Grading Detroit Tigers Offseason Moves After Stellar First Quarter of 2025

The Detroit Tigers had a surprising 2024 season with their young stars taking over and decided to make some interesting veteran additions this past offseason.

This year has been off to a great start with a 31-16 record, sitting with the best record in baseball.

Here is how the signings they made this offseason have worked out to start the campaign:

Signing Jack Flaherty

Flaherty had a breakout year before the trade deadline last season with the Tigers and then went on to win the World Series with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Detroit decided to bring him back and he had a great start, but has hit a bit of a snag. He has a 6.98 ERA over his last four starts.

There isn't any reason to panic just yet, but the Tigers are just 2-7 in the games that he pitched in this year.

Grade: C

Signing Gleyber Torres

However good he has been, maybe the best thing Torres has done is play a part in getting Javier Baez back to playing good baseball.

Torres has been great too, with a .290/.371/.450 slash line with five home runs. He's still not impressive on defense, but his resurgence at the plate has made up for it.

It was just a one-year deal, but they might look into extending him after the season is done.

Grade: A

Signing Alex Cobb

After the lack of starting pitching depth came back to bite them during their postseason run, it made sense to add a couple of starters.

Unfortunately, Cobb was injured before the season, though, and has not returned. He's starting to take steps to return and the pitching staff has surivived without him.

If he can look at least like the 3.75 ERA pitcher that he has since 2021, it'll be a fine addition.

Grade: N/A

Signing Tommy Kahnle

Detroit did more than just adding to their starting rotation, as they brought in Kahnle to be an impact veteran out of the bullpen.

That's exactly what he has done with a 1.45 ERA over 18.2 innings of work with a 0.857 WHIP and 9.2 K/9.

Grade: A

Overall

The decision to start adding expensive veterans was met with some pushback as some still viewed that this roster wasn't ready to compete. The Tigers have proved it to be a good strategy with their fantastic run.

No addition has been a disaster and the ones that have really worked out have been incredible. This was a very good offseason for Detroit.

Grade: A-