It’s been just over two weeks since the Tigers swung the Tarik Skubal deal with the Dodgers, and Zyhir Hope’s first run in Detroit’s Double-A system has been rough enough to get people talking.
That’s understandable. Hope arrived carrying loud numbers from Tulsa, where he was hitting .293 with 23 home runs and 87 RBI.
Since the move, though, the 21-year-old outfielder has gone ice-cold, going 3-for-39 with a home run and five RBI. He’s struck out 15 times in those 39 at-bats, a 38 percent strikeout rate that looks ugly on the page.
Still, this is the kind of stretch that can send a fan base into a tailspin before there’s any real reason to do it. Ten games is a tiny slice of a season, especially for a player who has shown he can hit and has already handled changes of organization before. Hope, who was drafted by the Cubs in the 11th round in 2023, has been a consistent hitter since signing his first deal with Chicago.
The bigger point is that this isn’t even new for him. Hope has a habit of stumbling in August and then snapping out of it.
Last year, he opened August 2025 0-for-20 over six games while striking out nine times, nearly a 50 percent strikeout rate, before recovering to hit .240 the rest of the month with a home run and 11 RBI. He also had an August stretch in 2024 when he went 1-for-21.
That’s why the panic feels premature. Hope has shown a pattern: a rough patch in August, then a strong finish. He hit .266 to close August 2024 and then finished September above .300.
If this slump keeps rolling and turns into something longer than a brief mid-August skid, then the conversation changes. Right now, though, it looks more like the same annual lull than a reason to question the trade.
For the Tigers, the task is less about reacting to a bad 10-game sample and more about learning what makes Hope tick. That means time, patience and keeping his head in the right place while he works through it.
There’s also context here that matters. Hope had already been traded once before and handled the transition smoothly.
And he was scorching before the Skubal deal, hitting .372 in July with 10 homers and 28 RBI. The Dodgers didn’t move him because he was falling apart.
Every player runs into a slump. Hope’s just landed at the worst possible moment, which is why it’s stirred up so much noise.
But nine bad games in a 103-game sample shouldn’t wipe out the larger body of work. He played 94 games before the trade, and if he had been in the Tigers’ system all year, this 3-for-39 stretch probably wouldn’t feel nearly as dramatic.
For now, the bottom line is simple: you don’t get mad about adding a guy who’s hitting .273 with 24 home runs and 90 RBI.
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