Flaherty Will Return to Tigers in 2026 + New Potential Targets Emerge for Detroit

Flaherty Will Return to Tigers in 2026 + New Potential Targets Emerge for Detroit

Jack Flity has decided to return to the Detroit Tigers in 2026. We’ll talk about that and other news around the league all today on Locked On Tigers. You are Locked On Tigers, your daily Detroit Tigers podcast, part of the Locked On Network, your team every day. What is up everybody? Welcome back to another edition of Locked On Tigers. I’m of course your host, Scott Bentley. Today is Wednesday, November 5th, 2025. Thank you so much for making Locked On Tigers your first listen every single day. We are free and available wherever you get your podcasts, including YouTube, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every single day. Today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. And if your bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. So download the app today. Welcome in everybody. Welcome all. Happy Wednesday here. Halfway point in the week. We got some news to go over in Tigers land. We also have some legitimate news around the league and we’ll kind of talk about if the Tigers if maybe it affects the Detroit Tigers or what they want to do, what their plan of attack is for the off season. Um I So right now on my show sheet, if you’re watching on YouTube here, I have offseason day two. I I I didn’t intend on counting every single day of the off seasonason, but now I kind of want to. So, we’ll see what happens. I might just bail on that because it’s stupid. But like, it was just funny. I was like, “Oh, I guess I’ll just leave this at the top.” Whatever. In day two of officially day two, I you know, the Tigers have obviously been on the off season for multiple weeks now. In the Tigers organization, we have two pieces of news. One pretty big news. One not very big news at all. We’ll start with the latter. Randy Donneck club option was declined, was not exercised. This is not surprising whatsoever. Uh he did not play a major league game for the Detroit Tigers. There is not a lot of swing and miss in his bat. He will be 31 years old next year. Um, and look, like I I say all these things, if they like him and they like what they saw in Toledo, that doesn’t mean that they can’t just offer him a minor league contract. But his player or his club option rather was $6 million. Like that was just never going to happen. He he was never going to make $6 million in the 2026 season. So, um, we’ll see if the Tigers liked what they saw. Maybe they again negotiate a minor league deal to bring him back. If they don’t, then I’m sure he’ll get a minor league deal somewhere else. I have a hard time believing that that is just the end of his career. So, we’ll see what happens, but not surprising whatsoever. Still have not heard any updates on Paul Seawald, which is, I believe, a mutual option. So, both parties would have to opt into that. It’s like 10 mil. I can’t imagine the Tigers do that. And Joseé Arkiti, which is only 4 mil and a club option. That one a little bit more feasible and I think could actually be on the table for the 2026 Detroit Tigers. The big piece of news, however, was Jack Flity has made his decision, made it on Tuesday afternoon, was actually I correct me if I’m wrong, I believe, first reported by Jeff Passen actually, uh, which we have phenomenal beat writers that always do a great job. We don’t have too many pieces of Tigers news that are broken by national media before before our great local beatw writers just because they’re obviously the the experts on the subject. And so usually it’s, you know, Pzled or Steven Hagen or or somebody reports it and then the national media picks it up. You don’t see Jeff Passin breaking Tigers news too terribly often, but he announced that Jack Flity would in fact return in 2026. He will not opt out despite having a player option and he will make $20 million in the 2026 campaign and barring a contract extension from now until then. He will then be a free agent next winter with also obviously a winter that has a lot of um turmoil surrounding it with the CBA ending and all of that. I thought he was going to decline it. Uh I I really did and we’ve been talking about that for multiple weeks now. Um, but when we had these conversations, like we’ve been preparing for either, right, on the show, uh, just kind of with the outlook of what the 2026 pitching staff could be. He could opt in, he could opt out. I really could have gone either way with it. I I think the conversation we had earlier in the week about the qualifying offer is somewhat of a factor here. the Tigers again can just tell him like we’re not going to offer you a qualifying offer if you decline the player option. So like we’re not just going to give you a $2 million raise for for no reason. Um a and on top of that then if they offer him the qualifying offer like then his his free agent um market if you will is impacted right so that obviously like he can get a $2 million raise I guess but he’s almost certainly with a QO attached to him and given what that means for any team that would sign him um I I I can’t imagine he would get a a multi-year like a big multi-year deal that he’s seeking. So, I I think all of those things are are probably pieces of this decision that Jack Flity made on Tuesday afternoon. Um, the reason I thought he was going to opt out was because I thought he was going to prioritize a multi-year deal. Um, but he also didn’t have that great of a season erra wise, right? Like we talk all the time about how his strikeout numbers were still good. Um, but the fast ball continues to be inconsistent as it’s been for a majority of his career and his ERA was uh like over four and a half when it was all said and done. Now, he did better down the stretch and he was pretty darn good in the postseason, I would say, but obviously that matters. Obviously, the large sample size matters. Uh there’s also a lot of analytics, advanced analytics that indicate that his ERA should have been much lower than it was. So like all of these are factors. All there there’s so many things to consider, right? Oh, like maybe other teams are going to bank on me bouncing back because all all my advanced numbers say that I should have had a much better year than I did. or maybe I just didn’t have as good of a year as I wanted. And that’s all that there really is to it. And especially when he’s seeking a multi-year deal. I I I think uh ultimately this this is probably the path of least resistance, if you will. Um he’s still pretty young as well. This gives him a chance to see if he can return to 2024 numbers in production uh which were fantastic for him and he can make $20 million in one season in the meantime and then enter the market next winter and still be what 30 31 years old and uh and can maybe get a two three even fouryear deal at that point. But uh again like this this is not the most shocking thing in the world. It’s not super surprising. Um, but it is the opposite of what I thought was going to happen. Um, splitting hairs very much so. Splitting hairs. But, uh, as I say all the time, I’m wrong all the time and will continue to be wrong plenty in my life. Is that too dramatic? Let’s talk about the rotation. Uh, we we’ll we’ll talk about what the 2026 Detroit Tigers rotation now offers. And then we’ll take a look around the league at some other big decision and decisions and news that came out on Tuesday. We will do that right after this. First though, got to talk to you about our friends over at Prize Pick. 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All right, everybody. Welcome back here. segment two, locked on tigers. Appreciate you all for tuning in as always, making us your first listen every single day. Shout out to the everydayers that do tune in every day. And we of course will be back tomorrow with a Thursday show. It’s probably going to look a lot similar to today at some point when the news dies again, and it will. Um, we will get back to our our player review. Um, but we have Whoa, I just like punted my desk. Sorry if the camera shook. Um, but we have plenty we have all off seasonason to go over those and kind of recap the year that was. Uh, I I and this week there are deadlines, right? Thursday I I I mentioned tomorrow, right? November 6th is a big deadline day with a lot of stuff. So, I’m sure there will be plenty of news and notes to go over. Maybe that actually impacts Friday’s show more because I’ll be recording on Thursday. Either way, we’ll be back. Okay. Still at five days a week. I want to talk about the 2026 rotation after this Jack Flity news. Uh this is going to sound mighty familiar, but at full health, this is the rotation we can expect, I think, in if the season started tomorrow. That is uh Trick Scooel obviously still the ace of this team until uh proven otherwise whether that’s you know production falls off which I can’t imagine or he obviously is not on the Detroit Tigers but for now he is. So he is very much the ace of this team. Reese Souls I have as the two, Jack Flity I have as the three, Casey Mai as the four and rookie Troy Melton at the five. That is not a bad rotation. That really like at all. You have one of the best pitchers on the planet at the top. Then you have Olsen Flity M which I I think all three at full health uh have all-star potential. And then you have Troy Melton who is a rookie that showed flashes of being a legitimate down the road, not immediately, but a potential frontline option here at some point in his career. So, I I mean I I think that’s a that’s a wonderful starting point for a rotation. I think that puts you in the top half of the American League. Um probably in the top half uh well, if you’re in the top half of the American League, you’d hope you were in the top half of Major League Baseball. Uh, but that probably puts you somewhere in that top 8 to 12 rotations in baseball range. Um, again, assuming health of especially the guys at the top, they’re going to give you the most innings there. The the worry I have is with that decision that this is going to cause the Tigers front office to not prioritize bringing in a starting pitcher. And I just couldn’t disagree with that more, even given how that rotation looks. Again, it’s a great starting point, a phenomenal starting point. Olsen has an injury history. He literally has not pitched a full major league season. He’s been on the major league roster for three years. Jack Flity has a a long injury history and is on a one-year deal. Mice has a long injury history. Melton is a rookie that is not going to throw more than probably 120 innings at most. And Terrick Scooel, as great as he is, has a year left. So, honestly, I wouldn’t even be mad if they went out and got another legitimate top of the rotation and broke the bank on a bigname pitcher. And and if that bumps Melton out of the rotation on opening day and maybe he starts as like the ace in Toledo, then so be it. And some people roll their eyes and are like, why would you ever do that? He will get called up. Someone will get hurt. Again, the Detroit Tigers used 15 almost I think it was 14 different starting pitchers in the 2025 season. And I just mentioned that nearly all of them currently in the rotation have a long injury history in their career. He will get chances just because he pitches like even like April in Toledo, he can still pitch what is that 25 starts at the major league level next year if somebody goes down. Depth with pitching is a good thing. You do not want to rely on bullpen games. That’s not the goal. Even though the Tigers have had to do that two years in a row now. So, I would love for the Detroit Tigers to go out and get another starting pitcher. And to be honest with you, I wouldn’t even be mad if they went out and got two starting pitchers. uh one topend guy, high-end multi-year deal, by the way, because Flare and Scooble are both potentially gone after 2026 now. So, you go out, you get a high top end of the rotation guy, you break the bank a little bit, um or you make a big trade, right? If there’s nobody in the free agent market that maybe you like in that regard, now you have somebody with high end of the rotation talent under contract beyond the 2026 season, which right now you technically do not. I think that that would go a long way. And then if you want to add another back end of the rotation guy or even like a reclamation project, that’s where you know like we we’ve become used to the this front office and Scott Harris doing like the oh like this guy you know wasn’t very good, maybe we can fix him or oh this guy is injured, maybe we can start him off in the minors then have him pitch throughout the year. That would be the opportunity for the starting pitcher number two would be a guy of that caliber. But that only is is justifiable as the the the starting a starting pitching addition to this team if you also go out and get a top end guy on top of it. That’s all. But a great foundation truly. I don’t want that to get lost in my my, you know, complaining and moaning here. Like that that that five going into 2026 is a fantastic foundation. It’s just you’re not going to go through all of next year with only five starting pitchers. So, might as well get some depth and some more help in that regard as well. Um, other news from around the league. Shota Ianaga set to be a free agent. This one is one of the first real genuine surprises that I have had. Uh, he had a sub4 RA this year, a sub one whip this season, and the opt out or what his salary would have been had he not opted out um wouldn’t have been that ridiculous. So, uh, I mean, immediately this is a guy that jumps out the pages as me at me just because he doesn’t walk anyone and I really wanted him when he was a free agent when he, you know, first got posted from the NPB in uh, the 2024 off seasonason. Um, he’s a lefty. He doesn’t throw very hard, but he does not walk anyone ever. Um, he had a stellar 2024, which obviously was his first season in Major League Baseball. had a 291 ERA. Um, obviously, as I’ve already said multiple times, really low walk numbers, um, but also had well above league average strikeout numbers despite topping out at like 92 miles an hour. And this year, the numbers obviously jumped up big time. He’s still a sub4 RA, but when you’re talking about a year removed from a sub3 ERA, that’s still noteworthy. But the biggest cause for concern and the biggest thing when I kind of looked at it, I was like, “Oh, that’s a surprise.” And look at it, I’m like, “Yeah, I can kind of see, you know, I I it still takes a little bit of guts to do to to, you know, not bring him back, but I can maybe kind of see a little bit more.” So, where the Cubs were coming from is the velocity was already not very high and took a step back this year. Um, like I said, he was averaging just under 92 miles an hour on his fast ball in 2024. This year it was sub 911. It was about 90.8 miles an hour. And there were moments late in se well late in the season in like late August or September where you’re even talking about him sitting, you know, 89 90. So that on top of the fact that he came over from Japan when he was already 31 years old. He’s now 32 and he will turn 33 during next season, later half, but his birthday is in September. Um, I think that’s all probably enough concern to justify the Cubs going, you know what, we don’t want to commit maybe to next season or beyond for a guy that we’re not sure if he’s trending in the right direction at this point. Um, the Tigers could throw their hat in that ring. They they really could. Um the the one thing that I will and I wouldn’t even be mad about it. I will say that you have to be confident that you can get a little bit of that velocity back. He’s never going to be a flamethrower. Okay? Again, he’s 32 going on 33 years old. Like he he’s not going to start pumping 98 magically out of nowhere. He’s always going to be kind of the soft tossing lefty. That being said, there’s a big difference between a guy that is topping out at 9192 and 88.889. And we learned that firsthand with Kenttoaya over the last two seasons, right? So, um I I I think that there is a profile here that the Tigers will like. Obviously, the dominate the strike zone part of it. And he has proven only been here two years a RA over four. Like again, it’s not like this guy had a had a terrible season this year. the Achilles heel with him is if he’s not going to strike people out, which he didn’t do as much in 2025, he needs to induce more weak contact and he doesn’t get any ground balls. He is a flyball pitcher. Now, on the flip side of the flip side of the I don’t know how many times I’ve said that being said, um, Kica Park tends to be favorable to fly ball pitchers. Look, I would not break the bank on him. This is not like a guy that I need for four or five years. I think that there’s enough concern in there where you don’t I don’t need Imanaga on a long-term contract. That being said, if they want to give him a two-year deal with an opt out after one or or a club option, I don’t know why he would accept that, I guess, but some sort of option, you know, maybe it’s vesting with like amount of innings or performance-based even. I don’t know. Kind of just spitballing. Um, but if if you do, you know, a one or twoyear deal in that regard, I I I think that that could be something I could get behind. Now, I also want to make it clear a lot of points with this one, apparently that he is not the multi-year frontline starter that I alluded to earlier in the show. I think there’s enough question marks surrounding him where maybe if you think you can turn him into that, great. But I think you should probably still go out and get a frontline guy on a multi-year deal. And if you want Imanaga to be a part of that rotation in 2026, I I would not be opposed despite the step back this year. Just again, obviously, it all comes down to price tag. Not going to break the bank on him and years. I’m not going to sign him to a long-term deal. As you could say with just about any player, it comes down to to what the contract he’s going to ask is. So, and he declined a $16 million option to to be a free agent. So clearly he’s going to be asking for more than that a year. Okay. Got a few other small news and notes from around the league and from the Tigers organization. We will do that right after this. Going to talk to you about our friends over at FanDuel. The NBA is back and there’s no better place to get in on the action than FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. Even if you miss the start of the game or want to ride the hot hand, FanDuel has live bets on everything from who will score next to fourth quarter comebacks. Plus, you can even combine your live bets into a same game parlay for a shot at a bigger payout. It keeps the game exciting, especially when your team is making a late push. So, right now, FanDuel is giving new customers $300 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. So head to fanduel.com and sign up today to play your game with FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. All right, everybody. Welcome back. Your third and final segment locked on Tigers. Appreciate you all for tuning in. As always, some more news from the Tigers front office is Brad Colic, I believe is the pronunciation, no disrespect intended, obviously if if that’s incorrect. uh hired from the Washington Nationals to the Detroit Tigers front office. He is the new leader of international operations. Um obviously I I mean time will tell with this kind of stuff. there’s not really like metrics to, you know, back up that, but I I do the one thing I will say that is reassuring is the Tigers continue to try and get more of a footprint and be more impactful in the international side of things. Um they in the Scott Harris era, that is something that he deserves a ton of credit for, I think. Um, I mean, you see down in, you know, where the the complex leagues are, like those are obviously great, but then you look at, you know, like in in Venezuela and in Puerto Rico and their their stamp in the Dominican is so much greater than it was previously. The the facilities they have in those countries are fantastic. It is I I I really think that it is something that is worth praising and hopefully the fact that they still want to add more new faces to the international operation side of things um maybe kind of indicates that they still want to grow and improve even more. So, I don’t know. Maybe I’m just completely looking way too much into something that’s not that big of a deal. But there you go. Another new addition to the Tigers front office. Uh TKO named a finalist for the American League. Sai Young. We talked about that briefly yesterday. Again, he should win and probably win unanimously. No surprise that he’s there. There were no other Tigers nominated for any of the big awards. there was some chance I think that AJ Hinch maybe would have been in the fold for manager of the year, but I also think with the collapse that’s probably not something that uh the writers were exactly eager to throw on the ballot. If uh if the Tigers maintained the pace they were on through the first 100 games, then I would say not only would have he would he have been nominated, he probably would have won it. Um, but I think the collapse obviously changes the optics of what this season was. Um, the only other thing with TK I want to bring up is just that every single mock trade makes me want to stab my eye with a fork. I I’m I’m so tired of it. It’s It’s the start of November, man. And I’m already I I want to scream. It’s It’s just It’s just the worst. It’s just the worst. every single franchise just offering like their fourth outfielder and and like players they don’t want for one of the best pitchers on the planet. I I just I’m over it. I’m over it. And I can’t be over it because it’s only going to get worse as we get closer to uh to winter meetings. So, buckle up. Other news and notes from around the league. Uh Trevor Story picked up his option for well the he didn’t opt out I should say uh for the Boston Red Sox and the 2026 campaign. I believe his optin means that he will have two years remaining in Boston at least under contract for two more years. Not super surprising. However, he did finally put together like a stretch of healthy baseball in Boston, which he really had yet to do prior to this year. And uh he was not bad. Like he he was really good defensively still. Obviously, the offense is probably never going to go back to what it was in Colorado, but um I I mean, if he can be a serviceable, again, good defender, serviceable enough hitter, I I I think that’s probably not the worst thing in the world. even though it’s it’s going to probably be an objective uh overpay for those last two years, but I I don’t think that’s like a crippling decision for Boston. Uh Frankie Monttos also not opting out. He will be a New York Met next season. Not surprising. Had a rough year, has had some injury stuff over the last couple of years as well. And then in the least surprising news of the entire off season, it will not be beat either. This is like a a guaranteed slam dunk. The least surprising news of the off season. Luis Robert Jr. will be back. His club option picked up by the Chicago White Socks. That continues to be well I don’t know. I guess when it was signed it was like oh my goodness that could be one of the most team friendly deals like in the history of baseball. While it still is very team friendly and there are probably 29 other teams that would pay him what the White Sox will pay him this upcoming season. His last two years he has taken a monumental step backwards and like part of that I’m sure is just being surrounded by all the awfulness that the Chicago White Socks has have like exuded over the last like 20 months. but he has taken a step back and certainly was not as productive as people thought maybe he was going to be, you know, in 2020 or 2021. So, um, we’ll see what happens. I still think he’s a trade candidate. I still think the White Socks should trade him, but I also think that like this is really a team a super teamfriendly deal that’s still on the table for years. And if he does figure it out offensively, he’s still young enough where you can, you know, build around him still. So, um, we’ll see what happens there. But yes, the the least dramatic decision of the offseason by far. I think that’s all I got. Thanks for making Lockdown Tigers your first listen every single day. Shout out to the everydayers that do tune in every day and we will of course be back tomorrow. Peace and love. Going to therapy is dope. I’ll catch y’all then, baby. Go Tigers.

Today we discuss Jack Flaherty’s choice to return to the Detroit Tigers rotation in 2026. We also talk about Shota Imanaga, and other news around the MLB Offseason.

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