris said on Monday. “We could’ve done a better job of preparing him for the season last year. It was a difficult transition for him to go from a familiar organization to an unfamiliar organization. We saw when he showed up in Lakeland that his stuff was not quite as crisp as it had been in his career.”
That’s an understatement
…“There is absolutely a place for him on this team,” Harris said. “He’s demonstrated that he can help any big-league team. He’s still really talented. I think he can be a better strike-thrower. His execution can improve. But it starts with his stuff.
“We talked to him about making some changes to his offseason and we’re going to better support him so that the version that shows up in Lakeland is similar to the version that’s made him a successful starting pitcher in this league before.”
Mize’s case is different. Where Maeda struggled to find his stuff, Mize arguably, after missing two seasons with back and elbow surgeries, came into the season with the best stuff of his life. His struggle became how best to use it.
“There were some positives,” Harris said. “I think he pitched with a different fastball than he’s ever had before. That fastball can be explosive at the top rail. He can miss bats with it at the top rail. Some of the adjustments we’re looking for and that he is actively working on are with his secondary pitches.
“He needs to find a slider he can command to both sides of the plate and find a splitter that can go strike to ball, one that can really put a hitter away when he gets to two strikes.”
It was, at times, confounding. His four-seam fastball averaged 95.5 mph. That’s 2 mph firmer than his four-seamer pre-surgery. And with his elite 7-1 extension and increased spin and ride through the zone, it should have been a game-changer for him.
It wasn’t. It had a minus-1 run value, per Statcast, with a low 20% whiff rate and 19% strikeout rate. Part of that was command; part of it was hitters not honoring his secondary pitches and sitting on the heater.
Mize did produce a 50% ground ball rate, but the 44% hard-hit rate ranked in the bottom-8 percentile in baseball.
“He still has all the God-given ability in the world,” Harris said. “He is one of the more determined workers we have in our clubhouse. Now that he is healthy and another year removed from Tommy John, our hope is he has a big offseason and that he shows up to Lakeland with as huge a ceiling as anyone in the organization.
“He has the ability and he has the work ethic. That’s a pretty compelling combination.”
It is bad when this actually seems like a consideration.
If he was a Lion, we would cut and take the dead cap hit.
MLB is different and I am not sure what instruments are in place for such colossal bad judgement. At least with Miggy’s contract you knew you were going to pay at the end, but you knew you were going to get a few good years before it bit you. Baez has been bad from the go.