The Tigers are nearing a two-year pact with free agent righty Mark Lowe, ESPN.com’s Jerry Crasnick reports on Twitter. Lowe is represented by Frye McCann Sports.
Lowe, 32, jump started his career with a stellar 2015 season. After joining the Mariners on a minor league deal, he put up one of the most dominating pitching lines of the season’s first half, tossing 36 frames of 1.00 ERA pitching with 11.8 K/9 against 2.8 BB/9. That led to a mid-season trade that sent Lowe to the Blue Jays in exchange for a trio of young pitchers.
While he wasn’t quite as excellent in Toronto, Lowe was still quite an effective reliever down the stretch. He allowed eight earned runs while striking out 14 and allowing just one walk in his 19 innings. Lowe went on to permit two earned in his 4 1/3 postseason frames.
Lowe’s success was attributed, at least in part, to a revived fastball. He averaged over 95 mph with the heater on the year, a mark he hadn’t reached since way back in 2011. That was also the last season in which Lowe topped forty big league innings prior to 2015. As Eno Sarris of Fangraphs explained at the time of the trade, the emergence of Lowe’s fastball also helped him post stellar results with his slider. All told, Lowe ended the year with a career-best 14.1% swinging strike rate.
For Detroit, Lowe would presumably factor in the setup mix in front of recently-added closer Francisco Rodriguez. New general manager Al Avila has already added significant arms to both the rotation and then pen in advance of the Winter Meetings, along with an outfield option in Cameron Maybin, and Lowe could wrap up most of the team’s highest-priority business.
that sucks. i want mark lowe back in toronto. please stay in toronto mark
A lot of focus on relief these days.
Might relate to the Royal’s success over the last couple of years
and the fact that bullpens are cheaper to construct.
Definitely an upgrade if it happens. Curious on price though.
As a die hard Jays fan, you’ll like him. Great guy, good leader, been through some crazy times, up and down times. Tommy John, dfa’d.. Crazy story. Has a big arm tho 94-97 on the fastball with a nice slider. Solid move for sure.
Lowe > Al Al
Avila must want to take a 6 week vacation. Getting all his work done very efficiently. No open spots left… other than perhaps a lefty reliever and maybe they can get Soria still, since they have money left over.
Lets get sipp and gordon and we good
6th Verhagen 7th Wilson/Hardy 8th Lowe 9th K-Rod…. Looking like we are going to have a solid bullpen, not lights out but definitely solid
What if they added Soria?
Toronto needs to get in on this and sign a decent reliever or 2. I’m fine with the additions we made to the rotation, but only if we have a good bullpen to take some of the pressure off them
Yes, we really need some arms back there after losing latroy, Liam and now mark. Soria would be a solid fit but they are going after really cheap bullpen pieces.
I think a left handed reliever and maybe another position bat will solidify it all up
As a hardcore Jays fan, he will make u guys happy
Thanks! Have needed good bp guys for awhile
Al Avila is killing it!!
The student has exceeded the master in his deal making ability. Amazing. I have never seen so many deals so quickly.
I’d hoped the Mariners would sign Lowe.
I love it. The Tigers bullpen is finally looking good for once.
Two moves left. Sipp/Bastardo for the bullpen and Span to play LF and leadoff.
They’ve added “A” significant arm this season… Lowe and Pelfry are not significant…. With all the money in the Tigers have, Soria should have been the target instead of Lowe
Soria was the target and they offered 3/$24MM. He took 3/$25MM plus a 4th year mutual option plus performance bonuses from KC.