The Tigers are expected to exercise a $3.5MM club option on catcher Carson Kelly, per Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic. The club has since announced the move amid a flurry of roster moves, which you can read more about here.
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Good!
Teach him to shoot for the gap.
Hire the Superfife….Send Mr. Miguel and me to Japan and beyond! I’ll drink the sake. No sake, no deal. That’s the way it works!
Hiho hiho…
Guess they have no confidence that Dingler can hit .175 at mlb level
That’s a really bad decision to pay a .175 hitter $3.5M. And the Tigers will use this to complain they don’t have any money to spend on a starter. Way to go “boy wonder Harris”
We’re not paying for his offense although he does have higher offensive upside than Tucker Barnhart who we paid $7.5MM to after a sub-.700 OPS. season.
As expected. Kelly didn’t hit much when he came to us but his work behind the plate was pretty good after settling in. Fans constantly make the mistake of focusing on the offense when making a judgement on the worth of a catcher. Kelly is far from the only light hitting catcher with a MLB job. Most teams prioritize defense and the handling of pitchers over offense. Any offense you get is a bonus.
The market is also very thin at decent replacements for him, which is why the Tigers signed him with this option in the first place. Plus the options within, Sands and Dingler, did not show MLB readiness this past season.
There’s a difference between light hitting and putrid. He can’t hit and even with the defense he was worth only 0.0 bWAR in 2023. And they’re giving him 3.5 million for replacement level play.
I don’t think there’s many better catchers available, but I do think there are guys who can give the same performance for less money.
Kelly didn’t just not hit for us, he hasn’t hit for anyone else either since 2021. He’s a decent defender but he’s a catcher, that’s your job. Seems like we could do better than $3.5 for this type of production. This lineup doesn’t need to keep the holes it already clearly has.
That’s 3.5 million dollars wasted. I hope Kelly proves me wrong.
Wow, 3.5 million doesn’t buy what it used to.