Story by
Detroit Tigers' A.J. Hinch: His peers consider him 'one of the best managers in the game'
- Story by
- Detroit Tigers' A.J. Hinch: His peers consider him 'one of the best managers in the game'
A.J. Hinch is a one-of-a-kind manager.
He won it all, lost it all and found his way back. He has proven he can transform an entire franchise by reshaping the culture behind the scenes, helping prospects develop into stars and winning in the margins on the field, establishing himself as one of the best minds in baseball. He is an honest communicator, and in turn, he has earned the trust of his players.
Advertisement
"I don't know what it is, but he finds a way to get guys to buy-in — to make you want to run through a wall for him," said Toronto Blue Jays outfielder George Springer , a four-time All-Star who played for Hinch from 2015-19.
That player buy-in pushed the Detroit Tigers to end one of MLB's longest active postseason droughts in 2024, advancing to October for the first time since 2014. The magical 31-11 run to the playoffs wouldn't have been possible without Hinch pushing all the right strategic buttons.
But the culture Hinch established was the real reason the Tigers returned to their winning ways.
"Buy-in is not for free," Hinch said in early October, after the Tigers swept the Houston Astros in the American League wild-card series. "You've got to get players to understand the bigger goal. If you can switch the psyche and maybe take a tick of the pride and ego out of it, anything is possible."
Detroit Tigers manager A.J. Hinch walks off the field after speaking with umpires before a game against the Chicago White Sox at Comerica Park in Detroit on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024.
Not only has Hinch's buy-in captured the attention of Tigers players, but the culture he fostered entering his fifth season in Detroit is also a topic of discussion across the game, with fellow managers impressed by how he did it.
Advertisement
It's something every manager wants.
"You're trying to maximize your roster and your team to win games," said Kevin Cash , manager of the Tampa Bay Rays . "In that moment, he was doing it better than anybody."
"But I think that all starts with the leadership of making sure you get the buy-in, that's the big thing," said Aaron Boone , who manages the New York Yankees . "It's one thing on paper to play things out, but to be able to get the team behind it, that's what the Tigers had last year. It was about Tigers."
"Even in the playoffs, I talked to him," said Derek Shelton , the Pittsburgh Pirates ' manager. "I was like, 'How are you scripting it?' And he told me. It was really cool to see, but the most important part when you do that is you have to have player buy-in. You don't have player buy-in unless your manager is a really good communicator."
Advertisement
PLAYOFFS AGAIN? Detroit Tigers predictions for 2025 season: Fearless answers to 5 critical questions
Springer — the MLB player Hinch is closest to and considers like a family member — recalls a conversation from 2015, when Hinch was a first-year manager with the Astros . Springer wanted to know the most important part of his new manager's job.
It wasn't knowing the rules like an umpire.
It wasn't getting along with the front office executives.
It wasn't even exploiting matchup advantages within a game.
Hinch, who played 350 games in his seven-year MLB career, told Springer that the most important part of his job is remembering how hard it is to play the game.
Advertisement
That was all Springer needed to hear.
"He understands that we're not going up there trying to fail, but he understands that it'll happen," Springer said. "But I also think, at the same time, he expects perfection knowing you're not going to be perfect."
'Part of the reason I got into this'
The ability for Hinch to earn trust isn't limited to just his players.
He has built lasting relationships beyond the field, where he shares conversations, offers advice and provides support, even taking on mentorship roles for newcomers to the manager's chair, which can often feel lonely.
Advertisement
"I stumbled across him at my first Winter Meetings," said Stephen Vogt , who won AL Manager of the Year in 2024, his first year as manager of the Cleveland Guardians .
ACROSS THE LEAGUE: What Detroit Tigers, MLB predictions do our resident experts have for 2025 season?
Cleveland Guardians manager Stephen Vogt (12) walks back to the dugout during the seventh inning against the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park in Detroit on Wednesday, June 10, 2024.
In December 2023, Vogt saw Hinch, Boone and Shelton and a couple of other managers gathered in the corner of a bar at the Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville, Tennessee. Shelton had been Vogt's hitting coach in his rookie season with the Rays in 2012, so Vogt approached them to greet a familiar face at his first Winter Meetings.
Advertisement
He ended up sitting with the managers for about an hour.
He didn't do much talking.
He just listened.
"They were talking about a number of different things," Vogt said, "but A.J. would take some time to point things out to me. All of them did that, but A.J. was very deliberate about some things that really helped me get comfortable, understand some things about the job and game situation stuff. I was really honored that they would allow me to hang out with them."
While Vogt is a new friendship, Hinch and Boone share a relationship that spans nearly 35 years.
New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, Florida, on Feb. 25, 2024.
The two first met as teammates on the under-18 Team USA squad in late July 1991, then faced off in college as rivals — Hinch at Stanford, Boone at USC. In 2019, they managed against each other on MLB's second-biggest stage, the ALCS, with Hinch's Astros defeating Boone's Yankees in six games.
Advertisement
Boone credits Hinch for inspiring him to become an MLB manager.
From 2010-17, Boone worked as an analyst for ESPN. He called the World Series for ESPN Radio throughout his final four years, including the 2017 World Series featuring the Astros and Los Angeles Dodgers . Every day, Boone met with the managers for both teams: Hinch from the Astros and Dave Roberts from the Dodgers.
One month later, Boone became the manager of the Yankees.
"During that Series, I kind of felt like I was looking in the mirror, like these are my peers," said Boone, who called Hinch and Roberts for advice when he interviewed with the Yankees. "It was probably part of the reason I got into this."
Advertisement
After winning the 2017 World Series, Hinch managed the AL team in the 2018 All-Star Game in Washington.
Hinch selected Cash to join his All-Star coaching staff — not just because they were both former journeyman catchers hired as managers in 2015, but more importantly because he saw Cash as one of the most dynamic managers in the game.
"We had a relationship, but we weren't necessarily that close at the time," Cash said, "but I really appreciated that. That was quite the experience for me."
Tampa Bay Rays manager Kevin Cash (16) watches first inning action against the Baltimore Orioles at Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore on Sept. 7, 2024.
In the AL clubhouse, Hinch introduced all of the All-Star players with details about each of their careers before shifting to Cash, his choice for an extra coach.
Advertisement
Here's what Cash remembers Hinch saying about him:
"We're definitely going to need to have Kevin Cash here because we're going to use nine different pitchers," Hinch told the 2018 AL All-Stars, "and nobody does it better than him."
Everyone laughed.
But it was a joke rooted in deep respect, as Hinch admired Cash's creativity that year when he introduced the pitching strategy that became known as the opener — using a reliever to get the first outs in a game before turning to a traditional starter or long reliever out of the bullpen for multiple innings.
It was " pitching chaos ," just six years before Hinch uttered the phrase with the Tigers.
Advertisement
"The opener strategy, he helped make it mainstream," Hinch said of Cash, who won AL Manager of the Year in 2020 and 2021. "Studying him, he's really good at the entry part of the pitcher, so the matchup that he wants is certainly the first hitter that a pitcher is going to face, which is something I really believe in."
'Really fun to watch'
In 2024, the unorthodox pitching strategy was reborn in Detroit.
The Tigers adopted an opener-bulk reliever plan after the July 30 trade deadline out of necessity with only two starters in the rotation, decimated by injuries, underperformance and a trade. The strategy was trademarked as "pitching chaos" by Hinch during the postseason, following the Tigers' improbable 31-11 run from Aug. 11-Sept. 27, which secured them the third and final wild-card spot, snapping a decade-long playoff drought.
Tigers manager A.J. Hinch against the Rays during the first inning on Monday, April 22, 2024, in St. Petersburg, Florida.
"He told me right before they started that run," said Shelton, one of Hinch's closest managerial peers, with their connection dating back to 2003, when Shelton was a hitting coordinator for Cleveland and Hinch joined the organization in spring training after signing a minor league contract. "He's like, 'We're going to start doing some things differently.' To be able to see it and execute it and stick to it, that's extremely impressive."
Advertisement
Hinch implemented the opener-bulk reliever pitching strategy in 23 of the Tigers' final 53 games after the 2024 trade deadline — openers had a 2.05 ERA in 30⅔ innings; bulk relievers had a 3.65 ERA in 103⅔ innings. The Tigers went 12-11 in those pitching chaos games, along with 22-8 in their other 30 games (including a 7-3 record in traditional starts by AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal ).
Additionally, Hinch deployed 1.14 pinch-hitters per game throughout the 2024 season — the highest rate of his managerial career. Those pinch-hitters produced a .231 batting average and a .657 OPS in 185 plate appearances, significantly better than the MLB marks of .208 and .640, respectively, for pinch-hitters.
The players embraced Hinch's mixing and matching.
"Clearly there was player buy-in there," said Vogt, whose Guardians knocked the Tigers out of the postseason in Game 5 of the ALCS. "He communicated with the players and helped them understand where his thinking and thought process was coming from. They went out and executed that great."
Advertisement
Hinch and Shelton talked a lot down the stretch, discussing in-game strategy.
Pittsburgh Pirates manager Derek Shelton (17) looks on in the dugout during the second inning against the New York Yankees at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, Florida, on March 16, 2025.
Although Shelton's Pirates were out of the postseason race, Hinch's Tigers were operating as the hottest team in baseball, with their sights set on the postseason. To get there, the Tigers had to get through two playoff teams: the Baltimore Orioles for six games and the Kansas City Royals for three games.
"I talked to him every day for like five days," Shelton said, referencing a stretch of calls in mid-to-late September, "and I called him one day, and he's like, 'Why are you calling me?' I was like, 'I'm superstitious, and you guys are winning, so I'm going to call you to make sure you stay on track.'"
Advertisement
The Tigers won seven of nine games against the Orioles and Royals, from Sept. 13-22, then swept the Rays in three games, from Sept. 24-26.
The pitching strategy frustrated opposing teams.
"Our hitters did not see a freaking pitcher more than one time," Cash said. "He got the right matchups the way he wanted. He made the right decisions with guys off the bench. Everything was spot-on. You admire that from afar, but you just don't like it when it's happening against you."
On Sept. 27, the Tigers clinched their spot in the postseason with a 4-1 win over the Chicago White Sox .
Advertisement
Managers across the game took notice of Hinch's impact in the manager's chair, from the pitching strategy to the pinch-hit matchups to the player buy-in. The Tigers wouldn't have made the playoffs without Hinch at the helm.
"His ability to draw up a plan, articulate it to his players, and then execute it," Shelton said. "That's challenging to do. The game can go so unscripted and you can stay off it, but his determination to stay with what he thinks is right, it's really unique to see, and it's really fun to watch."
'The past is the past'
That's why Hinch is regarded by his peers as one of the best MLB managers, despite the Astros' sign-stealing scandal that cost him his job, led to a season-long suspension and threatened to define his career.
Advertisement
Since then, he has rebuilt his reputation by apologizing for his mistakes, both publicly and privately, letting his actions speak louder than words through his commitment to the game and guiding the Tigers through a challenging rebuild, regaining the trust and respect of the baseball industry.
Hinch is back on top.
"I mean, A.J. is a great manager," Vogt said. "He knows the game, he knows players, and he's smart. I think he's right up there as one of the best managers in the game. The past is the past. I can't speak to that because I wasn't a part of that."
Detroit Tigers manager A.J. Hinch (14) looks on from the dugout before Game 1 of ALDS against Cleveland Guardians at Progressive Field in Cleveland, Ohio on Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024.
Over the past four years, Hinch has cultivated a "win today's day" culture across the Tigers' franchise, highlighted by the players buying into non-traditional strategies that helped propel the team to the 2024 postseason.
Advertisement
He was transparent with the players about the reasoning behind his pitching and hitting strategies, then he stayed true to his plans during games, and when he made mistakes, he admitted them to the players.
Each win built credibility for the next strategic move.
An example: In the eighth inning of the July 10 game against the Guardians, role player Andy Ibáñez came off the bench to replace everyday player Colt Keith — creating a more favorable matchup against left-handed reliever Sam Hentges . Ibáñez hit a solo home run, and the Tigers ended up winning by one run. How did Keith react to Hinch's pinch-hit decision? "I wanted the at-bat, but we have Barry Bonds against lefties," he said, referencing Ibáñez's .394 average and 1.029 OPS against left-handers at the time.
"That starts with his leadership," Boone said. "It's the tone you set starting Day 1 of spring training on through, and then as you build it over the years, you've established a standard and a way of doing things and culture within your leadership group. I think that's what he's done as well as anything."
Advertisement
Fellow managers talk more about the player buy-in than the game strategy.
They even ask Hinch about how he gets the buy-in.
That buy-in not only drove the Tigers' recent success, but it also helped redefine Hinch's legacy in the game, not long after the sign-stealing scandal had him on the outside looking in.
"I think the industry now views him as one of the game's really good managers, rightfully so," Boone said. "He had to go through some dark times, coming through that and coming out of that and getting his second chance and making the most of it. I guess we all make mistakes, or whatever level of involvement he had, I don't even know all that, but I think going through something like that, and the ability to come out on the other side, has probably made him better for it."
Advertisement
Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him @EvanPetzold .
Listen to our weekly Tigers show "Days of Roar" every Monday afternoon on demand at freep.com, Apple , Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. And catch all of our podcasts and daily voice briefing at freep.com/podcasts .
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: A.J. Hinch's peers think he's 'one of the best managers in the game'
