DALLAS -- The Tigers came to the MLB Winter Meetings off a stunning playoff run thanks to the mentality instilled in the young team by manager A.J. Hinch. But Hinch knows better than anyone the challenge of running it back.

After Hinch’s first Astros team in 2015 won 86 games, upset the Yankees in the AL Wild Card Game and took the eventual World Series champion Royals the distance in the Division Series, Houston got off to a 7-17 start the following year. The Astros battled their way back into the Wild Card race but ultimately faded down the stretch in an 84-win season.

That was the last year Houston fell shy of the ALCS until Hinch’s Tigers won their AL Wild Card series matchup this past October. Now it’s Detroit’s turn to try to avoid a letdown.

“I think the biggest challenge for a young team, and I've seen this before, is not looking backward as you're trying to progress,” Hinch said at the Winter Meetings on Tuesday. “I mean, we can't repeat last season. We're not trying to repeat last season. We're trying to be better. We want to win the AL Central. We want to put ourselves in a better and better position moving forward. You can't do that by looking backward.

“I want our guys to take ownership of the fact that we are going to be looked at a little bit differently. We have a lot of things we need to do to get better. The test is going to come as the attention grows toward the season. That was a fun run and a fun time and a memorable playoff chase for us, and now we start over again.”

Part of the challenge of getting better involves more sustained success. The 2024 Tigers stood eight games under .500 in August before going 31-13 down the stretch, a historic run that they cannot count on repeating.

“We obviously need to play better for a longer period of the season,” Hinch said. “It's hard to imagine putting together that type of ending that we did. We're capable of it. We showed that we can win as many games as anybody in baseball over a period of time, but we had some tough months, too. We had some tough learning curves for our players and everybody around the organization.

“So we just have to get incrementally better in every spot. We had examples of that throughout the year, where players struggled or didn't do their best and then all of a sudden turned into mainstays in the lineup down the stretch. We had lessons learned on how we were going to deploy our talent and how we were going to use our players. Every team is different.”

Count Tigers in on Sasaki
Tigers president of baseball operations Scott Harris usually keeps his free-agent targets close to the vest, but with Japanese pitching sensation Roki Sasaki officially hitting the market this week, Harris -- like most of his Major League colleagues -- acknowledged the obvious.

“Every team in baseball wants Sasaki. We do, too,” Harris said. “We're hard at work on a presentation to position this organization as appealing to Roki and his agent.”

The 23-year-old Sasaki was officially posted by Japan’s Chiba Lotte Mariners on Monday, opening a 45-day window for the right-hander to talk to teams and sign a contract. Teams can sign him to a bonus out of their international spending pool, which usually goes to teenagers signed out of Latin America. Unless Sasaki surprisingly signs this week, he’ll fall into the 2025 international market, which opens Jan. 15. The Tigers are among the teams with the highest international signing pool money available in the window, though the difference is minor.

Sasaki and agent Joel Wolfe are expected to begin meeting with teams next week. The Tigers will submit their case and wait to hear back.

“It's going to be pretty fierce competition,” Harris said. “We're hard at work to make our case, and we’ll see how it goes. But, yeah, consider us interested in Sasaki. He’s one of the more talented young pitchers in baseball.”

Rogers visits Winter Meetings
Tigers catcher Jake Rogers, who lives in the Dallas area, made what he called a 10-minute drive to the Hilton Anatole to check out the Winter Meetings and visit with team officials, as well as his agent.

“Just kind of came up to say hello,” said Rogers, who had lunch with Hinch earlier in the week. “I haven’t really gotten to walk around and do much, but it’s super cool. It’s really cool to see guys come around and talk and network.”