The Tigers have signed right-hander Jordan Balazovic to a minor league deal, according to Just Baseball Media’s Aram Leighton. Balazovic returns to North American baseball after a brief stint with the Doosan Bears of the KBO League, as Balazovic signed with the Bears after he was released by the Twins last July.
A fifth-round pick for Minnesota in the 2016 draft, Balazovic earned some looks at the back of top-100 prospect lists during his climb up the ladder of the Twins’ farm system. However, most of his success happened in the lower rungs of the ladder, as Balazovic has a 6.35 ERA in 151 2/3 career innings of Triple-A ball. Despite those struggles, the Twins gave him a look at the big league level in 2023, and Balazovic posted a 4.44 ERA, 15.7% strikeout rate, and 11.1% walk rate across his first 24 1/3 innings in the Show.
The Twins opted to designate Balazovic for assignment last February and then released him, though he was quickly re-signed to another minor league contract. More struggles at Triple-A led to Balazovic being released again so he could pursue his opportunity in South Korea, and Balazovic had a 4.26 ERA and a strong 27.6% strikeout rate in 57 innings with the Bears, starting 11 of his 12 games.
Balazovic still had an 11.2% walk rate with the Bears, which is a bit higher than his 9.01% career walk rate in the minors. His control worsened as Balazovic faced higher levels of competition in the minors, while his strikeout and grounder rates were generally pretty solid, albeit with some variance within the small sample sizes of bouncing to different minor league levels.
Balazovic is only 26, so there’s logic in the Tigers taking a flier on a former notable prospect to see if another change of scenery helps the right-hander unlock any potential. Detroit has also signed the likes of Matt Gage, Brendan White, and Ryan Miller to minors deals in recent days, as the Tigers are lining up some depth arms to evaluate in spring camp. These types of signings are common practice for any team, of course, and won’t preclude Detroit from taking a run at bigger-name bullpen options like reported target Kirby Yates.
Sign a middle of the order bat already. How can you build minor league depth before filling the holes on your roster?
Is that .. is that a serious question?
Seems like they are waiting on Bregman or seeing who misses out on a big contract (Alonso?). The cupboard will be bare if they wait too long.
Aram mentioned
Tigers hold all the cards. Everyone is moving on from Alonso and bregman. They will have to play for the Newark bears if one doesn’t take the tigers under 100 million offer
The Tigers are having a remarkable offseason as the hits just keep on coming…for Toledo at least!!!
Embarrassing off season…Oakland As of the mid west now….Mile Ilitch would be ashamed if he was still alive.
Still tons of time left and lots of options for signings Bregman, Kim, Alonso, Sasaki, Flaherty, Verlander and trades Baty, Diaz, Luis Castillo.
Tigers & Mariners still waiting to make their first big splash of the offseason. …who will make the first move?? I’m going to start to get cynical and letting the epithets fly if there is still no action by Valentine’s Day.
Agreed. I will eat all my kids Valentines day candy and blame Scott Harris and Gerry Dipoto. My q2 year old daughter is like a raccoon on meth when it comes to candy and will hunt them down! Sign those bats boys.
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AL Central is going to belong to the KC Royals.
I really don’t have much faith that Detroit will improve their major league roster. Their PR department will try to sell tickets based on the Tigers’ playoff run from 2024.
Why wouldn’t they sell tickets based on their playoff run in 2024?
You’d be total trash as a PR department head with that silly logic.
Reckless spending is not a solution; it didn’t work for Mike Illitch and hopefully his son is smarter and learns from those previous mistakes.
No one’s arguing for reckless spending. We just want to spend a little to supplement the core.
So your suggestion is to keep adding minor league depth and hope that the Tigers’ August and September were not a mirage? (BTW….would signing a Bregman or Burnes be considered “reckless spending”…considering they’d fill weak spots on the roster?)
Lol. Season doesn’t start for another 3 months. We’re not done yet, I promise. Reaching the playoffs didn’t earn Harris a little trust? Even a tiny bit?