The Tigers’ 2026 season ended with too many empty innings, too many stalled rallies and too many late-game stumbles to ignore. But the collapse wasn’t just one thing. It was a collection of ugly numbers that piled up, and a few encouraging ones that suggest the next step might still be coming.
Start with the bullpen, because that’s where the damage got loudest. The Tigers finished with 32 blown saves, a franchise record that pushed past the previous highs of 28 in 2004 and 2008.
Kyle Finnegan led the club with 10, while Will Vest tied for second with 6 in just under half a season before injuries took him out of the picture. Kenley Jansen also finished tied with Vest, which suggests Jansen may not have been quite as rough as it felt at times, but Finnegan was clearly the biggest problem in the late innings.
And the eighth inning was a mess. The Tigers somehow posted a team ERA of 2.14 in the ninth, but the eighth blew up to 5.33, with a 1.99 SO/BB and the highest OPS of any inning at .777.
Finnegan made 34 appearances there, followed by Drew Anderson with 18, Tyler Holton with 18 and Jacob Waguespack with 17. Most of the damage sits on Finnegan’s shoulders, though Vest and Drew Sommers also had rough turns in that spot.
The offense had its own weak spots. The 8-hole was a drain, with Tigers hitters in that lineup spot producing a .200/.266/.333 slash line for a .601 OPS.
That kind of production doesn’t just fail to spark rallies - it kills them. The club also struggled badly when it had runners on first and second, posting a .206/.288/.313 line and a .601 OPS in that situation.
For a team that often worked walks after leadoff singles, that inability to push runners further along stood out.
There was also a glaring lack of premium velocity. The Tigers threw just five fastballs of 100 mph or more, the lowest total in Major League Baseball.
That number reflects the hole left when Will Vest was injured and Tarik Skubal was traded to the Dodgers. Jackson Jobe and River Ryan should help restore some of that next season, but this year the absence of high-end heat showed up in the team’s declining whiff and strikeout rates as the season wore on.
Still, the story isn’t all failure. The Tigers did plenty of things that point to a healthier future, especially on the run-prevention side.
The starters posted a 3.55 ERA and the bullpen finished at 3.84, both top 10 marks in MLB. Even after accounting for Skubal and Casey Mize before they were traded, the starter ERA in the second half was still 3.63, and the bullpen ERA actually improved from 3.88 to 3.78 after the All-Star break.
The contact quality allowed by the staff was excellent, too. Tigers pitchers allowed the lowest wOBAcon in MLB at .344 and also the lowest expected wOBAcon at .343.
Add in a .274 BABiP allowed, and it becomes easier to understand why the club didn’t give up as many runs as its late-inning mistakes might suggest. In plain terms, hitters weren’t squaring them up very often.
That was especially true on the ground. The Tigers posted a 45.3% groundball rate against, another sign that they kept opposing contact soft and manageable.
Framber Valdez drew some attention in that area, but even he seemed to improve by season’s end. If this staff can add more swing-and-miss to that groundball foundation, the ceiling gets interesting fast.
There’s reason for optimism on the other side of the ball, too. The Tigers finished with a team Launch Angle Sweet Spot percentage of 36.7%, the best mark in MLB.
That means they were making ideal contact angles nearly 37% of the time, about 4% better than the league average. They also ranked ninth with an 84.6% contact rate on strikes.
A lot of the core behind those numbers is coming back next season, so there’s no obvious reason to expect major regression there.
Then there’s the baserunning, where the Tigers were the best in the league at taking first to third on a single. They did it 128 times, 17 more than the team in second place.
That fits the profile of a younger, more contact-oriented, more athletic group that keeps the pressure on defenses. For a team still defining its identity, that’s not a small thing.
So yes, the 2026 Tigers left behind a pile of frustrating numbers. The blown saves were real.
The eighth inning was ugly. The clutch failures hurt.
But the underlying profile still showed life, especially after the trade deadline as the roster was rebuilt. If there’s a season to believe this group can take a real step forward, 2027 looks like the one.
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Voting runs through October 9, with fan ballots accounting for half of the outcome and a panel of media, former players and officials handling the rest. McGonigle and Dingler appear to have the cleanest cases after the seasons they put together and their All-Star recognition, while Greene's bid comes with a different kind of debate after injuries cut into his playing time and made his candidacy a tougher one to judge. [Read more 🡒]
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So it was probably inevitable that the debate machine would spin up around him anyway. Former utility man Jeff Frye took aim at WAR as a way to measure McGonigle, and Tigers fans reacted quickly, partly because the argument feels like a familiar one and partly because McGonigles first season has been strong enough to make any dismissive take sound risky. The comparison between McGonigles rookie line and Fryes career numbers only sharpened the point, leaving the broader discussion less about whether the Tigers have a standout young player and more about which lens people want to use to appreciate him. [Read more 🡒]