I have a tough time grading Colt Keith. In many ways, Colt took a big step forward in 2025. He got off to another bad start, but ultimately, when you look at the final numbers, he had a fine season. In so many ways, he was better than he was in his rookie campaign. Higher on base, higher slugging percentage, higher OPS. I should come away from the 2025 season feeling very good about where Keith’s career is headed, and yet I feel like there’s something so unspectacular about him.
Detroit's current player development and their handling of the young core are highly admirable. You talk about somebody like Troy Melton, who was thrust into the heart of a playoff chase and who was clearly on an innings limit. You end up taking good care of him, but still having him pitch some pretty high-leverage frames in October as a reliever. Detroit handles its young players well. I don’t know if I can say that about Colt Keith. It didn’t always feel like he was being put in the best positions to succeed.
Colt is a good hitter, and he has the potential to be great. Next year will be very important because it’ll be interesting to see if he can improve those power numbers. I don’t think he’s ever gonna be a masher, but if he can be a guy who hits 20 or more home runs a season, that would probably be the best-case scenario. But the sad truth is that Cole Keith is currently a player without a position, and I feel like that impacted every element of his game this year. I think that it was meant to be a vote of confidence, moving him to first base to begin 2025. Spencer Torkelson ultimately played his way into the lineup, and Colt Keith got moved back to second, where he couldn’t stop making errors and mental mistakes in the first half of the season. You tried him out at third, where he was pretty unspectacular as well.
I understand that AJ Hinch loves defensive versatility and having guys on the roster that he can move around the diamond whenever he wants. I don’t think that Colt Keith is ever going to be that guy, and that’s OK. But I do think this organization constantly moving him across the chessboard didn’t help him in 2025. I think the unfortunate reality is that the guy probably isn’t a very good defender in any position, but next year they should give him a job somewhere on the infield, and he should stay there all season.
The way Keith's season ended definitely left a sour taste in my mouth. I give him credit for fighting through injury in the divisional series, but he very clearly wasn’t healthy, and it ended up hurting the team, especially in Game Five. It’s too bad he got off to such a brutal start and such an uninspiring end, because I do view 2025 as a positive year for Colt Keith. It’s just that every time I feel like he’s truly turned a corner as a hitter, he’ll follow it up with a one-for-20 stretch where he’s just not seeing the ball well.
Somewhere in Colt Keith is a tremendous offensive weapon, a player who falls in line with the kind of hitter that Scott Harris is trying to develop here. I ultimately think that he’s going to be a key piece of this lineup for years to come, but I swear sometimes the guy is a ghost. I’m not going to criticize the contract. I have no problem with the team locking up a player for their prime years. And also, he got an extension, but it’s not like they’re paying them that much. People make a very big deal out of that when they don’t have to. At the same time, I hope that the Tigers locked up more than just a platoon bat. There’s a lot of good that we saw from him in 2025, but a lot of questions about his game still remain unanswered.
FINAL GRADE: C+