The Tigers announced that they have designated right-hander Kenta Maeda for assignment. Right-hander Tyler Owens has been recalled to take his place on the active roster. Jon Morosi of MLB.com reported Maeda’s DFA prior to the official announcement.
Maeda landed with Detroit going into the 2024 season. The two sides agreed to a two-year, $24MM deal in November of 2023. In hindsight, that’s obviously a move the Tigers wish they could undo, though there was decent logic to it at the time.
The veteran didn’t go into free agency with a ton of juice. He had a 4.66 earned run average with the Twins in 2021, then missed the 2022 recovering from UCL surgery. He returned to the mound in 2023 and tossed 104 1/3 innings but with a middling 4.23 ERA.
Under the hood, there was a bit more reason for optimism. His 2023 season started awfully but he finished strong. He landed on the IL in late April due to a right triceps strain, sitting on an ERA of 9.00 at that time. In his last start before hitting the IL, he had allowed ten runs in three innings. Given the subsequent IL stint, it was fair to conclude that he wasn’t right. He came off the IL in June and then tossed 88 1/3 innings the rest of the way with a 3.36 ERA, 29% strikeout rate and 7% walk rate.
It appeared to have a chance at being a sneaky value play for the Tigers. That did not come to pass at all. Maeda posted a 7.26 ERA through his first 16 starts last year. His strikeout rate had dropped to a paltry 17.1%. The Tigers moved him to the bullpen at that point and he did improve from there. He tossed 46 2/3 innings in a long relief role the rest of the way with a 4.44 ERA and a 23.8% strikeout rate.
Over the winter, president of baseball operations Scott Harris said that Maeda would have a chance to earn a rotation spot in 2025. However, the club eventually bumped him to a long relief role yet again, going with a rotation of Tarik Skubal, Jack Flaherty, Reese Olson, Casey Mize and Jackson Jobe to start the season.
Though Maeda did well out of the ’pen last year, he hasn’t carried that over into this year. He has a 7.88 ERA through eight innings. Some of that is due to a low 60.2% strand rate but his strikeout rate has also fallen to 18.6% and he has walked 14% of batters faced. Manager A.J. Hinch has clearly been reluctant to use him, with Maeda only making six appearances in the month of April. He twice went over a week without getting into a game.
Teams generally don’t like to give up on players when they’ve already committed significant sums of money to them, but the writing was on the wall with Maeda. He will likely end up on the open market in the coming days. The Tigers could try to trade him but they would surely have to eat basically all of his remaining contract in order to interest any other club. He is making $10MM this year, with roughly $8MM still to be paid out. No team will want to take that on, meaning Maeda would clear outright waivers. As a veteran with at least five years of service time, he has the right to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency while keeping all of that money. The Tigers may skip the formalities and release him.
Assuming he does end up a free agent, any club could sign him at that point and would only have to pay him the prorated league minimum salary for any time spent on the roster. That amount would be subtracted from what the Tigers owe. It’s conceivable that some clubs might have interest in that scenario, since there would be no financial risk. With several teams dealing with mounting injuries, one of them might give it a shot.
Owens, 24, gets to the majors for the first time. Drafted by Atlanta, he was traded to the Rangers for J.P. Martínez in January of 2024, then to the Tigers in the deadline deal that sent Carson Kelly to Texas. The Tigers added him to their 40-man roster in November to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft.
He worked both as a starter and a reliever earlier in his career but worked exclusively out of the bullpen last year with good results. He tossed 51 2/3 Double-A innings with a 2.96 ERA, 25.7% strikeout rate and 7.5% walk rate. He has been with Triple-A Toledo to start this year but the numbers haven’t been as good. He has a 4.50 ERA, 16.7% strikeout rate and 13.6% walk rate through 14 innings.
He might be in for a short stint, as Beau Brieske is on a rehab assignment and eligible to come off the injured list in Saturday. Regardless, he’s up in the majors today and has a chance to make his debut.
Photos courtesy of Junfu Han, Imagn Images
About time!! He stopped being a major league pitcher right around the time the Tigers threw money at him. Good riddance.
Tiger9 aren’t you the guy that continues to post trust in Harris? I’m shocked that you would mock one of his moves. Maybe figure out if you like what Harris has done or not before backing yourself in a corner like a tool
No GM in sports history has a flawless record. You can recognize someone is a good GM and point out moves that didn’t work. Life isn’t lived in extremes.
Laughable comment by a typical Detroit fan that loves to support losers.
So the team with the best record in the AL are “losers” because Kenta Maeda was DFAd? I appreciate your continued intelligent insight
You are so annoying. Do you just wake up in the morning and scroll through mlbtr comments and go “hmmm this one is the one I’m going to attack today”? The only took I see in this discussion is you.
It’s crazy to think that Kenta signed with the dodgers for 8 years way back when
Crazy to think he finished 2nd in Cy young voting too at one point
You are thinking of hyun jin ryu
No they are not
Los Angeles Dodgers. On January 7, 2016, Maeda signed an eight-year, $25 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers that included $10 million per year in incentives.
He finished second in Cy Young in 2020 his first year with the Twins.
No he’s not he’s referring to Kenta maeda. Please don’t assume who he is thinking of that is insensitive.
Argh I’m sorry I didn’t go on baseball reference I forgot 2020 existed
Well I accept your apology but you should also apologize to Caligula. What you did could have potentially hurt Caligulas feelings quite a bit. I’m sure your apology will make him feel better about the situation and then we can all move on.
Crazy he almost won rookie of the year at one point too
Today is a good day
Rejoice!
Man, I feel bad that it didn’t work out for him in Detroit. I really liked Kenta in Minnesota.
Add him to the list of former Twins pitchers in recent memory that fizzled out in Detroit… Joe Nathan, Francisco Liriano, Mike Pelfrey…
No need to keep him. The Japanese pitchers he was supposed to lure signed elsewhere.
Any Twins-to-Tigers washout reliever list must include Johnny Klippstein and Ron Perranoski.
Good. He has lost his touch.
Yeah, he was awful in Detroit, but that doesn’t diminish a decent 17-year career across MLB/NPB where he won 168 games. Maybe he will have the same path as countryman Hiroki Kuroda and go back to the Hiroshima Carp to finish out his career.
Os send Charlie Morton and some cash for this cat.
O’s should keep Morton in the bullpen, give Keegan Akin some starts, sign Maeda and Rich Hill.
Kenya was great for LA, and deserved a WS ring in 2017 when the Dodgers got trash canned.
It’s unfortunate that he was so adamant about not going to the pen in the postseason. Because he was a weapon as a reliever with that arsenal and the ability to let the fastball rip.
I understand it, he was a good starter for the Dodgers and if it were me, I’d probably feel the same way. But I think that was a big reason the Dodgers were willing to move him.
Kenta and Yu Darvish and Andre Ethier. All three should have rings, and in Yu’s case, his postseason story is one of hard luck ever since 2017.
The Dodgers weren’t going to win that WS or the one against the Red Sox, even without the cheating.
It is good move for Detroit. Should have done it last year when it obvious that he was struggling. I thought he was pitching a little better this year which shows how bad last year was. Somebody might take a chance on him with Detroit paying his salary. Just another example why you don’t sign players in that age group for larger salaries.
Tigers tried to recover some value from his contract but he’s just terrible. Last two outings bouncing pitches to the plate. The signing made some sense at the time, just didn’t pan out.
You can pay him $10 mill. to lose you games, or you can pay him $10 mill. to just go away. It is called addition by subtraction. The Tigers are better today than they were yesterday just by subtracting Maeda.
Sad.
Coulda saved all that money by just hiring the Superfife…..save $20M, lower the price of a hot dog and get better stuffed animals (Hansa) in the gift shop and…..remove the silly, “mentally handicapable” ones from the gift shop.
I would love to spend 4 hours with your brain.
GREAT MOVE ! It had to be done. Playoff bound teams can’t carry a non performer. GO TIGERS !!!
Who goes when meadows, veirling and Margot come back.
Malloy, Ibanez (possibly keith), and Margot
Malloy for Margot, Sweeney for Vierling and by the time Meadows is ready, someone else will probably be on the IL.
Or possibly Jung for Vierling.
Sweeney isn’t going anywhere. He’s the starting SS against RH and is the best defensive SS they have.
Kreidler has always been a good defensive player too but his lack of offense made it impossible to keep him in the lineup. If Sweeney doesn’t start hitting, I can see us sending him down once Vierling comes back. McKinstry can share SS with Baez and continue to play in LF/CF. Vierling would split time between CF and 3B.
I thought this was a great signing when it first happened. I was wrong.
Maeda and Cobb signings were terrible
Just for fun I looked at his hitting records for his career. Typical pitcher batting but I see he had a Homer and 4 doubles and must have at least battled when at the plate.
Now check out Terry Forster.
Yes very good a average for a pitcher. Now look at Earl Wilson for power as a pitcher but he was used quite a bit in Detroit as a pitch hitter.
That tub of goo?
Yes, Maeda-san was not bad at handling a bat. I remember that HR. It was kind of a big deal at the time. When he came back to Dodger Stadium a few years ago, I guess with the Twins, he got a standing ovation from the crowd when he was introduced. The LA fans really appreciated him.
Homered in his MLB debut, if I’m not mistaken, at Petco.
incoming JED HOYER AND THE CUBS
Orioles decimated by injuries should take a flyer on him.
White Sox, Angel, Pirates, Rockies?!
Tyler Owens will give Hinch a much better arm to throw out there than Maeda. Kenta was only thrown into mop duty, usually with 6-7 run leads…and he was rarely effective. The Tigers have not been blown out yet and they haven’t gone into extras but a few times.
Hinch needs a legitimate 8th bullpen arm. Will be interesting to see Owens’ 98 mph heater vs. Maeda’s lollipop sinker.
Owens and Lee are only in Detroit until Breiske and Brebbia return from the IL…hope they both make good impressions as they’ll likely be needed again down the road this season
Still makes no sense Foley hasn’t gotten the call over guys like Owens and Lee. Unlike those two hes been dominating at AAA and had a better spring than Brieske, among others.
Foley is hurt in Toledo and he on the 7 day injury list where he has been for about 3 weeks now.
Madea hits the free agent market
Welcome to Baltimore.
Yankees need to grab this guy to backfill the decimated rotation.
Let him wrestle Stroman for it
I am so bummed. As I type this, I am literally sitting next to the Tigers bullpen at Angel Stadium. Was going to ask Maeda if he would sign a ball I have which is also signed by Hiroki Kuroda.
Maeda was one of my favorite players. I followed his entire career. He still has a quality arm, just needs to make a few adjustments and step away from his splitter a bit. Come to the Angels Maeda!!
He’s a cool dude
I don’t get it… why would a team have to pay the prorated minimum to sign him? He’s a free agent, he should be able to negotiate a better deal if he could. I doubt he could in this case. He’s certainly not worth $10 mil, but you would think a guy getting DFA’d might be worth more than minimum.
It used to be that way, but I think it was bargained away in one of the CBA negotiations.
If a guy gets DFA’d and clears waivers, and doesnt get traded even w a team offering to pay some of the money, the chance that player would get more than Vet Min. Is about zero. Especially if the player is 37 year old and a couple years removed from pitching even halfway decent.
Finally!!!!
The dodgers are gonna get him in a trade or waivers and turn him back to a superstar
I actually hate that it came to this, I’d hoped that they would stick him on DL, with a invented injury, and let him rehab and figure it out, but he had to go! Good luck in future
$40mm in expiring deals. Extend Skub. Go after Tucker with Flaherty and Kahnle’s money (32mm) plus some payroll bump. Existing guys contracta bump by about 20mm cumulatively.
So add 25mm payroll and lock in Skub and Tucker, bump starters up a slot and let the farmlands fight for 5th starter
Skubal is going to free agency. There is a 0.01% chance that Scott Boras doesn’t take Skubal into an open, unrestricted bidding war. Just like Soto.
How long before the Yankees have this guy signed to a contract? I give it a week.
Owens looked good tonight ! (Even with all the hair ! :-) )
Pro-rated league minimum signing for anyone interested after he clears waiver (zero chance anyone claims his salary or trades for him). Perhaps a Dodgers reunion?
Man….Whose wife did Jason Foley sleep with? Goes from closer in 2024 to AAA, dominates there to start 2025 as you’d hope/expect, and watches as 4 different pitchers with 0 MLB experience (and lackluster stats in AAA this year) get the call up ahead of him. He’s on the 40 man roster still too. Bizarre.
For all you guys who think he should go to your team you should look at some film of his pitching. It is bad. Lots of walks and hit batsman,hits and runs given up. Most of those came over low pressure situations.
Yes, he can still get outs and some strikeouts but it isn’t worth the aggrevation.
Tigers were incompetent for giving him such an insane contract
He clearly did not merit a 24 million dollar contract
Not even Scott Harris is perfect. Didn’t work out. Oh well, at least we’re not tied down to him forever. We have plenty of superior arms in the system. The Tigs were just doing their due diligence with Maeda before cutting him. (It worked with Tork & Javy)