Tigers should be in on journeyman utility player's growing market after Malloy DFA

Acquiring a major league bat is not, and perhaps never was, on the Tigers' offseason to-do list.

When Scott Harris identified the swing-and-miss in the 2025 lineup as a glaring issue after Detroit's postseason exit, it made fans hopeful that the front office would actually, you know ... do something about it. But Gleyber Torres accepting the qualifying offer to come back for one more season is the only "move" the Tigers have made to address the offense.

As things stand, Detroit's 2026 Opening Day lineup projects to look exactly the same as it did in 2025. Tigers fans are probably hoping against hope that something might still happen. It might be a wasted endeavor, but there are still free agents floating around on the market who won't break the bank.

According to Jon Heyman, utility man Miguel Andujar's market is heating up — the "Rangers, Padres, Cardinals, Reds, Cubs, A's among many others in play."

Andujar checks a lot of boxes for the Tigers as an outfielder and third baseman. The Tigers' outfield depth has slowly been trimmed down — Akil Baddoo, Ryan Kreidler, Ryan Vilade, and Justyn-Henry Malloy are all gone — and no one ever really knows what's going on with third base.

Tigers should be in on utility man Miguel Andujar's market as it starts to heat up

We'll set aside the utter disappointment of the Tigers being connected, even if out of pure wishful thinking, to the likes of Kyle Schwarber and Cody Bellinger early in the offseason, only for us to positing Andujar as a potential option just a few weeks away from the start of spring training. It's depressing, but "depressing" encapsulates Detroit's entire offseason pretty nicely.

But we'll give it to Andujar: he had a nice 2025 season. He hit .298 with a .765 OPS in 60 games with the Athletics, and then .359 with a .944 OPS in 34 games with the Reds after the trade deadline for an above-average batting run value in the 66th percentile.

He made just $3 million between the A's and Reds and shouldn't go for much more in 2025 despite his good numbers, given his track record as a barely above-replacement level player and his small-ish sample size.

The Tigers just need to do anything that's not adding another pitcher on a minor league deal. Signing Andujar wouldn't make headlines, but it would be at least be one thing to show for the offseason.