Detroit Tigers: Louis Coleman pitched his way to a bullpen spot

With the 2018 season coming to a close, we are providing year-end grades to each Detroit Tigers player who donned the Old English D in 2018.

The Detroit Tigers completed the first year of what looks to be a multi-year rebuilding process. While the team was hard to watch at times, there is still plenty to evaluate from this season as we look ahead to the next few years.

As with any team, there were a lot of excellent performances, surprise performances, and of course disappointing performances. Here at Motor City Bengals, we are going to be evaluating each player who suited up for the Detroit Tigers this season. We will analyze how they performed, what their future holds in the Motor City, and we will provide them a grade.

Note: the grade will be relative to what was expected of them. So a player who performed well above expectations may earn a B or an A, even if their actual season numbers are not that elite. If you disagree, feel free to drop us a comment. We would love to have discussions about these!

A handful of Tigers infielders have already been evaluated, including Jose Iglesias (here) Dawel Lugo (here) Niko Goodrum (here), Jeimer Candelario (here), and Nicholas Castellanos (here). Next, we turn our attention to the mound as we grade Louis Coleman.

Louis Coleman

The Tigers brought the 32-year pitcher to the team during the off-season on a minor league deal. Coleman started the year with Triple-A Toledo and pitched well enough to get a call-up to Detroit.  Over 51.1 innings of work he pitched a 3.51 ERA while posting a 4-1 record.

The veteran faced 217 pitchers, striking out forty-one of them and walked twenty-four of them. He probably won’t return to the team next season, however the bullpen is still a mess and Coleman could provide some help in fixing the problem.

Grade: B

Check back here daily for more player grades! And if you’d like to discuss any grades, please leave us a comment on our Facebook or Twitter page.