Tigers losing pitching director at Winter Meetings could have unexpected consequences

On Dec. 9, the Rockies announced they were hiring Gabe Ribas, the Tigers' director of pitching from 2021-2025, as an assistant pitching coach. Ribas was poached from the Dodgers (he was a pitching coordinator in LA) and brought in under Al Avila's administration in Detroit, and survived the front office's transition over to Scott Harris alongside head pitching coach Chris Fetter.

Whatever Ribas and Fetter have done with the Tigers' pitching staff has clearly worked over the last few years. Will Vest and Tyler Holton have been revelations for the bullpen, they somehow managed to fix Jack Flaherty and Casey Mize, and how can we ever forget about Tarik Skubal, whose development into a two-time Cy Young winner can certainly be credited to Ribas and Fetter.

And Ribas' departure to Colorado has already been felt. With the first pick in the Rule 5 Draft, the Rockies selected Tigers' No. 30 prospect RJ Petit.

Tigers lose longtime director of pitching Gabe Ribas to Rockies

We have no idea what got into the Rockies this offseason, but they've already made some sweeping front office changes from top to bottom. They hired Paul DePodesta away from the NFL, who hired poached Dodgers vice president of baseball operations Josh Byrnes. Alongside Ribas, they added pitching coach Alan Leichman from the Marlins, bullpen coach Matt Buschmann from the Cubs, and pitching development and acquisitions specialist Matt Daniels from the Twins.

Ribas, Leichman, and Daniels especially have their work cut out for them when their new team spends half of their season in the most pitcher-unfriendly park in baseball, but this is all very on brand for DePodesta, a guy who is famously obsessed with analytics (Jonah Hill's character in Moneyball was based on him).

The Rockies have been said to be incredibly analytics-averse as a symptom of owner Dick Monfort's unwillingness to get with the times, but Ribas' approach with the Tigers was notably analytics-friendly, and Avila said after his hiring that part of his job was to teach everyone in the organization the same systems to make sure they were "running on the same wheel."

It's certainly a loss for the Tigers' player development, and hopefully Harris will be able to find a suitable replacement this offseason.