The Detroit Tigers bullpen destroyed their 2026 season. That much is clear. It was clear in May when, racked with injuries and badly needing to win some games without having to put up 5-6 runs, the bullpen coughed up lead after lead. Things were a little better in June and July, but by mid-August, just as they’d fought their way back into the divisional race, the offense sputtered again and the bullpen just could not win even an average amount of games in which they held slim leads in the eighth and ninth innings. Losing the majority of close games is a pretty terrible recipe for success.
The Tigers held the second worst record in baseball in one-run games. They had 31 blown saves, second most in the major leagues behind the Washington Nationals. Their Jekyll and Hyde offensive nature is another issue to be confronted, but at the same time streakiness is natural for all but a truly elite offense. Top teams still manage to win their share of those low scoring games with clutch relief work and some timely run scoring. Will the Tigers start to bunt and run more next year as they showed in September? We’ll see. At least they finally are starting to build up the type of players who can successfully play multiple styles of offense. A more versatile offense would certainly help as well, but it’s the disastrous high leverage relief work that really did them in this season.
So while yes, the Tigers have needed another good, low strikeout bat the past two seasons (hey Alex Bregman), and have got to a better job putting the ball in play in high leverage spots, the overwhelming issue this season is the lack of good high leverage relievers. Somewhat ironically considering the, AJ Hinch as slave to analytics, complaints, this is the least sabermetric-minded roster construction possible. A terrible bullpen mocks WAR numbers and run differential, and yet the Tigers have seemed much more focused on their starting rotation rather than emphasizing winning the high leverage battles that generally go to the team with the better pen.
How the plan went awry
Will Vest should have been the guy again this year, but he was pretty clearly never right and eventually succumbed to his injuries. That’s par for the course for relievers even more so than starting pitchers. It’s hard to get elite production out of any reliever year after year, and that’s why consistently great closers are so pricey in free agency in WAR terms. Drew Sommers could be a guy like that next year, but he’s only recently figured out how to command his fastball-slider combination and is just getting his first exposure to high leverage situations over the past six weeks.
Beyond those two it’s just been a mix of low strikeout middle relievers, veteran Swiss Army knife Tyler Holton, and another group of Scott Harris and Jeff Greenberg failures in free agency like Kenley Jansen, Kyle Finnegan, and Drew Anderson, who were downright terrible at holding leads. Anderson at least redeemed himself by performing better as a starter when he had the opportunity, but in relief he was a mess in a setup role when tasked with holding leads, and never really worked his way into the circle of trust for high leverage work late in games.
One of the strangest moments of Harris and Hinch’s end of the season presser was hearing Harris say that they used Kenley Jansen in high leverage situations too often. This seemed a bit rich, and by the look on his face Hinch agreed, considering that Harris signed him to close games and didn’t really provide any other options beyond Vest. The problem wasn’t using Jensen too often. The problem was doing a poor job at developing relief options over his first three years here, leaving Harris little choice but to try and sign a bunch of free agent relievers last offseason just to hold things together. And, instead of prioritizing a top arm to go with Vest, they took the bulk approach, hoping someone in the group would solve the problem. Just like their grab bag of arms including Chris Paddack, Charlie Morton, Rafael Montero, and Kyle Finnegan at the 2025 trade deadline, they never did.
The question is how to fix this. With Harris showing minimal interest in the trade market, and unlikely to pursue top relievers in free agency, most of this is going to have to be accomplished internally. The lockout and CBA fight coming this offseason make it very hard to see the Tigers doing much until we see how everything shakes out. Even then there are only a few high end relievers headed to free agency, and competition will be fierce for them.
The problem is that they still don’t have that much to offer internally either. Drew Sommers has shown he’s good enough to handle high leverage work. He posted one of the highest strikeout rates in baseball in the second half, and we can hope that in year two he’ll settle in and play a major role in the late innings. The Tigers might get a healthy Will Vest back next year, which would help. Beyond that there isn’t much of note in the upper levels in the system to help them. We’re not just talking about triple digit flamethrowers here either. Just guys that by whatever means, strike out a lot of hitters and can smother a lineup for an inning when the pressure is at its highest.
Harris opined in that press conference that eventually the Tigers will have so much starting pitching that they’ll spill over good arms into the bullpen. That’s certainly part of how successful teams build their bullpens, but that’s pretty cold comfort considering Harris has had four years to address the issue already and still doesn’t have a top 100 pitching prospect of his own in the upper minor leagues.
Down on the Farm
The flaw in the program is partly tied to the emphasis on high school arms. Just about all the Tigers big pitching draft picks from 2023-2025 were high schoolers, with a smattering of college/JUCO arms in the mix. Every single one of these guys has seen the beginning of their pro careers seriously derailed by injury. If we play the long game here this might all work out with a huge flow of pitching talent to the major leagues eventually, but it certainly isn’t imminent in 2027.
We finally saw progress on this front in the summer months as former top picks like Owen Hall, Michael Massey, Cale Wetwiska, and Paul Wilson returned to action over the course of the season. They were rusty, but the velocity and raw stuff was pretty much as advertised. Massey in particular looks like an ideal relief prospect with a really impressive riding fastball and breaking stuff. Wetwiska is another sleeper pick with a really good heater and quality breaking pitches. 20-year-old Australian RHP Alistair Tanner might be another in time, although he’s further away and ended the season on the injured list. If the Tigers choose to move Massey and Wetwiska pretty quickly into the Double-A Erie SeaWolves bullpen next year, they might move very quickly to the Show despite limited experience in pro ball so far. Both are college arms, in contrast to Hall and Wilson, but for now they’re still some distance from the major leagues.
At this point, the Tigers actually do have a really nice crop of pitching prospects developing, but top arms like 2026 breakout LHP Ben Jacobs, 2026 RHP first rounder Cameron Flukey, and nasty young right-hander Kelvis Salcedo, and I can name several more, will just be looking to break into the Double-A level next year with Jacobs leading the way and probably starting the season there. He has a chance to reach the major leagues sometime later in the 2027 season if all goes well, though the Tigers are fairly flush in southpaws already and Jacobs isn’t really an obvious comversion candidate.
In the upper minors, things come down to lefty Andrew Sears, who we saw briefly late in the season, and right-hander Lucas Elissalt, who reached Double-A this year. Neither profiles as a high leverage, closer type of arm. Still, those two starters may end up converted to relief if the Tigers don’t need them stashed in Triple-A Toledo as starting depth. We’re still waiting on a sustained velocity bump from Elissalt.
In terms of pure relievers in the upper minors? The only homegrown name of interest is Moises Rodriguez, who does feature a great sinker that touches 100 mph. He’s 24 now, and didn’t really make any tangible progress with his breaking stuff and command in 2026, but he does have potential at least. Beyond him, the Tigers have tried to take advantage of other teams’ 40-man roster crunches, which sometimes force international pitching prospects off rosters prematurely.
They claimed 26-year-old RHP Yilber Diaz, who we saw in Detroit, from the Diamondbacks back in July. They claimed 23-year-old right-hander Yoniel Curet from the Phillies back in April. They signed 30-year-old RHP Wandisson Charles to a minor league deal last offseason as well. All three have the stuff to be late innings relievers, but have not been able to refine their control enough to be reliable at the major league level. Charles at least finally cut his walks this year, but again, he’s 30 and has been stalled just short of the major league level for years. There’s nothing at all to count on here, just some lottery ticket arms to hope on. The unfortunate truth is that relief prospects are a complete crapshoot outside of the rare high end pure relief talent. The Tigers have been waiting on RHP Tyler Mattison, for example, for years now.
There are some issues in player development that need work to build their own killer bullpen eventually. The Tigers went the whole year without a dedicated director of pitching in the farm system after Gabe Ribas left to join the Colorado Rockies last offseason. They continue to struggle to develop velocity, while other teams’ bullpens are stacked up with guys throwing 98+, and their track record at keeping pitchers healthy has been pretty abysmal, though some of that may be related to the heavily prep oriented draft classes they’ve produced.
The point is, the arm talent is present in the system now beyond the names already mentioned. Kash Mayfield, Brady Smith, Charlie Christensen, Jhonan Coba, Carlos Rodriguez…we could go on, but they’re all still in A-ball. The Tigers may have a lot of talent to draw on in 2028-2029, but there still just isn’t much coming down the pipeline next year.
How to build a better bullpen in 2027
First of all let’s hope the owners don’t tank the season trying to force a salary cap in the next CBA. Assuming we have a normal season, there are things the Tigers can do to get a better relief corp together in 2027.
Harris is correct that a surplus of starting pitchers is one of the fastest ways to build up a bullpen. With Framber Valdez, Jackson Jobe, Keider Montero, Troy Melton, River Ryan, Reese Olson, Drew Anderson, and Andrew Sears all as options for the 2027 starting rotation, they may be able to draw on an arm or two to help out. Of course, we’re talking pitching here so assuming that we aren’t going to lose 1-3 of these guys to injury for a significant part of the 2027 season would be unwise.
Were the Tigers to add another starter, particularly a right-hander like Anderson with the stuff to get strikeouts, that would certainly help by allowing them to use one of their hard-throwing starters, like Troy Melton or River Ryan, in the bullpen. The issue is that the Tigers have shown no sign of prioritizing the bullpen in the Harris years. It’s always been an afterthought, and they seem dead set on using both of those pitchers in the rotation. That’s understandable, they have the deep pitch mix to be top shelf starting pitchers, but the argument for getting “more WAR value” out of a guy because he’s racking up a big volume of innings, is undercut by the crucial importance of having dominant arms who can get the last nine outs of a game with a lead. Having two Drew Anderson caliber guys in the bullpen instead just doesn’t move the needle the same way at all, even if it allows you to have a somewhat better rotation.
Another option, which is hard to discuss in any depth right now because of impending lockout and CBA fight, is to hunt for teams with a need to trim payroll, or who have top relievers whose team control is down to one year and try to trade for them. Are the Phillies staying all in next year or do they finally have to take a step back? Jhoan Duran is a free agent after the 2027 season. Could the Tigers go trade for him? Not until the Phillies see how the CBA shakes out first, if even then. Dombrowski, Harper, and company aren’t very likely to throw in the towel just yet. And of course this would require Harris to part with precious prospects and aggressively trade for upgrades, which he’s shown zero willingness to do.
Finally, there’s free agency. Padres hard-throwing lefty Adrian Morejon and Yankees closer RHP David Bednar lead the list of free agent relievers. Morejon was banged up to end the year, and the Yankees are rumored to be considering making Bednar the qualifying offer, so it’s possible neither are appealing for those reasons, but there are some other talented arms available.
It would be nice to see the Tigers not settle for the trick pitch types like Tommy Kahnle and Kenley Jansen, and really go get a killer arm in free agency. They’ll have money to work with, but it’s certainly fair to be skeptical of free agent relievers, and of the Tigers ability to do what the Rays, Brewers, and others routinely do, which is find an undervalued, underperforming pitcher that they have solutions for. That’s the way this is best accomplished, and it doesn’t bode well for Scott Harris and the Tigers long-term that his front office has shown minimal ability to compete with smarter teams in acquiring and fixing up flawed pitchers from less skilled teams. Hopefully, Sommers is the start of a trend and they figure this out.
Hope for 2027
I’m sure none of this sounds terribly promising. The Tigers will be bringing back a pretty good roster in all other regards but the bullpen. They should be right back in the thick of contention in the AL Central. If the bullpen costs them a ton of games again, then heads are going to have to roll in the organization.
From year to year, bullpens are pretty fungible. It’s very likely the Tigers could run it back with the same guys and still blow a lot fewer leads. Outside of Vest, they really haven’t had much in the way of top high leverage relievers the past three years, and yet the bullpens in 2024 and 2025 did a far better job avoiding blown saves. They only blew 21 in 2025, and in 2024 they blew 26. Neither mark is good, but blowing 31 games is hard to do without bad luck playing a role. By ERA and FIP, the Tigers had a middle of the pack bullpen this season, and they shouldn’t have much trouble doing that again. Better high leverage work should follow, but there’s no guarantee and they need to aim a lot higher than than just hoping to put an average bullpen out there.
Even those happy thoughts and statistical norms only get the Tigers back to having a middle to low tier bullpen. That might be enough to get back to the postseason, but you just don’t see many teams go deep in the postseason without a crew of pretty talented relief arms.
The Detroit Tigers really need to make this their number one priority. Sure, we’d love a good right-handed bat added to the mix, but the offense scored plenty of runs as they are in 2026. From player development and pro scouting, to the analysts, to the training staff, coaches, manager, and front office, they’ve got to take a very cold, sober assessment as to why they aren’t developing pitching as well as top teams, nor landing the right free agent targets in free agency or trades.
They should be able to do better than they did in 2026 with relative ease, but they have to set their sights a lot higher if they’re going to avoid wasting more seasons. Tarik Skubal is gone, and players like Riley Greene and Dillon Dingler aren’t going to be around, or at least playing at this caliber, forever. They need to stop shooting themselves in the foot through bullpen neglect, and get it together now, not a year or two down the road when hopefully they’ll start producing a steady supply of good homegrown arms.
