Al Avila once talked about the playoffs during spring training. He’s no longer running the Detroit Tigers.

I’m not saying there’s a relationship between Avila’s on-the-record expectation back in the spring of 2022 and his firing that August, but you can’t have snow without cold. He put himself out there that spring, and when the Tigers flopped, he looked like he had no idea what he was talking about.

A.J. Hinch was similarly optimistic then and obviously, he’s still here. But then he didn’t put the roster together, and there was never the sense he was in over his head. Besides, it was only his second year on the job.

Avila wasn’t going to save his job by downplaying expectations. Part of running a professional club, though, is managing expectations, and he couldn’t even do that.

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So, when Scott Harris told reporters Wednesday that “we haven't earned the right to talk about division titles or playoff berths yet,” he was doing an essential part of his job.

What have the Tigers earned the right to talk about?

They can talk about the next six weeks, duh.

Which is to say: Spring training, and how Harris, the team’s president of baseball operations, and A.J. Hinch, the team’s manager, plan to get this youngish collection of interesting and relatively promising players ready for the season.

"The goal right now has to be the step in front of us," Harris said. “This is a talented group, but it's a young group. It's going to be one of the youngest position-playing groups in baseball.”

Now that’s how you set expectations. Speak the truth, toss in some facts, remind the fanbase that there is a hint of promise and don’t overpromise.

Could the Tigers win their division and get to the playoffs?

Sure, why not?

But Harris and Hinch aren’t sure what they’ve got yet. They can project, they can even dream, but in baseball, even the most gifted scouts and talent evaluators are still guessing.

This is true in every team sport. Yet this isn’t basketball, or football, where, say, Dan Campbell can tell reporters during training camp that his team will be able to compete with anyone, even though his Lions team was young, too.

Baseball is more like hockey when it comes to projection, where prospects are drafted, stuffed in the minor leagues somewhere, and given time away from the big stage to develop — or not. And even when the prospect shows progress and makes the big-league club, the projection doesn’t stop.

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Take Spencer Torkelson, for example. The Tigers’ first baseman was the No. 1 overall pick almost four years ago. He played a year of minor league ball. Showed promise. Made the Opening Day roster in 2022. Hit a home run. Scuffled. Got sent back to Toledo. Got a September call-up. Made the Opening Day roster again in 2023. Hit 31 home runs.

That’s good, right?

Of course, it’s good, but is it No. 1 overall good? Not yet, not when his other numbers are considered.

Torkelson still has plenty to give. He can get much better. Hinch and Harris are banking on him getting better, on taking another step. But they can’t say for sure, because this is baseball.

If this were football, Torkelson might be called a bust. He'd be entering his fourth year without No. 1-overall production yet. Yet he’s a long way from that in baseball.

Campbell, meanwhile, knows that his first-round running back from a year ago isn’t far from stardom — assuming Jahmyr Gibbs remains healthy. But then learning how to hit holes in football is easier than learning how to hit a fastball sinking down and away.

More critically, it’s easier to see a football player’s progress than it is a baseball player’s, especially for fans who aren’t as schooled in the intricacies of swing planes and hand positioning as they are tackling and cutbacks.

In other words, Campbell and general manager Brad Holmes can take the podium at a news conference and reasonably project what kind of team they will have. And they did, and they weren’t shy about how good the Lions could be last season.

Baseball managers and general managers can do the same thing, but only in limited circumstances. If a team is full of established veterans, particularly veterans who’ve won, then it is easier to project, to buy into optimism, like Jim Leyland used to do when he had his run of division titles.

It’s also easier to chase after established veterans on the free agent market when a team is adding them to a relatively proven roster, like Dave Dombrowski used to do.

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Yes, that creates a chicken-or-the-egg situation for general managers who are building teams: Do they wait for the youngsters to prove themselves and then pursue big-time free agents to help push them toward the top? Or do they add an expensive bat or arm and hope that addition helps the youth prove itself?

Harris, clearly, wasn’t ready to spend this offseason. He wants to see more, not unlike another general manager employed by the Ilitch family — Steve Yzerman.

The similarity isn’t a coincidence. Projecting hockey players is almost as tough as projecting baseball players. Whereas Lions tight end Sam LaPorta, for example, showed elite playmaking the first time he played a professional football game.

Now, obviously, not all football players reveal themselves this quickly — Jared Goff is a perfect example. And not all baseball players need a half-decade to fully show who they can be. Yet there are patterns in both sports and in baseball, the pattern generally requires patience ...

... and tamping down expectations until enough players on a roster have shown otherwise.

Harris and Hinch aren’t trying to take the fun out of a potentially exciting year. Nor are they afraid to talk about winning. They’re just more interested in talking about the process of winning, instead of projecting how many wins might be out there.

As Hinch told reporters last week:

"We're unafraid to talk about winning games. We obviously want to have a winning record. We haven't earned it yet, and we haven't played any games. The end-of-season review comes at the end of the season, not at the beginning."

Nihilism?

How about realism?

Because realism can be fun as well.

Hinch knows his team has a real chance to build on a surprisingly plucky season last year. He’s just not going to make the same mistake his former boss once made. Nor is his current boss. Nor should he.

Contact Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Why Scott Harris, A.J. Hinch are managing Detroit Tigers' expectations