Hinch on Riley Greene’s future approach at the plate: “I’ve talked to him about his approach, his thought process… you can’t be in the box and be mentally defensive about strikeouts.”
Hinch on Parker Meadows’ late-season struggles: “Parker was consistently trying to get himself back. He had one of the most random injuries I’ve ever seen… that sent him on a path of playing catch-up the entire season.”
Harris on Skubal’s impact: “He’s the best pitcher in baseball… it would be arrogant to claim that we could do all this stuff without him… he’s here and we’re glad he’s here.”
Harris on trade-deadline decisions regarding pitching: “To be fair, when we acquired (Chris) Paddack or (Charlie) Morton, the plan wasn’t for them to play big roles for us in the postseason… we pitched really well in the postseason… I’m not necessarily sure the pitching was the problem for us in the postseason.”
Harris on finding players that make more contact: “I think we started to audible to an approach that tried to cover every pitch type in every location, and that’s really hard to do at this level.”
“Like it or not, it was hard to watch in September. I fully admit that, I felt that too, these guys are gonna be better off for it.”
Hinch’s added comments: “The offensive side of the game in this era has never been harder… the challenge is getting tougher is tougher, and I watch all these games and I watch a high contact team like the Cubs get six base runners against the Brewers.”
“Pitch recognition and choosing when to be aggressive, when to be patient against each pitcher is paramount, over 162 (games) it’s agonizing, because there’s going to be peaks and valleys in everybody’s year.”
Harris on if he views the Tigers as World Series contenders: “I hope that I’ve demonstrated since I’ve been here that we’re focused on winning baseball games and trying to win the World Series, not winters or deadlines.”
“We have been focused on a path of development, of getting more out of our players and supplementing our players with external additions that can help us get even better.”
A.J. Hinch on his extension, and staying the Tigers manager: “I’m so happy being in Detroit and i’m so proud being the manager here. When you have an environment that both pushes you and satisfies you, you wanna be in it.”
Harris on Tarik Skubal: “I can’t comment on our players being traded or being free agents… I’m gonna respond by not commenting on it. Skubal is a Tiger and I hope he wins the Cy Young Award for the second consecutive year. He’s an incredible pitcher and we’re lucky to have him.”
Harris on other deals that could’ve been made: “We went into the market thinking, ‘We think the reliever market is really deep and we think the starter market is really thin.'”
“I think in the starter market, going into the deadline, we didn’t think any of the starters would’ve have made a big impact during the postseason.”
Harris on possible trade-deadline regrets: “I don’t think I’ve ever gone through a trade deadline completely satisfied.”
“I don’t regret those deals at all… so those are my feelings on whether there’s any source of regret or not. I can’t get caught up on thoughts and wishes…”
Scott Harris initial comments: “I just wanna talk generally about a few things rattling in my head… I wish we weren’t here right now.. we were really close to being in Toronto but we aren’t. Anytime you get to the playoffs and fail to make the World Series, it leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.”
“In some ways it felt like this season was multiple seasons in one, we gotta look at all of it, all the good, all the bad of it.”
“I understand the arc of our season isn’t doing any favors… we deserve the negative narratives that surround our team.”
“We gotta get a whole lot better at a whole lot of different places on this team.”
“We need to make sure that we have a team next year that can make enough contact to make some noise.”
Press Conference preview
The Detroit Tigers’ season, which began with so much promise, ended on Friday night in a 3-2, 15-inning loss to the Seattle Mariners in Game 5 of the American League Division Series.
Tigers president Scott Harris and manager AJ Hinch will discuss the season in a press conference on Monday at 11 a.m. from Comerica Park.
Follow along here with live updates by Detroit News contributor Kameron Goodwill.
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