The clock struck midnight on the Tigers’ Cinderella run in Sport 5 of the American League Division Collection when Guardians outfielder Lane Thomas swatted a backbreaking grand slam off probably American League Cy Younger winner Tarik Skubal, fueling what would finally grow to be a 7-3 Cleveland victory.
Detroit’s blazing end to the common season and spirited postseason run that noticed them sweep the Astros within the Wild Card spherical of play raised expectations surrounding the membership and left little question about their standing as hopeful contenders heading into the offseason. President of baseball operations Scott Harris met with the Tigers’ beat at this time, discussing the staff’s sensational second half and having a look on the offseason to return (hyperlinks through Chris McCosky of the Detroit Information, Evan Woodbery of MLive.com and Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic).
Among the many extra outstanding takeaways are that the Tigers will pursue a right-handed bat to enhance a lineup that Harris believes turned too left-handed, in addition to further assist on the pitching facet of issues — each within the rotation and within the bullpen. Harris additionally downplayed the potential for reducing ties with struggling veterans Javier Baez and Kenta Maeda. The third-year Detroit president recommended he expects Baez to be in spring coaching and added that he can see a task for him on the 2025 roster. He added that the Tigers “may have executed a greater job making ready” Maeda for the 2024 season and that there’s “completely” a spot for him on the 2025 roster.
Tigers followers have already bristled on the thought of Baez and Maeda returning, though there’d be little level in Harris broadcasting that one or each will likely be minimize free right now. Maeda, specifically, is simply a yr faraway from a pleasant season. With only a yr and $10MM remaining on his deal, he may probably be swapped for an additional onerous veteran contract if such a chance presents itself. The Tigers received’t discover a taker for Baez after he’s floundered all through the primary three years of his six-year contract in Detroit, however releasing the remaining $73MM left on that deal is probably going extra an possession name anyhow.
Neither of the gadgets atop Detroit’s offseason wishlist ought to come as a shock. Detroit struggled in opposition to southpaws for a lot of the season, ending within the bottom-third of the league when it comes to total manufacturing in opposition to left-handed opponents. As a collective unit, they slashed .229/.298/.362 versus lefties. The ensuing 88 wRC+ signifies that Tigers hitters had been 12% worse than league-average in opposition to southpaws.
Matt Vierling, Parker Meadows, Colt Keith, Spencer Torkelson, Andy Ibanez and Justyn-Henry Malloy had been the one present Tigers with at the very least 50 plate appearances and better-than-average output in opposition to lefties. Every of Keith (27.3%), Meadows (32.3%) and Malloy (34.4%) discovered that success regardless of huge strikeout charges in opposition to lefties. Every posted a BABIP of .385 or higher in these matchups. Some regression ought to be anticipated. Amongst Tigers anticipated regulars, all of Meadows, Keith, Riley Greene, Kerry Carpenter and Trey Sweeney swing from the left facet of the plate. That’s additionally true of high prospect Jace Jung, who’ll be within the combine for third base reps subsequent yr, relying on how the offseason shakes out.
The excellent news for Harris and the Tigers is that the upcoming class of free agent bats is way superior to final yr’s crop. Among the many notable right-handed bats available on the market are Alex Bregman, Pete Alonso, Willy Adames, Teoscar Hernandez, Christian Walker, Tyler O’Neill and switch-hitters Anthony Santander and Jurickson Profar.
Broadly, Harris voiced confidence that possession would afford him assets to be energetic out there, although he additionally cautioned that he’s much less involved with pursuing payroll upgrades than he’s expertise upgrades; put one other approach, the commerce market may effectively come into play because the membership seeks upgrades within the lineup and on the pitching workers. Additional, the Tigers’ baseball ops chief touted the pliability that somebody like Vierling provides him in seeking to handle the lineup. The versatile Vierling’s capacity to deal with each third base and any spot within the outfield means Harris can pursue upgrades at a number of positions. Hypothetically, Vierling may man the outfield within the occasion that the Tigers took an enormous swing and signed Bregman to deal with third base. Equally, Vierling may take a good portion of the workload on the scorching nook if the Tigers as a substitute wind up including an outfielder like Hernandez, Santander or O’Neill.
On the pitching facet of the coin, additions have appeared like a foregone conclusion. The Tigers utilized just one conventional starter through the playoffs — Skubal — and in any other case went with an all-hands-on-deck strategy that supervisor A.J. Hinch termed “pitching chaos.” Bullpen video games had been the norm all through September and into October, with relievers like Tyler Holton, Beau Brieske and Brenan Hanifee all entering into the act. Whereas that made for an entertaining model of baseball, it additionally places loads of pressure on the workers as a complete and requires leaning closely on a usually risky group of pitchers (relievers) when it comes to year-to-year efficiency.
Coming into 2025, Skubal will likely be again to reprise his function atop the rotation. He’ll presumably be joined by Reese Olson and Casey Mize, with different rotation candidates together with Maeda, Matt Manning, Keider Montero, Ty Madden, Brant Hurter and high prospect Jackson Jobe. Regardless that the membership certainly anticipates an enormous function for Jobe within the very close to future, there’s nonetheless room for upgrades whereas preserving these different arms concerned. Hurter has proven loads of aptitude for reduction work through the “pitching chaos” experiment, and he has minor league choices remaining — as do Hurter, Montero, Madden and Jobe. Manning will likely be out of choices subsequent season and will likely be in one thing of a make-or-break situation subsequent spring. Speculatively, he may be somebody who attracts commerce curiosity if/when Detroit provides to the rotation through free company or commerce.
As is the case with place gamers, the 2024-25 crop of free brokers provides a comparatively deep class of arms. Corbin Burnes, Blake Snell, Max Fried and previous good friend Jack Flaherty headline the pitching class, however there are different notable free brokers together with Sean Manaea, Luis Severino, Yusei Kikuchi and Nathan Eovaldi — to say nothing of older short-term vets who know a factor or two about pitching at Comerica Park (i.e. Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer).
From a pure payroll vantage level, there shouldn’t be a lot that’s off the desk for Detroit. The Tigers have beforehand run participant payroll as much as the $200MM mark — albeit below the late Mike Ilitch’s possession; his son, Chris, is now the staff’s management individual — and at the moment have solely $38.5MM on the books in participant wage subsequent yr. That comes within the type of a $25MM wage for Baez below his ill-fated six-year deal, a $10MM wage for Maeda and a $3.5MM wage for Keith.
Detroit’s arbitration class options 11 gamers and is projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz to value $27.4MM, although a pair non-tender candidates within the group may minimize that by just a few million. Add in a slate of league-minimum salaries (or near it) to spherical out the roster, and the Tigers are about $75-78MM in participant wage as issues at the moment stand. That’s to not say followers ought to count on an all-out blitz in free company and earnest pursuits of Juan Soto, Burnes and Bregman along side each other. On the identical time, the staff’s wide-open payroll outlook would make a official run at Bregman or another free agent potential.
That applies to potential extension talks as effectively. Requested particularly about Skubal, Harris as a substitute spoke in generalities about his need to keep away from publicly commenting on particular person gamers’ contract statuses (X hyperlink through Woodbery). “You noticed what we did with Colt Keith,” stated Harris. “We began discussions privately, got here to an settlement, and introduced it. I don’t suppose it’s constructive to touch upon people, and it’s not truthful to the gamers given the sensitivity of these talks.”
Past Skubal, there are a handful of logical extension candidates on the Tigers. Brieske and Vierling are reaching arbitration for the primary time this winter, and the Tigers may look into modest offers to safe value certainty and maybe purchase out a free agent yr or two. Gamers like Carpenter, Meadows, Greene, Olson and even Jobe may all be targets because the entrance workplace seems to ascertain a core of long-term contributors within the Motor Metropolis. Extra broadly, Harris emphasised the significance of a few of these younger gamers taking the exact same sort of step that Skubal did in 2024.
“There are too many younger gamers on this roster that may and should enhance this offseason,” stated Harris. “The positive aspects that they entry this offseason with the assistance of this teaching workers; once we add all these issues up once we get to Lakeland in February, they should outweigh something we do through exterior additions. As a result of there’s simply an excessive amount of alternative on our roster.”
