Canha, a corner outfielder entering his age-35 season, is the type of veteran player the Detroit Tigers were searching for to help develop a young core of players on offense, namely 26-year-old Kerry Carpenter, 24-year-old Spencer Torkelson, 23-year-old Riley Greene and 22-year-old Colt Keith.
The Tigers acquired Canha in a trade with the Milwaukee Brewers at the beginning of the offseason in early November, then picked up his $11.5 million option for the 2024 season.
The nine-year MLB veteran — a seventh-round pick in the 2010 draft — has played for the Oakland Athletics (2015-21), New York Mets (2022-23) and Brewers (2023). He is a .250 hitter with 113 home runs, a 9.9% walk rate, a 20.5% strikeout rate and a .349 on-base percentage in his MLB career, spanning 924 games.
Canha talked to the Free Press, joining this week’s episode of the “Days of Roar” podcast, about his goals for the Tigers, his approach to hitting and his potential influence on young hitters. (On the podcast, Canha also discussed former teammate Corbin Burnes getting traded to the Baltimore Orioles, hitting a home run off Tarik Skubal and his love of food, which he documents on Instagram.)
What needs to be the realistic goal for the Tigers in 2024?
“I’m on a one-year deal, so I’m hoping the realistic goal is the World Series. I’m not in this for any consolation prizes or silver linings. I want it all. I honestly believe that the sky’s the limit for this club. We have a good mix of young and veteran players, and it’s only a matter of time before we find out how potent that mix is. I’m really excited about the young talent, and I think they could carry us. I hope to play a big role in everything, but we have an extremely young and talented team, and they showed what they could do at the end of last year. There’s nothing that stands in our way if we can have an identity and if we can fulfill it. If these guys know how good they are, it’s just a matter of putting it all together.”
How did you find out about the trade and what was your initial reaction?
“I woke up and was playing with my kids, not really expecting anything to happen or to hear any news. My agent called me a couple of times before I picked up the phone. It was one of those things like, ‘Hey, you’ve been traded to the Tigers.’ It was out of the blue. No heads up, no indication of what was going on. But it was like, ‘OK, here we go, new chapter.’ You have to just roll with the punches like that as a baseball player. I’m at that weird stage in my career where I had the team option, and I didn’t really know which direction it was going to go for me this offseason. It was wild, it was sudden, but you have to be flexible like that.”
After trading for you, the Tigers signed four pitchers in free agency: Kenta Maeda, Jack Flaherty, Andrew Chafin and Shelby Miller. What do you think about the pitching staff as a whole?
“I think you love to see that. You love to see the team building around pitching depth. I think that’s something an organization can hang their hat on. We know from being around the game so much that it’s vastly important to have arms, and plenty of them. To get where we want to go, you need to see the focus on pitching depth, and it’s good to see (president of baseball operations) Scott Harris and the rest of the front office putting an emphasis on that.”
In the past six seasons, from 2018-2023, there have been 155 players with at least 2,000 plate appearances. Your .364 on-base percentage ranks 23rd among those 155 players. How did you unlock your ability to get on base, and how have you been able to sustain it in an ever-changing game?
“There was a year in my career a long time ago when I was a young player trying to carve a niche for myself. I wanted to have an identity as a player, and I knew there was something missing. I made a conscious decision to swing less and try to be more selective. I knew I had a good eye, but I wasn’t giving it a chance to work because I wanted to be aggressive and didn’t want to strike out. I think I was afraid of getting to two strikes. There’s a lot that’s gone into it, but essentially, at that point in my career, I let the ball travel a little bit more and saw it for a little longer before I made a swing decision. That has proven to help me, and that’s the lane I’ve stayed in, and that’s helped me build a career. I think it’s made me a productive player, at least that’s what the analytics seem to point at. I notice that. It works for me, and that’s how I’ve done it my whole career.”
Mark Canha of the Milwaukee Brewers after an RBI single during the eighth inning against the Arizona Diamondbacks in Game 2 of the wild-card series at American Family Field on Oct. 4, 2023 in Milwaukee.
