LAKELAND, Fla. — Jake Rogers spent all of last season rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. That meant driving into the team facility every day, trying to focus on small goals. Hit off a tee? That’s progress. Throw out to 90 feet? Count it as a win.
“Little victories,” Rogers said.
Throughout that time, Rogers was a constant as a list of other injured Tigers came to Florida for their own rehabs.
“Are you, like, the mayor of Lakeland now?” Rogers was asked last week.
Teammate Eric Haase interjected.
“No,” Haase said. “The sheriff.”
Indeed, Rogers looks the part with his horseshoe mustache, one he’s been proudly displaying since the start of camp. His Texas roots don’t hurt, either.
That’s not his only nickname. Two springs ago, Rogers lived in a house with prospects Riley Greene and Spencer Torkelson. They often referred to the older Rogers as “Dad.”
“He shouldn’t have been the dad of the house,” Torkelson joked. “Looking back, that was probably a mistake.”
Beyond those, Rogers has grown into another role in the Tigers’ organization: one of the guys who keeps things light.
“A glue guy,” pitcher Alex Faedo said. “He needs to be in the locker room because he helps everyone be better.”
Last spring, when Rogers was in the early stages of his rehab, he spent time with the coaches. He joked about his “coach walk” and “fungo lean.” Rogers’ humor became important last season when he was around to work with injured pitchers such as Faedo, Casey Mize and Spencer Turnbull.
When Riley Greene fractured his foot toward the end of last year’s spring training, Rogers drove Greene to and from the team complex.
“I wish I was the only one down here the whole time,” Rogers said. “But it didn’t work like that. There were a lot of guys that got busted up and came down. It was nice to break up the monotony and have someone else to mess around with.”
On one recent night, Rogers called Faedo to help settle a debate not even remotely related to baseball. Rogers and another friend argued about “The Bachelor” and who should have gotten a rose on a particular episode.
“He had to call me to be a little bit of an arbitrator,” Faedo said.
Earlier this week, Rogers walked around the team clubhouse wearing a tuxedo T-shirt with a cut-off neckline. Wednesday morning, he was at the center of about eight Tigers sitting in a circle, talking and laughing.
No doubt Rogers is embracing the camaraderie.
“Just not being around the team and playing baseball, that was the hardest thing,” Rogers said. “First time I hadn’t played since I was 4 or 5.”
Do not mistake Rogers’ affability for a lack of focus, though. He spent a grueling year in Lakeland rehabbing from the surgery, doing tedious exercises to strengthen his forearm and his shoulder, playing video games to pass the endless downtime and trying to find solace in weekly progress. He would catch bullpens from rehabbing pitchers but had to have a coach throw the ball back to the mound.
“A little bit of a deja vu situation,” Rogers said of life in Lakeland.
Rogers’ personality has shone through more and more the longer he’s been in the Tigers’ system. Starting in 2021, he developed a close relationship with A.J. Hinch. Hinch gave Rogers some tough love to help him improve as a player. Rogers slowly used humor to win the often serious manager’s affection.
Like Hinch, Rogers also has a strong intuition for the game and communication skills to match.
“What I love about him is he shoots it straight,” Faedo said. “He can just yell at me if I need anything fixed. Because he sees everything.”
With all this in mind, it’s interesting to look back on 2021, when Rogers was called up from Triple A. The Tigers went 33-27 in the stretch between Rogers’ promotion and his injury. Rogers played terrific defense and even found a groove at the plate — he hit .239 with six home runs in 38 games, worth 1.2 bWAR.
It was the Tigers’ best stretch of baseball in recent memory. The vibes were good.
“I have fun with Jake and I have a good rapport with him,” Hinch said in 2021. “I can relate to him, and I think vice versa. … Jake is a personality you can poke fun at, you can use as an example. He can give it right back, which is a staple of the type of culture I like to have.”
Rogers is healthy this spring and back fighting for a job. He enters camp competing with Donny Sands, Andrew Knapp and others for the second catching spot behind Haase.
In the days leading up to spring training, Rogers was texting Hinch videos of him throwing down to second from different arms angles.
“If he’s responding well and playing well, he’s certainly competing to make our team,” Hinch said.
Now 27, Rogers is no longer the young catching prospect the Tigers acquired as part of the Justin Verlander trade. His development has been up and down, but he’s had a taste of the big leagues and shown glimpses of his potential. He remains the Tigers’ most talented defensive catcher.
“Behind the plate, I’ve never seen anything like him before,” Faedo said. “He plays with a swag and a demeanor you wouldn’t really expect from him.”
Rogers is indeed the type of catcher who can make a dynamic back-pick to first or leap out from behind the plate to field a bunt.
This spring, we will see if Rogers’ arm truly remains as dynamic after Tommy John.
According to Faedo, it’s as golden as ever.
“He was throwing to the bases the other day, and we were catching for him,” Faedo said. “He was just putting everything on the money. He was doing trick throws, things like that.”
The takeaway?
“It was like, ‘He’s back.’”