The Tigers’ bullpen remains the biggest problem in a season where the AL Central is there for the taking, and the options on hand don’t inspire much confidence.
Detroit chose not to move the rest of its tradeable pieces, but that only really made sense if the club also brought in bullpen help with team control. A true buy-and-sell approach, while not ideal, would have at least fit better than the path the Tigers took. Instead, the group now handling important innings includes Jacob Waguespack, Drew Sommers, Brenan Hanifee, Drew Anderson, and Enmanuel De Jesus.
There have been flashes from that collection, and some of the basic numbers look acceptable. But that doesn’t change the larger issue: none of them feels like a trustworthy piece if the Tigers are going to make an unlikely run at October. Finnegan and Jansen have made plenty of mistakes and taken their share of the losses, though the expectation is that Detroit is sticking with them, for better or worse.
Ty Madden is the one arm who stands out as worth a longer look. He has become a useful bulk option, which is not how many expected this stretch to go.
Over 30 innings and 11 appearances, he has posted a 2.40 ERA and a 3.06 FIP, a sharp contrast to how much he struggled for most of last season. Detroit should keep leaning on him and see whether this version is real, because there’s at least a chance he can grow into a bigger role.
Beyond Madden, the 40-man alternatives include Sawyer Gipson-Long, Beau Brieske, Yilber Diaz, Burch Smith, and Troy Watson, who was added recently. None of those names offers much certainty. Smith showed more than expected before getting hurt, but the rest come with obvious issues, whether that’s too many walks or too few missed bats.
Jackson Wolf, who came over in the Mize trade, doesn’t move the needle either.
The deeper concern is not just the number of shaky arms. It’s the absence of real upside. There doesn’t appear to be anyone in the bullpen mix with even a coin-flip chance of becoming a dependable high-leverage reliever right now.
That leaves the Tigers looking for help from elsewhere, and one possible answer is to move someone from the rotation into relief. Jobe’s 100 mph fastball makes him look like a natural fit for that kind of role, at least for the rest of this season. If Verlander gets healthy and still has something left, he could be another option.
Trading away Skubal and Mize still wasn’t enough to make the rotation the main worry. The bullpen remains the bigger concern, even if the starting staff isn’t exactly overflowing with certainty. In this case, the Tigers trust more arms in the rotation than they do in the bullpen, and that’s not saying much.
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For Detroit, the timing only sharpened the curiosity around what came back in the Skubal return. The Tigers added Zyhir Hope and River Ryan in that deal, and both arrive with the kind of upside that can change the temperature of a deadline reaction fast. Hope has flashed impact at Double A, while Ryan brings a power arm that can light up a radar gun, and the question now is less about why Detroit made the move than how quickly those pieces can start shaping the next wave. [Read more 🡒]