DETROIT -- Riley Greene doesn’t want to hear about trade-offs, about sacrificing contact for power. It’s not his game plan.
“There is no trade-off,” the fourth-year Tigers slugger said last weekend in Kansas City. “I'm not trying to swing and miss.”
Nobody holds himself to a tougher standard than Greene. When he struggled with groundouts early in his career, he worked hard on getting more lift in his swing. In the process, Greene found the power that had been a key to his rise as a prospect. His average swing path of 45 degrees is the highest in the Majors this year, according to Statcast, two degrees higher than Freddie Freeman at No. 2.
After injuries marked Greene’s first couple seasons, he invested heavily into getting in great shape. Last offseason, that effort focused on staying fresh throughout the grind of a long season, from changing his diet to daily treatment after games.
He sees the long-term goal better than most 24-year-olds probably would. He knows how to make adjustments as a season goes along. He dug himself out of an early-season slump to reprise his role as an elite run producer. He’s backing up his production from last season, and in some cases topping it, including a career-best 135 OPS+ and a 133 wRC+ that sits just off last year’s pace.
That production makes Greene's career-high strikeout rate and MLB-leading 85 strikeouts look at best like a quirk and at worst like nitpicking. Still, it’s a curiosity that means he’ll have days like Saturday.
No Tiger produced much against Cubs starter Jameson Taillon or Chicago’s bullpen at Comerica Park. Detroit’s lone run in the 6-1 loss came when Zach McKinstry tripled and beat third baseman Matt Shaw’s throw home on a Jake Rogers grounder in the fifth. But Taillon’s change of speeds put Greene on a roller-coaster ride, striking out swinging three times before Daniel Palencia sent him down chasing a 101.5 mph fastball in the ninth.
Greene knows how to handle it, and so does his manager.
“I haven’t talked to him after the game,” A.J. Hinch said. “Might be one to leave him alone for 24 hours and let him come back ready to hit in the middle of our order tomorrow. But you know, he has these stretches a little bit. Sometimes it’s about [pitch] selection, sometimes it’s about approach.”
Saturday’s at-bats had different routes to similar fates. Taillon threw Greene only one fastball in his first-inning at-bat, alternating curveballs and changeups before sending Greene lunging at the latter. Three innings later, Taillon threw Greene three fastballs -- the first a called strike, the second fouled off and the third a high heater past him.
Greene’s sixth-inning at-bat saw one fastball sandwiched between four changeups; Greene swung and missed on three of them.
“We didn’t get to the fastball, and we didn’t wait on the change,” Hinch said of Taillon, who had five strikeouts over seven innings of three-hit ball. “So he had us on both sides of the spectrum.”
Greene has been more aggressive this season. His overall swing percentage is up from 44.3 percent of pitches last year to 51.7 percent this season entering Saturday, an MLB-high 7.4 percent rise for someone whose previous high was 46.8 in 2023. His 8.6 percent rise in swing rate on pitches out of the zone (23.1 percent last year, 31.7 percent this season) is second highest behind White Sox infielder Lenyn Sosa.
“Chasing more this year,” Greene said last week. “That's going to add to the swing and miss, because I'm expanding out of the zone for … don't know why. But that's something that has been addressed and needs to be fixed. Swing and miss comes with just expanding and not swinging at good pitches.”
To Greene’s credit, his 4.3 percent jump in whiff rate is more modest, not even among the 15-highest jumps this season. He’s just behind AL MVP favorite Aaron Judge.
And when Greene connects, he’s doing damage, from his 429-foot home run May 30 in Kansas City to his three-hit game Wednesday that included four balls hit at 100-plus miles per hour against the White Sox.
Same approach, he said.
“I'm just trying to make things happen instead of making things come to me,” Greene said last weekend. “I don't know what the number is, but if I swing in the zone, I'm sure I'm hitting the ball more. If you cut down on chase, you cut down on swing and miss.”
Greene will figure it out. He might swing and miss while he does, but he’ll also produce.