Archives for July 2024

Over the next two weeks, the Tigers are widely expected to become deadline sellers. That’s perhaps not as set in stone as it once looked — not with an 8-2 showing in their past 10 games and nine games against the Twins and Guardians remaining between now and the deadline. In many ways, they’ll control their own fate. At 47-50, they’re a dozen games back of Cleveland for the division lead and seven games out of the American League Wild Card chase. An impressive run, particularly against those division foes, could change the complexion of the AL Central.

Given their standing in the division for the majority of the season, there’s been been plenty of chatter about the top names Detroit could peddle on the summer trade market. A trade of ace and AL Cy Young favorite Tarik Skubal — who’s controlled through 2026 — seems immensely unlikely, though given the sheer volume of interest and possibility of a team making a stratospheric offer, we still tucked him into the No. 50 spot last week when listing our top 50 trade candidates for this year’s deadline.

Three other Tigers made that list, including top name Jack Flaherty as well as reliever Andrew Chafin and utilityman Gio Urshela. There’s at least one other Tiger that had a clear case to be on the list, but ultimately, we chose an arbitrary 50 candidates to highlight, and not every plausible name made the cut. That, however, doesn’t mean that catcher Carson Kelly isn’t an intriguing trade candidate himself.

At the time the Tigers signed Kelly last August, the transaction drew little fanfare. While he was a former top prospect with the Cardinals and one of the headline pieces in the trade that sent Paul Goldschmidt from St. Louis to Arizona, Kelly had struggled for much of the 2022-23 seasons after originally turning in a pair of nice seasons with the Snakes in 2019 and 2021. At the time of his DFA and subsequent D-backs release, he was hitting .226/.283/.298 in 92 trips to the plate. He’d batted .211/.282/.334 in 354 plate appearances a year prior. It was an inauspicious conclusion to a nearly five-year run in Arizona.

Kelly didn’t do much to change any narratives surrounding him down the stretch in Detroit. He hit just .173/.271/.269 in 59 plate appearances. He continued to play standout defense, as has been the case throughout his big league career, but he looked the part of a punchless, glove-first backup. Despite that, the Tigers clearly saw something they liked and picked up the $3.5MM club option they’d negotiated into Kelly’s contract — a lesser price than he’d have commanded had the Tigers simply kept him and gone through the arbitration process.

It’s proven to be a savvy move. After a disastrous stretch at the plate in 2022-23, Kelly has rebounded back to the 2019 and 2021 form that made him into a quality all-around catcher. He’s hitting .247/.326/.410 with seven home runs on the year. He’s been even better since a slow start; in 120 plate appearances dating back to mid-May, Kelly is hitting .290/.358/.505.

That production doesn’t appear to be overly fluky in nature. Kelly’s .276 average on balls in play is higher than his career .257 mark, but not by much, and it’s still south of the 2024 league average (.289). Kelly’s 19.9% strikeout rate is the lowest full-season mark of his career (albeit only by a narrow margin), and he’s drawing walks at a solid 8.6% clip. Statcast shows that Kelly is making hard contact at far and away the highest rate of his career (45.4%) and also averaging a career-best 89.7 mph off the bat. (From 2022-23, those numbers sat at 35.4% and 87.4 mph, respectively.) By measure of wRC+, Kelly’s bat has been 10% better than average.

The increased production at the plate is particularly encouraging because Kelly’s glove remains a premium asset. He’s thwarted a whopping one-third of stolen base attempts against him (18-for-54). The league average this season is 23%. Kelly has also drawn plus marks for his blocking and at least average marks for his framing. In 437 innings behind the dish, Statcast credits him as four runs above average. Defensive Runs Saved pegs him at a strong +3 in that same time.

Kelly’s production has been sufficient enough that he’s overtaken Jake Rogers by a slight margin in terms of playing time. Though he was signed to be Rogers’ backup, Kelly’s 437 innings behind the plate top his teammate’s 422 frames there.

Given Rogers’ struggles this season — he’s hitting .203/.251/.346 — it’s possible that Kelly has played his way into the Tigers’ long-term plans. However, he’s slated to become a free agent at season’s end. Rogers, who’s a plus defender himself, is controlled through the 2026 season. He’s drawn trade interest in the past and could potentially do so again over the next couple weeks, though this year’s downturn at the plate obviously has an adverse impact on the level of interest Rogers would realistically command.

It’s rare for a team to go acquire a new starting catcher at the deadline, as learning a new pitching staff on the fly midseason is a tall order. There are a few teams on the lookout for catching help, however — the Cubs seemingly chief among them. Other postseason hopefuls that have received minimal production from their backstops in 2024 include the Guardians and the Rays, and the majority of contending clubs would consider the 2024 version of Kelly an upgrade over their current backup catcher.

In retrospect, I’d probably go back and find a way to get Kelly onto last week’s top 50 list, perhaps pushing off one of the many middle relievers who populated the middle tiers. But catching help is rarely as in demand as bullpen help on the summer trade market, and we went with more relievers as a result.

Regardless, Kelly stands as a clear trade candidate, barring a surge against the division-rival Guardians and Twins in the next two weeks. That fact alone is deserving of praise for multiple parties. Tigers scouts and evaluators deserve credit for looking at Kelly and determining that even after a dismal two years, he still had a potential rebound in the tank. The front office deserves credit for not only signing Kelly last year but including a low-cost club option that’s made him into an even more appealing bargain option.

And, of course, Kelly himself deserves praise for the manner in which he’s put that forgettable two-year stretch behind him and revitalized his career. This is his best stretch since early 2021, and having just turned 30 on Sunday, he still has plenty of years ahead if he can sustain anything close to this pace. The big question, for the moment, is whether that continues in a Tigers uniform or whether he changes hands in the next 14 days. He and his teammates will have plenty of say in which route their front office ultimately chooses.