Right-hander Michael Fulmer has elected free agency, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. He cleared outright waivers after being designated for assignment last week but exercised his right to reject that assignment and head to the open market.
Fulmer, 32, is back on the mound this year after spending 2024 recovering from Tommy John surgery. He has gotten brief major league stints with both the Red Sox and Cubs, with one appearance for Boston and two for Chicago. Combined, he has thrown 5 2/3 innings, allowing three earned runs on six hits and two walks while striking out three.
Around those big league appearances, he has been putting up good numbers in the minors. Between those two organizations, he has thrown 36 Triple-A innings with a flat earned run average of 3.00. He has walked 11.5% of batters faced at that level, which is a high number, but also punched out 33.8% of opponents.
In addition to this year’s strong minor league numbers, he has major league success on his track record. He had some good years as a starter with the Tigers almost a decade ago but some injuries eventually pushed him to the bullpen. From 2021 to 2023, he logged 190 1/3 big league innings with a 3.55 ERA, 24.6% strikeout rate and 9.4% walk rate. He earned 19 saves and 45 holds in that span.
His minor league numbers this year have largely been in line with that previous run, so he should garner interest elsewhere. The fact that he cleared waivers suggests that he will probably be limited to minor league deals.
Photo courtesy of Nathan Ray Seebeck, Imagn Images
Tigers. He didn’t have Fetters 1st time around. Wont cost anything.
Fetters is a joke. More failures than successes. Time to stop worshiping him.
Haha.. it’ll be better tomorrow.
I wonder if he could start..
I don’t think so
Was hoping he might stay at Iowa but it was a long shot. Somebody will probably give him an MLB shot. His starting days are over big guy.
I’ll always remember him as a guy who was not traded when his value was the highest.
mlbtraderumors.com/2019/08/tigers-were-offered-bae…
mlbtraderumors.com/2017/08/braves-had-pre-deadline…
The comments are always funny to laugh at, not only in hindsight, but at the time as well. The fact that was he never a true #1 like the asking price was.
In the two seasons before 2018, he had a combined 323 innings and 6.7 fWAR, so maybe not the uber-ace one would like, but for a guy who was going into his age-25 season with multiple years of control, it’s understandable if teams were dreaming on him at that time.
Yes, but my main point was the Tigers didn’t trade him when they were going no where and lost all return value as a result.
Oh, absolutely
Red Sox
We loved him once, we’ll love him again, and again, and again.
Bernie- first thing I thought when I saw the headline of the article was Breslow is already on the phone LOL