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Drew Hutchison Elects Free Agency

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The Tigers announced that right-hander Drew Hutchison has cleared waivers and elected free agency. He had been designated for assignment on Tuesday when the club claimed utility man Jermaine Palacios off waivers from the Twins.

Hutchison, 32, was signed to a minor league deal by the Tigers last year and ended up cracking the big league team to toss 21 1/3 innings down the stretch. He was outrighted at the end of the season but impressed the club enough that he was brought back for another season as an emergency depth option.

In 2022, they needed to lean on Hutchison far more than they would have liked, as the rotation was decimated by injuries. Just about every hurler the Tigers trotted out to start a game either got hurt or underperformed. In the end, Hutchison made 18 starts, a figure that placed him second on the team, with only Tarik Skubal’s 21 starts ahead of him.

As far as emergency starters go, Hutchison fared well enough, posting a 4.53 ERA in 105 1/3 innings. His peripherals weren’t as strong, however, as his 14.7% strikeout rate, 9.1% walk rate and 40.3% ground ball rate were all worse than league average. Advanced metrics like FIP, xFIP and SIERA had him closer to 5.00, based on those underlying numbers.

Detroit’s rotation still has many question marks around it, with Casey Mize set to miss most of next year recovering from Tommy John surgery. Skubal and Matt Manning are also dealing with arm issues and have uncertain timelines going into the winter. Despite bouncing around the league for years, Hutchison has yet to reach six years of MLB service time, meaning the club could have retained him for next year via arbitration. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projected Hutchison to make $1.8MM in the arb process, but the club has opted not to go that route.

Hutchison will now be able to get an early start on looking for his next gig. He elected free agency a handful of times this year and always wound up back with the Tigers on a new minor league deal. It’s possible he could follow that pattern again, though the Tigers are under new management now. General manager Al Avila was fired and Scott Harris was hired as president of baseball operations. With the regime change and the uncertainty around their young starters, they will likely take some time figuring out their plan of attack for 2023.

Tigers Claim Jermaine Palacios, Designate Drew Hutchison

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The Tigers have claimed utility man Jermaine Palacios off waivers from the Twins, according to MLB.com’s transaction tracker. In a corresponding move, Detroit is designating starting pitcher Drew Hutchison for assignment. Chris McCosky of the Detroit News has confirmed the moves.

Palacios made his debut in the majors this year, appearing in 30 games for the Twins and slashing .143/.184/.229 with two home runs. That underwhelming offensive return was offset somewhat by the defensive versatility the 26 year old offered, logging time at all four infield positions. Palacios did hit a much healthier .283/.341/.462 with 14 home runs across 428 plate appearances at Triple A St. Paul, so there is some hope for his bat to develop a bit in the majors.

Palacios was signed out of Venezuela in 2013, and spent five years in the Twins organization before being dealt to the Rays in the 2018 trade for Jake Odorizzi. He elected minor league free agency at the end of 2020, and he rejoined the Twins that offseason and checked in as their 18th best prospect this year, according to MLB.com. He’ll add some defensive versatility in the Tigers infield, while they’ll look to unlock a bit of the potential he’s shown in the minors with the bat.

For Hutchison, it’s the third time he’s been DFA’d by the Tigers this year. After initially signing with the Tigers on a minor league deal he made the team out of spring training but wound up being DFA’d and released in May and June before immediately re-signing with the team. Hutchison logged 105.1 innings for the Tigers in 2022, pitching to a 4.53 ERA across 18 starts and ten appearances out of the bullpen. The 32 year old struck out just 14.7% of batters faced, while walking 9.1% of the time. Those numbers are largely in line with Hutchison’s career numbers, having pitched to a lifetime 4.89 ERA across nearly 600 innings in the big leagues.

Hutchison is arbitration eligible for another season, with MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projecting him to receive a $1.8MM salary. That always made him a likely non-tender candidate, so it’s not surprising to see Detroit take him off the roster when a player of interest popped up on the waiver wire. Hutchison seems likely to clear waivers and elect free agency, where he’ll seek out another opportunity this winter.

Dustin Garneau Announces Retirement

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Former major league catcher Dustin Garneau took to Twitter this afternoon to announce his retirement. “Hanging them up. Thank you to everyone who had an impact on my career,” Garneau wrote. “To my wife for always being by my side through the ups and downs. To my agent (Marc Kligman) for always being there and making me a part of your family as well. And to my friends and family who were by my side.”

A 19th-round pick of the Rockies in the 2009 draft, Garneau reached the majors for the first time six years later. The Cal State Fullerton product broke into the big leagues just after his 28th birthday in August 2015. It marked the first of eight straight years in which he’d get to the highest level. Garneau was a prototypical depth catcher, never appearing in more than 41 MLB games in a season but donning six different uniforms along the way.

After two seasons in Colorado, Garneau bounced to the A’s on waivers. He’d find himself in the transactions logs fairly frequently thereafter, moving to the White Sox, Angels, back to the A’s and Astros through 2020. He returned to the Rockies on a minor league deal in 2021 but was dealt to the Tigers, with whom he spent the past couple seasons. That included eight games early this season, but he spent most of the year in Triple-A before reaching minor league free agency last week.

Altogether, Garneau appeared in 168 major league games. He hit .205/.285/.373 over 506 plate appearances, connecting on 15 home runs and 28 doubles. Six of those longballs came in a 20-game stint with Detroit in 2021. Over parts of eight Triple-A campaigns, the righty-swinging backstop was a .248/.329/.480 hitter. He played parts of 14 professional seasons. Best wishes to Garneau in all the best in his post-playing endeavors.

Tigers Fire Amateur Scouting Director Scott Pleis

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New Tigers president of baseball operations Scott Harris has wasted little time making changes to the organization’s front office, firing amateur scouting director Scott Pleis according to Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press.

Pleis has been with the Tigers for the past 15 years, after being hired following scouting roles with the Chicago Cubs and New York Yankees. Detroit initially hired Pleis as a national scout in 2007, but promoted him to amateur scouting director in 2010, leaving him in charge of their entire amateur scouting department and handing him significant influence in their drafting strategy. The Tigers were a dominant force during that period, winning four straight AL Central titles between 2011-14 and going to the World Series in 2012, and Pleis was tasked with developing a farm system capable of taking the Tigers back to contention after that core’s decline. That has undoubtedly been a sticking point, however, as Detroit has managed just one winning season since 2015 and finished a disappointing 66-96 in 2022.

Despite regularly picking at the top of the draft, Baseball America currently ranks the Tigers farm system as the 27th best in baseball, while ESPN pegs them at 24th. In their defense, they were a lot higher prior to the season, and part of their drop is due to the graduation of top-five prospects Spencer Torkelson and Riley Greene to the Major League club. However, there’s no question the Tigers rebuild has taken longer than expected and while it’s unfair to blame that entirely on Pleis, the organization does need to do a better job of drafting and developing talent. As Baseball America noted in their farm system rankings, “the system as a whole has consistently struggled to produce hitters who become MLB regulars.”

The move could be the first of many for Harris, who took over from former GM Al Avila in September. He’s spent the first three weeks evaluating the organization, and only took control of their day-to-day operations this week, and clearly decided changes to the scouting department were needed in order to get the Tigers back to contention.

Tigers Make Changes To Coaching Staff

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Tigers manager A.J. Hinch announced a series of changes to his coaching staff this morning (Twitter link via Jason Beck of MLB.com). Most notably, hitting coach Scott Coolbaugh and quality control coach Josh Paul will not return to the organization in 2023.

Meanwhile, assistant hitting coach Mike Hessman and third base coach Ramon Santiago will not be on the Major League coaching staff but have been offered new roles in player development. Gary Jones, who served as first base coach until being struck by liner that fractured his ankle in late May, will return to the big league staff in a to-be-determined role. Former big leaguer Alfredo Amezaga, who joined the Major League staff late in the season after serving as the Tigers’ Triple-A first base coach, will be the first base coach on next year’s big league staff.

The forthcoming addition of a new hitting coach and assistant hitting coach aren’t a surprise after a disastrous 2022 season in Detroit. Tigers batters ranked in the bottom six of all MLB teams in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage, posting a combined .231/.286/.346 line in 2022. Detroit hitters ranked dead last in the Majors in home runs (110), runs scored (557), slugging percentage and wRC+ (81). Their 6.5% team walk rate was 29th in the Majors, ahead of only the White Sox, and their 24.1% team strikeout rate was the fourth-highest in Major League Baseball. Key young players like Riley Greene and especially Spencer Torkelson fell shy of expectations, while notable veterans like Javier Baez and Jonathan Schoop had some of the worst offensive output of their careers.

Reshaping the organization’s hitting hierarchy will be among the many initiatives on the docket for newly hired Tigers president of baseball operations Scott Harris, who replaced longtime general manager Al Avila. Harris, the former Giants general manager and Cubs assistant general manager, spoke at his introductory press conference about a need to emphasize development at all levels of the organization, including the Major Leagues. Installing new voices to work with the team’s hitters will be one of the first steps toward that end in what figures to be an active offseason throughout the Tigers organization.

34 Players Become Free Agents

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The Wild Card round of the 2022 postseason begins today, but for the majority of teams and players, the offseason is now underway. With that will come plenty of roster formalities, including veteran players who’ve been outrighted off their respective teams’ rosters reaching minor league free agency. This week, there have been 34 such instances throughout the league, per the transactions log at MiLB.com.

None of these are a surprise, to be clear. Any player who is not on his team’s 40-man roster at season’s end but has three-plus years of Major League service time, multiple career outright assignments and/or seven-plus seasons in the minors has the right to elect free agency. Everyone in today’s group of players falls under that umbrella. The majority of the group will likely find minor league deals over the winter, although a few of the players in question could potentially find a big league deal as a bench piece or middle-inning reliever.

There will be several more waves of players of this ilk, and we’ll make note of them in bunches over the coming weeks as we await the launch of Major League free agency, when all unsigned players with at least six years of Major League service time will reach the open market. For now, here’s the first of what will likely be several waves of newly minted minor league free agents:

Catchers

Infielders

Outfielders

Pitchers

Central Notes: Cabrera, Hicks, Alzolay

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Tigers veteran Miguel Cabrera will turn 40 years old in April, shortly after beginning the final guaranteed season of the mega extension he signed back in 2014. Though he’s not quite the hitter he was back then, he’s still going to be a part of Detroit’s plans next season. “We expect Miggy to be here,” manager A.J. Hinch tells Chris McCosky of The Detroit News. “We expect him to do his part in the offseason to prepare himself to be healthy and be productive and be the icon that he is.”

As noted by McCosky, Cabrera’s 2022 got off to a nice start, as he kept his batting average above .300 into July. However, he has slumped badly since then while dealing with various nagging injuries, currently sitting on a batting line of .251/.299/.315 for the year. That production amounts to a wRC+ of 76, or 24% below league average, which is well below Cabrera’s previous low of 92 from 2017.

Going into the season, it seemed as though Cabrera was on the verge of being nudged out of the club’s plans, as they spent aggressively in the offseason to try to compete in 2022. With the promotion of first base prospect Spencer Torkelson, it was fair to wonder if an awkward situation was approaching with the club trying to compete and Miggy standing in the way. Instead, Torkelson and the Tigers both fell way shy of expectations, with the youngster hitting just .197/.281/.301 so far this year and club sporting a record of 64-93.

The fact that Cabrera is still owed $32MM next year doesn’t mean he is immune from being cut from the team if he continues to underperform. Just last year, the Angels designated Albert Pujols for assignment in May while he was playing out the final year of his contract at a $30MM salary. Both Hinch and new president of baseball operations Scott Harris voiced their support for Cabrera being a part of the 2023 club, though how much of a role he gets to play is likely to be determined.

Some more notes from the Central divisions…

  • The Cardinals are planning to reinstate right-hander Jordan Hicks from the injured list for their final regular season series, which begins tomorrow in Pittsburgh, according to MLB.com. Hicks went on the IL on September 17, retroactive to September 15, due to right arm fatigue. He has long tantalized fans with his triple-digit velocity but also been frequently set back by command issues and injuries. This season, he’s made 34 appearances and has a 4.92 ERA, 24.4% strikeout rate, 57.5% ground ball rate but a 13.6% walk rate. The Cards have already clinched the NL Central and can use their final games to assess the condition of Hicks’s arm before they begin a series against whichever team winds up in the final Wild Card spot.
  • Cubs right-hander Adbert Alzolay seemed to be a potential rotation building block last year, appearing in 26 games with 21 of those being starts, logging 125 2/3 innings with a 4.58 ERA. However, this year, a shoulder strain landed him on the injured list to begin the season and he only made his season debut a couple of weeks ago. This mostly lost season has resulted in several pitchers surpassing him on the depth chart and perhaps leading to a move to the bullpen. Alzolay discussed this possibility with Patrick Mooney of The Athletic and seems fine with it. “If my role is best out of the bullpen, being a long guy, being a guy that can throw in the eighth or close a game or whatever, I feel like I have the weapons to do that,” Alzolay says. “You won’t have me every five days there, but you can have me every two or three days. I can go and throw three or four innings, or I can go and throw one inning late in the game. So I feel like there are a lot more options there, and then that allows the team to go and be aggressive during the offseason.” The Cubs’ 2023 rotation will likely consist of Marcus Stroman, Kyle Hendricks and Justin Steele, with Keegan Thompson, Hayden Wesneski, Javier Assad, Adrian Sampson and Caleb Kilian having put themselves into consideration to varying degrees. With all of those options, and perhaps some offseason additions, it makes sense for Alzolay and the team to consider new ways for him to be a contributing member of the staff.

Tigers Place Matt Manning On Injured List, Select Miguel Diaz

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9:24am: The Tigers formally announced the moves. Manning goes directly to the 60-day injured list in order to open a spot on the 40-man roster for Diaz, although that’s a technicality, as he can be activated as soon as the season is over. The 60-day minimum does not carry over into next season. Carpenter, meanwhile, heads to the 10-day injured list with a lumbar strain, also ending his 2022 campaign.

9:12am: The Tigers have selected the contract of righty Miguel Diaz and will place both right-hander Matt Manning and outfielder Kerry Carpenter on the injured list, tweets Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press. Kody Clemens has been recalled from Triple-A Toledo alongside Diaz, filling the extra spot on the roster. Manning reported some arm fatigue and tightness in his forearm last night, and while manager A.J. Hinch stated that the team doesn’t believe there’s a serious injury at play, they’ll shut him down for the remainder of the season out of caution (via The Athletic’s Cody Stavenhagen, on Twitter).

Manning, 24, is the only of the Tigers’ vaunted rotation trio to avoid undergoing surgery this season, though he still missed a substantial portion of the season due to shoulder troubles. Assuming this is indeed a minor arm issue, though, he can be penciled in for Spring Training readiness, which can’t necessarily be said for either Casey Mize (Tommy John surgery in June) or Tarik Skubal (flexor tendon surgery in August). Detroit staked considerable hopes in that trio, and with good reason. Each of the three has impressed on the mound when healthy, but as is so often the case with pitching prospects, injuries have altered the calculus.

Manning’s season will draw to a close with just 63 Major League innings and another 20 1/3 Triple-A frames from a rehab assignment. He was sharp when on the mound, however, giving the Tigers a 3.43 ERA with an 18.3% strikeout rate, a 7.2% walk rate and a 40.1% ground-ball rate. Manning took considerable steps forward from last year’s ugly debut (5.80 ERA in 85 1/3 innings), recording improvements in strikeout rate, walk rate, swinging-strike rate and chase rate on pitches off the plate — all while yielding a much lighter average exit velocity. Injury concerns notwithstanding, there are ultimately quite a few positive takeaways from his second big league season.

Diaz, 27, will get a late look after working 65 innings out of the bullpen in Toledo and pitching to a 4.29 ERA with a 24.2% strikeout rate, 10.5% walk rate and a hefty 52.3% grounder rate. The right-hander spent the 2017-21 seasons in the Padres organization, dating back to his time as a Rule 5 pick out of the Brewers system in 2016.

San Diego selected Diaz directly out of A-ball and carried him on the roster all season in 2017. The lack of upper-minors seasoning showed, as Diaz was rocked for a 7.34 ERA through 41 2/3 innings as a seldom-used, low-leverage bullpen option. He pitched 42 innings with the Friars just last season, however, logging a much-improved 3.64 ERA with a sharp 26.2% strikeout rate but a bloated 11% walk rate.

Carpenter’s back injury will end a meteoric rise through the system for the former 19th-round pick (2019). After a nondescript run in Double-A last year, Carpenter — who never ranked among the organization’s best prospects — belted 30 home runs and posted OPS marks north of 1.000 in a combined 400 plate appearances between Double-A and Triple-A before ascending to the Majors.

Carpenter swatted another six round-trippers and hit .252/.310/.485 in 113 plate appearances at the MLB level, firmly inserting himself into the mix for an outfield spot in 2023 and beyond. He won’t get the opportunity to end that storybook season on his own terms, but his rise is one of very few bright spots in an otherwise largely catastrophic Tigers season.

AL Notes: Picollo, Harris, Tigers, Perez, Rangers, Diaz

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After Dayton Moore was fired earlier this week, Royals GM J.J. Picollo was promoted to lead the Royals’ baseball operations department, and he met today with the media (including The Kansas City Star’s Lynn Worthy and 610 Sports Radio’s Josh Vernier).  Much has yet to be determined heading into what could be a busy offseason for the club, and Picollo said he has yet to make a decision on manager Mike Matheny or any members of the coaching staff.

In terms of players, Picollo said that the front office is “in the very infantile stages” of considering an extension for Bobby Witt Jr., though the team is indeed interested in such a deal.  The 22-year-old is completing a strong rookie season, and an extension would both solidify Witt as a cornerstone piece of the Royals’ future, and also give K.C. some cost certainty going forward.  Witt is already controlled through the 2027 season, however, so there isn’t necessarily any rush for Picollo and company to immediately work out an extension.

More from around the American League…

  • The AL Central’s other new front office boss also met with reporters earlier this week, with new Tigers president of baseball operations Scott Harris telling The Detroit Free Press’ Evan Petzold and other media members that the club simply plans to improve, without a specific timeline or any indication as to whether the Tigers will take a step back to reload, or try to build and contend in 2023.  “I am treating this as an opportunity for us to get better this winter….And we’re going to look up at the end of the winter and we’re going to have a much better feel for when the most competitive Tigers team is going to come out,” Harris said.  “That’s how I believe every baseball team should be built.  I don’t believe in strict five-year plans with specific benchmarks that you have to reach year over year.  There’s too much variability in the sport to define a plan as concretely as that.”
  • Impending free agent Martin Perez and the Rangers will wait until after the season to discuss an extension, according to The Athletic’s Levi Weaver (Twitter link).  There has been speculation for months that both and Perez and the team were interested in reaching a new deal to keep the left-hander in Arlington, and while a deal hasn’t yet been reached, there is still plenty of time for the two sides to talk before Perez is scheduled to hit the open market.  Perez is enjoying a career year, with a 2.90 ERA over 183 1/3 innings and his first All-Star selection.
  • Yandy Diaz has missed the Rays’ last five games due to a sore shoulder, but the infielder told Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times and other reporters that he is doing “a lot better” after getting a cortisone shot earlier this week.  It doesn’t appear as though Diaz will require a trip to the injured list, but it also isn’t yet known when he might be back on the field.  Diaz has been a big part of Tampa’s offense, hitting .292/.399/.419 over 549 plate appearances this year, resulting in an excellent 145 wRC+.

Tigers Place Joe Jimenez On 15-Day Injured List

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The Tigers placed right-hander Joe Jimenez on the 15-day injured list due to a right lumbar spine strain.  Right-hander Angel De Jesus was called up from Triple-A to take Jimenez’s spot on the active roster for the remainder of the regular season.

Jimenez told reporters (including Chris McCosky of The Detroit News) that he has been dealing with the injury for over a month, and he’d been wearing an electronic stimulation device on his back.  Yesterday, however, Jimenez said the back pain “felt different and I just said, ’Hey, I’m not going to put the team in a bad position. I’m just going to do everything I can to get back soon.’ ”

While further imaging and tests are inevitable, it doesn’t seem as though the spine strain will keep Jimenez from a relatively normal offseason, or from being ready for Spring Training.  That’s good news for both Jimenez and the Tigers, as the 27-year-old (28 in January) looks to build on what has been a career year.

Consistency has been difficult to come by for Jimenez over his six MLB seasons, even though he was an All-Star in 2018.  Over 209 1/3 innings from 2017-21, Jimenez posted a 5.72 ERA over 209 1/3 innings out of Detroit’s bullpen, and there was some speculation that the Tigers could even non-tender him last winter.

However, the Tigers’ decision to hang onto Jimenez ended up being one of the best calls of an otherwise rough year in the Motor City.  Jimenez posted a 3.49 ERA and an elite 33.3% strikeout rate over 56 2/3 innings in 2022, as well as plenty of other Statcast metrics that were well above the league average.  That 3.49 ERA undersold Jimenez’s dominance, as he had a 2.30 SIERA and 2.70 xFIP.  Four of Jimenez’s 22 earned runs were allowed over his last two outings, likely due to his increased back pain.

Between these numbers and Jimenez also being arbitration-controlled through the 2023 season, there was lots of interest in Jimenez heading into the trade deadline, but no teams met the Tigers’ reportedly high asking price.  With Scott Harris now installed as Detroit’s president of baseball operations, it is possible Harris could revisit the trade market and explore selling high on Jimenez, assuming that rival teams aren’t wary of the spine strain.  Or, the Tigers could simply hang onto Jimenez and hope that he can again help a bullpen that was the team’s only real strength this past season.

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