Tigers right-hander Jack Flaherty will not opt out of his contract, reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan. He’ll exercise a $20MM player option and head back to Detroit for a third season. The Tigers formally announced the move just a minute or two after Passan’s initial report.
Flaherty, who turned 30 in October, had an uneven season, but it’s still a mildly surprising decision to pick up the player option. It’s unlikely he’d have commanded a $20MM annual value on the open market, but a multi-year deal at a slightly lesser rate doesn’t seem far-fetched. Middle-of-the-road starters like Luis Severino ($67MM), Taijuan Walker ($72MM), Jameson Taillon ($68MM) and Eduardo Rodriguez ($80MM) have all garnered notable three- or four-year contracts at this age or older.
That said, had Flaherty turned the option down, this would’ve been the third straight season in which he was a free agent. Perhaps there’s an element of fatigue there, particularly given that he lingered in free agency until early February last time around. Turning down the player option would probably also have emboldened the Tigers to make a qualifying offer (only $2.025MM more than Flaherty’s $20MM option). The prospect of another trip to the open market, this time with a QO hanging over him, may not have been especially appealing.
Flaherty started 31 games and pitched 161 innings for manager A.J. Hinch in 2025. He was tagged for a pedestrian 4.64 ERA, though there are plenty of encouraging rate stats that suggest he’s in line for better results moving forward. The right-hander struck out a well above-average 27.6% of his opponents, was slightly better than league-average in terms of swinging-strike rate (11.3%), and sat barely north of average in walk rate (8.7%).
Flaherty’s 92.9 mph average fastball was roughly in line with the prior season’s 93.2 mph mark. He was plagued by a slightly elevated average on balls in play and a lower-than-usual strand rate; metrics like FIP (3.85) and SIERA (3.67) felt that Flaherty was far better than his more rudimentary earned run average would suggest. The 18.9-point differential between his strikeout and walk percentages ranked 16th among the 53 MLB pitchers who tossed at least 160 innings, sandwiching him right between Freddy Peralta and Kevin Gausman.
The return of Flaherty provides some additional stability in Detroit’s rotation. Tarik Skubal will of course lead the staff again, taking aim at what would be a third consecutive Cy Young win (as he’s all but certain to win his second straight award in a couple weeks). He and Flaherty will be joined by Casey Mize and Reese Olson, health permitting, but the final spot is more up in the air. Rookie Troy Melton looked sharp down the stretch but hasn’t pitched a full season in the majors yet. Top prospect Jackson Jobe will miss most of next year after undergoing Tommy John surgery in mid-June. Keider Montero, Sawyer Gipson-Long and Ty Madden join Melton as an option for that last spot, but no one in that group brings much certainty to the table.
If the Tigers were hoping to see Flaherty decline and sign elsewhere, thus sparing $20MM from the books and allowing them to pursue a bigger fish in free agency, they still ought to be able to line up on a trade. Flaherty’s $20MM might feel a bit steep, but the going rate for innings continues to escalate. The Tigers themselves gave Alex Cobb $15MM last winter after a season in which he made just three starts with Cleveland. Aging veterans Charlie Morton ($15MM), Justin Verlander ($15MM) and Max Scherzer ($15.5MM) were all paid similarly — Verlander coming off a 5.48 ERA in 90 1/3 innings as he headed into his age-42 season.
Flaherty’s $20MM salary isn’t a raucous bargain but also isn’t out of line with modern-day contractual norms — particularly if one believes his true talent level lay closer to his fielding-independent metrics than his earned run average. Even with Flaherty now under contract, the Tigers’ projected payroll, per RosterResource, sits around $121.5MM. That doesn’t account for potential non-tenders or trades from a huge class of 14 arbitration-eligible players. Detroit has previously pushed payroll up to the $200MM range, albeit under the watch of now-late owner Mike Ilitch. The Tigers’ top Opening Day mark under his son, Chris Ilitch, has been last year’s $145MM number, though deadline acquisitions pushed the end-of-year figure up into the $155-160MM range.
Yuck
Bad news for Detroit.
On the contrary, this is good news. Flaherty is a solid starter who is likely to have better luck in 2026. Skubal, Mize, Flaherty, Olson and Melton make a solid 5, even before adding talent this off season.
Don’t forget Jobe should be back mid-season, and we have Urquidy and Gibson-Long and Montero who’s been good in spot starts…whatever we add to the rotation this offseason can only help… And like I’ve been saying, pitching wasn’t our problem. We didn’t lose to the Mariner’s in the 15th because of pitching, we lost to them because we couldn’t get a hit.
Given the timeline we saw the Tigers take with Mize and SGL when they were recovering from TJ, I do think we will see Jobe in game action until 2027.
12-13 months to return from TJ is aggressive. My son is a college pitcher. He got TJ in November 2023. He pitched sparingly with limited innings/pitch count in spring 2025.
He actually saved them 2M$.
He is OK, going to need at least one more SP with Skubal leaving
Im pretty happy with that actually. He seems to alternate good years and meh years. He strikes people out which thry need! They still need to sign a #2 starter. Skubal, Flaherty, Mize, Olson, Melton is good but add a Peralta, Valdez, Suarez type and ot is great.
Saves the Illitches from having to raise the price of Hot ‘n Ready’s again!
I think this is a win for the Tigers if they don’t trade Skubal this offseason.
Depends on what version of Flaherty they get next season… there’s the lights out version where the guy is highly valuable like 2024, and then there’s the 2025 version where he’s more of a liability. I think he’s more likely to be like the 2025 version again in 2026 and I was actually hoping he’d opt out so the Tigers could change up the rotation, but yet another example of why GM’s shouldn’t be giving anyone a player option.
Maybe they trade Mize or Olson and go get a real #2 in trade or as a free agent. Jack as a #3-6 starter seems like a good bet.
2026 Estimates:
Casey Mize (4.111): $2MM (Tigers hold $3.1MM club option/$10K buyout).
Reese Olson – $820,000
Why would you trade away two cheap young arms that can win in the Bigs? If we are trading those two away, we better be getting someone more than a #2 starter in that deal.
Trade one for a power bat was my thought. The articles so far say Detroit is more likely to make trades from their strengths (starters and minor leaguers)for needs than sign free agents for big money. Harris hasnt been big on free agents so far
They weren’t going to get him without the player option. He was going to get 2 years from someone.
With the way he pitched this year, he better be exercising more than this option in the offseason.
Not worth $20m.
Not that surprising if they offer a QO, he turns them down, and then searches for something better. He could end up with an AAV considerably below the QO. Signing team isn’t likely to be a high-revenue team that pays a higher draft choice and pays more in CBT. As you move down the list of teams, less money available. It’s a pretty smart play. One more thing–the value of a two year with opt-out will be less because of the chance of a lockout in 2027
???
I don’t understand. He exercised a player option for $20M. If they were going to QO him, he could have accepted the QO for another $2M and avoided the potential for lower AAV multi-year deal if that was his concern and eliminated the chance he ever got a QO again. I feel like he had to be expecting no QO to choose this, but also feel I may be missing something?
This move sure looks like a move that a guy would make if he knew that owners won’t be offering many multi-year deals with the lockout looming.
2.5 fWAR vs 0.8 bWAR for 2025.
I’m actually glad he decided to stay, he’s a better value at 20 million than Cobb was at 15! Without him the Tigers might have tried running out all second year guys and rookies after Skibal, Mize and Olsen. Montero, and Melton should see a lot of starts too, and Jobe may return later in the season. Still need another couple of bodies to pass off as starters though, so many injuries anymore.
He knows his arm hurts.
Maybe it’s me, but it doesn’t make any sense for him to opt in if the Tigers were going to make a QO. If he wanted to stay, he could have opted out ($20mil) and accept the QO ($22mil) and make himself an extra $2mil. Plus he wouldn’t have to deal with a QO next season when he’s back in the FA market. So either Flaherty got really bad advice from his agent or the Tigers were not going to make a QO. Regardless, I’m happy he’ll be back next season.
He will pitch okay for them
Stupid. Should have forced them to burn the QO card this offseason. Only way they don’t extend it next offseason now is if he sucks.
I think this essentially makes him a tiger for this upcoming season and next (pending lockout). If he has anything close to this season production wise and it looks like Tarik is leaving then Jack will get a qualifying offer for sure. Which I imagine he will accept if he took this option.