Tigers Outright JaCoby Jones
June 10: Jones indeed cleared waivers and has been sent outright to Triple-A Toledo, per an announcement from the Tigers. He’ll remain with the organization and collect the remainder of this year’s salary but no longer occupy a spot on the 40-man roster. As a player with three-plus years of service who has been outrighted from the 40-man roster, he’ll be able to become a free agent at season’s end (unless he’s selected back to Majors and finishes the year on their 40-man roster).
June 6: The Tigers announced they’re selecting the contract of right-hander Jason Foley from Triple-A Toledo. To create 40-man roster space, they’re designating outfielder JaCoby Jones for assignment. Additionally, righty Michael Fulmer has been placed on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to June 3, with a right shoulder strain. As expected, José Ureña has been reinstated from the IL to take Fulmer’s place on the active roster.
Jones’ designation registers as something of a surprise. Acquired from the Pirates at the 2015 trade deadline in exchange for Joakim Soria, Jones has appeared in the big leagues with Detroit in each of the past six seasons. He’s been a fairly regular contributor between 2018-21, starting about half the team’s games between center and left field. Altogether, Jones managed just a .219/.282/.389 (78 wRC+) mark in that time, albeit with intermittent flashes of enough power and defensive upside to keep the Detroit front office intrigued.
Across the board, advanced defensive metrics lauded Jones’ glovework between center and left field in 2018. The Tigers gambled he could play a full-time center field after that season, although the metrics all suggest he dropped off rather significantly in that regard between 2019-21. Jones has proven similarly inconsistent on the other side of the ball. Despite always-lofty strikeout rates, the right-handed hitter has occasionally shown enough thump to be a productive hitter. That was particularly true in 2020, when Jones hit .268/.333/.515 across 108 plate appearances before suffering a season-ending hand fracture.
For as strong as Jones began the 2020 season, he opened 2021 with an absolutely dismal start at the plate. He hit just .170/.210/.250 over 105 trips to the dish, leading the Tigers to demote him to Toledo. Things haven’t gotten much better with the Mud Hens, as Jones is off to a .205/.255/.364 start in the minors, where he’s struck out in 18 of his first 47 plate appearances.
The Tigers will now have a week to trade Jones or place him on outright waivers. Any team that claims Jones off waivers would assume the remaining portion of his $2.65MM salary (approximately $1.7MM). Given Jones’ immense struggles this season, it seems unlikely another club will put in a claim, although it’s at least possible the Tigers could agree to pay down some of that money in exchange for a prospect if a rival team has interest in acquiring Jones via a small trade.
The more probable outcome is that Jones will clear waivers and be sent outright to Toledo. As a player with between three and five years of MLB service time, Jones technically has the right to refuse a minor league assignment and elect free agency. Doing so, however, would require forfeiting the remainder of his guaranteed salary, so Jones would almost certainly accept an outright assignment and look to play his way back to Detroit at some point this season.
Foley, a 25-year-old reliever, is now in line to make his major league debut. In their writeup of the Tigers farm system, Eric Longenhagen and Kevin Goldstein of FanGraphs note that Foley works in the 96-99 MPH range with his fastball. Longenhagen and Goldstein call Foley a potential “foundational piece of the Tigers bullpen,” but note that his relatively advanced age and injury history, including a 2018 Tommy John surgery, add some risk to the profile. Foley has thrown ten innings of four-run ball with ten strikeouts and four walks at Triple-A this season, his first crack at the minors’ highest level.
Tigers Place Julio Teheran On 10-Day Injured List With Shoulder Strain
3:12PM: Detroit manager A.J. Hinch said that Fulmer would indeed be taking Teheran’s rotation spot, and that it seems like Teheran will miss significant time on the injured list. (MLive.com’s Evan Woodbery was among those to report the news.)
11:51AM: The Tigers announced that righty Julio Teheran has been placed on the 10-day IL (retroactive to April 7) with a right shoulder strain. Right-hander Alex Lange has been called up from the team’s taxi squad and is set to make his first Major League appearance.
Teheran was scheduled to start last night’s game against the Indians but developed tightness in his right triceps while warming up in the bullpen during the top of the first inning, leading to a very late scratch. With Teheran’s injury now defined as a shoulder strain, it isn’t a good sign for a pitcher who has been very durable over his 11 Major League seasons.
After a rough 2020 with the Angels, Teheran signed a minor league deal with Detroit that became guaranteed (at a $3MM salary) once the Tigers added the veteran right-hander to their Opening Day roster. His first start on April 3 was a successful one, as Teheran tossed five innings of one-run ball and picked up the win in the Tigers’ 5-2 victory over Cleveland.
Michael Fulmer now seems like the logical candidate to take Teheran’s spot in the rotation. The 2016 AL Rookie Of The Year began the season as something of a swingman reliever as Fulmer continues to try and rebuild his career after multiple arm injuries. Tommy John surgery shelved Fulmer for all of 2019, and he posted an 8.78 ERA over 27 2/3 innings in 2020.
Lange has spent much of his minor league career as a starter, but the Tigers have deployed him as a reliever since acquiring him from the Cubs as part of the Nick Castellanos trade in July 2019. Lange was selected 30th overall by the Cubs in the 2017 draft, and the 25-year-old righty has a 4.54 ERA over 232 minor league innings. He’ll be making the jump to the big leagues without any Triple-A experience, though Lange did pitch at Detroit’s alternate training site last season in lieu of any minor league ball. MLB Pipeline ranks Lange 29th in their list of the Tigers’ top-30 prospects, with a couple of plus pitches — a 60-grade curveball, and a 55-grade fastball that hit the 97mph plateau this year at Spring Training.
Tigers Announce Decisions On Pitching Staff
Former No. 1 overall pick Casey Mize has made the Tigers’ Opening Day rotation, manager A.J. Hinch announced this morning (Twitter links via Evan Woodbery of MLive.com). Hinch also revealed that former AL Rookie of the Year Michael Fulmer will begin the season in the bullpen, where he’ll be joined by veteran lefty Derek Holland — a non-roster invitee to camp who has made the Opening Day squad. Detroit will need to make a corresponding 40-man roster move once Holland’s contract is formally selected, though that has not yet occurred.
Mize, 23, didn’t have a great spring but was sharper in his most recent outing, holding the Blue Jays to a pair of runs on five hits and no walks with nine strikeouts through four innings. Overall, he’s been tagged for 13 runs in 14 frames during Grapefruit League play, but he’s also punched out an impressive 21 hitters in that time.
Mize made his big league debut in 2020 and looked sharp at times but generally struggled to work deep into games. He held opponents to a tepid .228/.302/.358 batting line the first time through the order but saw those numbers leap to .235/.361/.510 upon turning a lineup over for the second time. It was a small sample, just seven starts, and Mize certainly has the pedigree to pitch at or near the top of a big league rotation. In addition to a strong NCAA track record, the former Auburn ace carries a 2.71 ERA, a 24.8 percent strikeout rate and a tiny 5.4 percent walk rate through 123 minor league innings. He skipped Triple-A entirely due to the canceled minor league season in 2020, but he’ll be given the opportunity to prove to the Tigers that he needn’t ever throw a pitch with their Toledo affiliate.
Mize joins Matthew Boyd, Jose Urena, Julio Teheran and Tarik Skubal in a rotation that looks quite different than it did early in the 2020 season. Righty Spencer Turnbull figures to eventually join the mix in some capacity, but he’s been in Covid-19 protocol since early this week.
Fulmer, too, could eventually work his way back into the rotation picture. The righty has undergone a pair of arm surgeries — ulnar nerve transposition and Tommy John — since being named AL Rookie of the Year back in 2016. He struggled mightily this spring, but Hinch gave him a vote of confidence Friday, calling Fulmer a “big league pitcher” (via Woodbery) and noting that optioning him to Triple-A was not a consideration. He’ll work in a multi-inning role, so he could perhaps slide into the rotation when injuries and/or struggles from the other starters necessitate. The Tigers still control Fulmer through the 2022 season.
As for Holland, he’ll give Hinch a third lefty alongside Gregory Soto and Daniel Norris. The 34-year-old has overwhelmingly earned his roster spot this spring, rattling off eight scoreless innings while allowing just five hits and a walk against 13 strikeouts. Holland has struggled with the Pirates, Giants and Cubs across the past two seasons, but he turned in 171 1/3 innings of 3.57 ERA ball for San Francisco as recently as 2018. He’s worked mostly as a starter in his 12-year big league career but has come out of the bullpen 80 times at the MLB level, so a relief role is hardly unfamiliar territory for him.
Tigers, Michael Fulmer Avoid Arbitration
The Tigers have avoided arbitration with right-hander Michael Fulmer, per a team announcement. He’ll earn $3.1MM in 2021, Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports. That sum falls in line with MLBTR’s projection of $2.8MM to $3.2MM.
This agreement comes in the wake of a nightmarish season for Fulmer, who managed an 8.78 ERA/5.58 SIERA over 27 2/3 innings in his first action since undergoing Tommy John surgery in March 2019. The 27-year-old also posted personal worsts in average fastball velocity (93.1 mph, down from 95-plus in prior seasons), strikeout percentage (14.7), walk percentage (8.8), groundball rate (8.8) and home runs per nine (2.6).
Last season was the second straight rocky campaign for Fulmer, who logged subpar production by his previous standards during an injury-limited campaign in 2018. Before that, he was one of the game’s most coveted young starters from 2016-17, as he took home AL Rookie of the Year honors in his debut and continued recording quality numbers as a sophomore.
Fulmer frequently came up in trade talks with teams seeking a controllable and high-end starter during his first couple years, but the Tigers never found an offer to their liking. Now, with Fulmer’s trade value at an all-time low, the Tigers are left to hope that he will bounce back to respectability in 2021 – his second-last year of arbitration eligibility.
Pitching Notes: Strasburg, Smith, Teheran, Fulmer, Marlins
Nationals right-hander Stephen Strasburg missed his scheduled start Saturday on account of nerve irritation in his pitching hand, but he said at the time he wasn’t “extremely concerned” about it. Manager Dave Martinez issued another update on Strasburg on Monday, saying last year’s World Series MVP threw lightly, felt better and had less tingling in his hand, Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post tweets. It’s still unclear when Strasburg will debut this season, though. Having started 1-3 during a 60-game season, the Nats need him back sooner than later.
- In encouraging news for the Braves, left-handed closer Will Smith is no longer dealing with COVID-19 symptoms and hopes to be closing in on a return, Jon Heyman of MLB Network tweets. Smith has been down since July 4 because of the coronavirus; if he is able to pitch this year, the hope is that he’ll be a major part of Atlanta’s late-game setup. That’s what the team was banking on when it signed Smith to a three-year, $40MM contract in free agency last winter. Smith earned that payday on the heels of several strong seasons with the Royals, Brewers and Giants.
- Speaking of Atlanta, one of its former hurlers – Angels righty Julio Teheran – continues to progress toward a 2020 debut, Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic relays. Teheran, who’s recovering from his own coronavirus diagnosis, is slated to throw three innings and 55 pitches in Long Beach, Calif., on Tuesday, per pitching coach Mickey Callaway. If all goes well then, Teheran could join the Angels’ rotation. The team signed Teheran, 29, to a one-year, $9MM guarantee over the winter after a successful run in Atlanta from 2011-19.
- The Tigers plan to use righty Michael Fulmer as an opener all year and are unlikely to let him go five to six innings in any of his appearances, pitching coach Rick Anderson revealed (via Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic). Fulmer’s a former AL Rookie of the Year winner who topped out at 164 2/3 frames in his second season in 2017, but it’s understandable that the Tigers are taking a cautious approach with him. After all, the 27-year-old is just returning from the Tommy John surgery he underwent in March 2019. He took the mound Monday for the first time since September 2018 and surrendered four earned runs on five hits in 2 2/3 innings during a blowout loss to the Royals.
- The coronavirus has deprived the Marlins of a slew of players, leaving them to scramble for replacements, but righty prospect Edward Cabrera is not a candidate for their roster as of now, Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald reports. Cabrera is not dealing with the virus, fortunately, but “a minor arm issue” that has stopped him from throwing over the past week, Jackson writes. The 22-year-old was tremendous last season between High-A and Double-A, combining for a stingy 2.23 ERA with 10.8 K/9 and 2.9 BB/9 in 96 2/3 innings, and is widely regarded as a top 100 prospect.
Filling Out The Tigers’ Starting Rotation
UPDATE: Zimmermann has been placed on the 45-day injured list, per MLB.com’s Jason Beck and others (Twitter links). The Tigers aren’t ruling him out for the season yet.
TODAY: Jordan Zimmermann is dealing with the same sort of forearm soreness that sapped him of much of the 2019 season, per Chris McCosky of The Detroit News. If he can stay healthy – a big if – Zimmermann would look to make the most of a short season by proving his arm still plays at the major league level. This will be the final year of the five-year, $110MM pact he signed with the Tigers before the 2016 season.
It’s been a tough couple of years for Zimmermann, who will end his contract without ever making 30 starts in a season after doing so in each of his final four seasons with the Nationals. Despite the precipitous drop in performance, the Tigers were nonetheless turning to Zimmermann as a veteran stopgap in a rotation that will soon be overrun by high-upside prospects like Tarik Skubal, Matt Manning, Franklin Perez, Casey Mize, and Joey Wentz. The rotation is already without Daniel Norris, who has yet to pitch in camp after testing positive for coronavirus.
In the meantime, the Tigers are scrambling to fill out the rotation behind ace Matthew Boyd. Veteran Ivan Nova was brought in to soak up innings (34 starts, 187 innings in 2019), and Spencer Turnbull figures to slot in somewhere in the middle of the rotation after a mostly-strong showing in 2019. Turnbull went 3-17 last season with a 4.61 ERA/3.99 FIP. He’s done a nice job of limiting long balls throughout his two seasons in the majors, and if he can improve upon some control issues that led to an AL-high 16 hit batters and 3.6 BB/9, the Tigers hope Turnbull can level off his 4.76 career ERA and land closer to his 3.88 career FIP mark.
Beyond those three, the Tigers are working on extending the innings of Dario Agrazal, Shao-Ching Chiang, Hector Santiago, and Tyler Alexander to potentially fill out the rotation. Former Rookie of the Year Michael Fulmer also has a chance to get some rotation innings, writes McCosky. Fulmer missed all of 2019 after undergoing Tommy John surgery.
Of the youngsters in camp, Mize probably has the best shot of cracking the rotation. Under normal circumstances, Mize would be ticketed for Triple-A after 22 starts with a 2.55 ERA in Double-A last year, but without minor league games to further his development, count Mize among the many young stars with a slightly better chance of breaking into the big leagues sometime during the shortened 2020 season. Seven days on the taxi squad will be enough for the Tigers to secure an extra year of service time, notes McCosky, but manager Ron Gardenhire doesn’t plan on making any official decisions until knowing more about the health of Zimmermann and Norris.
Tigers News & Notes: COVID, D. Cabrera, Fulmer, Taxi Squad
The Tigers are the latest known major league team affected by the coronavirus. Speaking to Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free-Press and other reporters Wednesday, general manager Al Avila revealed that two people in the organization – one player and one staff member – have tested positive for the illness. Neither individual has recovered yet, but the player was not working out at the team’s spring facility in Lakeland, Fla., when he contracted it. Meanwhile, as a prostate cancer survivor, manager Ron Gardenhire is at higher risk than most of coming down with COVID-19. Gardenhire admitted he’s “uneasy” about a season during a pandemic, but he’s confident MLB will do its best to keep everyone safe, per Fenech.
More out of Detroit…
- The Tigers have signed supplemental second-round pick Daniel Cabrera for $1.2MM, above his slot value of $1,102,700, Jim Callis of MLB.com tweets. The former Louisiana State outfielder was the 62nd overall choice. His deal leaves slugger Spencer Torkelson, the first overall selection, as the only Detroit pick who hasn’t signed yet. The Tigers can pay Torkelson $7,775,700 without exceeding their $13,325,700 bonus pool and $8,441,985 without losing future picks, Callis notes. The slot value of the No. 1 pick is $8,415,300.
- Right-hander Michael Fulmer has made enough progress in his recovery from March 2019 Tommy John surgery that he should be ready to return to the mound when spring training resumes, according to Avila (via Evan Woodbery of MLive.com). However, the Tigers aren’t going to rush the 27-year-old Fulmer back into game action. “Once we get there and we see him and see him and he starts working out we’ll just figure out what we can do and how we can do it,” Gardenhire said. “Game situations are so much different than practice.” The former American League Rookie of the Year (2016) was once among the most prized young hurlers in the game, but along with injuries, a decline in performance has damaged his stock over the past couple years. In 2018, the last time he pitched, Fulmer logged a career-worst 4.69 ERA/4.52 FIP over 132 1/3 innings.
- Gardenhire confirmed that standout Tigers pitching prospects Casey Mize, Matt Manning, Tarik Skubal and Alex Faedo will be on their 60-man taxi squad, Chris McCosky of the Detroit News relays. “They are going to be part of this,” said Gardenhire, but that doesn’t mean any will make his major league debut this year, as Avila acknowledged that ” it might be more difficult to get them that experience” during such a short season. Regardless, being on the 60-man roster will at least give those who may not yet be ready for the majors to play intrasquad games and continue to develop in a year that probably won’t have a minor league season.
Latest On Michael Fulmer’s Rehab Progress
Tigers righty Michael Fulmer appears to be making nice progress in his attempt to rehabilitate following Tommy John surgery. As Chris McCosky of the Detroit News reports, the team finds itself trying to hold him back.
Fulmer is working out at the team’s Florida complex, so it’s not implausible that he could face live hitters. But pitching coach Rick Anderson says there’s “no chance” of that at the moment.
Though it seems Fulmer is fully on track from a physical perspective, the team understandably wishes to proceed in a measured and cautious manner. Anderson suggests that the team would like to build Fulmer up slowly from live bullpen sessions into sim game action.
It’s tempting to think that moving ahead now could set Fulmer up to be ready at the start of the season. But the team is understandably concerned with unleashing Fulmer without full oversight and structure in place. The 27-year-old was once and could again be a key asset for a Detroit organization that is firmly in rebuilding mode at present.
[RELATED: A Missed Opportunity For The Tigers?]
Fulmer is controllable through the 2022 season, so the team is wisely taking the long view. That’s probably best for him as well. Fulmer battled knee and other health issues even before blowing out his ulnar collateral ligament. If he’s to return to the quality pitching he provided in 2016-17, Fulmer will need to return to and remain at full health.
A Missed Opportunity For The Tigers?
It was just a few years ago that Tigers right-hander Michael Fulmer looked like one of the most valuable pitchers in baseball. Fulmer burst on the scene in 2016 – one year after the Tigers acquired him from the Mets in the teams’ Yoenis Cespedes trade – parlaying a 95 mph fastball into 159 innings of 3.06 ERA ball en route to American League Rookie of the Year honors. Unfortunately, though, Fulmer’s career has gone in the wrong direction since then.
While Fulmer did turn in another fine season in 2017, an All-Star campaign, injuries began to cut him down then. Dating back to that season, Fulmer has undergone three surgeries – one for ulnar nerve transposition, another on his knee and most recently a Tommy John procedure. TJS wiped out all of 2019 for Fulmer, which came after he slumped to an unspectacular 4.69 ERA across 132 1/3 innings during the previous year.
Considering that Fulmer’s still just 27 years old and under team control through 2022, it would be unwise to throw dirt on his career just yet. Fulmer may well turn back into a significant asset for the Tigers when he’s ready to return (which should be sometime this season, if there is one), though it’s also worth wondering if the club and general manager Al Avila should have sold high on him when they had the chance. Fulmer was involved in a bevy of trade rumors during his healthier days, but the Tigers were unwilling to move him for anything other than a massive return when his value was at its zenith. They’ve since gone into a full rebuild and may not even return to contention during Fulmer’s remaining years of control.
In fairness to the Tigers, you can’t necessarily blame them for their reluctance to part with Fulmer. After all, it’s not every day you find a young, hard-throwing starter with front-line potential. That said, plenty of teams tried to pry him out of Detroit, which could have benefited from moving him.
Going back in the MLBTR archives since 2017, the Braves, Astros, Athletics, Dodgers, Phillies, Yankees, Padres, Cubs and Rangers are among teams that have at least kicked the tires on Fulmer. The juiciest Fulmer-related rumor came out last summer and went back to 2017, when Houston and Chicago reportedly offered Detroit one now-superstar apiece for the hurler.
The Cubs were apparently willing to give up Javier Baez, while the Astros would have surrendered Alex Bregman for Fulmer and reliever Justin Wilson. The Tigers turned down those offers. At that point, Baez was a solid player – not the true standout middle infielder he has morphed into over the past couple years. Bregman, though, was just two years removed from going No. 2 in the draft and has been among the most valuable third basemen in the game over the past few seasons. As for Wilson (now a Met), the Tigers did end up trading him to the Cubs that year for third baseman Jeimer Candelario and shortstop Isaac Paredes. Candelario was a quality prospect at the time, but he hasn’t made a great impact in the majors yet, while Paredes is still promising. Bregman helped the Astros to a World Series title (albeit one that many regard as tainted) in 2017, however, and Baez has been irreplaceable to the Cubs.
If either the Astros or the Cubs had successfully pulled off a Fulmer trade, it’s interesting to ponder how they’d look nowadays. Would the Astros have ended up acquiring ace Justin Verlander, Fulmer’s ex-teammate, from the Tigers in August 2017? If not, would they have won the World Series that year or the AL pennant without his Cy Young contributions last season? Would the Cubs have sent outfielder Eloy Jimenez and righty Dylan Cease to the crosstown-rival White Sox for starter Jose Quintana in 2017? Those are just some of the intriguing scenarios to consider in the case of a Fulmer non-trade.
If we’re to believe the Astros/Cubs rumors, it seems fair to say the Tigers’ refusal to trade Fulmer three years ago has had an enormous effect on them and the league as a whole. While it’s not the Tigers’ fault that injuries have derailed Fulmer of late, they might be a lot closer to escaping their rebuild had they traded him to Houston, Chicago or one of the several other teams that pursued him. Now, they’re left to hope that he’ll begin a career renaissance when he takes the mound again.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
AL Central Notes: Buxton, Fulmer, Royals
The Twins‘ expectation is that center fielder Byron Buxton would’ve been in center field on Opening Day had the season commenced on time, writes Phil Miller of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. The 26-year-old underwent surgery to repair a torn labrum in his left (non-throwing) shoulder last September, and manager Rocco Baldelli said in a weekend conference call that Buxton’s rehab from the procedure “could not have gone smoother.” Buxton was a bit limited early in camp during the first spring training, but he’ll be on a normal schedule if a second (likely abbreviated) training camp is able to come together. Injuries have plagued much of Buxton’s career — crashing into the center field fence on the regular and frequently laying out for diving attempts take their toll on a body — but he turned in a .262/.314/.513 slash line (114 OPS+, 111 wRC+) in 295 plate appearances when healthy last season. Despite playing in only 87 games, he tied for fifth among MLB outfielders in Statcast’s Outs Above Average metric.
More out of the division…
- Michael Fulmer‘s rehab from Tommy John surgery is on track, and the Tigers right-hander would likely be ready for a minor league rehab stint in early July if play has resumed by that point, writes Chris McCosky of the Detroit News. Fulmer’s 2018 season was cut short due to knee surgery, and he sustained the UCL tear that led to his Tommy John surgery last spring. A late start to the year and an pushed-back end date would give Fulmer some additional innings, though he’s quick to say that he “[doesn’t] think there are any positives to take out of” the COVID-19 pandemic, even while acknowledging that it could allow him to get in more work in 2020. Fulmer, the 2016 American League Rookie of the Year (159 innings, 3.06 ERA, 5.4 rWAR), hasn’t pitched since September 2018 and will be arbitration-eligible for the third time next winter. He’s a Super Two player and remains under club control through the 2022 season.
- Lynn Worthy of the Kansas City Star takes an interesting look at the manner in which the Royals‘ front office is operating amid the suspended state of play. And while the makeshift manner in which the club’s player development staff now has to interact with players is obviously a sub-optimal setup, assistant general manager J.J. Picollo believes that the club “will end up with better processes for our offseason communication” as a result of needing to be more nimble with their interactions. Regular Zoom meetings; webinars on nutrition, pitch grips and new technologies to utilize; and more concrete one-on-one communication schedules have been put into place via a variety of platforms.