Tigers' Riley Greene has become the hitter he was drafted to be. Can his growth continue?

New York Times

02-06-2025

DETROIT — From Riley Greene's earliest days in the organization, he developed a saying with Detroit Tigers legend Alan Trammell. It started at minor-league parks and the instructional league. It's persisted to this day.
Greene would walk into the building. Trammell would see him and smile.
'You showed up,' Trammell might say. 'You show up, you got a chance.'
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There are different road maps to success. All of them involve forward momentum. You can arrive at the park and hope to crush a six-run homer. You can try to swing away all the bad days with one violent bat-to-ball connection. Or you can simply keep showing up, paying the daily price this game demands.
More than the momentous home runs, the energetic walk-offs and the champagne celebrations, Major League Baseball is about the survival of the daily grind. Doing one thing well, over and over again. Failing from time to time but punching the clock again anyway.
That's been the real recipe behind Riley Greene's success, the fuel behind his development from top prospect to All-Star outfielder. This game demands patience. Rewards those who can handle the struggle.
4️⃣2️⃣9️⃣
Longest HR of the season for Riley Greene 💣 pic.twitter.com/4dQrMPjIya
— Detroit Tigers (@tigers) May 31, 2025
'Experience is everything in this game,' Greene said at his locker last week. 'I don't have that much experience, but from what I do have, I've learned so much. I know what it takes.'
Talk all you want about attack angles and groundball rates. Those have been central in Greene's ascendence. He has the steepest swing in the game. He's cut his groundball rate by more than 10 percentage points since his rookie season. He's also a player who thrives in the rhythms of the game, who enjoys showing up at the park, who watches every pitch from the wooden perch alongside his hitting coaches, slapping the dugout padding and cheering along with his childlike energy.
Greene's personality in front of the cameras is more subdued. In a short time, he has mastered the cliches needed to endure any interview. Off the field, he's stayed true to himself. He will sit at his locker and talk about boats, fishing and country music.
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'He's never a guy that's gonna stray too far from his roots, as he shows me picture after picture of these fishes that he catches over the winter,' manager A.J. Hinch joked this spring. 'He's as authentic as they come.'
None of that means Greene hasn't endured periods of doubt. He felt that in the minor leagues, where he slept with his bat during one slump. He felt it in his rookie year, nights when he would go home and wonder if he would ever hit again. Teammates who knew Greene and his talent simply laughed. 'He thinks he's terrible after one rough night,' infielder Ryan Kreidler once said. Greene felt it even this season, switching his walk-up song from Morgan Wallen to Rihanna, and finally back to Wallen, as he emerged from his latest slump.
Part of his steady improvements in the major leagues have been a result of routine. More detailed game planning. More patience at the plate.
'I think what he's learning is that more is not always better,' Hinch said. 'But the right type of preparation is leading him to better results in the game consistently. I think the other thing, him growing up in this era of baseball, he gets a lot more feedback than most. He gets a lot of attention from fans, gets a lot of attention from the media, gets a lot of attention from opponents. He burst onto the national stage last year at the All-Star Game. He's learning how to compartmentalize all that and just be ready to play every day.'
Early in his career, Greene was more prone to fear and fret. He was hitting .224 through his first 55 MLB games.
So what would he tell a rookie version of himself?
'That's a good question,' Greene said, leaning back in a gray chair.
He cocked his head and mulled over the thought.
'That it's gonna be OK, no matter what happens,' he finally said. 'It's a hard game, and we all go through ups and downs. … It's gonna be OK, and we're gonna figure it out.'
This past April, the current version of Greene was not content with his results. He endured a 1-for-32 stretch with 19 strikeouts. His swing decisions were puzzling. He pulled his head and whiffed on hittable pitches — chase and swing-and-miss are still vulnerabilities. After the worst games, the stress was visible in the set of his shoulders. But in the back of his mind, there was a greater trust, a deeper confidence that all this would turn.
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'I knew I was gonna be fine,' Greene said. 'It was just a matter of time.'
Sure enough, a brutal slump morphed into a scorching hot streak. And here in the middle of the order for a first-place team, Greene continues to look like exactly the player he was drafted to be when the Tigers selected him with the fifth pick in 2019. He finished May with 24 RBIs, the most he's ever had in a single month. He had an .894 OPS in 27 games. He now has a 131 wRC+ for the season. He's hit 13 home runs, tied for sixth-most in the American League. He is still only 24 years old.
'When he gets a good pitch to hit, gets a good swing off, it's must-see TV,' Hinch said.
These days, the Tigers face another challenge. How do they keep Greene healthy? In his young career, he has already lost time to a fractured foot, a stress reaction in his back and a UCL tear he sustained while diving in the outfield. Last season, Greene grew fatigued in the summer and had a short stint on the injured list with a hamstring strain. This season, Greene's average sprint speed has declined. Advanced metrics show he has lost some burst in the outfield.
Part of Greene's maturation has been learning to care for his body. He cut out his beloved Chick-fil-A this winter. He goes through a diligent daily routine to take care of his hamstrings. He monitors his sleep scores and takes supplements to aid his rest and recovery.
'I'm terrible at math, but I try to do the math in my head at night,' Greene said. 'If I go to bed at 11 and wake up at 11, 'OK, we're good.''
Still, there are concerns. Last week, Hinch gave Greene and Zach McKinstry, both left-handed hitters, a day off against a right-handed starter. Greene, in particular, was running on fumes. He played the next day and started at DH the game after that. 'Riley, it always feels like he's right on that edge of dealing with something,' Hinch said. 'We're just trying to be smart with what we're doing and where we're at.'
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So far, Greene has held up in the face of a heavy workload. He has started 49 games in the outfield, including 13 games in center. He has started at DH seven times and made an appearance in all but two of Detroit's 60 games this season. The aches and pains are a part of the story. But despite the lingering concerns about Greene's health, he is a daily presence in this lineup because he is the centerpiece of the team's order.
Even when times have been tough, he has kept showing up. Kept trusting the work. Stayed true in this slow-and-steady journey to becoming one of the game's best young hitters.