The Tigers announced that right-hander Brendan White has been recalled to the active roster, with fellow righty Garrett Hill optioned out in a corresponding move. White was already on the 40-man roster but will be making his major league debut as soon as he gets into a game.
White, 24, was a 26th round selection of the Tigers in 2019. He made some Rookie ball appearances that year but then the minor leagues were canceled by the pandemic in 2020. He has since jumped up the minor league ladder one rung per year. He spent 2021 in High-A, tossing 101 1/3 innings over 18 starts and eight relief appearances with a 4.17 ERA. He moved up to Double-A last year and was also moved to the bullpen on a permanent basis. He tossed 67 1/3 innings over 48 appearances last year with a 2.67 ERA, 27.1% strikeout rate, 6.3% walk rate and 56% ground ball rate.
Since that move to full-time relief work seemed to suit him so well, the Tigers added him to their 40-man roster in November to prevent him from being selected in the Rule 5 draft. He has spent all of this year in Triple-A so far, logging 32 frames over 25 appearances. His ERA has jumped to 4.78 but that seems to be inflated by a .466 batting average on balls in play. His 29.3% strikeout rate, 6.8% walk rate and 52.2% ground ball rate are all similar to last year’s numbers and each one is better than average.
White will now get a chance to jump to the major leagues and join a beleaguered Detroit bullpen. The club used seven pitchers on Sunday’s game, using Will Vest as an opener in front of bulk guy Joey Wentz before five different relievers were later deployed. Yesterday, the club went with a bullpen game as each of Mason Englert, Hill, and Tyler Alexander tossed at least 2 2/3 innings before Alex Lange closed it out. With that heavy usage, they’ve decided to get a fresh arm by swapping White in for Hill.
All the whites are getting promoted
Good luck, young man. I look forward to seeing what you can do!
Big day for Whites everywhere
And a Blackmon is down.
Hmmmmmmm.
Thanks for the LOL, DCartrow!
Two whites don’t make a whong.
I want to see Walter White get the call up
Brendan White and Reese Olson will be good arms for years to come. Brendan White’s upside is probably Joakim Soria, not closer stuff but a great bullpen arm. Olson will be a cross between Shane Greene and Drew Smyly, minus the injuries. Things are stsrting to make sense already with this rebuild.
Well, the Tigers are probably not as good as they looked in May and certainly not as bad as they looked in that nine game losing streak. I still say that they’ll win 75 games this year.
As players get healthy, they should perform better, but they still need some bats. Manning, Rodriguez, Brieske, and Faedo may all be back by the end of the month.
@stymeedone:
Are Rodriguez and Faedo really so close to returning? Skubal, Brieske and Manning are on rehab assignments ready, but I haven’t seen anything alike about the former two. Faedo seems a bit frail to me anyway, after he went down early last year as well (which is a shame, I like the guy).
Gruß,
BSHH
This seems to be a clever move by the Tigers. Hill pitched multiple innings yesterday and simply gives up too many runs this year (a problem that followed him from Spring Training into both AAA and MLB). White is fresh, can pitch multiple innings as well and does not to invoke any black magic to be better than Hill.
Anyway, I am particularly happy for the player. A 26th round pick who persevered gets to live his dream.
Gruß,
BSHH
Good to see some new faces coming up. Keep ’em coming!
Let’s not be too greedy, I would love to see the “old faces” Skubal, Rodriguez, Greene, Manning, A. Meadows et alia again as well. Except for some stints for relievers, I expect only Malloy and perhaps P. Meadows to be the next new faces coming up this year.
Gruß,
BSHH
If Lipcius continues to hit, he could potentially get promoted to Detroit within a few weeks.
Congratulations!