3 deserving Tigers players who were squeezed off the Opening Day roster

Beau Brieske

This might be the toughest cut of them all. Brieske pitched 13.2 innings of scoreless baseball this spring. He walked two and struck out nine. He allowed just three hits. He had a 3.60 ERA in 35 innings out of the bullpen last season. But he starts the year in Toledo. That's some tough luck.

Instead, the Tigers went with Alex Faedo and Joey Wentz, both of whom pitched very well in their own right. Faedo struck out 17 batters in 13.1 IP and had a 1.35 ERA. Wentz had a 2.93 ERA on 15.1 IP with 19 strikeouts. Nobody had a bad spring. But somebody had to go down, and the Tigers went with Brieske.

It likely came down to a couple of things. Wentz doesn't have an option left, so he would have had to clear waivers if he didn't make the roster. The Tigers didn't want to take that risk. The other thing is that Brieske basically just has a fastball and a changeup. That's it. Faedo has a fastball/slider mix, as well a newfound changeup. Combine those things, and you have the decision to send Brieske down.

And like with Manning, it's not like he's going to stay in Toledo all year. He's going to pitch in Detroit this season. It just won't be right away. As soon as there's an injury in the bullpen, Brieske will probably the first guy up.