Both Gleyber Torres and Jack Flaherty could’ve tested the free agent market this winter, but the two veterans instead chose to stay with the Tigers, so Detroit had two major pieces of their roster finalized by mid-November. Torres was slated for free agency but instead chose to accept the Tigers’ one-year, $22.025MM qualifying offer, while Flaherty passed on an opt-out clause and instead exercised his $20MM player option for the 2026 season.
Torres first came to Detroit on a one-year, $15MM contract during the 2024-25 offseason, as the second baseman was only looking for one-year offers that winter. Coming off a pretty average 2024 season with the Yankees, Torres was intent on re-establishing his value with a bounce-back season and then seeking out a longer-term pact this winter. New York opted against issuing Torres a qualifying offer following the 2024 campaign, so getting a QO from the Tigers itself represented a symbolic win for the infielder.
“I’m really, really proud the organization gave me the opportunity with the qualifying offer,” Torres told MLB.com’s Jason Beck. “I mean, it’s not an easy offer, that type of money for one year. It’s another year to prove myself, to get better and help the team.”
Torres and his reps at Octagon “looked [around] the free-agent market, we touched base with a couple teams, we just tried to see how everything is.” After that initial due diligence, it was ultimately “an easy choice to come back here,” particularly given how Torres enjoyed playing for Detroit in 2025.
“Last year was a really good year for me. I felt at home from the first day,” Torres said. “I felt really good. I know the group. I know as an organization, they really want to compete. What happened last year showed us what we want in the future. They have a lot of opportunity to do a little bit better. Personally, I don’t feel good with my second half from the injury. I was in pain and everything.”
The injury in question was a sports hernia that required surgery at the end of October. Torres said he’d been playing through the pain for most of the season’s second half, which explains his rather stark splits. After hitting .281/.387/.425 in 359 plate appearances prior to the All-Star break, Torres slumped to a .223/.320/.339 slash line in his final 269 regular-season plate appearances, plus he hit only .235/.316/.382 over 38 postseason PA.
The end result was an overall set of numbers (.258/.358/.387 with 16 homers in 628 PA) that weren’t far off Torres’ numbers in his last Yankees season. Since the sports hernia provided a pretty clear reason for Torres’ downturn, the Tigers still felt comfortable making Torres the $22.025MM qualifying offer, and the club is confident that a healthy Torres will look a lot more like the first-half version from 2025. From Torres’ perspective, he still gets a healthy raise over his 2025 salary and returns to a familiar and welcome environment.
For Flaherty, he ended up choosing the Tigers for the third straight offseason. Flaherty inked a one-year, $14MM free agent pact with Detroit in December 2023, and he ended up winning a World Series ring with the Dodgers after the righty was dealt to Los Angeles at the trade deadline. Flaherty then returned to Motown on a two-year, $35MM guarantee, which broke down as a $5MM signing bonus, a $20MM salary in 2025, and then $10MM in 2026. However, Flaherty added an extra $10MM to his 2026 salary in the form of a bonus clause triggered when he made his 15th start of the 2025 season.
Since Flaherty’s previous forays into free agency came after in-season trades, he had never been eligible for a qualifying offer until last fall. Detroit therefore could’ve issued Flaherty a QO if he had opted out, and having draft compensation attached to his services may well have adversely impacted Flaherty’s market. Opting out and seeing if the Tigers floated a QO might’ve landed Flaherty an extra $2.025MM, but the safer move was just to stay in his present contract.
As with Torres’ camp, Flaherty said his reps at Wasserman checked out the market before he had to make his option decision, but ultimately, “not everything is about money. Especially when you are in a place you feel you have a chance to win,” the right-hander told Chris McCosky of the Detroit News.
“This is an unbelievable team in here,” Flaherty said. “It’s an unbelievable group of guys. It’s a group you want to be a part of….I’ve gotten a lot better the last two years being here. Another year working with [the coaching staff] and building those relationships through another offseason, to go back and forth with them, it pays dividends.”
Since Flaherty was only able to land that two-year, $35MM guarantee following a solid 2024 season, he might have found a less welcome market in the wake of a 2025 campaign that saw his numbers go backwards in most major statistical categories. Flaherty posted a 4.64 ERA over 161 innings last year, with an above-average 27.6% strikeout rate but a subpar walk rate (8.7%), hard-hit ball rate (43.8%), and barrel rate (10.3%). Flaherty’s 3.67 SIERA was almost a run superior to his real-world ERA, yet it was far from the kind of ideal platform year that would’ve guaranteed the 30-year-old a significant multi-year contract.
Retaining Torres and Flaherty, re-signing Kyle Finnegan, and signing Kenley Jansen and Drew Anderson stood as the Tigers’ most significant moves for much of the offseason. This relatively quiet winter suddenly sparked earlier this month, when Detroit made a pair of major rotation signings in Framber Valdez and team legend Justin Verlander. These additions bolstered the pitching staff to the point that Flaherty may now be the fifth starter, depending on how the team chooses to line up Flaherty, Verlander, and Casey Mize behind the top two of Tarik Skubal and Valdez.
As for the everyday mix, Torres and Spencer Torkelson are the most prominent right-handed bats within a lineup that still tilts heavily to the left side. Despite multiple rumors linking the Tigers to Alex Bregman and a few other position players, Detroit basically stood pat with its lineup, putting more pressure on Torres and the rest of the hitters to deliver a more consistent performance in 2026.
We can skim past all their quotes and agree that they returned because that’s where the best contract was.
And that’s great. Players and owners each do what’s best for them based on leverage they perceive themselves to have in an open market. Too much lazy false binaries out there of Oppressor (Owners/clubs) vs Oppressed (players).
They offered the most dinero, not much guessing needed here.
As for the comment above, there are real oppressed people to worry about rather than a bunch of millionaire ballplayers.
They couldn’t pass up the lifetime of 25% off all Little Ceasers’ worldwide, valid only from 11a-1145a on weekdays. Not valid in USA.
Please read the fine print again sir. You got the times correct, but it is most definitely valid in the USA…just not the continental United States.
$6 deep dish, half pepperoni, half cheesy bread, with a cup of crazy sauce. Can you beat that?
Damn that’s even more restrictive than caddy appreciation say.
Im glad they are both back and expEct big years from both. The Tigers are going to beat out Seattle, Boston, KC and Toronto for the best starting 5 in the AL.
That hurt my feelings. At any rate, I’ll be up for another Detroit/Seattle ALDS !!!
That sounds like it could be a reality! The teams in the East seem to all have significant injuries right now except for Boston. Should be an interesting year.
Mark forgot about Dingler when naming our starting right handed hitters.
The “Ding” in his last name should have alerted him.
I think Ding’s going to have a breakout year (assuming the off-season surgery really was as minor as advertised; nothing to assume otherwise). It seems like everyone is overlooking him or expecting a regression, but if anything I think now that he’s really comfortable with the defensive role as starting catcher he’ll only improve from an already impressive year at the plate.
Torres-“Yeah, after I looked around for a couple days I didn’t find anything good so it was an easy choice for me to come back here because I love it so much even though I looked around to see what else was there.” Lol. Sometimes these guys shouldn’t talk.
He definitely wants a multi-year contract but the QO pick still makes teams gunshy about offering those types of deals to non-superstar free agents. Players like Tucker, Bregman, and Bo have been so good for so long they’re worth losing a draft pick over on top of the mega millions they signed for. Other QO players like Torres, Gallen, and Grisham are good but they’re less consistent and have more glaring risk factors.
I agree and also, I was surprised when the tigers offered him the QO. He was one of the two or three that I had taking it. As a matter of fact, the three guys you named were the three guys I had accepting the QO. I know his agent and him were doing their due diligence and I don’t doubt that he was happy last year. The other guys it’s just a formality for a team to collect a draft pick.
I thought they’d offer it and be comfortable either way. But I also think he and Javy complement each other nicely; maybe management agrees. It seems like Gleyber’s helped Javy develop at least a bit of plate discipline, and Javy has helped a lot of the team with fielding & tags. There was plenty of room for improvement, but Gleyber had one of his best defensive seasons last year with way fewer errors and more double plays.
Love the Tigers, hope they have a great season.
Yankee fans did not like Torres
“Did not like Torres”..Many(not all) Yankees fans need someone to demonize, look down on and blame for their yearly failures and underperformance.
For years it was Gleybar Torres and lately its been one Anthony Volpe. Between the fans, the city and their toxic main stream media, it’s no wonder why many players do better when they leave that market.
Yankee fans don’t like anybody except Judge and Jeter.
Yeh, you and all your little buddies who complemented your inane comment about Yankee fans not liking Gleyber and blaming him for making the playoffs every year and getting to the WS recently…..you and all the troll haters of the Yankees…
Gleyber fell in love with the long ball and adjusted his swing which exposed him as a .230ish hitter with no gap power…….yes exactly the same as he is not blaming on an injury (sports hernia) for his dismal after the All Star game performance….the truth is that Yankee fans rooted for Gleybar until he just ran himself off the team with a lack of performance……the reality is that NY Yankee fans wish Gleybar lots of success but he seems to be exactly what he was in NY……but of course that doesn’t fit your troll narrative but talk crap, get ready to get crapped on….
Can you explain that more clearly without ranting ?
Probably not – the rant may be all there is 🙂
What are you talking about? You sound schizophrenic.
Well, being exactly what he was there earned him the qualifying offer, so he must not be that bad. He’s making the same as Grisham. Do you think he sucks too?
$7M and $6M are pretty solid raises, respectively. They’re both average to somewhat above average MLB players and had they tested the market they very well could still be hanging around teamless right now, or taken lesser deals elsewhere.
There is not a single piece of evidence that the Tigers ever contacted Bregman this off season. After how they were used last year, they weren’t going to go thru that again. It would be nice to add a RH 3B to the lineup. For now, Vierling will have to do.
Keith is the 3rd baseman so far Chief
Detroit?
“They paid me the most”
Torres had 22 million reasons to stay and all of them were dollars
I think Detroit is in great shape moving forward with whatever this season results in. You can feel the excitement everyone has for this season. I don’t think the team is worrying about anything except for being able to do their best for this year. This is the most exciting preseason in a very long time for the fans in Detroit. GO TIGERS !
Is everyone taught nowadays that “unbelievable” is a synonym of “good” or is it just the athletes?
At least the use of surreal has kind of died out finally.
Some of these guys need an Interviewing 101 course.
They get paid to hit, catch, and throw ball. They don’t get paid to interview.
That’s part of the job now with every game televised, MLB Network spotlight, etc., whether they like it or not.
I thought the new word for “unbelievable” was “crazy,” as in, “Whoa, that’s CRAAAZY.”
I mean, Tigers are the favorites to win the AL Central, easily. They almost choked, but this team added pieces, I don’t see the other Central teams taking the division title from the Tigers. It would take a ton of injuries for this team to not win the division by at least 8 games.
If Jac C figures it out and hits 40 bombs it might be closer.
Tigers have a great, young ballclub.
Read multiple artices that stated the Tigers rotation
has one of the best in MLB: Skubal, Framber Valdez, Mize, Velander, Flaherty.
Unless of few of their top prospects: McGonicle And/Or Clark
make the team and catch fire on offense,
then the Tigers may need to add RH bat or 2. for the long haul season.