Kyle Finnegan looked like a smart bet for the Tigers once upon a time. Now he’s become the kind of bullpen mistake Detroit can’t afford to keep carrying.
The 35-year-old reliever came over from the Nationals in 2025 for a pair of prospects after the Tigers saw a chance to buy low on a pitcher who had spent most of his career hovering around a 3.50 ERA. He had stumbled early that season in Washington, and Detroit took the gamble. For a while, it paid off.
Finnegan finished 2025 with a 1.50 ERA, a 0.72 WHIP and four saves across 16 appearances, enough to give AJ Hinch reason to believe he had found a reliable late-inning weapon heading into 2026. And for a stretch, that belief held up. By the end of June, Finnegan’s ERA sat at 2.06.
The problem was that the underlying numbers were already waving a red flag.
Now the season has gone off the rails so badly that Finnegan is being compared to Kenta Maeda in all the worst ways. A comparison posted by Tigers Data on September 16, 2026, underscored just how rough the drop-off has been.
Oh no Kyle... https://t.co/2BbHr3Qbo9 pic.twitter.com/eI5zt7M1Fe
- Tigers Data (@TigersData) September 16, 2026
The strikeout stuff has disappeared, and that’s what makes the collapse sting even more. Finnegan was a strikeout arm for Detroit a year ago, averaging 11.5 strikeouts per nine innings in those 16 games.
This season, he’s down to seven strikeouts per nine innings, which is even lower than what Maeda posted in Detroit. Maeda also had the edge in whiff percentage and strikeout rate.
That’s a brutal turn for a pitcher the Tigers signed to a two-year, $19 million deal.
Detroit rolled the dice on a reliever after just 16 games of evidence in 2025 and came up empty. It’s the kind of move that doesn’t look any better with time, and now Scott Harris may be left with no real choice but to move on and absorb the contract.
Finnegan still has a couple of weeks left in the regular season to show something, but the Tigers can’t really afford to talk themselves into another year of this. Saving money isn’t worth risking a repeat of this mess.
And Finnegan isn’t the only reason the bullpen conversation in Detroit keeps turning ugly.
This unit has been a problem for years, and the pattern hasn’t changed. Maeda was a disaster in 2024 and 2025.
Finnegan has been a nightmare in 2026. Kenley Jansen, meanwhile, has not come close to matching what the front office expected for $11 million this season.
There have been a few solid arms mixed in - Tyler Holton with a 2.69 ERA, Jacob Waguespack at 2.66, Brant Hurter at 2.70 and Drew Sommers at 3.60 - but those bright spots haven’t been enough to cover for all the late-inning damage.
Detroit has lost 20 games after leading in the seventh inning or later. If the Tigers had simply split those games, they’d be 82-69 and alone in first place in the AL Central. Win half of those, and this whole conversation changes.
Instead, the bullpen has turned too many leads into losses, and the roster around it has paid the price. The message is pretty clear now: the Tigers need a full reset in 2027.
In Other News...
Colt Keith May Have Given The Tigers A Real 2027 Infield Answer
Colt Keith has become one of the more interesting lineup puzzles for the Tigers this season, not because his bat has vanished, but because Detroit keeps moving him around the diamond. He has split time at third base, first base and designated hitter, and the different looks have given the club a better sense of how his offense plays when hes handling the hot corner versus settling into one spot.
The split that matters most right now is the one that gives Detroit a possible answer for 2027. Keiths OPS has been better at third than in his other roles, even if the sample sizes are still small enough to keep the picture from getting fully settled. The Tigers are weighing that offense against the defensive side of the job, and the next step could say a lot about where Keith fits when they start planning beyond this season. [Read more 🡒]
Tigers Late-Season Push Feels Real After Another Torkelson Statement
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For a club trying to make its late-season surge feel less like a fluke and more like a statement, nights like this matter. Toronto, meanwhile, has now dropped six of nine and slipped further in the American League wild card race, leaving Detroit with both the confidence of a hot streak and the sense that the path ahead is suddenly looking a lot more interesting. [Read more 🡒]
Tigers Are Suddenly Showing An Identity Fans Have Waited For
The Tigers have started to look a little more like the version of themselves fans have been waiting to see, and its showing up in the most old-school place possible: on the bases. Spencer Torkelson swiped his first bag of the season against the Blue Jays, a small moment on the scoreboard but a notable sign of a club that has begun pushing the action rather than waiting for it.
Over the last 17 games, Detroit has stolen 17 bases, a pace that reflects a more aggressive approach and a clear shift in tone under AJ Hinch. The mix of a different mindset in the dugout and a younger, faster roster has given the Tigers a little more edge, and the question now is whether this burst of activity is the start of a more permanent identity or just a hot stretch while the legs are fresh. [Read more 🡒]