TODAY: Rosenthal will earn $2MM if he makes the Tigers’ active roster, according to Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press (Twitter link). Up to $2MM more is also available in incentive bonuses.
MARCH 4: The Tigers have added veteran reliever Trevor Rosenthal on a minor league deal, the team announced. The deal includes an invite to big league spring training. It’s the second stint in Detroit for Rosenthal, who made ten appearances for the team in 2019.
Injuries have kept Rosenthal out of the past two MLB seasons, with the former All Star last appearing in 2020 for the Royals and Padres. That year, Rosenthal worked to a 1.90 ERA across 23 2/3 innings for both teams. Thoracic outlet syndrome kept him out of the 2021 season when he was on the books of the Athletics taking home an $11MM salary. The Giants signed him in 2022, but he was flipped to the Brewers for Tristan Peters while he was still rehabbing. He tossed two innings of relief on a rehab assignment for the Brewers before sustaining a lat injury that ended his 2022 season.
Originally drafted in the 21st round of the 2009 draft by the Cardinals, Rosenthal worked as a starter coming up through the minors. Yet he never made a start for St Louis, and instead quickly established himself as one of the most dominant relievers in the game after making his debut in 2012. Between 2012-15, Rosenthal amassed 96 saves and worked to a 2.66 ERA over 237 innings.
While he was still punching out batters at an elite rate in 2016, a jump in his walk rate ultimately led to a decline in numbers, and between 2016-17 Rosenthal worked to a 3.89 ERA and ultimately lost the closer role. Tommy John surgery ruled him out of the entire 2018 season, and he struggled mightily in his return pitching to a 13.50 ERA over 15 1/3 innings for the Nationals and Tigers.
That was followed by a quality sample of work in 2020, before the aforementioned injuries saw him miss the next two seasons. With that in mind, it makes it quite hard to work out exactly what the Tigers are getting in Rosenthal this year. The key thing is there does seem to be a fair bit of upside here, and if Rosenthal can work his way back into anything resembling his 2020 form, the Tigers could have a nice trade chip on their hands by the summer deadline.
Not a bad add. At least they are trying.
A minor league deal is never a bad add
That’s about the type of trying Tigers are doing this offseason.Last place here we come or 4th place if Royals suck worse.
Be fortunate that they are at least adding SOMEONE.
This one belongs to the Reds-If i had the power i’d gladly let your Reds have Rosental.Personally i’m not exited about my team dumpster diving,You know a team sucks when that’s the moves they’re making.
From lights out, to grandmas home, long fall
I wouldn’t quite say he’s in grandma’s home, but he did have really unfortunate timing with the injuries since that was his platform year going into free agency when he had Tommy John? Eventually baseball needs to work in what will be known as the Rosenthal clause to the CBA?
He’s still managed 32 million with oakland taking a major hit paying him 11 million for 2021 and bubkis
He was great as a Cardinal
He was great for the half season as a padre
I hope Treavor can get back to his old self. He’s a fine young man.
That’s ok the Brewers will trade for him again and he won’t throw a pitch for them.
I’m all for that. If we make out as good as we did last time when we flipped Milwaukee Daniel Norris and got back Reese Olsen im definitely all for it!
Milwaukee is still kicking themselves in ass for that trade
that is not the one brewers fans are mad at its the Hader trade but that was the 2nd stupid trade we did last year I believe David Stearns is no longer the GM because of the Hader trade the new GM made up for that disaster with the Contreras trade
Yeah, us padre fans adore hader, still not sure how we managed that one
Milwaukee is still kicking themselves in the butt after that trade
Yeah. We ended up getting Norris back later too and he pitched okay after his return. One of the prospect lists this year had Olson at number 87 I believe (Kiley McDaniel maybe?). He wasn’t on any other prospect lists though. I think he’ll be a solid number 3 or 4 at least in MLB.
Hmmmmm. If he is on his game that could be interesting and he could be flipped for a prospect at the deadline. If not then nothing lost. Worth a flier.
He wasn’t real good in his first stint with the Tigers, I remember that. Seems like forever ago…. Hard to believe he is only 32.
Ended with injury. They do need another late arm in the bullpen. Would be better if he was lefty.
Angels paying Moore and Estevez 14 million. While Hand, Rosenthal and Smith signing minor league deals around 8 million with incentives if they produce
I’m good with that. If he rebounds like he did a couple years ago, he’ll AT LEAST be setting up Lange. Wisler working the 7th. The bp won’t be the weak spot for this team. I just hope Veirling, Maton, Meadows, Hernandez and Schoop can all rebound/develop. I’m not worried about Greene and Torkelson has no choice but to be better. The rotation of Rodriguez, Boyd, Manning, Lorenzen and Skubal later will be fine if healthy. I feel like I’m missing an important SPer not named Mize though. Possibly even the #2 starter, but I’m having a brain block.
Turnbull was the guy that I couldn’t remember, lol
Panic move. The BP, other than Lange, is now hot garbage after being the strength of the team last year. It only took 1 week of Spring Training for Harris to realize he probably screwed up. This won’t be the last “flier” this Spring
Never heard of a Minor League signing as an act of desperation….
You act as if they gave him a 4 year deal, lol. It’s a no loss situation. Lange will be a decent closer (struck out the side in a 1-2-3 inning the other day) and Wisler or whoever seizes the opportunity will set him up. Rosenthal is only 32 and came back to closer form in 2020 after injury. Could happen again. We got quite a bit for a couple fickle relievers. Jimenez and Soto were extremely inconsistent.
Calling Soto inconsistent is very inaccurate. He consistently struggled with the control of his slider. He was effectively wild. He has amazing stuff, so much so that he racked up saves regularly while trying to harness it. Hopefully the players the Tigers got work out for them. I have no doubt that the Phillies will be happy with their side of the trade. If they can refine Soto, they will be ecstatic.
All the relievers are quickly signing now. I guess Britton’s next.
Wake me up when he actually pitches in the majors.
This has said more to come for maybe an hour or so now with no updates yet, as of 8:27 PM.
Simon’s been running the chat tonight. I’m sure he’ll get to it now that the chat is over.
Ah! Didn’t realize
The Tigers can be the 4th team in a row Rosenthal doesn’t actually pitch for
Welcome back, I guess…..
He’s been taking fliers all offseason. Wingentner and Kervin Castro have looked good. Englert, Uceta, Wisler and others TBD but not hot garbage. Vest had a bad day. I think we will have a decent pen again. It’s not like Jimenez and Soto were ever stable. They were always a bad inning away from imploding.
Englert has given up one earned run in four innings, as has Garret Hill. Several others are doing well, this year’s bullpen should be fine.
Englert struck out 4 in 2 scoreless innings the other day….for what it’s worth, lol
The guy they needed back was Fulmer. He was the stable guy. Hopefully, Cisnero can be that guy this year.
Looks like they just found their closer. He’s a solid pitcher when he’s healthy, hopefully he can avoid more injuries.
Will Smith and Brad Hand were signed for low-cost contracts. Perhaps they did not want to play for Detroit, but I didn’t see any stories about Detroit expressing interest in either of them.
Why would you see the stories? Except for a handful of relievers, only RP signings usually are newsworthy. I’m sure countless teams inquired about Smith and Hand. And yes, I’d think other teams would b much more appealing to both then the Tigers ans where they currently stand competitiveness wise.
Actually, there was a story on this site that mentioned Detroit’s interest in Will Smith. Obviously, he chose to go elsewhere.
“Tigers have shown interest in Will Smith” was the title of the article, it came out three weeks ago.
Will Smith was mentioned in a story. I didn’t see Brad Hand either.
I’m sure they wanted to be with a contender. Those guys may not have had a chance to close on a good team, but they could still be a key lefty with an incentive laden deal with a good team. And I remember that Will Smith story too. Other teams were interested. They probably just wanted to see them throw/go through a workout first. The Tigers have a ways to go before they’re in the postseason again, unfortunately.
Seems practically risk free (minor league contract) with a huge upside. Even after he was a stud closer with St. Louis and “finished” the first time, after bouncing around a bunch (including to the Tigers), he was very effective in 2020.
Now he’s “finished” again? If that’s really the case, the Tigers will find out fast and on the cheap. (Before his last resurrection, he had a sustained period of walking more than a batter PER INNING. Then in 2020, he was walking 3 per 9 innings and striking out 14-15.)
If his arm has come back to life, the Tigers will need him because they traded (generally for plus-value) or lost the heart of their bullpen. And he’d absolutely be the kind of guy they can flip at the trade deadline for real value, because when he “comes back,” he comes back BIG.
Thoracic Outlet Surgery usually means a major loss of velocity. We’ll see if he still has the heater. That surgery wrecked Matt Harvey
The Tigers are more sad than the Angles. Very impressive.
When you can spell Angels right we’ll talk 😉 The Angels are on the fringe of the playoffs why are they sad? Personally I think they should gave shipped Ohtani out and grabbed half of the Dodgers farm system to set them up for years to come. I think they will regret that when he jumps ship next year.
As for the Tigers…they will be better than last year and this year will be another long one. I think they are on the right track though and won’t be surprised if they are in the same boat as the Angels next year…fringe contender.
Its is an typo I swears. And no they won’t even play above .500. The Tigers definitely have some good prospects but they’ve disappointed for years now and will still suck pretty bad this year. Plus Javier Baez was a disaster deal. He’s always been extremely overated and they got robbed by him.
I was just joking around with you dude 😉 If Baez has a good year hopefully someone overpays at the deadline (same for Eduardo Rodriguez). Javy seems to follow up a bad year with a good one so cross your fingers. I always liked him but last year was a wash for sure.
Always liked Baez’ glove, never liked his bat. Don’t even need to throw strikes to get him out. He’ll do it all on his own. Last year, pitchers finally stopped throwing him strikes. His offensive struggles were predicted. His glove becoming average was unexpected and just icing on the cake. I was hoping for two good years and then he would opt out. Even if he rebounds this year, I doubt he can better his contract, so they are likely stuck with him.
Athletics, Giants, and Brewers legend
The guy has made 30+ million dollars in his career and hasn’t pitched a full season in 5+ years. Good work if you can get it.
I didn’t even know that Rosenthal was still an active player? I thought he had retired. Tigers must lead the league in players signed to minor league deals.
Tigers are headed for a 110+ loss season. But, let’s all come out to praise Miguel Cabrera in his final season!
The Tigers are likely headed for a 75-87 record, or something similar.
Once again, no team option. They let this guy showcase on the MLB stage, with no more benefit than flipping him at half a season. Could do better.
The Tigers sales pitch should be, yes, we are signing you with the intention of flipping you to a team who is in the mix.
These comments about players wanting to sign with a contender are silly. By signing with the Tigers a player will, most certainly, be playing for a contender. Asking for a team option should not be an issue.
The problem with the Tigers is that they have too many untried players and they are simply just afraid of letting guys go who might turn into productive players somewhere else.
No only could they have had a V8, they could have hired…..
Who?
In fact, I believe offering a decent team option should motivate a player to do well. Stop trying to low ball players, “win” the negotiations, “win” the trades. Try winning a World Series.
Like Zoom-Zoom said: “it hurts to throw 103”. This guy held out for a decent contract if he makes the team……he no doubt showcased for them and they liked what they saw but not enough to give him a real contract up-front. He’s had all the mandatory injuries and surgeries so there’s that. He obviously has no ties to Detroit although he’s already spent time there and their new regime has them trying all kinds of off-the-wall stuff some nutty professor thought up. Should be hilarious watching the “pitching committee” argue over who gets to be in charge on a given day…same with the “hitting committee”. Harris seems to be running more of a Silicon Valley start-up than a baseball team.
hey