How Detroit Tigers' Jake Rogers became 'what everybody is looking for' at catcher position

Detroit Tigers catcher Jake Rogers finally arrived.

To do so, Rogers had to overcome unreasonable external expectations from a lopsided trade, setbacks in his development because of a rushed promotion and a missed season due to an elbow injury that required surgery.

Rogers, now 28, beat those challenges and took a step forward in his career in 2023. He cleaned up his receiving on defense, topped 20 home runs on offense and established himself as an above-average catcher in the big leagues, all in his first full season.

"It's been a great year, and I don't want to demean that by any means, but I want to get better," said Rogers, considered a positive influence in the clubhouse. "The Tigers have been giving me a lot of help on the pitch-calling side, so I've been studying hitters and getting to know my pitchers. You want that trust as a catcher. That's what I want to build on."

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The home-run power, as Rogers explained, goes back to his first full season in the minor leagues in the Houston Astros' organization — the same year that the Astros traded him (and two other prospects) to the Tigers for Justin Verlander.

The Astros drafted Rogers, who didn't hit any home runs until his third and final college season at Tulane, in the 2016 third round (No. 97 overall). He began the 2017 season, five months before the Verlander trade, in Low-A Quad Cities with then-manager Russ Steinhorn.

"The reports coming out of the draft the following year were that he was the best defensive catcher in the amateur draft," said Steinhorn, now a hitting coach with the St. Louis Cardinals. "He lived up to that really quickly, but he was focused on his offense and wanted to maximize his bat."

Back in college, Rogers excelled defensively at the catcher position but settled into a team-first role on offense during his three seasons. He typically batted second in the lineup with the objective of advancing the leadoff hitter into scoring position through walks, bunts, hit-and-runs and rare doubles. He had 19 doubles and seven home runs across 169 games in his college career.

The Astros told Rogers that he needed to produce runs if he wanted to surge through the farm system.

"He bought in immediately," Steinhorn said.

Before the 2017 season, Rogers made swing changes — suggested by the Astros — with the goals of hitting the ball harder and getting the ball in the air more often. (He has since implemented additional swing changes with personal hitting instructor Doug Latta, beginning in 2019.) The changes leading up to the 2017 season became the foundation for what Rogers showed the Tigers, and the rest of the industry, with 21 home runs in 2023.

"That's when balls started flying a little bit more," Rogers said. "That's when I realized I could drive the ball. I didn't think about homers, and I still don't think about homers, but I knew I could drive the ball in the gap, and the doubles became homers."

He became the sixth catcher in Tigers history (among those with at least 80% of their appearances at catcher) to achieve at least 20 home runs in a single season, joining Rudy York, Bill Freehan, Lance Parrish, Matt Nokes and Mickey Tettleton.

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Rogers, though, should be recognized for more than his 21 home runs.

His overall production on defense, measured by his plus-7 fielding run value, tied for seventh (with Baltimore's Adley Rutschman, New York's Francisco Alvarez and Seattle's Cal Raleigh) among the 38 catchers with at least 500 innings.

"The defense side has always been better for me," Rogers said. "I always knew the offense would, hopefully, come around. I always wanted to be an everyday guy that you can trust to throw out there in any part of the lineup. I'll stay down there in my home, in the nine-hole, and rake."

His former coach echoed the defense-first evaluation.

"It was a combination of everything, but he was a very, very advanced receiver," Steinhorn said. "He could really catch and throw. You could see right away that he could handle the highest levels defensively, and it wouldn't bother him one bit. He was that advanced."

Sienko, the secret sauce

Rogers has always been praised for his defense, but he overhauled his receiving techniques before the 2023 season in search of stealing more strikes for his pitchers. He prioritized pitches around the bottom of the strike zone.

He implemented the changes — using a one-knee setup and sideways glove position — under the instruction of catching coordinator Ryan Sienko while rehabbing from Tommy John surgery, which he underwent in September 2021, at the spring training facility in Lakeland, Florida.

"I owe a lot to him," Rogers said of Sienko.

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"I learned how to catch the ball on the way up," Rogers continued. "I did that before, but it was 'catch and then bring it up,' instead of this whole continuous movement up through the zone. It took every bit of a month for me to feel comfortable doing it. Now, it's second nature."

The results of the new motion were evident throughout the season.

Left-hander Eduardo Rodriguez, an eight-year MLB veteran, raved about Rogers' receiving skills. Rodriguez posted a 2.90 ERA in 19 starts with Rogers behind the plate, compared to a 3.54 ERA in five starts with Eric Haase and a 7.20 ERA in two starts with Carson Kelly.

"He is one the best I've ever seen," Rodriguez said.

His career-best 48.7% strike rate tied for seventh (with New York's Kyle Higashioka) and his career-best plus-5 framing runs tied for 10th (with Rutschman, Arizona's Seby Zavala and Toronto's Alejandro Kirk) among the 42 catchers with at least 1,500 pitches called.

Still, Rogers can improve.

His 60.8% strike rate on pitches below the strike zone ranked third among the group of 42 catchers, but his 41.9% strike rate on pitches above the strike zone ranked 39th.

"It's the way he controls the running game, the way he's interacting (with pitchers)," Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. "We're continuing to push him in other areas of the job. We're going to keep talking about framing. We're going to keep talking about game calling."

'One of the top catchers'

In 2023, Rogers provided steady defense and consistent power on offense.

Rogers, to go with better pitch framing, hit .221 with 21 home runs, 28 walks (7.7% walk rate) and 118 strikeouts (32.3% strikeout rate) over 107 games. He launched three homers in March, three in May, four in June, two in July, four in August and five in September.

"He took ownership of his own career," Steinhorn said.

"I know the homers are going to come," Rogers said of his offseason plan leading into the 2024 season. "I'm going to really focus on controlling the strike zone to get my walk percentage a tad up and my strikeout percentage a tad down. When you get on base, good things happen, especially when I'm hitting at the bottom of the lineup. That's the big thing I want to focus on."

The Tigers' bosses — Hinch and president of baseball operations Scott Harris — seem to believe in Rogers' ability to guide the pitching staff and crush home runs into the future. If he does those things, the low batting average will remain an afterthought.

"I love what Jake did this year, as far as getting himself back into the flow of being on our team," said Hinch, a former seven-year MLB catcher who tops Rogers' experience by 170 games. "Jake has earned the lion's share of the games for the catcher."

"Jake has developed as one of the better power hitters behind the plate in the game," said Harris, likely referencing Rogers' .224 isolated power, which tied for sixth among the 31 catchers with at least 300 plate appearances.

There's no doubt that Rogers, who doesn't become a free agent until after the 2026 season, will be the No. 1 catcher on the 2024 Opening Day roster.

The Tigers haven't been this confident in their primary catcher since Alex Avila in the early 2010s. A decade after Avila's reign behind the plate, and a half-dozen years after the Verlander trade, Rogers has finally arrived in the big leagues.

"I think that's what everybody is looking for," Steinhorn said. "Look around the league, and look around different organizations, everybody is looking for that type of guy, someone that's so advanced defensively and a threat offensively. It's very exciting for him to live that out and become one of the top catchers in the league."

Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him @EvanPetzold.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Tigers' Jake Rogers 'what everybody is looking for' at catcher