Bleacher Report has spot-on prediction for Tigers to address Alex Cobb injury

Alex Cobb hadn't even thrown a pitch in spring training before he hit the Tigers with bad news: he'll be starting the 2025 season on the IL due to a hip injury. Tigers fans pretty much unanimously hated his signing — one-year, $15 million — because he made just three starts last season and was the verge of retirement before getting an offer from Detroit. Now, he won't even have the opportunity to prove anyone wrong until May, at the earliest.

So, where do the Tigers go from here? Getting Cobb and Jack Flaherty meant that there was one more spot left open in the rotation for Keider Montero, Casey Mize, Kenta Maeda, and Jackson Jobe to fight over, but now there are two.

None of these guys are ideal. Montero was up-and-down last year, Mize was mediocre or injured, Maeda was plainly bad, and Jobe only pitched a few innings in relief at the tail end of last season. Fans should be excited about seeing Jobe in a starting capacity, but it'd feel a lot better if he was cushioned by four proven, dependable guys.

Bleacher Report had a potential solution for this. They named veteran starter Kyle Gibson, who is still a free agent, as a fit for Detroit.

Bleacher Report names Kyle Gibson as a fit for Tigers with Alex Cobb starting 2025 on the IL

Gibson, who will be going into his age-37 season if he signs somewhere this year, is the definition of a workhorse. He has a 4.52 lifetime ERA, but has also pitched over 160 innings in nine of his 12 years in the majors, and one of the few exceptions was because of the COVID-shortened season.

The Cardinals declined a $12 million club option on him and fellow veteran Lance Lynn at the beginning of the offseason as a cost-cutting measure, and he's been floating around on the market ever since.

Gibson sounds a lot like a guy the Tigers would like. He's just good enough and he'd come cheaply. The risk here would be signing Gibson to a one-year deal when they're still on the hook for Cobb; if Cobb returns, that could push someone (probably Jobe) out of the rotation, and then we're stuck with two decent and/or injury prone guys instead of getting to see baseball's No. 2 pitching prospect get major league innings.

But he could be a stopgap option, and if he can continue with his typical workhorse ways, the Tigers would probably be able to find a taker for him at the trade deadline. It wouldn't be perfect, but it'd probably be better than Montero, Mize, or Maeda. And there's always the reality of Cobb dealing with recurring injuries given his history. It's better to be insured than short-handed.