15 worst Detroit Tigers free agent signings in franchise history

The Detroit Tigers have given out a lot of bad money over the past few decades, whether it be in free-agent contracts or extensions that didn’t turn out. Unfortunately over the past 10-12 years, we have quite a few to choose from.

You will see familiar, frustrating free-agent signings like Jordan Zimmermann, Victor Martinez, Mike Pelfrey, and Mark Lowe, to name a few obvious ones. 

Many of them come from the recent past, as Al Avila’s time helming the franchise resulted in more than a few big misses.

There may be a few surprises from a little further back, too, as it’s not as if Dave Domrbrowski were totally perfect himself. And the losing Tigers from the 1990s didn’t often spend much money, but still managed to make a few high-profile whiffs of their own. 

Before we dive in, a big thank you to stories at Bless You Boys, Vintage Detroit, and here at Motor City Bengals for being valuable resources that made researching and thinking about the list so much easier.

Now, let’s re-live some of the worst free-agent contracts in Detroit Tigers history. 

Detroit Tigers Worst Free Agent Signings in Franchise History: Which was Motown's worst deal?

Honorable mention:

HM: Miguel Cabrera, 2016-23

We’re kind of breaking the premise here before we settle into the list of worst free agents, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention this as not just one of the worst Tigers contracts of all time but one of the worst in MLB. 

Rewarding a Triple Crown winner, multiyear MVP, and sure-thing future Hall of Famer seemed like a good idea. He was a fan favorite and one of the biggest names in baseball in 2014 when the Tigers announced an eight-year, $248 million deal that would carry him from 2016 to 2023 with a mutual option for 2024 and 2025. Imagine how the fans would have reacted had the Tigers began tearing down the team and letting superstars walk. 

A combination of unaffordable stars leaving, whether through free agency or by trade, and winning World Series titles elsewhere happened anyway. Meanwhile the Tigers were stuck with one of the worst contracts in baseball history.

It started off well. In 2016 Cabrera played in 158 games, was worth 5.1 WAR. He had 38 home runs and .956 OPS (155 OPS+). He never played in that many games again.

Various injuries took a toll, from groin issues to hamstring pain to a torn tendon in his left biceps and beyond. From 2019 to 2022, Cabrera’s OPS dropped to .700 with 94 OPS+ (100 is average). He has been worth at best 0.2 WAR in 2018, per Baseball Reference, and at worst -1 in 2022. He has earned $30 million or more each year. 

There have been highlights – the 3,000th hit, the 500th home run. A fan favorite will retire a Tiger. But overall it’s been an expensive, costly mistake. It’s hard to watch his career end like this.

Now let’s begin our list with some much less costly mistakes and work our way back up.

Other HM

For the same reasons, Gary Sheffield (signed an extension in order to agree to the trade in 2007) and Dontrelle Willis (extension) may otherwise have made the list, but don't technically qualify for this particular list.

15. Francisco Liriano, 2018

• 1 year, $4 million
• 0.3 WAR

Our list admittedly begins with some one-year deals, starting with Francisco Liriano’s. While this wasn’t a particularly painful contract in the grand scheme, former Twins star Liriano didn’t do much during his time in Detroit.

He did lose a lot, going 5-12 with a 4.58 ERA. He made 26 starts, 27 appearances total, and the Tigers lost two out of every three times he appeared on the mound for them.

He was worth a positive figure in WAR after eating about 133 innings on the mound, but that’s about the best you could say. It could have been even worse: he put up a 5.11 FIP.

14. Adam Everett, 2010

• 1 year, $1.55 million in 2010
• 0.3 WAR, 31 games, 89 plate appearances, .468 OPS, -3 DRS

Can you get upset over a small contract that just didn’t turn out particularly well? That was the question about Adam Everett’s deal as much back in 2010 as it is today.

Everett signed as a free agent with the Tigers for a $1 million deal in 2009. Known for his defensive prowess, he was kind of the epitome of an all-glove, no-bat player and put up 9 DRS (defensive runs saved) while batting .238 with .288 OBP and .325 slugging. Fans were frequently frustrated at how inept he was at the plate.

What especially inflamed them, however, was the fact Detroit brought him back again in 2010 after narrowly missing the 2009 playoffs by dropping Game 163 to the Twins. 

He didn’t last long: just 31 games and 89 plate appearances. The Tigers released him on June 15 the 2010 season as he was batting .185 with .468 OPS. Worse, he was worth -3 DRS at the time, erasing the only positive reason for keeping him in the lineup.

The Tigers went on to finish a disappointing third place in the AL Central that year and not working to find a better shortstop in the offseason is at least partially why.

13. Eric Davis, 1994

• 1 year, $3 million
• -0.3 WAR, 37 games

On rare occasions in the 1990s did the Detroit Tigers give fans something to be excited about. They were, in fact, the losingest franchise of the entire decade. Generally, the team went into every year with little chance of making the playoffs and the only question would be which of their top players would be donning another team’s jersey by the end of the year. 

In 1993, however, they caught fire early in the season and were fully 17 games above .500 and in first place in late June. Things soured a bit from there, but an August winning streak put them back into contention, so they made a trade with the Dodgers for star center fielder Eric Davis. They ultimately missed the playoffs (though did win an impressive 85 games that year), and David put up a .904 OPS during his time in Detroit. Combined with his time in LA, he finished the season with 35 steals to go with 20 home runs. So they decided to bring him back on a two-year deal.

It did not go well. He played just 37 games in the Tigers uniform in the strike-shortened 1994 season. He decided to retire and was granted free agency in October of 1994. He finished the contract with a .183 batting average and .582 OPS. 

Only in the spring of 1995 did Davis learn from his doctor and announce was battling cancer. He eventually returned to baseball in 1996 and played for six more years. That’s certainly something to cheer on and feel good about in the end, but yet ultimately it’s hard to see his 1994 season in Detroit as anything but a failure.

You can read more about Davis’ time with the Tigers from Dan Holmes at Vintage Detroit.

12. Fernando Viña, 2003-04

• 2 years, $6 million
• 0.6 WAR (seems high!), 29 games, .226 batting average, .577 OPS

The 2003 Detroit Tigers were not just bad, they were historically bad. The fact they “only” lost 119 games can be attributed to winning five of their final six games of the season, two in walk-off fashion.

That’s kind of a hard sell to make to any free agent when trying to put together a better roster for the following year. While owner Mike Ilitch famously did manage to nab future Hall of Fame catcher Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez by opening his checkbook in a huge way, he and President and General Manager Dave Dombrowski looked for more improvements to be made. One they landed on: two-time Gold Glove winner and free agent second baseman Fernando Vina, who was not without risks after missing all but 61 games in 2003 with a hamstring injury.

Vina was signed to a two-year deal worth $6 million. It did not go well for either party. Vina played in just 29 games, hitting .226 with .557 OPS and. He did, however, put up 6 DRS, which was about the only thing that saved him from putting up a negative WAR during his time in Detroit.

He never made it past the month of May of that year, and his season ended when he decided to have knee surgery to repair torn cartilage. Later implicated in the Mitchell Report, Vina denied using steroids in 2003 but did admit to ESPN using HGH in an attempt to get back to full health. 

11. Mike Moore, 1993-95

• 3 years, $10 million (5th highest paid Tiger in 1993)
• 0.8 WAR, 5.90 ERA (78 ERA+)

Mike Moore came to Detroit after spending the first 11 years of his MLB career on the West Coast. By the time he was a Tiger, he’d racked up 132 wins and a 1989 All-Star Game appearance. During his prior four years in Oakland between 1989-1992, he put up a 3.54 ERA (105 ERA+).

While injuries were not an issue for Moore like so many other of the failed contracts of this list, he was essentially not much more than an innings eater to close his career. In 1993, he started a league-high 36 games and threw more than 200 innings. While he put forth a winning record at 13-9, his ERA climbed to 5.22 (82 ERA+). Across 50 games to close the final two years of his time in Detroit, it only got worse. By 1995, he went 5-15 with a 7.53 ERA (64 ERA+). He was worth an amazing -1.5 WAR and finished his Tigers career with a 0.8 WAR.

10. Mike Aviles, 2016

• 1 year, $2 million
• -1.5 WAR, 68 games, .210 BA, .528 OPS

While $2 million is a paltry figure, especially during the Tigers free-spending days of nearly a decade ago, and utiliyman Mike Aviles was never going to make or break the season, this contract makes the list just because of how badly it turned out. 

Baseball-Reference put his WAR at -1.5 during just 68 games on the field for Detroit. FanGraphs was only a little bit more forgiving, going -1.1. No matter which you’d rather rely on or how insignificant the money spent, you can’t argue that bringing in a free agent only to have him send the team backward by more than a game is just a horrible signing all around.

Aviles made 181 plate appearances for the Tigers that year and hit .210 with .528 OPS. He had six extra-base hits, six RBI, and was caught stealing in 2 of his 4 attempts. His glove failed him too, making him as bad in the field as at the plate.

The Tigers finished in second place in the AL Central that year.

9. Anibal Sanchez, 2013-18 

• 5 years, $85 guaranteed
• 1 good year, 3 awful

Let’s be serious. Some people are probably going to think Anibal Sanchez didn’t deserve to be on the list at all. Some people are probably going to think he could have been much higher up. 

Sanchez had some absolutely amazing seasons in Detroit, notably the first year of this contract, and some absolutely awful ones. The awful ones are the reason for his inclusion. 

Sanchez first came to the Tigers in 2012, along with Omar Infante, in one of GM Dave Dombrowski’s July trades that soon looked absolutely wonderful. While his regular season was somewhat pedestrian after the deal, going 4-6 with a 3.74 ERA, he shined in the postseason. Sanchez gave up four runs across 20+ innings and three starts.

Detroit rewarded him with a five-year, $80 million deal with an option for a sixth year the team could buy out for $5 million. It immediately looked like pure genius when he an American League-leading 2.57 ERA (162 ERA+) and finished fourth in Cy Young voting. That made him worth 6 WAR no matter the statistical source. A steal at $8.8 million that season. 

The rest of his time in Detroit didn’t go so well. Held to 22 starts in 2014 due to injuries, he pitched just 126 innings with a 3.43 ERA. That was still good for 2.3 WAR, though he was paid $15 million that year. In 2015, he made 25 starts for a 4.99 ERA. In 2016, 26 starts at a 5.87 ERA. In 2017, six starts (17 games) at a 6.41 ERA. During that span his WAR had been worth a combined -1.2 while he earned $48 million. The Tigers saw enough at that point and paid him another $5 million in 2018 to decline the option.

Naturally, he bounced back with the Braves the following year and won a World Series with the Nationals after that, as Detroit is not allowed to have anything good happen. 

So while the life of the contract may not look horrible, it’s hard to say he contributed anything positive to the team during the final three years of the somewhat pricey deal.

8. Kenny Rogers, 2008

• 1 year, $8 million
• 0 WAR, 5.70 ERA (78 ERA+), 9-13 record

As a hard-nosed 41-year-old, Kenny Rogers was a veteran leader and key reason the Tigers went from zeroes to heroes in 2006. That magical year, he won 17 games, posted a 3.84 ERA, pitched more than 200 innings and ultimately finished fifth in American League Cy Young voting. He made three starts in the postseason without giving up a run – though not without controversy about what exactly may have been on his hand.

It took a toll, limiting him to just 63 innings in 2007 after he was forced to undergo left shoulder surgery before the season even began. 

The Tigers brought him back for one last hoorah in 2008 on a one-year deal, but sadly it did not go much better. Rogers did bounce back to make 30 starts that year, but he finished 9-13 with a 5.70 ERA (78 ERA+). All in all, it was an $8 million deal resulting in replacement-level play. The Tigers lost eight of his last nine starts that year. 

7. Troy Percival, 1993-95

• 2 years, $12 million
• -0.2 WAR, 5.76 ERA (75 ERA+)

Troy Percival had many fine years as an elite closer. By the time it was over, he racked up 358 saves and 781 strikeouts while limiting his ERA to 3.17. During his last year with the Angels, he saved 33 games and finished the year with a paltry 2.90 ERA. This is not the Troy Percival the Detroit Tigers ended up signing for $12 million across two years.

Percival ended up pitching in just 26 games total during his Tigers career. He saved eight of 11 games that year, but was anything but a shutdown finisher by then. He missed most of the month of May due to injury. Upon returning, he was not the same. From June 11 to July 9, the Tigers watched as his ERA crept up from 2.93 to 5.76. In his final appearance as a Detroit Tiger, he gave up two runs in the bottom of the ninth to the then-Devil Rays to blow the game.

Percival was diagnosed with a “partial tear of his right flexor pronator muscle mass” – a forearm injury – that kept him out the rest of the year and the next. At one point, it appeared as if he were headed for retirement.

He ended up returning to baseball in 2007 with the Cardinals and closing his career out with a final two years with the Rays.

5. Mike Pelfrey, 2016-17

• 2 years, $16 million. Traded to White Sox after one, Tigers pick up $7.46M of it. 
• -0.1 WAR, 5.07 ERA (84 ERA+)

Prince Fielder making the list announces what is ironically one of Detroit’s best and worst periods of baseball. The team repeatedly won the AL Central and seemed destined for the ALCS every year. Miguel Cabrera won the Triple Crown. Justin Verlander won the Cy Young. MVPs were a nearly expectation. Max Scherzer seemed to go toe-to-toe with Verlander in pitching prowess. In many ways it was one of the best runs during the history of the franchise – at least for anyone under the age of 50.

It also turned out to be a period of contracts where seemingly none of them would turn out well and taken together they helped choke the life out of the organization. 

A pair from 2016 make our list back-to-back, beginning with Mike Pelfrey, though you could probably put these in whatever order you like. 

Pelfrey signed a two-year deal worth $16 million in 2016. He made 22 starts with a 5.07 ERA and a 4-10 record. He never made it out of spring training in 2017, being released on March 30 of that year. The White Sox signed him, where he was actually even worse than he was in Detroit – but the Tigers picked up most of the cost. 

All in all, it went terribly. 

4. Mark Lowe, 2016-17

• 2 years, $11 million
• -1 WAR, 7.11 ERA (60 ERA+)

Mark Lowe was the next problem on a 2016 team that somehow won 85 games despite their offseason mistakes. Unlike Pelfrey he came to the team as a reliever. He pitched in 54 games, totaling 49.1 innings, but somehow put up a 7.11 ERA during the course of the year. 

At one point after giving up five runs on June 18, Lowe’s ERA rose to 10.71. The kindest thing you can say is at least he didn’t lose a lot of games, going 1-3. Generally he was saved for lost causes to begin. The Tigres went 21-33 in games he appeared. 

Mark Lowe was released from the team March 26, 2017, paying him $5.5 million to go. He never pitched in the major leagues again.

3. Joe Nathan, 2014-15

• 2 years, $20 million
• -0.3 WAR
• 4.78 ERA

What is more memorable about Joe Nathan’s time in Detroit? The great disappointment he became after joining the club to shore up a perennially shaky bullpen, or the chin flick heard ‘round Tigertown? At least you can laugh about the latter choice. Maybe.

Rather than the bullpen savior, he blew seven saves and put up an ERA of 4.81 in 2014. His strikeouts per nine innings dropped. His walks per nine increased by 50%. 

The frustration for both sides peaked on Aug. 14, 2014, when he threatened to blow an 8-4 lead to the Pirates. Fans enthusiastically booed. Nathan replied with a chin flick, which is roughly Italian for something we can’t print on this site. The relationship was never really fixed despite a later apology. 

In 2015, he made exactly one appearance, picking up a save on Opening Day. A torn UCL that game ended his season and Tigers career. Whether he would have rehabilitated his reputation by staying healthy that year will never be known. 

2. Jordan Zimmermann, 2016-20

• 5 years, $110 million
• 2 WAR, 5.63 ERA (80 ERA+) in 99 games

You could look back on this deal with 20/20 hindsight and proclaim it to be doomed from the start. One of Al Avila’s worst deals, one of the worst contracts the Tigers ever handed out. But that’s only after Zimmermann suffered injury problems relatively early in his Tigers career. Before that, he was one of the top free-agent pitchers of that offseason. It’s just hard to remember that now.

Zimmermann came to the Tigers with a 3.32 ERA in Washington across seven years, having earned two All-Star team roster appearances and top-10 finishes in Cy Young voting twice as well. He even threw a no-hitter as well.

After earning the accolade of being named the Opening Day starter for Detroit, things went downhill. Zimmermann first hit the IL (then DL) in May with a groin strain. In July he was again out of action, this time due to his neck. He finished the year with a 4.87 ERA and 9-7 record.

In 2017, he managed to make 29 starts but went sub-.500 with an 8-13 record and an ERA that exploded to 6.08, the highest of his career at the time.

In 2019, it got worst when he went 1-13 with a 6.91 ERA. He made just two starts in 2020 before injuries again took a toll. He grand totals as a Tiger? 25-41 record and 5.63 ERA. 

Ouch.

1. Victor Martinez, 2015-18

• 4 years, $68 million
• -2.1 WAR

Like so many Tigers careers lately, something that started off positive and good only leaves you with bad memories in the end. That is also the case with Victor Martinez.

When Martinez came to the Tigers from the Red Sox, it was a huge deal, and he became a fan favorite right away – and not just for the adorableness of his son, “Little Victor.” He put up a 138 OPS+ during those first three years with 58 home runs and 289 RBI. 

Rewarded with a four-year contract following the 2014 playoff disappointment (Martinez had an .871 OPS in contrast to others earlier on this list and career-best .974 OPS during that regular sason), the 35-year-old DH was bound to disappoint by the end of it. 

Unfortunately the disappointment didn’t take long. Martinez’s average dropped to .245 with .667 OPS in 2015. A bounceback 2016 season gave some hope, but over the final two years of the deal he hit for just .672 OPS. Not what you’re looking for from a designated … hitter. 

He was worth negative WAR every year of the deal. Ultimately, it’s just a bad idea to give an aging DH a lengthy deal no matter how good he was for you in the past.

Now, your turn. What do you think the Tigers' worst deals were?