Tigers trade top prospect to Blue Jays after bizarre treatment in 2025

The Detroit Tigers are sending right-handed pitcher Chase Lee to the Toronto Blue Jays for a minor league prospect, according to Ken Rosenthal. The Athletic's Mitch Bannon reports that left-hander Johan Simon is the return.

Originally drafted by the Texas Rangers in the sixth round of the 2021 MLB Draft, Lee was traded to the Tigers in 2024 as part of the deal that sent reliever Andrew Chafin to Texas. Lee made his Major League debut as a 27-year-old in 2025 and pitched in 32 games for the Tigers. He finished his first MLB season with a 4.10 ERA and a 4-1 record over 37 1/3 innings pitched.

Simon is 24 years old and signed with the Blue Jays as an international free agent in 2021. He finished this year at Double-A New Hampshire, where he pitched to a 2.38 ERA over 11 1/3 innings. Across three levels of Toronto's farm system in 2025, Simon pitched to a 3.42 ERA over 71 innings.

This trade isn’t shocking because Lee lacked ability. It’s shocking because the Tigers never actually gave him a chance to prove what he was. And the return — Simon, a projectable young arm with more upside than certainty — feels like an organizational reset button on a situation they never really figured out how to manage.

Tigers trade Chase Lee to Blue Jays after brief but bizarre tenure in Detroit

For the first few months of the 2025 campaign, the Tigers used Lee — a funky, deceptive, sidearming right-hander — like a pitcher they genuinely believed in. They trusted him in leverage. They leaned on him during bullpen shortages. They stretched him out at times. They acted like he was part of the fabric of their relief group until suddenly... they didn't.

Lee made his MLB debut on April 22 and had an excellent start to his career, going 4-0 with a 2.05 ERA over his first 25 games (30 2/3 innings). Then, he was tagged for four runs on July 9 against the Tampa Bay Rays and was never quite the same after that.

Lee was shuttled back and forth between Detroit and Triple-A Toledo for the rest of the season and was never given another real chance to solidify his role in the Tigers' bullpen.

Simon, meanwhile, is a developmental piece — the kind of pitcher Detroit’s system historically handles better than fringe relievers stuck between roles. It feels like Scott Harris finally decided, “If we’re not going to use Chase Lee, let’s at least turn him into someone we might.”

And honestly? It’s the cleanest ending possible for a storyline that never totally made sense.