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Tigers To Select Dylan Smith

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The Tigers are calling up righty reliever Dylan Smith, as first reported by Tigers Torkmoil. He is not on the 40-man roster. Detroit already has an opening in that regard, so they’ll only need to make an active roster move involving a pitcher tomorrow.

It’s a nice birthday gift for Smith, who turned 25 yesterday. He’s in his fourth professional season. A third-round pick out of Alabama in 2021, Smith struggled early in his minor league career while working as a starter. That was partially due to injury, mostly forearm and shoulder issues. Detroit moved him to the bullpen this year as a result.

Smith has quickly found upper minors success while working in shorter stints. He posted a 1.80 ERA with a massive 37% strikeout rate through 20 innings at Double-A Erie. Smith climbed to Triple-A Toledo last week. He’s only pitched twice, firing 2 1/3 scoreless frames while punching out five of eight opponents. He’s averaging 94 MPH on his fastball in his Triple-A work.

Baseball America did not include Smith among Detroit’s top 30 prospects over the winter. Eric Longenhagen and James Fegan at FanGraphs placed him 35th in the system in their write-up during Spring Training. FanGraphs credited Smith with a plus slider and good life on his fastball.

Tigers Place Matt Vierling On Injured List

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The Tigers are placing third baseman/outfielder Matt Vierling back on the injured list. Per Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press, Vierling is going on the 10-day IL due to right shoulder inflammation. Outfielder Wenceel Pérez has been reinstated from the 60-day IL in a corresponding move. The Tigers’ 40-man count climbs from 38 to 39.

There aren’t many details about Vierling’s current status but it’s an ominous development nonetheless. His shoulder issues first popped up three months ago. In late February, the club announced that he had been diagnosed with a right rotator cuff strain. He spent several weeks trying to get healthy and was reinstated from the IL on Friday. Now just a few days later, he’s back on the IL due to that same shoulder.

There will surely be more updates on Vierling’s status in the coming days, but it feels like a bad sign that he has apparently aggravated the shoulder that has already been an issue for basically the entire year. “We put him on the injured list which should tell you we don’t think he can play,” manager A.J. Hinch said, per Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic. “We’ll have more information as we get more tests, and more doctors need to weigh in.”

Over 2023 and 2024, Vierling hit a combined .259/.320/.406 for the Tigers, producing a 104 wRC+. He did that while primarily playing third base and the outfield. Third base has been a bit of a hole for Detroit this year, as they have a collective .202/.279/.285 line from that position. Jace Jung got optioned to the minors a couple of weeks ago after he couldn’t do much at the plate. Utility players like Zach McKinstry, Andy Ibáñez and Javier Báez have seen time at the hot corner and will have to continue to do so.

In the outfield, the Tigers have been without Vierling, Pérez and Parker Meadows for much of the season. They’ve managed to get good production from the grass regardless, thanks largely to Riley Greene and Kerry Carpenter, while McKinstry, Báez and others have chipped in as well. That group will again have to hold things down in the outfield without Vierling, though as least the return of Pérez gives them another option.

Photo courtesy of Rick Osentoski, Imagn Images

Tigers Outright Tomas Nido

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The Tigers announced that catcher Tomás Nido cleared waivers and was outrighted to Triple-A Toledo. The veteran backstop has the right to decline the assignment in favor of free agency, though the team did not provide any indication that he’d do that.

Nido spent six weeks on Detroit’s big league roster while Jake Rogers was down with a left oblique strain. The 31-year-old backed up Dillon Dingler and was mostly productive in a tiny sample. Nido collected 12 hits in 10 games, batting .343 in the process. That came in just 35 at-bats, though, and Nido’s much bigger MLB track record is that of a well below-average hitter. He has a lifetime .215/.249/.310 slash in nearly 1000 big league plate appearances. He was hitting .160 in six Triple-A games before the Tigers called him up.

Teams clearly remained skeptical about Nido’s hitting ability, this year’s small-sample success notwithstanding. He’s out of options, so any team that claimed him would have needed to carry him on the MLB roster themselves. The Tigers would surely be happy to retain him as non-roster depth in Toledo. Nido has a positive defensive reputation and plenty of upper minors experience. Rogers and Dingler are the only catchers on the 40-man roster, so Nido would probably be the first one back up if either of the big league catchers suffered a future injury.

Tigers Designate Tomas Nido For Assignment

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The Tigers announced Tuesday that catcher Tomas Nido has been designated for assignment. His spot on the roster will go to fellow catcher Jake Rogers, who is being reinstated from the injured list after missing about six weeks with an oblique strain.

Nido’s DFA shouldn’t come as a huge surprise. Though he’s hitting .343 with Detroit, that’s a 12-for-37 sample that’s consisted entirely of singles and has come without a walk. Nido’s offense has been buoyed by a .480 average on balls in play. He’s fanned 10 times in 37 plate appearances (27%) and chased pitches off the plate at a grim 41% clip. He’s a well-regarded defender, but Nido entered the season as a career .210/.245/.309 hitter in 945 major league plate appearances. He was hitting .160/.222/.320 in 28 Triple-A plate appearances at the time he was originally summoned to the majors in place of the injured Rogers.

Detroit will happily take the month-plus of solid backup work for Nido and would surely love to pass him through waivers in order to retain him as a depth option in Triple-A Toledo. It’s hardly out of the question that he gets claimed, but there’s a good chance he’ll pass through waivers unclaimed as he did in June 2023 after the Mets had designated him for assignment. If Nido does clear waivers, he’d have the right to reject a minor league assignment (by virtue of both service time and that 2023 outright) in lieu of electing free agency.

Tigers To Activate Jake Rogers

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The Tigers will reinstate catcher Jake Rogers from the injured list today, manager A.J. Hinch announced to the team’s beat (link via Evan Woodbery of MLive.com). The likely corresponding move will be to move on from veteran Tomas Nido, who has hit well in a small sample of 37 plate appearances but can’t be optioned to the minors without first clearing waivers.

Rogers, 30, went 5-for-15 with three doubles during a brief Triple-A rehab assignment. He landed on the injured list about a week into the season thanks to an oblique strain that wound up sidelining him nearly six weeks. He was 4-for-18 with a double and three walks in 22 plate appearances when healthy and carries a .198/.262/.351 batting line dating back to last season.

Though he’s coming off a down season with the bat, Rogers is a premium defensive catcher who popped 21 home runs as recently as 2023. From 2022-23, Rogers slashed .225/.291/.457 (103 wRC+) with 27 big flies in only 492 plate appearances. The Tigers will certainly hope that he can return to that form at the plate, but Rogers’ glovework is strong enough that he’ll hold down a key role on the team even if his bat doesn’t return to form.

In Rogers’ absence, former second-round pick Dillon Dingler has seen the lion’s share of playing time and made a case for a larger role than that of the standard backup. He’s hitting .292/.319/.462 with four homers, eight doubles and a triple in 135 turns at the plate. Dingler’s 27.4% strikeout rate is a few ticks too high — though lower than Rogers’ typical levels — and he’s not going to sustain a .382 average on balls in play, but he increasingly looks like a competent offensive player whose glovework is similarly well-regarded to that of Rogers. Time will tell how the Tigers will divide up the reps behind the dish, but it’s possible that Dingler has played himself into more of an even timeshare already.

As for the 31-year-old Nido, he’s appeared in 10 games since Rogers’ injury and gone 12-for-37. He’s hitting .343, but all of his hits have been singles and he’s sitting on a .480 average on balls in play he can’t possibly sustain over a larger sample. Nido, like his two fellow Detroit backstops, is a plus defender but entered the season with a career .210/.245/.309 batting line. He’s out of minor league options and has more than five years of service anyhow (meaning even if he did have minor league option remaining, he’d have to consent to being sent down).

If the Tigers end up designating Nido for assignment, they’ll have five days to try to trade him before he’d have to be placed on outright waivers (which is a 48-hour process). The Tigers would presumably prefer to keep Nido in the organization as depth in Triple-A Toledo, but even if Nido were to go unclaimed on waivers, he could reject an outright assignment to Triple-A in favor of free agency.

Tigers Place Reese Olson On Injured List

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The Tigers placed Reese Olson on the 15-day injured list due to right ring finger inflammation, as first reported by Chris McCosky of The Detroit News. Reliever Chase Lee was recalled from Triple-A Toledo in a corresponding active roster move.

Detroit will temporarily operate with a nine-man relief group and four starters. McCosky adds that they’ll push Jack Flaherty’s start back to what would have been Olson’s turn on Thursday against the Guardians while deploying a bullpen game on Wednesday in St. Louis. The Tigers are three games into a nearly two-week stretch without an off day, so there aren’t upcoming opportunities for their starters to work on regular rest in a four-man rotation.

Olson’s injury comes as a surprise. He looked sharp as ever during Saturday’s start in Toronto, firing six scoreless innings in an eventual 2-1 loss. He sat north of 95 MPH with both his four-seam fastball and sinker, slightly above his season average. It’s not clear if the soreness arose during that start or in the past two days, but it’s evidently enough to shelve him for at least two weeks.

The 25-year-old Olson has somewhat quietly emerged as one of the better young pitchers in the sport. He owns a 3.60 ERA over parts of three seasons and is out to a career-best start. Olson carries a 2.96 earned run average across 48 2/3 innings. He’s striking out more than a quarter of opponents while getting grounders on half the batted balls he allows. Olson has reeled off four scoreless appearances through his first nine starts. He could be in the mix for his first career All-Star selection if this injury proves minor.

At 31-16, the Tigers have MLB’s best record. Olson, Tarik Skubal and Casey Mize each carry sub-3.00 ERAs, helping Detroit to a 3.39 rotation earned run average that ranks fifth in the majors. Mize went down with a hamstring strain a couple weeks ago, while they’ve been without Alex Cobb all season due to a right hip issue. Skubal, Flaherty, Jackson Jobe and Keider Montero comprise A.J. Hinch’s current four-man starting staff. McCosky writes that Mize could be activated from the IL by the weekend.

Latest On Parker Meadows

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  • Parker Meadows is traveling with the Tigers on their current road trip in Toronto, and the outfielder is scheduled to throw from the outfield to the bases in pre-game drills today.  Manager A.J. Hinch told Jeff Seidel of the Detroit Free Press and other reporters that Meadows’ ability to throw is “the last step for him to hopefully get him to a rehab assignment soon,” and the club will monitor how Meadows’ arm is feeling tomorrow.  Meadows has missed the entire season due to a musculocutaneous nerve problem in his right arm, and his placement on the 60-day injured list will keep him off Detroit’s roster until May 26 at the earliest.  Given the long layoff and Hinch’s observation that Meadows “doesn’t have to be fully 100% back throwing wise to go on a rehab assignment,” it would seem like the outfielder will need quite a few games in the minors to get up to full readiness, so a June return seems more likely.  While the 30-15 Tigers have baseball’s best record even without their starting center fielder, the club will be even stronger with a healthy Meadows, a superb defender who was also an offensive sparkplug during Detroit’s late-season surge in 2024.

MLBTR Podcast: Devers Drama, Managerial Firings, And Jordan Lawlar

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The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…

Plus, we answer your questions, including…

  • Should the Orioles try to extend Cedric Mullins or Tomoyuki Sugano (35:05)
  • How real are the Twins and the Tigers? (39:00)
  • What should the Cardinals do in right field if Jordan Walker doesn’t get going? (44:50)
  • Why do the Mets seemingly do better with external pitching additions than their homegrown arms? (49:25)

Check out our past episodes!

The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff.  Check out their Facebook page here!

Photo courtesy of Ken Blaze, Imagn Images

White Sox Return Rule 5 Pick Gage Workman To Tigers

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Infielder Gage Workman has cleared waivers, and the White Sox have returned him to the Tigers, as reflected by his transaction log on MLB.com. He will report to Triple-A Toledo.

This hardly comes as a surprise after the White Sox designated Workman for assignment earlier this week. The Cubs initially selected Workman from the Tigers in the Rule 5 draft this past December. He made the Opening Day roster for the North Siders and suited up for the club in nine games over the first few weeks of the season. However, the Cubs no longer had a role for him after signing the much more experienced utility infielder Nicky Lopez to a big league deal in mid-April. Per the Rule 5 regulations, the Cubs could not simply option Workman to the minors, so they DFA’d him and traded him to the White Sox for cash considerations not long after.

Workman played just three games for the White Sox before landing on the IL with a right hip flexor strain. Upon reinstating him, the South Siders chose not to add him back to their active roster and DFA’d him instead. This time, evidently, no other teams were interested in giving him (and his .485 OPS through 17 PA) a spot on their active roster, so passed through waivers unclaimed. The White Sox then had to offer him back to the Tigers. As his original team, Detroit is not obligated to add him to its 26 or 40-man roster. He will return to the Tigers’ minor league system, where he thrived last year, hitting .280 with a 142 wRC+ in 126 games at Double-A.

Poll: Is Javier Baez Back?

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During the 2021-22 offseason, the Tigers felt they were close enough to competing that it was time to start spending. Then-GM Al Avila signed two major free agents that winter: southpaw Eduardo Rodriguez and shortstop Javier Baez. Those offseason moves did not work out, generally speaking. The Tigers lost 96 games in 2022 as Rodriguez posted below-average numbers in an injury-marred season while Baez put up the worst full season by wRC+ of his career with a figure of 89. Avila was fired that August, giving way to a new regime under president of baseball operations Scott Harris.

Baez, meanwhile, went on to have a pair of disastrous seasons marred by injury and ineffectiveness in 2023 and ’24, hitting a combined .208/.251/.315 (56 wRC+) while being limited to just 216 games by hip and back issues. Those injuries eventually required season-ending hip surgery last year, leaving Baez on the sidelines while his team went on a miracle run last September that led them to Game 5 of the ALDS. Entering 2025, there were heightened expectations for the Tigers following that September surge.

For Baez personally, however, expectations had never been lower. The 32-year-old had multiple All-Star appearances and Gold Glove awards under his belt, but he entered 2025 without a specified role in Detroit despite the three years and $73MM remaining on his contract. Injuries during Spring Training paved the way for Baez to have a clearer role in Detroit, but even on Opening Day he was limited to a utility role where he would mostly face left-handed pitching.

Things changed once the season began, however. Baez took quite well to both center field and third base despite having virtually no experience in the outfield and only sparing appearances at the hot corner. In more recent weeks, his role has moved from a part-time utility role to being the club’s go-to option in center field, where he’s started 16 of the club’s last 20 games. Baez has always been an impressive defender anywhere he plays when healthy, so perhaps the veteran taking to new defensive positions isn’t exactly surprising. More shocking than his glove work this year has been his impressive offensive production: he’s hit a whopping .319/.357/.513 with a wRC+ of 148 across 126 plate appearances.

Even when Baez was at his best, he was a somewhat fickle hitter. While some seasons saw Baez hit extremely well, such as his 2021 (117 wRC+) and 2018 (131 wRC+) campaigns, he was actually below average at the dish in three of his six seasons as an everyday player for the Cubs. Given that unevenness, Baez’s 89 wRC+, two-win performance during his first season with Detroit wasn’t incredibly shocking. And when the injuries began to pile up in 2023 and ’24 and his offensive numbers began to rapidly decline, few expected him to ever return to the above-average form he showed during his days on the north side of Chicago.

Is 126 plate appearances of strong production enough to change that narrative? The underlying numbers offer mixed reviews. Baez’s 24.6% strikeout rate and 4.0% walk rate this year are virtually identical to his 23.9% strikeout rate and 4.3% walk rate across his first three seasons in Detroit. That strikeout rate is actually five points lower than his strikeout rate with the Cubs, but the main red flag in Baez’s performance with the Tigers wasn’t his free-swinging approach. After being a consistent power threat during his days in the National League, where his ISO is an impressive .212, Baez saw his power evaporate over his first three seasons in Detroit as his ISO plummeted to just .126.

Going from 2024 Elly De La Cruz to 2024 Alex Verdugo in the power department is a drastic downturn in performance, and while Baez’s .193 ISO this year hasn’t gotten all the way back to his previous heights, it’s a big step in the right direction. That renewed power might not be entirely sustainable, however. Baez is posting his lowest hard-hit rate since 2017, his 6.8% barrel rate is actually lower than last year, and he’s hitting more grounders (51.6%) than ever before. That suggests his current power output (five homers and eight doubles) may not be entirely sustainable, and his massive .398 BABIP surely isn’t either for a player who routinely posted BABIPs in the .340 to .350 range at his peak.

Perhaps that means Baez’s return to form this year is nothing more than a mirage, but there are some positive signs in his underlying data. Baez is swinging outside the strike zone less than ever before in his career, and his in-zone contact rate is also the best of his career. That improved plate discipline may not be showing up in his walk rate at this point, but better pitch selection could be allowing him to avoid making the worst types of contact; his 3.4% infield fly ball rate is tied with 2019 for the best figure of his career, and his 12.5% soft-contact rate would be 40th best in the sport if he had enough plate appearances to qualify.

Those subtle improvements don’t support his star-level production so far, but his .291 xwOBA is a perfect match for the wOBA he posted for Detroit back in 2022. Perhaps that means offensive production on the low-end of what was expected of him at his peak, in line with the 2016, ’17, and ’22 seasons, could be sustainable for the veteran. Given that Baez was a potential DFA candidate just a few months ago, the Tigers would surely take that sort of solid, two-to-three win production from their $140MM man very happily.

How much do MLBTR readers buy into Baez’s resurgence? Will he be able to continue tapping into his power enough to float above-average offensive numbers despite shaky peripherals? Will he fall back to Earth and be a replacement level player going forward, as he was the past two years? Or will he find a middle ground as an average to slightly-below average hitter who remains valuable thanks to strong defense? Have your say in the poll below:

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