Infielder Andre Lipcius has been a good defender since the Detroit Tigers drafted him in the 3rd round in 2019. Now, he’s showing patience and power. 

When the Detroit Tigers drafted Andre Lipcius out of the University of Tennessee, it fit a pattern for the 2010s. Lipcius was the fifth Volunteer selected by Detroit in the decade, joining P.J Polk (2010), Will Maddox (2014), and Christin Stewart and A.J. Simcox (2015).

Since Detroit has drafted Lipcius, he has done nothing but work on his game. On the initial scouting report, it was said his swing was too long. But within the same year, he changed his follow-through

Here he is in July 2019 with the West Michigan Whitecaps:

He immediately showed an advanced approach at the plate and proved he could work the counts and draw walks. As Chris Brown said during the MCB Top 20 prospect countdown on Lipcius:

“Andre Lipcius is the definition of a gamer. He’s not the sort of athlete who intimidates opponents when he walks off the bus, and he doesn’t put together awe-inspiring power displays in batting practice. But he consistently puts together professional plate appearances, working counts, taking walks, and spraying line drives all over the field.”

Lipcius has been a good defender and shown a strong arm with the ability to throw strikes to first base from a variety of arm angles. With those two qualities, I always felt he could be an off the bench utility player. The lack of power always gave me pause, since you need that to be an everyday regular. But looking at the numbers in his second season in Erie, that impression may have changed. He is seeing the ball better, increasing his walk rate by 7.6% while lowering his strikeout rate 7%.

It’s possible a second year in Double-A is helping him put up better numbers, but Lipcius has also made some changes to his batted ball profile. He is not hitting the ball the other way as much, with a 2% increase in balls up the middle, and a 3% jump in pulled balls from 2021. That’s not a huge difference, but it seems likely he is now using his advanced eye at the plate to better identify pitches he can turn on and drive. The overall result? A wRC+ that has jumped from 90 last year to 148 this season.

Pulling the ball more correlates to an increase in power. According to a FanGraphs article from 2019 about pulled ball percentages, it states the following:

“League ISO for hitters with an under-35% pull rate is just .131, while for those between 35-40% and 40-45% it is around .184, and it is a whopping .212 for those pulling more than 45% of the time.”

Lipcius’ ISO is sitting at .179 at the moment, which is right in that happy medium. But in June it jumped to .205. If he continues in that direction during the SeaWolves the second half of the season, it won’t be too long before he could see time in Toledo.

Andre Lipcius is also Rule 5 eligible, so he is giving Tigers brass something else to think about.