Five New Free Agents the Detroit Tigers Should Target Immediately

Major League Baseball’s non-tender deadline passed this evening, which means there’s a new crop of interesting free agents on the market. Here are five players the Detroit Tigers need to pursue.

As expected, the Detroit Tigers tendered contracts to all nine of their arbitration-eligible players. But most other teams saw fit to release a handful of players, and now the Tigers are free to sign them.

We’ve already touched on Eddie Rosario, Kyle Schwarber, Carlos Rodon, and Nomar Mazara, but many other interesting names joined the list this evening, including a toolsy outfielder from Colorado.

Detroit Tigers free agent target: David Dahl

Position – OF

Age on Opening Day – 27

David Dahl was one of the more shocking non-tenders this evening. Yes, he had a very bad 2020 season, and he’s been injury prone in his career. But Dahl was once a top-25 prospect in all of baseball, when he’s healthy he plays well, and he was only expected to make about $2.5 million next season. The injuries are a concern, and like most Colorado Rockies hitters he shows pretty stark home/road splits, but there’s still some upside here. The Detroit Tigers have plenty of playing time available in the outfield, and a healthy David Dahl would at least perform like a left-handed JaCoby Jones. If he could somehow stay healthy and reach his full potential, he’s a real building block.

Detroit Tigers free agent target: Curt Casali

Position – C

Age on Opening Day – 32

Once upon a time Curt Casali was a 10th round pick by the Detroit Tigers. He spent a little more than a year in the system before Detroit traded him to Tampa Bay for left-handed pitcher Kyle Lobstein, with the Tigers choosing instead to cast their catching lot with another backstop they drafted that year, James McCann. Now McCann is seen as one of the best free agent catchers on the market, but Casali may be a reasonable facsimile at a much lower cost. Among all catchers with at least 450 plate appearances over the past three seasons, Casali ranks 10th in wRC+ (16 points ahead of McCann), 13th in Isolated Power (28 points ahead of McCann), and 13th in walk rate (4.5% better than McCann). To be fair, Casali has played fewer than half the innings of McCann, but he’s proven to be a fringe-average defender, and the Tigers desperately need help at catcher.

Detroit Tigers free agent target: Travis Shaw

Position – 3B/1B

Age on Opening Day – 30

From 2017 to 2018 Travis Shaw ranked 9th in fWAR among third basemen (7.1), 6th in walk rate (11.6%), and 5th in home runs (63). Then he inexplicably fell apart in 2019 and the Milwaukee Brewers let him walk. He signed on with the Toronto Blue Jays for the 2020 season and made his way back to being a roughly league-average offensive player, but not close to where he once was. It may be that he’s simply gotten worse, but he hit the ball harder than ever last year, posting an average exit velocity on par with Nick Castellanos and Joey Gallo. He still walked at an average rate and he has some defensive versatility, so the Detroit Tigers should at least kick the tires here.

Detroit Tigers free agent target: Nick Tropeano

Position – RHP

Age on Opening Day – 30

Nick Tropeano has been a nondescript spot starter for most of his career. He showed some promise with the Angels in 2015, but then he sandwiched 27 average starts around a missed year with elbow surgery. He spent most of 2019 in the minors and the Angels released him at the end of the season. Tropeano was signed by the Yankees, but he never played for them, and the Pirates claimed him off waivers a few weeks into the 2020 season. Pittsburgh used Tropeano as a reliever, and while he didn’t throw any harder, he completely changed his pitch mix. He dropped his fastball usage by 15%, and instead threw far more sliders and splitters. Hitters couldn’t touch the slider, and they had just a .264 xwOBA against his splitter. It’s not a sexy profile, and it’s entirely possible this is just good fortune over a small sample, but there’s a chance Tropeano could be a valuable multi-inning reliever in a year when the Detroit Tigers have a lot of innings to cover.