Tigers offseason reaches new bizarre height with indy ball signing

The Detroit Tigers made another move this week. Technically.

Detroit is taking a flier on 27-year-old right-hander Jalen Evans, a Detroit native who has spent the past four seasons bouncing between three independent leagues. Evans announced on Instagram that he signed a minor-league deal with his hometown team and has been assigned to High-A West Michigan. He’s not expected to receive a big-league camp invite.

“From starting off playing on the west side of Detroit to signing with my hometown team and representing my city is still crazy to me,” Evans wrote. “To get to this point has been the furthest from easy. I’ve dealt with plenty of failure, rejection and doubt along the way but by the grace of God I never stopped pushing forward and he never let me quit on myself.”

It’s a great story. Truly. A Warren Mott graduate who played collegiately at NAIA Texas Wesleyan, grinded through the American Association, the Pioneer League and the Frontier League, and now gets a chance—however slim—to climb a real affiliated ladder. That kind of perseverance deserves respect.

But it’s also emblematic of where this offseason has landed.

Tigers' refusal to add bonafide Major Leaguers causes fan impatience to reach boiling point

Evans last pitched in affiliated ball... never. He didn’t pitch at all in 2024. In his last two active seasons across independent leagues, he logged 68 innings and walked more hitters (55) than he struck out (43). He’s listed at 6-foot-2, 200 pounds and has struggled mightily to throw strikes. This is a depth flyer. A long shot. The type of signing that usually gets buried in transaction logs in February.

Instead, it lands with weight because… what else has happened?

The Tigers’ entire Major League offseason, to this point, consists of adding Kenley Jansen and re-signing Kyle Finnegan. Both are bullpen arms. Both are short-term. Both are fine in a vacuum. Neither meaningfully alters the ceiling of a team that spent 2025 flirting with contention before running out of oxygen.

Meanwhile, the lineup still leans heavily on internal growth, hope, and health. The rotation still feels one injury away from scrambling. The margins are razor thin, and the response has largely been, “Let’s see what we have.”

And now, “Here’s a 27-year-old indie-ball arm for High-A.”

Again, Evans deserves this chance. Stories like his are why baseball’s ladder still matters. But fans aren’t frustrated with him. They’re frustrated with the pattern. Every minor signing now feels like a substitute for something bigger that never came.

This franchise is no longer in year one of a teardown. The Tigers aren’t supposed to be collecting human-interest projects as headline moves. They’re supposed to be supplementing a young core with real, tangible major-league upgrades.

Instead, winter keeps passing. Rivals keep adding. And Detroit keeps standing pat. At some point, perseverance can’t just belong to the players trying to climb. It has to belong to a front office willing to climb with them.