The Tigers announced that right-hander Chase Lee has been recalled to the major league roster. He was already on the 40-man but is still looking for his major league debut. Righty Keider Montero was optioned as the corresponding move.
Lee, 26, was a sixth-round pick of the Rangers in 2021. He was flipped to the Tigers as part of the deal sending lefty Andrew Chafin to Texas in July of last year. The Tigers added him to their 40-man roster in November to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft.
He isn’t a power arm but throws hitters off with his sidewinding delivery, which allows him to succeed even though his fastball tops out around 90 miles per hour. Overall, he has 182 minor league innings on his track record thus far with a 3.86 earned run average. He has struck out 31.4% of opponents while issuing walks at a reasonable 8.1% clip and getting grounders on roughly half the balls in play he’s allowed.
The Tigers had recently recalled Montero to make a couple of spot starts, thus giving the other members of their rotation a breather. Brenan Hanifee had been optioned out, leaving the club with a slightly shorter bullpen for a few days. (Hanifee was later recalled when Beau Brieske landed on the IL.) Lee’s recall will get things back to the standard five/eight ratio of starters to relievers.
Photo courtesy of Junfu Han, Imagn Images
🎶 Chase Lee
under the milky twilight 🎶
… Out of the bearded barley.
Montero didn’t last very long, did he? I expect them to go back to the six man rotation when Cobb gets healthy.
For a month…Cobb is a China doll
Chase? Flee.
I’m expecting:
4.95 ERA
26% K-rate
11% BB-rate
Good luck in your debut!
You have to be careful about using your Gray’s Sports Almanac. Great Scott!
It’s better than my tee ball stats.
I had a 70.34 ERA, 1% K-rate and 90% BB-rate.
Looking at the Toledo roster thinking there must have been a pitcher that was having more success than Lee. Nope. The Toledo roster has no standout pitcher, reliever or otherwise. I think Lee’s stay will be a short one.
Do not look at Chase Lee’s recent numbers unless you are an opposing hitter looking for a gimme.
Nonetheless, Chase Lee will soon have his name emblazoned in the Annals, so good for him.
Unless, of course, he gets sent back down before pitching in a Tiger game (ie: Montero’s next Detroit start). If that happens, he joins the somewhat short list of the Ever So Close brigade. Called up, don’t see action, back to Obscurity forever.
No rotating pic on Baseball Reference for you.
I’m surprised Kenta Maeda has lasted this long on the roster. He’s been very ineffective thus far and not sure how much longer the Tigers can block another arm with him, regardless of what they’re paying.
They mentioned Lee getting traded for Chafin. How is Chafin doing in AAA? I figured he’d be up by now.
Montero did fine against the Padres. He will be back !