The Tigers’ season has swung all over the place, but one part of the operation keeps landing in a pretty comfortable spot: the TV booth.
Awful Announcing’s annual Major League Baseball broadcast rankings put Detroit at No. 7 out of 30 teams, a one-spot climb from 2025. The list, based on fan voting on an A-to-F scale, drew more than 85,000 votes this year and marked the fourth straight season the site has asked readers to grade MLB’s television crews.
Sean Keeley of Awful Announcing pointed to the impact Jason Benetti has had since arriving in 2024.
“No surprise to see the Tigers broadcast back up here, and many graders can't say enough about how much the arrival of (Jason) Benetti (in 2024) has transformed the vibes,” Keeley wrote. “Benetti received plenty of praise for being 'fun, entertaining, but also super good at explaining the game.'
Other graders rated the overall crew highly, saying it's the 'best there is by a long shot.' Benetti's playful banter with (Andy) Dirks and (Dan) Petry is 'always good for a laugh' but also provides 'interesting' tactical insight.
“A minor contingent of graders cautioned that Benetti can occasionally 'talk too much' or get sidetracked by roving reporters during gameplay. Overall, it's clear the Tigers' booth is widely considered an elite TV broadcast.”
The fan feedback included plenty of praise for the unpredictability of the broadcasts, too.
“Never know what's gonna happen in any game's broadcast (in a good way),” one reader wrote about the Tigers' TV booth. “No real weak links up and down the broadcast lineup and very enjoyable to watch/listen.”
Detroit’s rise in the rankings has been quick. The Tigers finished last, 30th of 30, in the first fan ranking in 2023, then jumped to 10th in 2024 with Benetti’s first season. This year’s No. 7 finish keeps them firmly in the upper tier.
Benetti, 42, handles play-by-play for the vast majority of Tigers games, which this season have shifted to the MLB Media umbrella on Detroit SportsNet. He also misses occasional games while working as the lead announcer on NBC’s “Sunday Night Baseball.” Beyond baseball, Benetti is part of NBC’s college football, college basketball and NBA announcing teams, and he is scheduled to call the last two Lions preseason games.
When Benetti is off, radio voice Dan Dickerson moves over to TV.
The booth’s regular analyst mix features Dirks, a former Tigers outfielder, and Petry, a former Tigers pitcher. Bobby Scales also appears on the TV side from time to time, though he works mostly on the radio broadcast.
Awful Announcing said 41.5% of voters gave the Tigers’ booth an “A” grade. Only six teams finished ahead of Detroit: the Padres, Giants, Mets, Yankees, Cubs and Phillies.
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Since the trade, Skubal has made three starts for Los Angeles, while the Tigers have worked with the three players they acquired in return. Even with the transaction framed as a long-term baseball decision, it has not stopped the conversation from circling back to what Detroit lost in the process. A matchup like this tends to do that, especially when the pitcher on the other side spent so much time defining what the rotation looked like here. [Read more 🡒]