Left-hander Chasen Shreve and right-hander Trey Wingenter have made the Tigers’ Opening Day roster, Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press reports (Twitter link). Both were in camp as non-roster invitees, so the Tigers will need to make a pair of corresponding 40-man roster moves.
Shreve, 32, is the more experienced of the pair, having accrued almost six years of service time across parts of nine seasons at the MLB level. He punched his ticket to the Opening Day club when he held opponents to a pair of runs on five hits and three walks with ten punchouts through eight innings this spring.
The Tigers will be Shreve’s sixth club, as he’s previously logged time with the Mets, Yankees, Cardinals, Pirates and Braves. Overall, he has a 3.87 ERA, 25.6% strikeout rate, 11.1% walk rate, 41% ground-ball rate and 1.56 HR/9 mark in 311 1/3 big league innings. Shreve spent the 2022 season with the Mets — his second stint there — but was tagged for a 6.49 ERA in 26 1/3 innings. His strikeout rate remained consistent with career levels and he actually improved on his walk rate, but ’22 was one of the most homer-prone seasons of Shreve’s career (2.05 HR/9).
At his best, Shreve misses bats at an above-average level and lacks the platoon splits one might typically expect of a lefty reliever. Opponents have nearly identical career batting lines against him, regardless of handedness. Righties have slashed .226/.317/.423 to left-handed batters’ .231/.320/.420.
Turning to the 28-year-old Wingenter, this will be the towering 6’7″ right-hander’s first MLB work since 2019. The former Padres reliever missed the 2020-21 seasons following Tommy John surgery in July of 2020. He was non-tendered by San Diego and signed a minor league deal with Cincinnati, but he was out for all of the 2022 season due to continued elbow troubles.
This offseason, Wingenter pitched 5 1/3 innings of one-run ball with the Dominican Winter League’s Leones del Escogido and showed enough to pique the Tigers’ interest there. He was sensational during spring training, tossing seven shutout innings and holding opponents to four hits with an 11-to-1 K/BB ratio. Wingenter averaged just shy of 97 mph on his heater prior to surgery and has punched out 33.1% of his opponents at the MLB level. Walks have been an issue (13.3%), and his overall 5.14 ERA in 70 innings with San Diego doesn’t stand out much, but there’s plenty to like between his huge frame, impressive velocity and ability to miss bats.
Wingenter has spent enough time on the Major League injured list that he’s accrued three years of MLB service time. If he’s able to stick on the Tigers’ roster and remain healthy, he’d be controllable through the 2025 season via arbitration.
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