Tigers News: Former player headed overseas, Effross-Harris connection, MiLB moves

Harold Castro had the distinct displeasure of being stuck on some of the Tigers' most lifeless teams, but he made the most out of it. Not necessarily in terms of performance — he had a -1.0 bWAR from 2019-2022 and a 90 OPS+, and his best season was 2020 — but he was a joyful player and an easy one for fans to root for during the team's fifth (2019-2020), third (2021), and fourth place (2022) finishes, when there was very little to get excited about.

He was non-tendered after the 2022 seasons and moved on to the Rockies. He appeared in 99 major league games with before being outrighted and electing free agency before moving on to the Mexican League in 2024, and then the Royals in 2025, though he never cracked their major league roster.

Castro is reportedly taking his career overseas again, this time to the Kia Tigers of the KBO on a one-year, $1 million deal.

Players like Merrill Kelly and Cody Ponce are proving that playing in Asia isn't necessarily a death sentence for a former major leaguer, so you never know — maybe we'll see Castro stateside again, eventually.

Tigers News: Harold Castro signs a deal with KBO team, Scott Effross-Scott Harris connection, minor-league signings

The Tigers signed all-time Yankees bust Scott Effross to a minor league deal last week, throwing him onto Detroit's ever-growing pile of questionable depth signings. There's usually no reason to fret over small-time deals — it doesn't hurt to add options in the most low-risk way possible — but if the way the Tigers ran their bullpen last season was any indication, it's more likely than not that we'll see Effross in the majors at some point in 2026.

Sentimentality might've played a role in the deal. Effross was a 15th-round pick for the Cubs in 2015, when Scott Harris was Chicago's director of baseball operations. He's certainly the kind of pitcher Harris tends to prefer; in 2022, by far his best season, he had a just below average fastball but some of the best sweepers and changeups in the league.

His signing was one of the first in a wave of small transactions; Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press reported that they signed pitchers Dylan File, Woo-Suk Go, and Wandisson Charles to minor league contracts (but without invitations to spring training). The Tigers signed Go to a minor league contract in June, but he elected free agency at the end of the year.

If you want to see some admirable barrel-scraping, look no further than the Detroit Tigers.