Tigers To Re-Sign Kyle Finnegan

The Tigers are nearing an agreement to re-sign reliever Kyle Finnegan, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. It’ll be a two-year, $19MM guarantee with $1MM available in bonuses, reports Robert Murray of FanSided.

It’s yet another domino to fall in a quick-moving relief market. Detroit initially acquired Finnegan from the Nationals at the trade deadline. He carried a 4.38 earned run average with a sub-20% strikeout rate at the time of the trade. It frankly seemed underwhelming for the team’s biggest deadline bullpen pickup. The Tigers correctly identified Finnegan as a player who had another level of upside with a change to his pitch mix, however.

In Washington, Finnegan had thrown his fastball around two-thirds of the time. He used his splitter at a roughly 30% clip and sporadically mixed in a slider. The Tigers encouraged him to dramatically scale up the use of the split-finger offering. It was about a 50-50 divide in August, and he used the splitter more than 55% of the time in September and into the postseason. The impact on his results was immediate.

Finnegan allowed only three runs in 16 regular season innings as a Tiger. He fanned 23 of 66 opponents, almost doubling his early-season strikeout rate. His swinging strike rate jumped by five percentage points. The righty secured four saves and three holds while surrendering just one lead. He missed a couple weeks in September with a groin strain but immediately stepped back into a high-leverage role for skipper A.J. Hinch. Finnegan added 7 1/3 frames of three-run ball in the postseason, albeit with only three strikeouts.

Between the two teams, Finnegan posted a 3.47 ERA with a 24% strikeout percentage across 57 innings. The overall numbers aren’t far off the marks he’d carried over the first five seasons of his career. Finnegan entered 2025 with a 3.56 earned run average and a 23.5% strikeout rate in nearly 300 major league outings. The altered pitch mix and the strong finish to the season have certainly changed teams’ perceptions of him.

At this time last offseason, Finnegan found himself non-tendered by the Nationals in lieu of a projected arbitration salary around $8MM. He waited until a week into Spring Training to return to Washington on a $6MM contract with deferrals. Finnegan commands the first multi-year contract of his career one offseason later. The deal essentially matches MLBTR’s prediction of two years and $20MM.

Finnegan will again pair with Will Vest at the back of Hinch’s bullpen. Fairbanks has plenty of closing experience from his time in Washington and could handle the ninth inning on days when the Tigers use Vest earlier in leverage situations. Detroit could stand to bring in another swing-and-miss arm at the back end. Even after acquiring Finnegan, the Tiger bullpen ranked 25th in strikeout rate. Assuming they build Troy Melton back up as a starter, Finnegan and Vest are their only two projected leverage relievers who sit around 96 MPH on average. They’re a little light from the left side, but Vest and Finnegan each excel against opposite-handed batters. That could allow them to pursue another righty and stick with Tyler Holton and Brant Hurter as their top southpaws.

Edwin Díaz, Gregory Soto and Finnegan came off the board on Tuesday. Robert Suarez, Brad Keller, Luke Weaver, Tyler Rogers, Seranthony Domínguez and Pete Fairbanks are the remaining unsigned relievers who made MLBTR’s Top 50 free agents. Keller and Weaver could get consideration as starters, while Rogers and Domínguez are setup types. Suarez is the best reliever still available, while Fairbanks and Kenley Jansen join him as unsigned established closers.

More to come.