Latest / Tiger Territory: A Detroit Tigers Podcast / 5 Tigers players who might not be back next season

Transcript

5 Tigers players who might not be back next season · Tiger Territory: A Detroit Tigers Podcast

0:09
Speaker 1: And welcome in to another episode of Tiger Territory, part
0:12
Speaker 1: of the Foul Territory Network, Detroit Tigers Podcast.
0:14
Speaker 2: I'm Kieran Stuckley. With me, as always, is a man
0:16
Speaker 2: who rocks as well as he rolls. He is Cody Sabanagan.
0:20
Speaker 2: How are we doing?
0:21
Speaker 3: Hey, doing all right, Kieran. How are you?
0:24
Speaker 2: I am doing well.
0:26
Speaker 1: Like I said last time, I've enjoyed the postseason. We're
0:29
Speaker 1: recording this early evening on Monday. We got a nice
0:32
Speaker 1: game between the Brewers and the Dodgers going on. Obviously,
0:34
Speaker 1: game one later tonight of the ALCS and And I
0:39
Speaker 1: tell you, I spend my time, because I'm just such
0:42
Speaker 1: a cool person with a lot going on in my life,
0:45
Speaker 1: I spend my time watching the postseason and kind of thinking,
0:52
Speaker 1: what are the lessons here that can be applied moving forward?
0:56
Speaker 1: Is this specific to these teams? Is this where the
0:59
Speaker 1: game is going? These are the things when my wife
1:02
Speaker 1: asks me, oh, what are you thinking about? I don't
1:05
Speaker 1: really want to get into it because it doesn't sound cool,
1:07
Speaker 1: and it's also not that important in the grand scheme
1:09
Speaker 1: of things. But that's how I'm occupying my time. Obviously,
1:12
Speaker 1: you just got done covering the postseason, covering the White Sox,
1:15
Speaker 1: specifically a nice five-game series there in the DS.
1:19
Speaker 2: So that's how I'm doing.
1:21
Speaker 1: How are you doing coming off the energy of a
1:24
Speaker 1: Game 5 situation again?
1:26
Speaker 3: Uh, yeah, I'm so sick of ALDS game fives. I've
1:30
Speaker 3: had enough of them. I'd like to go on to
1:32
Speaker 3: the CS with somebody. It's been, it's been a while
1:35
Speaker 3: since I was covering the Rangers a few years ago, but, um, yeah,
1:39
Speaker 3: I'm doing okay. You're right. And it sounds like you're
1:41
Speaker 3: like that meme with the wife. Like, is he thinking
1:44
Speaker 3: about other girls? It's like, no, I'm thinking about the
1:46
Speaker 3: Tampa Bay race concept rate.
1:48
Speaker 1: A hundred percent. And, uh, And so, yeah, so, like,
1:54
Speaker 1: to kind of bring it specifically to the Tigers, like, I.
1:59
Speaker 1: We're doing this episode, we're gonna kind of talk about
2:01
Speaker 1: some guys that, like, maybe it makes more sense than
2:07
Speaker 1: when we realize, and some are obvious, that if they're
2:09
Speaker 1: not back on this roster moving forward, this kind of
2:13
Speaker 1: might be why, right?
2:14
Speaker 2: And then.
2:16
Speaker 1: next episode we'll kind of do the opposite where it's like,
2:18
Speaker 1: if these guys get brought back and maybe it's a
2:20
Speaker 1: little bit of surprise, this kind of might be why.
2:22
Speaker 1: So it's us kind of anticipating the moves on the chessboard,
2:25
Speaker 1: if you would. And, and I think like to start out,
2:28
Speaker 1: we have to kind of mentally go about it this way.
2:33
Speaker 1: The tigers in a lot of ways had a fluky 20, 20, 60.
2:37
Speaker 1: I think that's fair to say. If you look at
2:40
Speaker 1: some of the advanced metrics and then obviously where they're deficient, it,
2:44
Speaker 1: It happened over and over again that they earned it,
2:46
Speaker 1: but it wouldn't necessarily be the law of averages, right?
2:51
Speaker 1: So you don't want to overreact. At the same time,
2:55
Speaker 1: you don't want to be complacent either because you had
2:58
Speaker 1: a below 500 record, you had two teams in your
3:02
Speaker 1: division make the postseason, play each other in the postseason,
3:05
Speaker 1: and one of them, in some ways, you're like postseason
3:08
Speaker 1: arch nemesis, Cleveland, is competing for a pennant right now, right? So...
3:14
Speaker 1: obviously something has to change, but not everything has to change.
3:19
Speaker 1: So finding that line, I think is really what the
3:22
Speaker 1: job is of the front office for the Tigers. Does
3:23
Speaker 1: that make sense?
3:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely. And that, that does bring straight to mind.
3:27
Speaker 3: I mean, I was talking with, with Chris Getz, the
3:30
Speaker 3: GM of the White Sox, and I think he was
3:32
Speaker 3: kind of talking about, you know, their, their team chemistry,
3:35
Speaker 3: but he was also somewhat forecasting forward into next year's team.
3:38
Speaker 3: And He said, candidly, if we were to expect the
3:43
Speaker 3: same outcome the very next year with the exact same
3:46
Speaker 3: approach to things, I think it could be a bit
3:48
Speaker 3: of a trap because so many things change. It's a
3:51
Speaker 3: year closer to arbitration, a step closer to free agency.
3:55
Speaker 3: It can start infiltrating the mind. I don't know if
3:58
Speaker 3: Getz said that with the Tigers in mind. I don't
4:00
Speaker 3: think he did, but it was interesting how different that
4:03
Speaker 3: was from what a Another lead executive said around this
4:07
Speaker 3: time a year ago, and I think some things we
4:09
Speaker 3: did see, we had mentioned, kind of played out with
4:12
Speaker 3: the Tigers. The platoon thing is all fine and dandy
4:15
Speaker 3: until guys start getting a step closer to arbitration or
4:18
Speaker 3: a step closer to free agency. Suddenly you're not as
4:21
Speaker 3: cool with being pinch hit for. I'm not saying that happened,
4:25
Speaker 3: but I think that was on guys' minds a little
4:28
Speaker 3: bit and is going to be even more of a
4:31
Speaker 3: thing next year, probably, with certain guys. The Tigers, now
4:36
Speaker 3: that we're a little farther removed from the regular season,
4:38
Speaker 3: maybe we can say it with more of a level head,
4:40
Speaker 3: you're right, Kieran, if you play these same 162 games again,
4:45
Speaker 3: the Tigers might win 89 or 90, and the White
4:48
Speaker 3: Sox might win 76 or something, but that's not the reality. Like,
4:52
Speaker 3: the Tigers, if you look at the projection systems, right,
4:55
Speaker 3: which what these things do is they Take the rosters
4:57
Speaker 3: and the numbers, and they run 1,000 simulations. So if
5:00
Speaker 3: you have 52% playoff odds, that means you made the
5:04
Speaker 3: playoffs in 52% of these simulations. The Tigers achieved a
5:08
Speaker 3: bottom 20th percentile outcome. They did better than their actual
5:15
Speaker 3: 76 wins in 80% of these computer simulations. If I
5:22
Speaker 3: had to guess, that's one thing Scott Harris in the
5:23
Speaker 3: front office... probably actually feel in their hearts that like
5:27
Speaker 3: no we did okay we've assembled a pretty good team
5:30
Speaker 3: it didn't work out obviously fans don't feel that way
5:32
Speaker 3: and i don't think they should feel that way because
5:34
Speaker 3: what matters is what actually happened so you're right here
5:37
Speaker 3: and the tigers are in a way in not not
5:41
Speaker 3: a whole lot different spot than they were a year
5:43
Speaker 3: ago do you stick with the same things and the
5:45
Speaker 3: same players and hope to get better results or do
5:48
Speaker 3: you mix it up a little bit i think you
5:50
Speaker 3: have to mix it up a little bit but there's
5:52
Speaker 3: also a chance you could mix it up too much
5:54
Speaker 3: and and uh kind of waver from the process that
5:58
Speaker 3: got you to a pretty healthy point as an organization
6:01
Speaker 3: and so that is kind of one of the interesting
6:03
Speaker 3: that's like a 30,000 foot view of of where this
6:07
Speaker 3: team is at entering the offseason.
6:10
Speaker 1: Yeah and one of the things that like uh i
6:14
Speaker 1: would say will naturally kind of get you to a
6:16
Speaker 1: little bit of a mix-up is like sort of an
6:19
Speaker 1: exit of veteran players that just kind of had to
6:24
Speaker 1: be part of the nucleus over the past couple years
6:26
Speaker 1: uh i guess didn't have to be but you understand
6:28
Speaker 1: what i'm saying like terry school not on this roster
6:32
Speaker 1: you know jack flaherty unlikely to be on this roster
6:35
Speaker 1: glaber torres unlikely to be on this roster and so
6:38
Speaker 1: like there is a natural pivot point so if you're
6:41
Speaker 1: saying like what's the reason to feel good about like
6:44
Speaker 1: the tigers not making that same mistake is that 2026
6:47
Speaker 1: as a again relatively fluky as it was, did just
6:53
Speaker 1: kind of give you the lane to have the natural
6:56
Speaker 1: pivot point. And, and so like, they don't, there's no
6:59
Speaker 1: like hanging on, which I do think after two straight
7:02
Speaker 1: game five ALDSs, I do believe there was an element
7:06
Speaker 1: of hanging on and had there been, had 2026 been
7:10
Speaker 1: 2025 instead, I think we're looking at things in a,
7:13
Speaker 1: in a, in a different order, if that makes sense.
7:15
Speaker 1: So you feel the need when you get that close
7:18
Speaker 1: to kind of not shake things up too much and
7:20
Speaker 1: The opposite is what we're experiencing now. So we have
7:25
Speaker 1: some candidates here that we believe kind of makes sense
7:31
Speaker 1: that the Tigers might move off from some obvious, some not.
7:35
Speaker 1: And we're going to get to those. But first, we
7:36
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8:43
Speaker 3: All right.
8:46
Speaker 1: Coming back here, Cody, right off the top. I think
8:48
Speaker 1: this one, I would say it felt fairly obvious. And
8:53
Speaker 1: then I listened to the news conference that Scott Harris gave,
8:56
Speaker 1: you know, to, to end this and the season. And
9:00
Speaker 1: I was like, uh, is this a little bit more
9:02
Speaker 1: gray than I thought? Uh, Kenley Jansen, Kenley, uh, we
9:07
Speaker 1: all know, we all watch like, you know, the, uh,
9:10
Speaker 1: I would say the bad version that we saw in
9:13
Speaker 1: 2026 was quite loud. But if you look at his statistics,
9:18
Speaker 1: they're not alarming. I think is like a good way
9:21
Speaker 1: to kind of throw it up there. Like 3.2 ERA,
9:24
Speaker 1: you know, he managed, um, Over 45 innings, he had
9:28
Speaker 1: 22 saves. Again, this is not some sort of like, hey,
9:32
Speaker 1: by the way, it wasn't as bad. We all understood
9:35
Speaker 1: the situation. But there is technically a decision to be
9:37
Speaker 1: made here because he has a team option for $ 12
9:40
Speaker 1: million next season. And if they do not exercise said option,
9:46
Speaker 1: then there is a $ 2 million buyout. So this is
9:50
Speaker 1: a decision to be made by the Tigers. Maybe Scott
9:54
Speaker 1: Harris was kind of, Defending himself as he was defending...
10:00
Speaker 1: Kenley's season overall. But I feel like this is one
10:05
Speaker 1: where you got to get younger. You got to get
10:07
Speaker 1: more swing and miss in the back end of the bullpen.
10:10
Speaker 1: And Kenley is not those things. So that's why I
10:15
Speaker 1: have him listed here at the top.
10:18
Speaker 3: You want to hear a wild Kenley Jansen stat, Kieran?
10:22
Speaker 3: Kenley Jansen threw 45 innings for the Tigers. He surrendered
10:26
Speaker 3: only 24 hits. Kenley Jansen only gave up 24 hits
10:31
Speaker 3: all season. Now, what was it, seven, eight of those
10:36
Speaker 3: were home runs? Seven of those were homers, and I
10:39
Speaker 3: would say all seven were fairly loud, unfortunately, timed homers.
10:43
Speaker 3: It is very weird. It's another thing, if you run
10:45
Speaker 3: this whole simulation again, Maybe everyone's so thrilled that Kinley
10:50
Speaker 3: Jansen was in Detroit. That's not how it went down.
10:53
Speaker 3: And even though the computer could make a case to
10:59
Speaker 3: bring him back on an option that would be worth
11:01
Speaker 3: $ 12 million, a lot of his underlying metrics were actually
11:05
Speaker 3: better than they were a year ago. I would say
11:10
Speaker 3: Kinley's probably not coming back today. to Detroit he's 39
11:15
Speaker 3: years old he's mostly pitched only in the ninth inning
11:18
Speaker 3: role I think we've seen the luck the Tigers have
11:20
Speaker 3: had with aging pitchers they have to pay him a
11:23
Speaker 3: two million dollar buyout if they're going to move on
11:25
Speaker 3: I think it would simply make more sense to move
11:28
Speaker 3: on and hope you could allocate that remaining 10 million
11:32
Speaker 3: in a better way or or maybe like just a
11:34
Speaker 3: more versatile way get someone else who's a little younger
11:38
Speaker 3: maybe there's a little more upside less risk of regression
11:41
Speaker 3: and And you don't have to pin yourself to using
11:44
Speaker 3: him in the ninth inning like the Tigers mostly did.
11:46
Speaker 3: That would be my thought.
11:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I would say.
11:52
Speaker 1: Some of this exercise is trying to figure out where
11:55
Speaker 1: the pins are and where you don't want to be pinned.
11:57
Speaker 1: I know that sounds weird, but I do think that's
12:01
Speaker 1: going to be at the heart of that.
12:02
Speaker 3: I don't think you want to pin yourself to a
12:03
Speaker 3: 39-year-old reliever. I think it's that simple.
12:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. And then... There's two types of resources here.
12:11
Speaker 1: There's obviously the money part of it, which maybe that
12:14
Speaker 1: changes a little bit with the next CBA. And then
12:16
Speaker 1: there's just the actual human resources part of this where
12:21
Speaker 1: you have... If somebody is on the 40-man, that is
12:25
Speaker 1: a spot that another person cannot have.
12:29
Speaker 2: I have Jace Young on here. If you're not going
12:35
Speaker 2: to try to get him.
12:36
Speaker 1: some runway to try to see if this bat could
12:40
Speaker 1: come alive in any fashion. You obviously don't like him defensively.
12:44
Speaker 1: I mean, how many at-bats did he get when he
12:47
Speaker 1: got called up in the last week?
12:49
Speaker 2: Not very many. Not very many.
12:53
Speaker 1: You have to make room for Rule 5 eligible players
12:56
Speaker 1: such as Josue Brasenio and Max Anderson. Especially, I mean,
13:01
Speaker 1: both of them you could just easily slot into Jace's...
13:06
Speaker 1: a 40-man spot pretty smoothly, I would say. And so
13:10
Speaker 1: it just hasn't worked out. I still do believe that
13:16
Speaker 1: there is something in there for Jace, but there's too
13:21
Speaker 1: many people at his spots, and I don't think the
13:24
Speaker 1: Tigers value him as much as obviously others because we
13:26
Speaker 1: would have seen more leeway. So that feels like, I
13:29
Speaker 1: would say, an easy call to me.
13:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's fair you mentioned it. At least
13:35
Speaker 3: two guys who are easy adds to the 40-man are
13:37
Speaker 3: Max Anderson and Josue Perseño. You also have nine guys
13:41
Speaker 3: coming off the 60-day IL. Those are Bailey Horn, Reese Olsen,
13:45
Speaker 3: Birch Smith, Will Vest, Trey Sweeney, Kerry Carpenter, Parker Meadows,
13:50
Speaker 3: Wenzel Perez, Matt Feerling. Not bringing back all those guys,
13:54
Speaker 3: but you're going to bring back some of them. So
13:56
Speaker 3: you're going to have to make some 40-man decisions there.
14:00
Speaker 3: within a few days of the end of the World
14:02
Speaker 3: Series and right now a guy who's kind of leaping
14:04
Speaker 3: off the page and somewhat unfortunately is like, it's probably
14:07
Speaker 3: their time to go. I'd say that's Jace Young. I
14:10
Speaker 3: think another word will take a shot on him and
14:12
Speaker 3: I'll be super interested to follow his career wherever he
14:17
Speaker 3: lands next. I think he could still be a pretty
14:19
Speaker 3: good Major League hitter. I don't think it's going to
14:22
Speaker 3: happen in the Tigers organization.
14:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, and.
14:29
Speaker 1: Part of this is their credit to developing players that
14:33
Speaker 1: are in his same spot, that there's just no more room.
14:35
Speaker 3: They're better defenders.
14:37
Speaker 1: Not every organization has the same strengths and weaknesses, so
14:40
Speaker 1: I do believe he'll get a shot somewhere else.
14:42
Speaker 3: He will hit 18 home runs, and seven of them
14:46
Speaker 3: will be against the Tigers for the Minnesota Twins.
14:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's going to be Cody Clemens 2.0. All of
14:51
Speaker 1: a sudden, we're going to see him in center field.
14:54
Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
14:54
Speaker 2: It's just going to be one of those wild games.
14:56
Speaker 3: I don't know about that.
14:58
Speaker 1: Well, speaking of center field and the guy that you
15:01
Speaker 1: just mentioned, Matt Vierling feels like somebody that.
15:08
Speaker 1: Again, I'm trying to put this in a respectful sense.
15:11
Speaker 2: It just kind of feels time.
15:15
Speaker 1: If you're watching on YouTube, we have the projected arbitration
15:18
Speaker 1: numbers for the Tigers, which, by the way, is like
15:21
Speaker 1: $ 42 million worth of decisions that the Tigers have to
15:23
Speaker 1: make on these guys.
15:24
Speaker 2: And Vierling is.
15:28
Speaker 1: projected at 3.7 million dollars he is going to be
15:33
Speaker 1: 30 years old when the next season if the next
15:37
Speaker 1: season is next year which i guess you know every
15:39
Speaker 1: at a year for all these guys if we get
15:40
Speaker 1: a full season off uh 30 years old next year
15:44
Speaker 1: um actually no he'll be 31 the next year will
15:48
Speaker 1: be his age 31 season and you look at he
15:51
Speaker 1: played 31 games in 2025 he played Man, it did
15:57
Speaker 1: not feel like he played 92 games this season, but
15:59
Speaker 1: he played 92 games.
16:03
Speaker 2: Wow.
16:03
Speaker 3: I did not realize Matt Vierland played 92 games.
16:07
Speaker 2: Yeah.
16:09
Speaker 1: It felt like his body has kind of betrayed him
16:13
Speaker 1: multiple ways. Obviously, he's been hurt, and then I just
16:16
Speaker 1: feel like he is not as athletically– His.
16:23
Speaker 3: Sprint speed declined. He got slower. He quietly started getting slower,
16:29
Speaker 3: and that was one thing that started to show up
16:33
Speaker 3: a little bit. It's arguably because he wasn't healthy, but
16:37
Speaker 3: his first year in Detroit, his average sprint speed was
16:39
Speaker 3: 29.1 feet per second, and now it's down to 28.3.
16:42
Speaker 3: So as he got into his late 20s, he got slower.
16:44
Speaker 3: That's just the reality.
16:45
Speaker 2: Yeah.
16:51
Speaker 1: And, and another guy who like, if he is, is
16:56
Speaker 1: he a center fielder? Is he a right fielder? Is
16:58
Speaker 1: he a third baseman? Those are all spots where you
17:01
Speaker 1: have multiple guys that you either feel better about or
17:06
Speaker 1: definitely have to, you know, have more runway in terms of,
17:11
Speaker 1: you know, team control and, and things like that. And,
17:15
Speaker 1: and again, like it, If this was a situation where
17:18
Speaker 1: the Tigers made another postseason run and he was part
17:21
Speaker 1: of it, you might feel somewhat obliged to kind of
17:24
Speaker 1: keep him. He was largely absent from this team due
17:28
Speaker 1: to injury, and the team faltered, and you just kind
17:33
Speaker 1: of have to get younger at his spot because it's
17:37
Speaker 1: unlikely that some of that stuff is going to come back.
17:40
Speaker 1: So that's my Matt Beerling piece.
17:43
Speaker 2: It's unfortunate. He's a good guy.
17:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, I really like Matty V. I still think there
17:48
Speaker 3: could be a good player in there, and he's not
17:49
Speaker 3: necessarily all that expensive, but he's getting more expensive, and
17:53
Speaker 3: you're at a point where you can't keep everybody. You
17:58
Speaker 3: have to try to get better at certain positions too.
18:02
Speaker 3: Can you bring in players who are better versus banking
18:05
Speaker 3: for the return of 2024, Matt Vierling. Yeah, I think
18:10
Speaker 3: of all the guys kind of on that arbitration list,
18:12
Speaker 3: he's the one who sticks out as, I would say,
18:15
Speaker 3: fairly likely to be non-tendered.
18:20
Speaker 1: Alright, let's... A guy that a lot of this applies,
18:24
Speaker 1: but on the pitching side, Bo Briske, to me, feels
18:27
Speaker 1: like a candidate for this.
18:30
Speaker 2: Again, injuries have been a part of it.
18:35
Speaker 1: You realize how batting got last season, like last season
18:39
Speaker 1: being 2025, he had a 6-5-5 ERA, Cody, in 2025.
18:44
Speaker 1: And you're kind of like, all right, can there be
18:46
Speaker 1: a return to form? He pitched in 18 games. He
18:49
Speaker 1: had a 4-9-7 ERA. This feels like, and again, he's
18:55
Speaker 1: not young. He'll be 25 next, or not 25, 29
19:02
Speaker 1: next season. And it feels like there's been a lot of,
19:06
Speaker 1: tinkering a lot of trying to figure out this trying
19:09
Speaker 1: to figure out that and it's like at a certain
19:11
Speaker 1: point is it are you better off expending that resource
19:16
Speaker 1: like resources in terms of time energy you know ram
19:20
Speaker 1: if you would uh on a younger player with perhaps
19:24
Speaker 1: more upside so so brisky to me feels like someone
19:28
Speaker 1: who kind of naturally like fits into the category in
19:32
Speaker 1: the same way as.
19:33
Speaker 3: A girl Yeah, I think you're probably right. We saw
19:36
Speaker 3: some flashes of the good Bo Briskey, struck out 16
19:39
Speaker 3: batters in his final 16 innings, but I don't think
19:42
Speaker 3: we consistently saw the good version of Bo Brischke when
19:48
Speaker 3: he's now due again. 1.5 million projection, that's not a ton,
19:53
Speaker 3: but can you continue to justify a 40-man spot for
19:57
Speaker 3: a guy who's been hurt a lot, for a guy
20:00
Speaker 3: who hasn't quite recaptured that tail end of 2024 form
20:05
Speaker 3: that we all want to see? I think If you
20:09
Speaker 3: had to pick someone else on that list to be non-tendered,
20:12
Speaker 3: Briski is maybe the number two guy jumping out at me.
20:17
Speaker 3: Another one is Will Vest, who again, I just wish
20:19
Speaker 3: we knew a little more about the prognosis for him
20:21
Speaker 3: going into next season. Is he going to be healthy
20:24
Speaker 3: for spring training? Is he going to be healthy for
20:25
Speaker 3: the regular season? I don't know. But again, with Briski,
20:31
Speaker 3: could you get him back on a minor league deal?
20:33
Speaker 3: I mean, it's not inconceivable that you could non-tender him
20:37
Speaker 3: and then try to bring him back on a minors deal.
20:41
Speaker 3: I don't know. There might be some other teams allured
20:43
Speaker 3: to the good version of Briski, just like the Tigers. But, yeah,
20:46
Speaker 3: seems like someone that you've given a lot of chances
20:49
Speaker 3: and it just hasn't quite clicked. I think there's a
20:51
Speaker 3: good pitcher in there. I think there's a pretty high
20:53
Speaker 3: upside pitcher in there, but you can't wait around forever. Yeah.
21:00
Speaker 2: All right.
21:02
Speaker 1: Cody last on my list of five guys here. Are we,
21:09
Speaker 1: are we prepared for a Carrie Carpenter conversation?
21:12
Speaker 3: Oh, well, you have the conversation. Yeah. I might, I
21:16
Speaker 3: might not totally agree, but we can have the conversation.
21:22
Speaker 1: I went into this thinking pretty safe. And I had
21:25
Speaker 1: been on this podcast saying like, feels pretty safe because of.
21:29
Speaker 2: The, uh, you know, some of the offensive upside.
21:32
Speaker 1: But the more I kind of dug in to, like,
21:35
Speaker 1: what kind of makes teams go in 2026 and beyond,
21:44
Speaker 1: I was like, all right, like, we think Kerry Carpenter
21:48
Speaker 1: as this, like, power hitter, right?
21:49
Speaker 2: That's kind of, like, what we, like, look at.
21:52
Speaker 1: Well, He hit 13 home runs this past year, 18
21:57
Speaker 1: two years prior to that. He obviously had the 26th
22:00
Speaker 1: home run season in 2025, so I'm not dismissing it.
22:03
Speaker 1: But he also has been another guy whose body has
22:08
Speaker 1: not held up as well, and he's always kind of
22:10
Speaker 1: had that concern as he's getting older. And he also
22:14
Speaker 1: has become a less effective player metrically over the course
22:18
Speaker 1: of his major league career.
22:20
Speaker 2: And if.
22:23
Speaker 1: if you want to be more athletic, if you want
22:26
Speaker 1: to have more contact, if you want to have more speed,
22:31
Speaker 1: Kerry Carpenter on your roster.
22:33
Speaker 2: Does not add to any of those things.
22:37
Speaker 1: And if you look at his savant page, like it's
22:39
Speaker 1: a lot of blue based on ball rate, K rate,
22:42
Speaker 1: whiff rate, chase rates, great squared up rate, you know,
22:46
Speaker 1: on base expected on base, even expected slugging is a
22:49
Speaker 1: lot lower than you would think. Uh, I mean, if
22:53
Speaker 1: you guys want to do the batting average thing, 2024,
22:56
Speaker 1: 284 batting average. 2025, 252. Last season, 208. On base
23:03
Speaker 1: has gone down each year. Slugging has gone down each year.
23:07
Speaker 1: So therefore, OPS has gone down each year. He might
23:14
Speaker 1: be a declining player more so than we are talking about,
23:17
Speaker 1: I guess is my main point here. And is he
23:21
Speaker 1: going to hold the roster spot over somebody who might
23:24
Speaker 1: be able to do more things, but not as much
23:28
Speaker 1: as the loud thing, the loud thing being the, the
23:31
Speaker 1: home run power. And that's not even talking about his
23:32
Speaker 1: fielding or, you know, base running stuff or whatever, but.
23:36
Speaker 2: I don't know.
23:38
Speaker 1: I just feel like there's a bigger case there than
23:41
Speaker 1: people are acknowledging.
23:45
Speaker 2: Yeah.
23:45
Speaker 3: Pretty interesting because I think on paper, you look at
23:48
Speaker 3: the numbers and, Case is actually somewhat compelling. I mean,
23:52
Speaker 3: what's his thing that he does, right? He crushes right-handed pitching. Well,
23:56
Speaker 3: his right-handed OPS against righties has gone from 994 in
24:00
Speaker 3: 2024 to 812 to 724. So he's declined more than
24:06
Speaker 3: 200 points in OPS. The thing that he does, he
24:09
Speaker 3: hasn't actually done at all that of an elite level,
24:12
Speaker 3: certainly not this season, a little bit the season before,
24:15
Speaker 3: but really it's been two years. So that That sticks. Now,
24:19
Speaker 3: I think you bring in a more holistic view. The
24:22
Speaker 3: injuries have killed him. In 2025, he was clearly playing
24:26
Speaker 3: hurt for a long time. He was maybe even doing
24:28
Speaker 3: the same some this year. That's part of it, like
24:31
Speaker 3: the whole best ability is availability thing. That's real. I'm
24:37
Speaker 3: in favor of bringing back Carpenter because even though it's declined,
24:41
Speaker 3: I think the guy can still mash. I think he
24:43
Speaker 3: still has 30 homer type power. I think you have
24:46
Speaker 3: to accept the reality. You don't want to play him
24:48
Speaker 3: in right field a lot. He's a platoon guy who's
24:52
Speaker 3: there to do one thing. That's to hit right-handed pitching
24:55
Speaker 3: for power. If you were to move on from Kerry Carpenter,
25:01
Speaker 3: I would say you better go get an everyday right
25:04
Speaker 3: fielder who can hit. I don't know who that is.
25:07
Speaker 3: I don't know. I guess say a Suzuki. I'm not
25:11
Speaker 3: super excited about paying... For a guy in his 30s,
25:15
Speaker 3: you'd have to acquire someone else via trade. I think
25:20
Speaker 3: bringing in a legit everyday outfielder is the only thing
25:23
Speaker 3: that makes this palatable. Because otherwise, I still think the
25:26
Speaker 3: best version of the Tigers has Kerry Carpenter coming off
25:30
Speaker 3: the bench, platooning, being that game-changing weapon that other teams
25:34
Speaker 3: are managing against. And just hopefully he's healthy and closer
25:38
Speaker 3: to himself. AJ Hinch didn't really mince words when he
25:42
Speaker 3: called this a huge offseason, like maybe the most important
25:44
Speaker 3: offseason of his career. I think it arguably is, but
25:48
Speaker 3: unless you really have a plan to upgrade your lineup
25:51
Speaker 3: in some other way, I think you have to plan
25:54
Speaker 3: on bringing back Kerry Carpenter and hoping things go better.
26:00
Speaker 1: I mean, that's all fine and good, but if we
26:04
Speaker 1: see more of what we saw this past year, it's
26:08
Speaker 1: going to be one of those very easable things to
26:11
Speaker 1: point to and be like, you did not take the
26:14
Speaker 1: decline in his numbers and his skills and his biometrics
26:19
Speaker 1: seriously enough. And, and therefore like that was an opportunity
26:23
Speaker 1: miss to upgrade your roster.
26:26
Speaker 3: That's pretty compelling point. You want Randy Rosarena at 32?
26:30
Speaker 3: You want, That's about all I got in terms of
26:36
Speaker 3: even remotely interesting. Taylor Ward at 33.
26:40
Speaker 2: Yeah.
26:41
Speaker 1: I mean, here's another thing, too, about the Carpenter piece
26:44
Speaker 1: that you just laid out, which I think makes also
26:46
Speaker 1: a ton of.
26:47
Speaker 2: Sense, is that.
26:50
Speaker 1: Is Kerry Carpenter, who is 29, 30 years old, is
26:54
Speaker 1: he going to fully embrace being a platoon against right-handed pitching? Obviously,
27:01
Speaker 1: we know the majority of pitchers are righties. and then
27:05
Speaker 1: being like a DH guy? Or like, has he given up?
27:08
Speaker 1: I don't want to say give up, but.
27:09
Speaker 2: Has he accepted that he did not?
27:09
Speaker 3: No, I mean, he's clearly wanted to be more than that, right?
27:12
Speaker 3: He's clearly wanted to be more than that, and I
27:14
Speaker 3: don't blame him.
27:15
Speaker 2: But he's not going to be right now.
27:16
Speaker 3: I think he'd take it over unemployment, though. And again,
27:21
Speaker 3: based on the numbers he's put out, I'm not sure
27:23
Speaker 3: there's another team that's going to say, hey, we want
27:25
Speaker 3: you to be our everyday right fielder either. I think
27:27
Speaker 3: there are teams that would say, hey, we want you
27:29
Speaker 3: to be our strong side platoon DH with a little
27:32
Speaker 3: bit of outfield mixed in. but I'm not sure the
27:36
Speaker 3: grass is necessarily greener for him elsewhere. So you're right.
27:40
Speaker 3: When you look at Kieran, you're right. And honestly, as
27:42
Speaker 3: I look at it, if there were a more clear path,
27:44
Speaker 3: if this were a better free agent class, maybe there
27:46
Speaker 3: would be a more compelling case. If I were running
27:49
Speaker 3: the team, and you can use this against me next
27:51
Speaker 3: year if need to, if I were running the team,
27:54
Speaker 3: I'd bring back Kerry Carpenter. I'd plan for him to
27:56
Speaker 3: not play right field very much, but I'd plan for
27:58
Speaker 3: him to be in the lineup and hope he can
28:00
Speaker 3: hit you 20 to 25 bombs.
28:00
Speaker 4: Yeah.
28:04
Speaker 1: I mean, that's probably more likely, but again, part of
28:07
Speaker 1: this exercise is trying to identify things that could happen
28:10
Speaker 1: or would make sense to happen. So in our next episode, we'll,
28:14
Speaker 1: we'll do the opposite. It's like guys that like kind
28:16
Speaker 1: of need to come back or, you know, don't be
28:19
Speaker 1: surprised if this is a name that, that sticks and
28:22
Speaker 1: kind of pins you in a certain way. As the
28:25
Speaker 1: Tigers go about this 40 man roster construction and a
28:28
Speaker 1: lot of moves to be made, there might be some
28:30
Speaker 1: names on there that, that surprises you guys. So, Be
28:33
Speaker 1: on the lookout for that in our next episode. You
28:36
Speaker 1: guys can follow us on next, formerly known as Twitter,
28:37
Speaker 1: at Cody Stabenhagen. I'm at Kieran underscore Steckley. Pod page
28:40
Speaker 1: at Tiger Territory underscore.
28:42
Speaker 2: YouTube, Apple, Spotify. You guys know what to do. We
28:44
Speaker 2: appreciate all of you. So, for Cody Stabenhagen, I'm Kieran Steckley.
28:48
Speaker 2: Everybody have a great day.