Scott Harris Sends Clear Message to Tigers Star Slugger Riley Greene on Strikeouts
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The Detroit Tigers suffered a heartbreaking elimination in the 15th inning of Game 5 of the ALDS against the Seattle Mariners to fall one moment short of their first ALCS appearance since 2013.
While a nice playoff run can help to cover up the team's issues at least a little bit, getting deep into the playoffs should not discount the issues Detroit had, which led to them blowing a 15.5 game divisional lead and handing it over to the Cleveland Guardians.
After looking like the best team in baseball for huge portions of the first half of the year, the Tigers faded hard starting around the All-Star break and never seemed to get fully back on track. Injuries and inconsistency in the starting rotation played a big role there, but so did an offense that just didn't produce at the same rate.
Lack of contact and too many strikeouts were huge reasons for this, and nobody embodied this more than star outfielder Riley Greene. Leading the American League in strikeouts with 201, Greene clearly needs to cut down on this dramatically.
President of baseball operations Scott Harris issued what seemed like a stern warning to Greene at his end of season press conference Monday.
Harris' warning comes just weeks after Greene said via Marc Ryan of 97.1 The Ticket that "nobody cares" about the strikeouts.
Scott Harris Emphasizes Importance of Detroit Striking Out Less
Riley Greene: “Nobody cares about my 200+ strikeouts.”
— Marc Ryan (@MarcRyanOnAir) October 13, 2025
His boss, Scott Harris: “I care immensely about those strikeouts 😬.” #RepDetroit pic.twitter.com/qe3vJgPDi0
"We need to make more contact as an organization, we need to move the baseball more in the big leagues than we are," Harris said.
"This has been a theme for the last two years, I think there are a lot of players on our team right now that have some swing and miss in their games....I think there are some things we can do to improve upon it, but the time for that is now. We need to start making those gains right now, we need to make sure that we have a team next year that can consistently make enough contact to be a productive offense."
Harris went on to cite the fact that in months where the team strikeout rate was lowest, the overall offensive numbers for the lineup were highest. Bringing up June, Harris said not only was it their lowest strikeout rate month, it was also their by far best month of offensive production.
Choosing to emphasize strikeouts after Greene made the comments he did at the end of the regular season felt like a defined choice by Harris.
Is There Disconnect Between Greene and Harris?
Riley Greene: “Nobody cares about my strikeouts.”
— Marc Ryan (@MarcRyanOnAir) September 21, 2025
Me: 🙋♂️ I care about your strikeouts. #RepDetroit
pic.twitter.com/d0bJMuFRcZ
"To be honest, nobody cares about the strikeouts," Greene said with a shrug when asked about the alarming rate of K's. "If I'm not putting the ball in play and I'm not doing what I'm doing, then maybe it's an issue....Obviously I wanna work on it and get better at it, but it is what it is and we can't change it now. So just move ahead and try to keep doing what I'm doing."
Clearly, Green's mindset on the strikeouts and the one who makes the roster decisions mindset are on two very different pages. Harris may or may not have been speaking directly to Greene through the media, but the 25-year-old is certainly the biggest example of the problem.
Of course, his 36 home runs and 111 RBI this season make it easier to overlook a high number of strikeouts, but it seems in a best case Harris is going to ask Greene to change his approach. For now, it's unlikely that it goes further than that.
With that being said, Harris is putting the team -- and Greene specifically -- on notice that they are going to emphasize less at-bats being given away next year, and time will tell if Greene gets on board.
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Michael Brauner is a 2022 graduate of the University of Alabama with a degree in Sports Media. He covers various MLB teams across the On SI network and you can also find his work on Yellowhammer News covering the Alabama Crimson Tide and Auburn Tigers as well as on the radio producing and co-hosting 'The Opening Kickoff' every weekday morning on 105.5 WNSP FM in Mobile, Alabama.