Tigers just got confirmation their easiest offseason decision is staring right at them

The Detroit Tigers didn’t need a front-office summit or an analytics deep dive to recognize what worked. When Kyle Finnegan showed up at the trade deadline, he stabilized the bullpen overnight, turning late innings that once felt fragile into a steady rhythm. His fastball played up, his strikeout rate jumped, and his presence on the mound carried the kind of calm this young roster had been searching for all season. 

Finnegan has now hit free agency, but he’s made it clear he’s open to returning to Detroit. His words to the Detroit Free Press read like a blueprint for a reunion: 

“Getting traded over here was big for me. I unlocked a lot of things that will help me moving forward in my career, and that’s a testament to the people that this organization has.” 

That’s exactly what you want to hear from a rental who felt like anything but. The veteran reliever whose pitch mix and approach sharpened under this staff, whose buy-in matches the Tigers’ player-development voice, and whose results, for a critical stretch, looked like the missing piece, should be a priority for the front office.

Tigers’ easiest call is to bring back Kyle Finnegan this offseason

The trade itself was clean and decisive. On July 31, Detroit sent righty prospects Josh Randall and R.J. Sales to Washington and handed Finnegan the keys to a “closer committee” that quickly stopped feeling like a committee altogether. He notched saves in his first three appearances and didn’t allow a run the entire first month. The stuff played up where it counts: his strikeout rate spiked from 19.6% in 39 Nationals innings to 34.8% over 18 Tigers innings, the exact shape of dominance this bullpen has chased.

The postseason mostly affirmed the fit. Finnegan spun three scoreless frames in the Wild Card round and took the win in the clincher, exactly the kind of leverage test you want to see before you cut a check.

Zoom out, and the scouting report remains honest. Finnegan hasn’t always posted closer numbers. For most of his career he’s lived around a strikeout per inning, thrown enough strikes, and given up a few too many loud swings.

But that’s also why this is Detroit’s easiest call. They aren’t being asked to pay for a myth; they’re deciding whether to re-up a reliever whose performance and process here looked better than the back of his baseball card, whose mentality clicked with A.J. Hinch’s late-inning script, and whose own testimony says he unlocked something with this coaching group. When a pitcher tells you the environment sharpened him, and the strikeouts jump exactly as advertised, you don’t overthink the outliers; you build the right guardrails.

Practically, that means a responsible deal and a smart deployment plan. Think short term with upside: a one or two-year pact with a club option, layered incentives for appearances and games finished, and zero insistence that every save must flow through one arm every night.

The bonus is cultural. Free agents talk, and relievers especially gravitate to places that help them get better. If Finnegan is publicly crediting Detroit for unlocking him, that’s a billboard to the rest of the market. Bring him back, and you’re not just securing the ninth; you’re reinforcing the message that this is a bullpen lab that adds value — a place where the right adjustments stick.