Spencer Torkelson readies for second season in the Majors

The Casa Grande graduate is calling his first season in the Major League a lesson learned.|

No one is any more anxious for the 2023 Major League baseball season to begin than Casa Grande High School graduate Spencer Torkelson.

Position players reported to the Detroit Tigers spring training camp in Lakeland, Fla. this week, and Torkelson was among the most excited to get started with his second season.

“I feel really good,” he said from his Arizona home just a few days before heading out to Florida. “I’ve put in a lot of work, both physical and mental. I took a week off to let my body recover after the end of the season, and then it was right back to the drawing board to develop a plan of attack for the off season.”

He did manage a couple of trips back to Petaluma to visit his parents, Lori and Rick Torkelson, catch up with high school friends, and take batting practice off pitches from his uncle and Little League coach Mike Enochs.

It was all in preparation for a bounce-back year after a disappointing rookie season.

After being picked No. 1 in the 2020 Major League draft following a record-setting, three-year career at Arizona State University, Torkelson quickly rose through the minor league ranks and was the starting first baseman for the Detroit Tigers when the 2022 season began. He became the heir apparent to future Hall of Famer Miguel Cabrera, who became a full-time designated hitter.

Things did not go exactly as planned.

Torkelson batted .203 with 16 doubles, a triple and eight home runs, walking 37 times but striking out 99. He spent some time with the Triple-A Toledo Mud Hens.

“It wasn’t easy – not how I would have drawn it up,” he said.

But he added: “There are two ways I can go. I can feel sorry for myself or I can use it as a lesson.”

Torkelson went for the second option, calling it a lesson learned as he optimistically prepares for his second Major League season.

One of the biggest lessons was that Major League Baseball is not easy.

“It is definitely a different game,” he said. “There are guys who have been playing the game since I’ve been writing my ABCs. The game comes at you fast.”

Baseball is a game of adjustments, and Torkelson said technology and communication have made that even more important. “You might be hammering a pitch one day and by the end of the day every team knows exactly what you’re hitting,” he explained.

Drafted as a power hitter after setting home run records at ASU, Torkelson might benefit this year from changes to Detroit’s Comerica Park, but said it will not change his game. The Tigers are moving the center field fence in by 10 feet and lowering the outfield wall a foot and a half in center, right-center and right fields. The center field fence remains the second deepest in the Majors behind Coors Field in Denver.

“It won’t make any difference in my approach,” the player said. “At the end of the year it might be something that will add a few more home runs, but my approach has always been the same my whole life.”

That approach, he explained, is to hit line drives and to hit the ball hard. He does not buy into the theory of sacrificing hits for home runs. “Strikeouts suck,” he said simply.

Torkelson is excited about not only his own upcoming season, but that of his team. The Tigers finished 66-96 last season, fourth in the five-team American League Central Division – but they have one of the youngest teams in baseball.

Many preseason analyses have the Tigers placed as high as third this year, with Torkelson the starting first baseman and key to their improvement.

“The Tigers have been great,” Torkelson said. “They believe in me. I think we are going to have a good year. The Tigers are doing it right, they are building from the ground up. I’m happy with where we’re at. It is a lot of fun going out and learning along the way with your buddies, being on the ride together.”

Torkelson now lives with his girlfriend and their French bulldog puppy, Coco, in Arizona. “It is feeling more and more like home,” he said. “But I still like coming back to Petaluma. I’m kind of a homebody.”

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