Justyn-Henry Malloy’s big hit in Rays camp is making Tigers fans depressed again

When Justyn-Henry Malloy laced a 105.5 mph RBI single off a 98 mph fastball Sunday in Tampa Bay Rays camp, it felt like more than just another Grapefruit League highlight. For Detroit Tigers fans, it felt like déjà vu.

The Tigers designated Malloy for assignment in December to clear room on the 40-man roster for right-hander Kyle Finnegan. It was a practical move for a team facing a roster crunch and leaning into a competitive window after adding veterans and pushing its payroll forward. But baseball isn’t just about practicality. It’s about projection — and projection is where this one stings.

Malloy was never supposed to be a star. He was supposed to be useful — the kind of player smart teams squeeze value from. Across 271 Triple-A games, he posted a .286/.424/.478 line with 40 home runs with a .424 OBP. In Detroit, though, he bounced between the majors and Toledo, searching for rhythm.

In the big leagues, Malloy's slash line — .209/.311/.346 — was nothing to write home about. But dig a little deeper and the profile gets interesting. Against left-handed pitching, he hit .250/.397/.423 with nearly as many walks as strikeouts. That's exactly what the Rays saw when they traded for him.

Tampa’s outfield leans heavily left-handed. Malloy gives them balance as a right-handed bat, and he's a classic Rays reclamation project — the type that suddenly posts a .360 OBP by June and makes everyone wonder how it happened so fast.

Justyn-Henry Malloy makes strong first impression with Rays after Tigers DFA

To be fair, this isn’t a front-office blunder on the level of franchise-altering regret. The Tigers are in a different place now. The competitive window is open. Roster spots are tight. Veterans were added with intent. You can’t keep everyone.

But when you see a 105.5 mph rocket off premium velocity — the exact kind of swing you hope a depth piece can develop into — it’s impossible not to imagine Malloy tucked into a platoon role at Comerica Park, grinding out at-bats, lengthening the lineup.

Spring training stats don’t matter. Exit velocity in February doesn’t guarantee anything in July. But it’s the “what could have been” that lingers — because Tigers fans have lived through enough development detours to recognize the feeling of uneasy suspicion that the player who figures it out next might be doing it somewhere else.

And on Sunday, even if just for a moment, Malloy looked like the kind of hitter Detroit once hoped he’d become.