Longtime Tigers pitcher from awful rebuild era signs with NL Central playoff hopeful

Pitcher Buck Farmer spent nearly a decade in the Tigers' organization and even peaked at No. 3 in Detroit's pipeline but, unfortunately, his rise coincided with the complete teardown of the major league team. He got his debut in 2014, the last in Detroit's four-year run of AL Central dominance, and mostly pitched in the majors from 2015-2021. The Tigers placed last in the division for four of those seasons, some of the most painful and unremarkable of Detroit's rebuild.

He was released by the Tigers toward the end of the 2021 season, and he signed minor league deals with the Rangers and Reds before finding a more long-term home in Cincinnati for three years, where he performed pretty well as a reliever and occasional closer. The Reds let him go after 2024, even though he had a 3.04 ERA in 71 innings for them en route to the best year of his career, and he's bounced around to the Braves and Angels on minor league deals this season.

Per FanSided insider Robert Murray, Farmer signed a new minor league deal to return to the Reds in hopes of getting his 2025 season debut.

Former Tigers reliever Buck Farmer signs a minor league deal with the Reds

Farmer was a fifth-round pick for the Tigers in 2013, after choosing not to sign with both the Braves and Brewers after 46th and 15th round picks in 2009 and 2012. In eight major league seasons with the Tigers, Farmer pitched a total of 320 2/3 innings for a 5.33 ERA. In his last year, he pitched 35 1/3 innings for a 6.37 ERA.

He was a guy would could never really translate minor league success to major league success with the Tigers; he almost always had sub-4.00 ERAs while coming up in the minors and was even the Midwest League's Pitcher of the Year after his 2014 season (3.07 ERA from High-A to Triple-A), but he always struggled in Detroit.

Nonetheless, Reds fans seem excited by Farmer's reintroduction to the organization, as Cincinnati's decision to let him go after such a good 2024 was a strange decision. His Triple-A ERA this season is a pretty worrisome (8.64), but maybe the Reds will be able to recover whatever it was that made him good last year.