Detroit Tigers: 4 short-term starting pitcher deals to explore

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The Detroit Tigers are going to need some starting pitching depth

The Detroit Tigers had an otherworldly amount of injuries in the starting rotation during the 2022 season—so much so, that they tied a major league record by using 17 different starting pitchers in one season. Despite the newfound depth they discovered, that’s not a recipe for long term success.

Several of those injuires will carry over into the 2023 season. Casey Mize will likely miss the entire season after undergoing Tommy John surgery in June, and Tarik Skubal will likely miss a good chunk of the year as well. There’s also injury concerns with Spencer Turnbull, Matt Manning and Beau Brieske.

Point being, the Detroit Tigers are going to have to add some starting pitching depth this offseason. They will need at least one, probably two. Fortunately, there are many good options, both in short-term deals, or if they decide to go the long-term route.

But as we saw in Scott Harris’ tenure in San Francisco, he’s not much of a long-term deal guy, at least not when it comes to starting pitching. For the 2021 Giants team that won 107 games, Kevin Gausman and Alex Wood were both signed to one-year deals, and Anthony DeSclafani was signed to a three-year deal.

So for this piece, we’re going to focus on some free agent starting pitchers that the Detroit Tigers could sign to short-term deals. Let’s get started.

Johnny Cueto

Three of the four pitchers on this list are former Giants, and thus pitchers that Scott Harris is familiar with. The first is Johnny Cueto, who turned back the clock about 10 years this season with the White Sox. In 158.1 innings, he had a 3.35 ERA with a 3.80 FIP with a strikeout to walk ratio of 3.09. That innings pitched stat would have led the Tigers by quite a bit.

Cueto spent six years in a Giants uniform, with the last few years being marred by injuries. But in 2022, he proved that he can still be effective when healthy.

He’s never been a high strikeout guy, being more of a pitch-to-contact type of pitcher. But he’s always been a low-walks guy too, making him a prime candidate under Harris’ “dominate the strike zone” mantra.

Intrestingly enough, what made Cueto so effective in 2022 was that his chase rate was the highest since 2017. Looking at his Baseball Savant page, he started mixing in his sinker and cutter more, which allowed his changeup—his out pitch—to be more effective.

Cueto will turn 37 in February, so the likelihood of him asking for a long-term deal seems low. Getting him on a one-year deal, perhaps with an option for a second-year, would be a nice pickup for the Detroit Tigers.

Tyler Anderson

Anderson is coming off an All-Star season with the Dodgers, in which he posted a 2.57 ERA and a 3.31 FIP is 178.2 innings pitched. It was the first All-Star selection of the 32-year-old’s career.

Anderson has had a reputation for being a solid innings-eater his entire career, and that’s exactly what the Dodgers used him as. With Walker Buehler, Clayton Kershaw, and Tony Gonsolin all dealing with injuries at one point or another over the course of the season, he stepped up in a big way.

Like Cueto, Anderson is a guy who gets the job done by limiting hard contact. Baseball Savant had him in the 98th percentile in both hard hit rate allowed and average exit velocity.

The Detroit Tigers will need someone to eat some innings next season, and Anderson feels like the perfect fit. He also pitched for the Giants during the shortened 2020 season, so Harris is familiar with him.

Given that Anderson is coming off a career season, the Tigers may have to add a year or two on to the deal in order to get him. But if he’s even a fraction as good for them as he was for the Dodgers, it might be worth it.

Jake Odorizzi

Odorizzi has bounced around the last couple of years. His best year came in Minnesota in 2019, where he put up a 3.51 ERA, a 3.36 FIP and a 4.3 fWAR in 159 innings pitched. Results have been pretty mixed ever since.

He signed with the Astros before the 2021 season, where he put up a 4.21 ERA in 104.2 innings. He had a 3.75 ERA in 12 starts with Houston this season before they traded him to Atlanta this past August, where he struggled to the tune of a 5.24 ERA and nine home runs allowed in 46.1 innings pitched.

Odorizzi also did a good job limiting hard contact this past year, with Baseball Savant having him in the 85th percentile in hard hit rate allowed, despite the increase in home runs allowed with the Braves. He’s always leaned heavily on his fastball, while mixing in a cutter, a splitter, and occasionally a slider and a curveball.

Odorizzi just feels like someone who needs a fresh start. He’s been on three teams in as many seasons. Maybe the Detroit Tigers can be the team that gets him back on track.

Matthew Boyd

Maybe not the reunion you were expecting or hoping for, but we went over that already. But I think there’s a distinct possibility that Matthew Boyd returns to Detroit this offseason. Here’s why.

Scott Harris was responsible for bringing Boyd to San Francisco this past offseason, where he unfortunately never pitched for them due to injury. He obviously liked Boyd, and Boyd has had nothing but good things to say about his time in Detroit. It feels like a good match.

There a couple of question marks about this, however. One, he could easily return to his hometown Seattle Mariners, who just made the playoffs for the first time in 21 years. He was very emotional about it at the team’s playoff-clinching celebration.

The second question is if the Detroit Tigers actually do bring back Boyd, what kind of role does he play? Would he be a starter or a reliever? The Mariners used him out of the bullpen. For the Tigers, I think it has a lot to do with whether or not they bring back Tyler Alexander. If they choose to non-tender him, they could use Boyd in the same swing-man role that Alexander served as.

Matthew Boyd is a good human being. It’s unfortunate how his tenure ended the first time around. It would be nice to have him back in the old English D.

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The Detroit Tigers are going to need some starting pitching depth

Johnny Cueto

Tyler Anderson

Jake Odorizzi

Matthew Boyd

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