With his home run on Sunday against the Clveland Indians, Mike Aviles finally got on the board for the 2016 season. In doing so, he struck a big blow against his own quest for batting futility. Entering the game, Aviles was hitting .218/.253/.241, which was good for a wRC+ of 31. The dinger skyrocketed that batting line to .222/.255/.278 and sent his wRC+ up to 41. That’s still an utterly horrible value, but it’s going to take more to become truly historic.
Using the wonderful tools set about at FanGraphs, I looked at the worst seasons Tigers hitters have had in the last 10 years.