When we first arrived at the Freep in 2006, oh so many second basemen ago (41, actually, since the start of that World Series season), the running gag was that the best position in town was either backup QB for the Lions or backup goalie for the Red Wings — mostly because everyone was perennially convinced they were better than whatever bum was starting ahead of them.

(Unsaid, of course, was the third-best job: Detroit Tigers Newsletter writer — either because: A.) entering the sixth season, no one at the Freep has suggested they’d be better at it, or, the more likely answer: B.) newsletters were not a thing back then.)

And on the other end of that spectrum is a job getting more than a little attention the past few weeks: General manager. Whether it’s Pistons fans yelling at GMs during games, or GMs yelling (politely) at Lions writers, or even Wings GMs just doing, well, nothing during the wildest day of the NHL season, there’ve just been a lot of folks suggesting that they — OR ANYBODY — would be better at the job for three of Detroit’s four teams.

CARLOS MONARREZ: Tigers' spring training words aren't nearly as loud as their lack of action

About the only GM in town not getting talked about is our guy … ourrr guyyyy…

You don’t know his name, do you?

No, no, we do. It’s … it’s … JJJJJIIIIMMMEEEFFFF … Jeff Greenberg! Yeah, totally knew that. Hockey guy. Not Steve Yzerman. Hired in September. Everybody knows that. (Nobody remembered that.)

(But seriously, you should catch up with Greenberg and his boss, POBO Scott Harris in this feature from the Freep’s Evan Petzold.)

Of course, that might change soon, once we get, y’know, games that matter.

Hello, and welcome back to the Detroit Tigers Newsletter! (One of these years, we’ll come up with a catchy name!)

Apologies for the lateness this year; we set our alarm clock, like every year, for “six weeks after the Lions’ last game,” and, then, well, y’know.…

But we’re here now, 2½ weeks into spring training and, more importantly, 2½ weeks away from Opening Day. There’s a buzz in the air, and it’s not just a Riley Greene fly ball (he had TWO on Sunday!) … there’s one question simply everyone is asking:

Is Colt Keith really ready to take over at second base?

The Tigers — or Greenberg and Harris, and probably manager A.J. Hinch — certainly seem to think so, considering they handed the 22-year-old, the Tigers’ fifth-round pick in 2020, roughly $29 million guaranteed without so much as an MLB at-bat.

(As usual, Our Man Petzold has the inside story on the deal, and why the Tigers AND Keith were willing to assume some risk.)

OK, he’s rich. But can he hit?

Uh … maybe?

We could throw some stats from last season at you — 27 homers, 38 doubles, a .306/.380/.552 slash line as a 21-year-old in Double- and Triple-A — but we’ve been there before. Spencer Torkelson, the No. 1 overall pick in that same 2020 draft, had 29 doubles, 30 home runs and a .267/.383/.552 slash line as a 21-year-old in the minors, made the 2022 Opening Day roster and … actually, let’s not relive that season.

(After all, as the Freep’s Carlos Monarrez reminded us — when he wasn’t picking fights with Lions execs — failure is a part of baseball, and Tork’s revival after one heck of a failed 2022 was one of the best stories of 2023.)

Again, the Tigers have made a $29 million bet — or at least a $1.8 million bet this season, the difference between his $2.5 million salary for 2024 and the big-league minimum — that Keith is his own man, and ready to hit at the big-league level. That’s the sort of bankroll you don’t just stroll into the MotorCity Casino sportsbook with. (Not that we’ve tried.)

And so far this spring? Keith is 5-for-21 with two doubles, three walks and five strikeouts entering Tuesday. Gulp.

But, hey, there’s 2 ½ weeks to go, Keith was a bit under the weather in February and, of course, spring stats are hardly a predictor of summer success. Just ask our pal Tork (who probably stopped reading a few paragraphs ago) — we had to do a lot of scrolling to get to his .268/.317/.375 slash line last spring: His OPS was .692, 32nd among Tigers hitters and 374 points below the 1.066 mark posted by … Colt Keith.

In fact, let’s ditch the knee-jerk-spring-training-hot-take reactions completely and turn to our favorite folks: Nerds. (And not the ones employed by the Tigers.) It’s time for a quick run through various statistical models’ projectionzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz … sorry, no one told us there’d be math in Newsletter No. 1. Anyway …

ZIPS: This system, created by Dan Szymborski (who’s a great follow on Twitter, or X, or whatever, just for his random AI-generated baseball art), seems to like Keith, at least compared to the rest of the Tigers. ZIPS has Keith putting up a .252/.314/.434 slash line with 19 homers in 558 plate appearances. That’d be good for 1.9 fWAR, fourth on the roster behind Greene (2.8), Torkelson (2.3) and, surprisingly (to us, though probably not to Greenberg and Harris), Mark Canha (2.1). (ZIPS doesn’t love his defense, but we’re going to assume that’s a product of the shift from third to second base and move along.)

Steamer: This is the product of a trio of New Yorkers, and, unlike the Mets, actually pretty reliable. It, too, likes Keith, picking him to put up 14 homers and a .261/.326/.427 slash line in 477 plate appearances over just 117 games. His 1.8 fWAR projection is second on the Tigers, behind Greene (3.0) and ahead of teammates such as Tork (1.7), Gio Urshela (1.0) and Javier Báez (0.9 in 523 PAs, oh nooo).

ATC: Another system from a New Yorker and also clearly outperforming the Mets (but who doesn’t?), Ariel Cohen’s projection has Keith as the third-most productive Tiger, with 14 homers and a .256/.320/.422 slash line resulting in 1.5 fWAR, behind Greene (2.7) and Tork (1.5). (Canha falls to sixth, with 1.0 fWAR, here.)

PECOTA: It’s not all sunshine for Mr. Keith. The projection system from the folks at Baseball Prospectus (and originally Nate Silver) foresees a bit less power, with the PECOTA-Keith tagging 11 homers (and 24 doubles) in 492 plate appearances, with a .241/.306/.386 slash line and 0.9 WAR, in its 50th-percentile projection. At the best end of the scale (99th percentile), PECOTA-Keith goes off for 17 homers, 25 doubles, an .800 OPS and 2.8 WAR. At the first percentile, meanwhile, PECOTA-Keith has just eight homers, a .615 OPS and minus-0.5 WAR — about what the Tigers got from their third basemen last season. (PECOTA-Riley Greene, in case you were wondering, produces 1.6 WAR in his 50th-percentile projection, 4.1 at the 99th and minus-0.1 at the first.)

Of course, all these projections — there seems to be a consensus around a .750 OPS — are just that: Projections. Of note: Just 16 rookies 22 or younger have posted even a .740 OPS over 400 plate appearances at the keystone sack in the modern era, including notable names such as Rogers Hornsby (1916), Joe Morgan (1965), Robinson Caño (2005) and, most recently, Gleyber Torres (2018).

We won’t really know what Keith (the real one, not PECOTA-Keith, Slayer of Megabites) can do in the majors until he steps to the plate at Guaranteed Rate Field in Chicago on March 28 … and maybe not even for a couple months after that.

And now that we’ve got all that sorted out (sort of), here are some other questions (totally not made up) that have been bandied around the Tigers-sphere …

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So Keith’s the top hitting prospect. Who’s the top pitching prospect?

Technically — at least according to MLB Pipeline — Keith is only the Tigers’ No. 2 hitting prospect. The top bat is a ways away, however: Max Clark, last summer’s No. 3 overall pick out of an Indiana high school. The young outfielder crushed rookie ball, with a .954 OPS in 56 plate appearances, before cooling off (.532 OPS in 51 PAs) with Low-A Lakeland. Of course, this might be the last time we have to explain who Clark is; as the Freep’s Jeff Seidel detailed here last week, Clark is already finding his power in Lakeland, thanks to 15 additional pounds of muscle and a tweaked swing.

And. On. The. Mound?

That’d be Jackson Jobe, the No. 3 overall pick in 2021 out of an Oklahoma high school. The right-hander missed 2½ with a back issue last spring, then shot through the Tigers organization with a 2.81 ERA, 81 strikeouts and six — SIX — walks in 64 innings. That included six shutout innings in his final start with Double-A Erie, where he’s expected to start this season with an eye toward a late 2024 MLB debut. Though we won’t have to wait that long to actually watch him pitch — Jobe is making his MLB spring debut Tuesday against the Minnesota Twins in Bally Sports Detroit’s next televised game. Though, as Our Man Petzold noted here, he’s already thinking about October.

Actually, Jobe’s just one of a trio of young arms drawing attention on the prospect lists, with lefty Brant Hurter (a 2021 seventh-round pick out of Georgia Tech) and righty Ty Madden (another 2021 first-rounder out of Texas) also potentially set to debut later this season. The good news for the Tigers: They’re already taking tips from the rotation’s current young trio — Matt Manning, Casey Mize and Tarik Skubal (the Opening Day starter) — as Our Man Seidel revealed this weekend.

Tork’s on first. Keith’s on second. Who’s on third?

No, WHO’S on first, WHAT’S on second and … oh, you really want to know? Well, at some point this season — but not in the first couple of months — it’ll be Jace Jung, the Tigers’ top pick in 2022. A star second baseman at Texas Tech (and the brother of Texas Rangers third baseman Josh Jung), Jace switched to third once the Tigers moved Keith to second. So why has he gotten so many appearances this spring — while slashing .400/.500/.600 in 20 plate appearances — back at second? Our Man Petzold has the answer, via manager Hinch:  "As I told Jace, that doesn't mean he can't play one or the other," Hinch said, "but he sure would like two shots at getting called up at some point than just one position." Head here to find out more about Jung’s development.

(Also, Tork will be on first, but former Milwaukee first-round pick Keston Hiura is getting some time, too, as the Tigers audition potential backups. Our Man Petzold broke down here how Hiura reworked his swing in search of more power.)

And who’s in the broadcast booth?

No, WHO’S ON FIR… just kidding …. Perhaps the Tigers’ most well-regarded offseason move came away from the field, as they persuaded burgeoning star play-by-play announcer Jason Benetti to ditch his hometown Chicago White Sox for the Detroit booth. Benetti has a busy schedule year-round, with NFL duties in the fall and college basketball work in the winter, meaning he has only had a couple of turns on the mic this spring. Our Man Monarrez took some time in Lakeland to chat up Benetti, who has already delivered some memorable one-liners. Next up? Tuesday’s game vs. the Twins, featuring Jobe in a relief appearance and free-agent signee Kenta Maeda to start against last season’s teammates.

(While we’re on the topic of Maeda, he’s not quite in midseason form yet, but he’s not worried, either. Our Man Petzold has the reason here.)

Whatever happened to last season’s breakout arms?

That question has just the right amount of vagueness for us to mention left-handed reliever Tyler Holton, who went from spring training waiver claim to delivering a stellar 2.11 ERA with 74 strikeouts and 18 walks over 85⅓ innings. The biggest change for Holton is … no change at all. For the first time, he didn’t have to add a pitch over the offseason; as Our Man Petzold noted, he’s just fine with his six-pitch repertoire.

We should also mention right-hander Alex Lange, who picked up an American League Reliever of the Month Award in May, lost his role as the closer by August and bounced back to finish off 11 games with a 2.70 ERA in September. And this year? The 28-year-old, who struggled with his control throughout 2023, is focused on perfecting his first pitch. Our Man Petzold has the details here.

Any games to watch this week?

Most of the prospects already mentioned here (including Clark and Hurter) will start to get less and less playing time with the Tigers just as Bally Sports starts showing more than one game a week since, y’know, the big-league Tigers need to get their licks in. But there’ll be one main chance to see (almost) all the kids on the field at once, as MLB debuts its “Spring Breakout” program, a series of intersquad prospect-only games mixing players from all levels of an organization. The Tigers’ youngsters will face the Phillies’ youngsters — assuming Dave Dombrowski hasn’t traded them all — at 1:05 p.m. Saturday in Lakeland, with Alan Trammell as their manager. Who all is on the Tigers’ roster? Our Man Petzold, of course, has the rundown here for the game you'll be able to watch at tigers.com (or MLB.com, if you're inclined that way).

Tigers birthdays this week: Blaine Hardy (37 on Thursday), Michael Fulmer (31 on Friday), Robert Fick (50 on Friday), Kyle Funkhouser (30 on Saturday), Curtis Granderson (43 on Saturday).

TL;DR

Yes, there are a lot of new faces in Tigers camp this spring. But there’s also a few missing. Miguel Cabrera retired, and another longtime great, Freep photographer Kirthmon F. Dozier, died suddenly in January at age 65. Dozier chronicled Detroit sports for the Freep for nearly three decades, covering winning Pistons, Wings, Wolverines, Spartans and Tigers squads from 1995 on.

You might not have known him on sight, but you almost certainly know at least one of his photos, from Tom Izzo smiling while cutting down the nets to Steve Yzerman lifting the Stanley Cup to Cabrera’s final play at first base in October, as well as his postgame drenching.

We’ll bid you adieu for a week with this collection of his greatest work over the years.

Contact Ryan Ford at rford@freepress.com. Follow him on X (which used to be Twitter, y’know?) @theford.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Tigers Newsletter: 2B Colt Keith could be rare hit right away