Tigers, Austin Gomber Agree To Minor League Deal

The Tigers agreed to a minor league deal with starter Austin Gomber, according to the MLB.com transaction tracker. He’ll report to Triple-A Toledo. Detroit also assigned righty reliever Andre Granillo to Toledo after he cleared outright waivers.

Gomber was released from a minor league deal with the Braves earlier in the week. The left-hander is now on his third team of the season. Gomber opened the year on a minor league contract with Texas and has a combined 6.01 ERA over 82 1/3 innings at the Triple-A level. He has been around the strike zone but has a middling 17.6% strikeout rate and has struggled with the home run ball.

Those have been the standard concerns for Gomber. He had a couple seasons early in his career with the Rockies as a strike-throwing fifth starter. His already fringe velocity has continued to decline in recent years. He’s averaging 90.2 mph on his four-seam fastball after working in the 92-93 range early in his career. Gomber has a deep pitch mix that he can throw for strikes but no standout offerings, so he looks more like an organizational depth arm at this point. He has a 5.08 ERA in a little over 700 big league innings between 2018-25.

Detroit has traded Tarik Skubal and Casey Mize, pushing Drew Anderson into the rotation. They’ll get Jackson Jobe back from the injured list this weekend. Jobe and Anderson will both be on pitch limits early on, which will force the bullpen to take a decent number of innings. Gomber can stay stretched out as a starter in Toledo and potentially be an option for long relief if the bullpen gets taxed.

Granillo was designated for assignment on Friday when Detroit needed a 40-man roster spot for Max Clark. He’d been in Triple-A on optional assignment since they claimed him from Washington three weeks earlier. Granillo has allowed a 6.23 ERA in 30 1/3 innings between the Cardinals and Nationals over the last two years. He posted excellent Triple-A marks in 2025 but is amidst a tough year in the minors, allowing almost seven earned runs per nine across 35 1/3 frames. This is Granillo’s first career outright assignment, so he’ll need to report to Toledo.