A.J. Hinch on Tigers contract extension: ‘It was literally a no-brainer’ (2024)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The day after the regular season ended, Detroit Tigers executive Scott Harris approached manager A.J. Hinch about a contract extension.

It was that day Hinch sat on a stage and made a bold statement about his commitment to the organization. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” Hinch said.

That evening, Hinch, Harris and new Tigers general manager Jeff Greenberg had dinner. And there the plan for an extension took shape. The deal, Harris said, was completed within a week after the conclusion of the regular season. The Tigers did not announce the deal until Monday night inside the club’s Winter Meetings hotel suite. The Tigers also did not disclose the exact length of Hinch’s extension.

“We are pumped that A.J. is going to be the manager of the Tigers for a long time,” Harris said.

So while some questions remain, many more longstanding questions have been answered. Hinch’s previous deal was believed to run through 2025. And though Hinch has always publicly projected a desire to build a winner in Detroit, outside speculation — most of it unfounded — has existed from the day he took the job before the 2021 season.

Hinch came to the Tigers fresh off an explosive one-year suspension for his involvement in the Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scandal. The Tigers were then a young team still mired in a long rebuild. Hinch expressed optimism for the future, but it was always fair to wonder whether Detroit would be little more than a rehab stint in his managerial career.

The Tigers have signed manager A.J. Hinch to a contract extension. They are not disclosing the terms.

His previous deal ran through 2025.

The new deal was completed the week after the season ended.

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— Cody Stavenhagen (@CodyStavenhagen) December 4, 2023

Hinch brought new energy to the Tigers in his first season, when the club went 68-61 after May 8. But an erroneous report of Hinch having an opt-out in his deal did little to quell rumors as Detroit’s 2022 season turned into a massive letdown. Hinch publicly deflected questions about his contract on more than one occasion (though there was never any opt-out).

This offseason, even as Hinch made strong statements about his commitment to the Tigers, people in the industry still wondered aloud about his future. After Craig Counsell set a new precedent as a free-agent manager and ultimately signed a five-year, $40 million deal with the Chicago Cubs, some in the game posed a question: After 2025, could Hinch become the next hot-commodity manager?

News of this extension puts such conjecture to rest for the long term.

“I didn’t really see it coming,” Hinch said, “but I had tried to make it very clear how much I loved working for Scott, getting to know Greeny, being a Tiger. When (Harris) approached me, it was an immediate, ‘Yes, I’m interested in hearing whatever they had in mind.'”

The extension validates what Hinch has often projected publicly and privately since he came to the Tigers. For as much as three losing seasons have eaten at him, he can be a stubborn competitor. Particularly given the circumstances that brought him from the Astros to the Tigers, Hinch sees importance in remaining committed and building a winner in Detroit. Anything else would be admitting failure.

This extension, however, likely does not happen if not for the strong relationship Hinch has formed with Harris, the team’s president of baseball operations since late September 2022. Hinch played an unusual role as an incumbent manager who had a degree of influence in hiring a new top executive. But once Harris was hired, Hinch seemed content in creating a balanced partnership with the front office.

“It felt comfortable quickly,” Harris said. “Sometimes you jump into a workplace environment and you just feel comfortable pushing the people around you, and those people feel comfortable pushing you. That was evident from the first month on the job that we started talking about how I and the front office was going to build the team, and he started chiming in about how he wanted to use the team.”

Last year’s Tigers got off to a brutal start and still finished with a losing record, but they finished second in the lowly AL Central, won 78 games and showed signs of serious improvement across all levels of the organization. Hinch and Harris have appeared simpatico in their vision for the organization, Harris as a polished modern executive and Hinch as a savvy, intelligent field manager.

“I told A.J. that I had a blast working with him this year and that I thought he made our players and our staff better every day that he was in the clubhouse,” Harris said. “I also shared with him that it was important to me that he not feel like an inherited manager. I think sometimes in these situations it can feel like an arrangement. It was important to me that he felt like he was here because Jeff and I wanted him to be here and we want him to be here for a long time.”

The Tigers are entering 2024 with a cautious degree of optimism, but any hopes of competing for the playoffs hinge on receiving serious contributions from a number of young hitters. Detroit made two impactful moves already this offseason in trading for outfielder Mark Canha and signing right-hander Kenta Maeda, but it’s unlikely the Tigers will be aggressors in higher-level offseason pursuits. Still, there is young talent rising and a roster with ample payroll flexibility for what should be a stronger free-agent class in 2025.

Details of Harris’ contract are also unknown, though one league source once described his contract term as “unusually long.”

Hinch said he would not want to be anywhere else. And now there is no doubt he meant it.

“When you get one of these jobs, all you want to do is return the opportunity with the success that everybody in the organization and around the organization wants to feel,” Hinch said. “I think we can do that. I think as we are taking steps toward that, you get energized in the direction. From early on in our relationship, to my introduction to the organization with Chris (Ilitch), I’ve always felt like this is a place that we can win. We’ve got work to do and we’ve got a lot of work to do to get there. But given the growing relationships that we have in the organization, it was literally a no-brainer to me.”

Coaching staff finalized

The Tigers also finalized the rest of their coaching staff Monday evening. The 2024 staff will feature four new additions: Joey Cora as third-base coach, Anthony Iapoce as first-base coach, Ryan Sienko as catching coach and Lance Zawadzki as assistant hitting coach.

Cora, the brother of Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora, spent the past two years as the New York Mets’ third base and infield coach.

Iapoce, formerly the hitting coach for the Texas Rangers and Chicago Cubs, spent last season as the manager at Triple-A Toledo. Tim Federowicz, who was Hinch’s catching coach last season, will replace Iapoce in Toledo.

Sienko previously served as the Tigers’ field coordinator and director of catching at the minor-league level. He was influential in Jake Rogers’ rehab from Tommy John surgery and spent last September with the major-league staff.

Zawadzki replaces James Rowson, who was hired by the New York Yankees this offseason. He has worked in the Red Sox system since 2018, most recently as a minor-league hitting coordinator.

Introducing our Major League coaching staff for the 2024 season.

We’ve added Joey Cora, Anthony Iapoce, Ryan Sienko and Lance Zawadski to new roles with our club. pic.twitter.com/JE0VOACyWo

— Detroit Tigers (@tigers) December 4, 2023

(Photo: Rey Del Rio / Getty Images)

Cody Stavenhagen is a staff writer covering the Detroit Tigers and Major League Baseball for The Athletic. Previously, he covered Michigan football at The Athletic and Oklahoma football and basketball for the Tulsa World, where he was named APSE Beat Writer of the Year for his circulation group in 2016. He is a native of Amarillo, Texas. Follow Cody on Twitter @CodyStavenhagen