Tigers’ Casey Mize and Spencer Torkelson are finally fulfilling their draft prophecies

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DETROIT — They first met waiting for an elevator. It was the summer of 2020. Masks covered both of their faces. Casey Mize, the No. 1 pick from the 2018 draft, stood on the bottom floor of a hotel. Spencer Torkelson, the No. 1 pick fresh out of Arizona State, walked around the corner.

They bumped elbows — people were doing that back then, remember? — and exchanged small talk. Strange times. But back then, Mize and Torkelson were twin hopes for the Detroit Tigers franchise. Both were the consensus top player in their draft classes. Both came as the fruits of a dreadful rebuild.

With Mize anchoring the pitching staff and Torkelson powering the middle of the order, the Tigers were supposed to ascend straight up. No detours. Kind of like that elevator. 

“The word ‘expectation’ is gonna be brought up a lot to him,” Mize said way back then, asked about his advice for Torkelson. “My advice would be to have internal expectations and just do your best to fulfill that. … Everybody is gonna have different thoughts and different expectations of you. You’re not going to be able to make everybody happy. Somebody is going to be wrong. A lot of people are going to be wrong. So why would you feel that burden?”

You probably know the story from there. Mize battled through injuries and inconsistencies. Lost the feel for his splitter. Pitched through back troubles, had pain shooting down a nerve in his leg. He never quite commanded the fastball as advertised. He had Tommy John surgery. Got his back fixed, too. He got healthy but was left off last season’s ALDS roster.

His search for the stuff that made him a heralded prospect was long and winding.

Some never lost faith. 

“Never a doubt,” Torkelson said of Mize. “He’s a bulldog.”

Much like Mize, Torkelson tasted the best and worse of life in the big leagues. He looked puzzled as a rookie. Usually composed, he slammed his bat to the ground as the outs piled up. He got sent down, slowly regained confidence, then belted 31 home runs the next season.

Just when it looked as though he was entrenched as a fixture in the Tigers order, the woes returned last season. His timing was off. His swing looked pretty but didn’t actually translate to success. Another trip to Toledo beckoned. He faced the cameras, answered questions about his own struggles and kept a smile on his face almost every time.

But this offseason, the Tigers signed Gleyber Torres to play second base and moved Colt Keith to first. Torkelson’s roster spot was hanging by a thread. There was reason to believe in the power. Data points from 1,469 MLB plate appearances also suggested a breakthrough was unlikely.

Behind the scenes, Torkelson never relented.

“I know how hard he’s worked,” Mize said. “He’s such a good teammate.”

Mize and Torkelson play a strange game for a living. One adjustment, one good day, can sometimes change every fortune. Other times, you do all the right things but it takes time to materialize into something you can see and feel. Proof? All those years ago, you could have envisioned it looking a lot like what we saw Saturday at Comerica Park.

Mize shoved his way through seven innings, allowing only one run against the Kansas City Royals. His fastball command was dialed in. His splitter and sliders played their parts. He got ahead in counts, induced a deluge of weak contact and toyed with Royals hitters. With the Tigers’ bullpen short-handed and taxed, Mize delivered his longest start since July 29, 2021.

“He pitched extraordinarily well,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “He was efficient. He was pounding first-pitch strikes. He got some swings and misses. He varied his breaking ball quite a bit. I can’t speak highly enough of his performance.”

Casey Mize has a 2.22 ERA through his first four starts in 2025. (Junfu Han/USA Today Network)

Then, when the Tigers needed offense, that prized right-handed bat from Arizona State delivered. After two difficult at-bats against Kansas City starter Seth Lugo, Torkelson did what he might not have done a year ago. He kept his composure and remained locked in his approach. He got down in the count 0-2, took a fastball, then fouled off a wicked 1-2 slurve.

With two outs, Lugo had been pounding him on the outer third of the plate. Lugo finally came in and left a splitter hanging. Torkelson turned and sent the ball flying like a bottle rocket. The majestic shot left his bat at a 41-degree angle. It kept sailing over the left-field wall and into the bullpen for a three-run home run.

Torkelson’s seventh homer of this young season accounted for the entirety of Detroit’s offense in a 3-1 victory.

“The actual adjustment came from the uncomfortable swings that we saw him have earlier in the game,” Hinch said. “Tork had to separate at-bat to at-bat today. That, to me, is tremendous growth and one of the reasons that he is so comfortable in the batter’s box.”

3-RUN TORK BOMB 💣 pic.twitter.com/k0gzdqI1rl

— Detroit Tigers (@tigers) April 19, 2025

And so those draft visions materialized all in one day. Really, it’s been that way for all of April. It just took a whole lot of ups and downs to get here. 

With his body healthy and his arm angle raised, Mize’s splitter has regained its life. He’s finally commanding his fastball like he was projected to do. He’s developed three different sliders that have bamboozled hitters en route to a 2.22 ERA through his first four starts in 2025.

Torkelson is one of baseball’s hottest hitters to start the year, reclaiming his role at first base and ranking tied for the MLB lead with 15 extra-base hits through 21 games. His OPS is 1.049.

For as much mileage as Mize and Torkelson have worn, they are still young. Still supremely talented. Still have chances to be something close to the players they were drafted to be. The Tigers are off to their best start since 2015. They are 8-1 at home. They are 8-1 against their AL Central opponents. They would not be here without Mize and Torkelson. 

“I’m proud of them,” Hinch said. “I don’t know what else to say.”

Hinch has seen all of Torkelson’s career and almost all of Mize’s. There were so many times the path looked blurred. Saturday afternoon, Hinch cautioned that neither player is a finished product. This is a long season. Success is hard to achieve and harder to secure. 

But for right now? We’re seeing draft prophecies come to fruition. At long last, we’re seeing visions come to life. 

“There was certainly a time in this organization where the whole world was on their shoulders,” Hinch said. “They were the guys the fans were waiting on, the organization was waiting on. It hasn’t been an easy road for either one of them. To see them both now carry us is a great testament to what they’ve had to endure.”

(Top photo of Spencer Torkelson: Duane Burleson/Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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