Tigers' Biggest Concern for Riley Greene Continues During Spring Training
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There is no denying that the 2025 season was a breakout year for Detroit Tigers outfielder Riley Greene. Greene finished the year with 111 runners brought home while also hitting 36 long balls, and making contact 155 times, all career- highs.
By the end of the year, Greene heard his name called when the AL Silver Sluggers were being announced for the outfield. It was a great year for him, but he found himself on the wrong side of history for the Tigers' organization, as he is the lone player to cross 200 strikeouts in a season, demolishing the 35-year-old record set by Cecil Fielder (182).
Those struggles continued into their postseason run as he had more strikeouts (9) than total games that they played (8). In those eight outings Detroit had in the 2025 playoffs, Greene had multiple strikeouts in three of them.
Unfortunately, he did not leave this in 2025 as he is the lone member of the team with double-digit strikeouts at this point of pre-season games, with 10. If anything, it is getting worse the more he plays.
In Greene's last four games that he has been available for, he has been retired at least once. His problem hasn't been his ability to hit, and he is hitting over .300 in March. But this isn't a part of his game that can continue, especially if he is to lead them to a deep run in October.
What the Tigers Need from Greene in 2026
This offseason for the Tigers was rather quiet until they made a bang at the last minute regarding their starting rotation with a pair of key additions in Justin Verlander and Framber Valdez. However, a bat was not signed even though the roster was begging for a veteran.
Taking this into consideration, two things are clear about what management is thinking: they will be calling on some of their top prospects, like Kevin McGongile, and the team will be counting on their stars to perform like stars, like Greene.
Yes, the offense needs Greene to put up the same amount of production, or at least similar. He led the team in RBI, hits, homers, and doubles. But, he cannot be such an easy strikeout. Work the pitcher, get comfortable, and value every at-bat.
The amount of money put into pitching clearly means they want to win now. The clubhouse will count on players like Greene, Javier Baez, Gleyber Torres, Spencer Torkelson, etc., to step up and take back the division.
Maddy Dickens resides in Loveland, Colorado. She grew up with two older brothers, where their lives revolved around sports. She earned a master's degree in business management from Tarleton State University while simultaneously playing basketball and competing in rodeo at the collegiate level. She successfully parlayed a reserve national championship into a professional rodeo career and now stays involved in upper-level athletics by writing for On SI on several different MLB teams' pages, along with some NCAA sites.