Ryan Helsley confirms Tigers avoided big risk after he signed with Orioles

Sometimes, the best moves in free agency are the ones that weren't made. That's where we are with the Detroit Tigers and Ryan Helsley. Or better said, the Baltimore Orioles saved the Tigers from making a move that likely would've been a mistake.

Detroit is looking to add to both its rotation and bullpen this offseason, which, on paper, are both areas that are in need of upgrades. The bullpen has long been dissected, and we can look no further than the 2025 season as to why help is needed there.

The rotation is a more interesting conundrum. As it stands, Tarik Skubal is here, and the four that will follow him in some order are Jack Flaherty, Casey Mize, Reese Olson, and youngster Troy Melton. It's easy to see a group with potential there, but there's a lot of uncertainty. Can Flaherty bounce back? Can Mize repeat his 2025 performance, or does he regress? Can Olson stay healthy? Can Melton build upon the positive flashes he showed and translate them to the rotation?

Then there's the fact that Skubal, Flaherty, and Mize all could walk after next season. Stability is needed in more ways than one.

Given all of that, we've learned that the Tigers targeted Ryan Helsley, but not as a reliever. Instead, Detroit was one of many clubs to offer Helsley a role in the starting rotation.

The Orioles saved the Tigers from a risky Ryan Helsley gamble

The reliever-turned-starter conversion is a gambit that is picking up steam around the league. But for every instance where it works out, like Clay Holmes with the New York Mets, there's another where it fails miserably, like the Jordan Hicks experiment the San Francisco Giants attempted.

Helsley, once a dominant closer with the St. Louis Cardinals, was already a reclamation project thanks to his disastrous 7.20 ERA showing with the Mets following the deadline deal that sent him to Queens.

Adding more uncertainty by transitioning him to the rotation would have upped the risk in signing him exponentially.

The package Helsley brings to the table is certainly tantalizing. His fastball is one of the league's highest octane offerings, averaging 99.3 miles per hour in 2025. His slider is downright wicked.

The thought is that his issues in New York were a result of tipping his pitches, but he was already slowing down before the Cardinals dealt him. Helsley led the majors with 49 saves in 2024, posting a 2.04 ERA along the way. In 2025, with St. Louis, his ERA had risen to an even 3.00, and his WHIP had jumped from 1.10 to 1.39. All of that is before he developed the pitch-tipping bugaboo.

Lastly, as good as his fastball-slider combination is, it's unclear if he could develop a reliable third pitch to handle lefties and turn over a lineup multiple times.

To that end, there's no guarantee that Helsley would be an improvement over what is already present on the roster for 2026, and a decent shot that he'd be yet another rotation arm that would need to be replaced in 2027.

Given the dearth of arms in the Tigers' farm system, any starter they bring in this winter needs to not only be an upgrade over what they already have, but also be a surefire building block for the 2027 squad. Helsley couldn't provide either of these things, so the Tigers are fortunate that he found the Orioles' closer job more appealing; otherwise, he could have been a disaster in Detroit.