One of the great late-season surges in baseball history brought the Tigers from eight games under .500 to within a game of the AL Championship Series. With the rebuild now over, the Tigers have plenty of avenues available to bolster the roster for 2025.
Guaranteed Contracts
- Javier Baez, SS: $73MM through 2027
- Colt Keith, 2B: $24,142,500 through 2030 (includes $2.6425MM buyout of $10MM club option for 2030; deal also includes $13MM club option for 2031 with $1MM buyout, and $15MM club option for 2032 with $2MM buyout)
- Kenta Maeda, SP/RP: $10MM through 2025
2025 financial commitments: $38.5MM
Total future commitments: $107,142,500
Option Decisions
- Casey Mize, SP: $3.1MM club option, $10K buyout (if option is declined, Mize is still arbitration-controlled through 2026)
Arbitration-Eligible Players (projections from MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz)
- Tarik Skubal (4.114): $8MM
- Casey Mize (4.111): $2MM
- Jake Rogers (4.040): $2.5MM
- Will Vest (3.100): $1.4MM
- Zach McKinstry (3.099): $1.3MM
- Jason Foley (3.033): $3.5MM
- Matt Vierling (3.026): $3MM
- Akil Baddoo (3.003): $1.6MM
- Alex Lange (3.003): $1.3MM
- Andy Ibanez (2.170): $1.5MM
- Beau Brieske (2.134): $1.3MM
- Non-tender candidates: Baddoo, McKinstry, Lange
Free Agents
- None
After moving most of their veteran players at the trade deadline, Detroit looked to be playing out the string as late as August 10, when a 3-1 loss to the Giants dropped the Tigers' record to 55-63. That's when the magic started happening, as the Tigers went 31-13 over their last 44 games to surge into the final AL wild card spot, giving Detroit its first playoff berth since 2014. The club then upset the Astros in the Wild Card Series and took the Guardians to the limit in the ALDS before Lane Thomas' clutch grand slam in Game 5 finally put the upstart Tigers away for good.
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Colt Keith $13MM club option for 2013???
I’m guessing they had “fat fingers” and switched the 1 and 3 around. Honest mistake
Baddoo and Lange are not arb eligible.
Baddoo was a S2 player last offseason so he is arb eligible
Baddoo was under 3 years of service (2.168 or 2.169) and did not have 86 days of service this year. He is not eligible, unless somehow he got 6 or 7 more days of service magically to get him to 3.003, but I have confirmation from somebody who had access to the EBIS site that his service time is 2.169.
You can still non-tender them, even if not eligible.
Don’t see them non-tendering McKinstry. He’s one of AJ’s favourites (although, I agree he could easily be upgraded).
Was Fun to watch this young team go on a great run….Good Luck Next season Tigers !! (from a disgruntled Jays fan ) 🙂
Can’t get behind these tigers after giving flaherty away to the evil dodgers ! There was a playoff day on draft kings where they didn’t have a starter named and flaherty was the starter of an opening series smh, wtf ?!?
Tigers don’t make the playoffs without wiping the slate clean and playing youngsters, incl. Sweeney, whose play helped win a few games (more than they would have w/Baez or Z-Mac @ SS).
It’s clear anyone who thinks this didn’t start watching this team until mid-to-late August. Before the deadline, there was nothing to suggest a Wild Card berth was even plausible.
Are we supposed to believe that this team would have made the same type of late-season run with Ryan Kreidler and Javy Baez platooning at shortstop the final 45 games? That’s a dubious take.
Not to mention, Sweeney wasn’t even the headliner of the trade — Liranzo was. And sure, Sweeney has his flaws, but compared to the production we’d gotten out of the short stop position for 4.5 months before then — he was a blessing from the baseball gods, and a significant reason why that Wild Card-chase happened.
Well, Flaherty blew up today vs. the Mets. I think the Tigers did fine without him.
I think their main question is going to be what to do with Baez. I think you have to go into the offseason expecting him to be better off on the bench
Not even sure they’d give him a bench spot since he doesn’t have any other positional flexibility beyond shortstop. My guess would be he either has a monster spring training (with noticably obvious plate improvement / discipline / power) or they flat out release him.
The latter seems far more likely…
It does. But that’s such a large amount of dead money which makes me think they’ll hesitate to release him
They will at least give him a chance to prove the surgery was successful/unsuccessful. If they release him during the offseason, they won’t be able to collect insurance money.
Baez will be a Tiger next year. If nothing more than a R/L platoon with Sweeney. He can play 3B and 2B too.
The worst thing they could have done is make the playoffs. Now people will think that will happen ever again. Detoilet
Obviously you haven’t been to downtown Detroit in many years, if ever. It has actually become quite nice.
Detroit will never be nice. Never has been.
Depends what you’re comparing it too. Compared to Beirut, Lebanon it’s paradise.
Beirut has better parks and dining options
No one cares. This is about their baseball team, not dining options.
You mean everyone cares but you.
The Tigers should make a run at Burnes. Skubal-Burnes would be a nice top of the rotation for two years, and then Skubal probably ends up somewhere else in free agency.
Keider Montero has the best knuckle curve I’ve ever seen. It’s so good that he might be able to stick in the rotation with three pitches, including a 95 mph fastball and decent slider. His changeup has been a disaster.
Casey Mize will surprise people next year. His velo picked up to 96-97 after TJ and he got the feel for his splitter late in the season.
The Tigers could certainly use more offense at short, third, and catcher. Internal options are more than a year away.
I’m surprised they still believe in mize most teams would’ve dumped him already
That I disagree with. Most teams wouldn’t dump their former #1 draft pick in his first season returning from TJ. And it’s hard to not believe in Mize if you followed his path to the majors. The velo is there… he just needs to work on refining a couple of his pitches. He’ll get another season to return to form.
Ever heard of mark appel? What about (to a lesser extent) Brady Aiken?
Compared to those 2, Mize has been way more successful.
The only reason ppl sour on Mize is because he was first overall. If he was taken anywhere else in the first round, nobody would care (i.e. Manning, Faedo).
Unlike Appel and Aiken, Mize actually has proven himself in the MLB. He was our ace in 2021, for what it’s worth.
3.8 era is ok but not great at comerica park
I’d like to see Detroit do a trade with the Giants this off-season.
The Canha trade worked out well for both teams. Now, SFG needs hitting and Detroit could use some arms. With Scott Harris having been with the Giants previously and their needs/supply looking good on paper why not?
I’m not sure of the players involved but I think they could work out a mutually beneficial deal.
The Tigers had one of the top five pitching staffs in MLB and a well below average lineup. They’d like a SP or two, such as Flaherty, but hitting is at least as much of a need.
Tigers have a lot of nice pitching to play with, but adding a #2 starter would go a long way extending the rotation.
I’m not ready to give up on Mize. Don’t forget about his SEC partner Faedo, also. Let’s see what they do in ST. They’re both at about the age where they’re ready to take the next step.
Montero, Madden & Hurter were revelations. Sawyer Gibson-Long is coming back, too. He was hanging with Reese start for start before he got hurt. (He’s a quality person, too.)
I wouldn’t mind if JJobe stays in Toledo after ST to get his command under control..
Reese Olson is No 2 presently. He’d be a better No 3.
They won’t give up on Mize while he has options left. A 4.49 ERA isn’t the end of the world coming off TJS. His BB and HR ratios are okay.
I’d imagine Lange will get picked up quickly if NT’d. Someone is going to try to iron out his command. Think they could flip him for a lotto.
Given the volatility of closers, I would hesitate to give up on one after one bad season. Lange’s power curve drew the most swings and misses of any pitch in baseball in 2023. You can’t give up on that to save $1.3 mill. L:ange had surgery this year, and maybe he would be non-tendered because of an uncertain recovery.
I will be surprised, as well, if the Tigers NT Lange. I know he’s out of options. At least see what he looks like in Lakeland.
Lange is neither out of options nor arbitration eligible.
Crazy that the Padres have over $1B more in commitments than do the Tigers.
Padres don’t have any home grown players, Detroit has a few
I hope the tigers sign flaherty and JV it would be awesome on top of say teo Hernandez or ant Santander
Detroit has that feel about it now like the teams of the 60’s or the 80’s had. Only this build of the team has the Elon Musk rocket feel to it. Still the wild card to baseball is the baseballs themselves. Last season in the second half Tork went on a tear. The first half the ball seemed to change from a dead type ball to one that went out. Did the dead ball supply run out ?
This year the ball was dead from the get go. Balls being hit around the league at a 100 plus mph staying in the parks. The reason why I’m talking about it is, who do you pay ? That 2019 season the hitters raked on contracts afterwards, now will all the pitchers rake going forward ?
That said this is the most exciting team build I’ve ever seen the Tigers have. The 61 Tigers won 101 games finishing second to Maris and Mantel. The 84 35-5 start was insane. This team had that 31-11, and it will be forever 31-13 losing two meaningless games by the fake news.
Growing up with the Tigers has been a blast. Riding bikes to downtown watching baseball games in the dollar to two dollar Bleachers, or in the upper deck reserves if that summer lawn money was good with the paper route money. The Boblo boat dock, and the bike rack was safe to lock up your bikes and spend a day at the amusement park Or going to the west side to Edgewater amusement park. Detroit was a blast, before and after the riots.
This Tiger team build looks to be a whole lot of fun. Trump to restore America, and the Tigers to restore the roar of 84. Go Trump, Go Tigers !
Can we leave politics off this board and just enjoy talking baseball?
Dude wrote 3 paragraphs about baseball, but you focus on the 1 single word in his post. Tell me you have TDS without telling me you have TDS.
I was not critical of Trump at all. I did not indicate my politics at all. This is a baseball board. Everyone who comes here likely loves baseball. We all can enjoy baseball. When politics are brought into the discussuon, then half the people are unhappy. I would say same thing if they said “let’s go Harris”.
We don’t believe you.
Very little roster space. Like I said, they should have traded more guys. Roster crunch.
25 will be Torques’ breakout season. Back to 30-50 HRs.
I think Jace Jung should be moved to 2B. Colt Kieth is not mobile enough. Zach McKinstry is not the answer.
Tigers should sign Shane Bieber & Walker Buehler to 2 or 3 year deals with opt-out options. Their first years will only be around $15m each. And then trade Montero & Manning (plus whatever else is needed) for Sandy Alcantara.
Between Bieber, Buehler, Alcantara, Skubal & Olsen/Maeda, you have a pitching staff with potentially 4 aces and a total annual cost of around $63m.
Bieber may take a couple months to get back to 100% but he could end up being the best pitcher on the staff and that is obviously saying something when Skubal is there, but it’s plausible. Maeda, Mize or Jobe could all be in the rotation to start the season and see who plays well enough to stick around or boost their value to perhaps trade for deadline piece.