Bullpen Overhaul: Detroit Tigers & Jeff Greenberg COMMIT To ENHANCE Pitching This Offseason

Bullpen Overhaul: Detroit Tigers & Jeff Greenberg COMMIT To ENHANCE Pitching This Offseason

Jeff Greenberg says the Detroit Tigers will prioritize pitching this winter. Let’s talk about it all today on Locked on Tigers. You are Locked on Tigers, your daily Detroit Tigers podcast, part of the Locked On podcast 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 Friday, November 14th, 2025. Thank you so much for making Lockdown 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 Friday. Hopefully, we can send you off into the weekend here with a good show. Going to talk about a few things today. Uh we’ll kind of piggyback off of the conversation yesterday about greatest Tigers pitcher of all time at the end. Um also want to talk about Trey Sweeney and just kind of his role on the team this year. We’ll do his player re player review and uh and talk about what his role could be in the organization in 2026. We have a Tuesday deadline that’s a very very big one in the offseason. We’ll discuss as well. But I want to start off which with what I believe is the biggest talking point to come out of Thursday. And that is that Jeff Greenberg spoke a little bit at the end of GM meetings and talked about the priority of starting pitching this off season. Uh Scott Boris also continued to to speak more in weird riddles and whatnot. Um, essentially Scott Boris said TK school was willing to sign. Great, dude. That that’s awesome. That that means absolutely nothing to me. He can say that publicly and then just ask for $500 million behind closed doors. Like that I I don’t care about quotes. This is all just part of the game. Okay. Scooble says he wants to be in Detroit for a long time. I believe him. I also believe that that’s only half of that sentence. I I believe that it’s I want to stay in Detroit for a long time assuming they pay me what I am worth. Now I what he is worth in my eyes like he he has earned that just won backtoback Sai Young’s has been pretty objectively the best pitcher in the American League for two and a half years now. Jeff Greenberg mentioned a few different things. I think in regards to his comments on TKO, it was more about what he didn’t address um was asked about teams, you know, calling the Tigers in regards to TKO’s trade availability and whatnot. And he gave the same answer that Scott Harris gave. And for those who don’t know, Jeff Greenberg, the general manager of the Detroit Tigers. However, Scott Harris is the president of baseball operations, and he is the top dog, metaphorically speaking, in our front office. Um, but Jeff Greenberg, very much his right-hand man, kind of has his hands in everything. um gave the same answer that Harris gave at the end of season media availability uh with Harris and Hinch and that was I’m not going to talk about or comment on what other teams have offered or what other teams have called us about because that’s not and like that’s like he’s professional like I guess that’s somewhat fair. It’s just it’s the same like obviously teams are calling about scuba. I I don’t know. I I am not a front office personnel like member. Okay. I I’m maybe I’m underthinking this, but like what hurt is it going to be to be like yeah like some people are obviously calling about the best pitcher in baseball that we haven’t extended yet. Like that feels fairly obvious. It’s being like oh we have no comment. Okay cool. I whatever the biggest quote to come out of it was the fact that Greenberg said he well that the Tigers rather were going to prioritize pitching this off season. I do find the optics a and there is more nuance to this conversation than just well you have the best pitcher in baseball and like so you should maybe extend him because you why are you saying you want pitching? I I understand I and just optically it is it made me giggle that’s all. It just made me kind of, you know, teehei he he a little bit like ju we’re we’re in the process of talking about arguably the greatest pitcher breathing air right now and then you’re going to turn around and immediately be like, “Well, we’re going to prioritize pitching.” Um, that’s all I That being said, I actually do agree that pitching should be a priority. Again, way more nuance to it than that. It just made me laugh. They need to sh up the rotation, and that’s something I’ve talked about a couple of times already this off season. Um, but far more importantly, I I would even say, than the rotation, cuz like if the season started tomorrow, you would have five bodies plus, you know, Sir Gibson, Kater Montero, like you could probably piece your way through a season with the starting pitchers you have right now. Now, uh, you shouldn’t. Please don’t do that. Please go sign I I I said this uh what about a week ago, maybe a little bit longer. I am hoping the Detroit Tigers sign multiple starting pitchers. That is my wish list. Okay? So, I’m not advocating for them to not. I’m just saying you could have a starting rotation of five guys after Flity uh, you know, picked up the player option for 2026. The bullpen is a massive necessity. If the season started tomorrow and they walked in with the bullpen they have right now, I would be furious. And Greenberg, to his credit, in the front office’s credit, said the same thing. Uh that I I believe the word was certainly before stating that he needed to address, you know, they certainly need to address the bullpen. and we’ve talked about that plenty as well. I think to put a bow on these comments so we can move on to to segment two here. I also just hope that this doesn’t mean they aren’t going to address the offense in any like serious capacity because while I I do agree that they they need to sign a handful of pitchers this winter and that I don’t need an entire new offense, there is also I think still one or two holes and there’s still one or two holes like you you should still you should still address those and still fill those needs. So they’re just comments. We are at the point in the off season in mid November here where we are just hyper and overanalyzing everything. Okay, I take this all with a grain of salt. we can move on to bigger and better things. I just found the comments noteworthy enough to bring up and wanted to at least point out A, I agree. B, you have the best pitcher in baseball. C, still sign bats. Cool. Now that we covered all those bases, pun intended, we will move on to the Tuesday deadline that marks an very important date in the Tigers off seasonason. We’ll talk about that right after this. First though, got to talk to you about our friends over at FanDuel. The NBA is back, and there’s no better place to get in on all of the action than FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. Even if you miss the start of a game or you 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 every 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. Head to fanduel.com and sign up today and play your game with FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. All right, everybody. Welcome back here segment two of Lockdown 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 will of course be back on Monday as we prepare you for rule five protection deadline, qualifying offer deadline, etc. That all come at the beginning of next week and at the end non-tender deadline on Friday of next week. So, thank you for tuning in and making Locked On the number one sports podcast network. In segment one, we talked a little bit about TKO and Scott Boris. We talked about Jeff Greenberg’s comments at the end of GM meetings. I want to talk about the next stage in the off season. Now, we’ve moved on from GM meetings. Winter meetings now loom. Those take place a couple weeks into December, but next week is a very pivotal part of the MLB off season. Tuesday, that’s the 18th, I believe. Man, it’s so weird not having my calendar in this room anymore because it was at my old place. But I believe that’s the 18th. It’s Tuesday regardless. just ignore the day maybe and just this upcoming most the the the most recent No, that’s like past tense. The the upcoming Tuesday. Sure. You have the qualifying offer deadline for players to accept or decline said qualifying offer. Um so Glaver Torres, we’ve obviously talked a lot about that already this off seasonason. we will continue, I’m sure, to talk about at the beginning of next week. Um, but he has just a few more days, less than a week to decide on his QO from the Detroit Tigers. We’ve talked about it on here. He’s even like his agent and camp have even admitted like this is very much contingent on whether there is a market for Glaver Torres in the multi-year contract facet if you will this winter. So, we’ll see what happens in regards to that. Just keep an eye out for that. Usually, people wait until like the last possible second to put publicly whether they’ve accepted or declined, but we’ll see what happens throughout the weekend. They also, they being the Tigers, have until Tuesday to protect players from the rule five draft. So on Monday or Tuesday, most likely Tuesday’s show that I’ll record on Monday, we will have an entire show dedicated to the rule five protection deadline. Um, as we do every year for those longtime listeners, that’s always the day of that deadline. We have an entire episode dedicated and kind of dissecting who is eligible, who could get protected, who is not going to be protected, who definitely will get protected, etc. Um, I I think over the last couple of years, there’s been because we’ve still kind of been filtering out some of the the lingering players from the uncompetitive Tigers era, we can call it, um, over the last like three or four years, whenever we get to this this deadline. There’s certainly still plenty of players that the Tigers can remove from the 40man. We’ll actually talk about that here in a few minutes. Um, but I feel like there’s not like there there was one off seasonason, was it last winter or two winters ago, where the Tigers protected five people from the rule five draft and that’s adding five people to the 40man that have never played a Major League Baseball game all at once. Um, this year I don’t think it’ll be that dramatic, but I still think there is I think anywhere from two to four players that we will probably be discussing. Um, how you is is a big name. Thyron Loronzo, a big name. There there’s a couple of guys that are eligible that I think will be added still. So, that’s a big date in the offseason. Um, next Friday, as I already mentioned too and kind of alluded to, is the non-tender deadline. So, anybody who is pre-ARB or ARB eligible has to be tendered, has to be basically the equivalent of signed a one-year contract uh by the organization by then, or else they then become free agents. So after next week, that’s kind of the kickstarter, the non-tender deadline, um is kind of the the the fire being lit on the off season. Obviously, free agents are available now, but a lot of times after next week and after that deadline, um both of these deadlines rather um is is when you start seeing moves pick up a little bit more because 40man rosters are actually finally officially set. Now, obviously, next week we’ll talk about who could get added. That also leads a conversation of who could get removed. And I think that, as I mentioned, the Tigers still have plenty of opportunities and and plenty of players that they could pretty easily remove from their 40man roster. And I don’t think it would be that big of a deal. Obviously, you have Jack Little and Duke and Darnell who were both just claimed on waiverss themselves in the last like 10 days. So, you could just try to pass them through waivers and see if you can keep them in the organization, sending them to Triple A, but remove them from the 40man. You also have some other easy candidates. I think Drew Summers is probably a guy that I wouldn’t bet on making it through the winter. Uh Tanner Rainey, probably a similar conversation. Bay Horn, I actually liked what I saw from Bayy Horn. uh decent velocity from the left side this season. But that being said, I I think if push came to shove and there was somebody they needed to add, they probably would still not have too much of an issue putting Bailey Horn on waiverss. Uh, and then you have a I mean a handful of guys on the offensive side of the ball that I think they would rather hold on to, but again, push come to shove. You’re adding a couple of like big bats than and you need to clear up some space. Um, I I think Jace Young still has options left. Doesn’t have to, but is is maybe in that conversation. Andy Abanz kind of just flies by year to year based on his previous season production. Um, Trey Sweeney, who we’ll talk about a little bit more in a second, uh, very intentionally. I mean, even like he had a great year, but like even Jamai Jones, just because of like I mean, this is certainly the outlier of his career. Maybe the Tigers don’t think it’s replicable. I do think Jamai Jones makes it. I’m just throwing names out there. And then Justin Henry Malloy we talked about last week. Um, Dylan Smith hasn’t I mean, it just keeps getting hurt unfortunately. He’s certainly a candidate. uh Chase Lee even, right? Like I’m listing all these names. The all of these are varying degrees of like I I would be pretty surprised if if Mallaloy didn’t make it through the winter. Um but like all so all of Jamai Jones probably a similar conversation at this point. So varying degrees, but like all any of these guys could be removed from the 40man roster. Um, and then yeah, we’ll we’ll talk plenty about the non-tender deadline, arbitration projections. We’ll do all of that good stuff next week as well. Do want to talk about one player in particular on that list, and that is Trey Sweeney. We’re going to do his player review today, player breakdown, whatever the heck we’re calling it. um somewhat intentionally. I I think that there is a remote chance that he does not make it through next Friday on the 40man roster. I also think that it’s important to talk about it now because if he does make it through, there’s probably a a somewhat reasonable explanation for that decision. Now, this year was a really rough year for Trey Sweeney. Negative one fan graphs war, one of the lowest in all of baseball. He had 196. He had next to no power to go with it. The only thing offensively that you can really say he did somewhat efficiently and effectively is he walked a decent amount. Especially for a guy that pretty much didn’t hit anything actually in the strike zone. For him to still walk at an 8% clip, I think is actually really impressive. So he has that going for him. But he whiffed a lot. He struck out a lot. He did not hit the ball hard when he did make contact. And he graded very poorly defensively. Now, all of that being said, he’s a former first round pick. He does have a quick swing. He is a fast bat, and that is something that is prioritized and is rewarded in baseball. It leads to a slightly different type of hitter. When you look at the Jacob Wilson’s and the Louis Arise of the world, the guys that hit for next to no power but do not swing and miss ever. Those guys tend to have slow swings and and very very like those two guys specifically are the extremes. Those and then like Steven Quan is the third. like those three guys have pretty comfortably the the three slowest swings in terms of just literally miles an hour of the bat as you swing in all of baseball. And that’s why they don’t swing and miss much because their bat stays in the zone for longer than anybody else and stays on the plane rather that they want it to longer than everyone else because it takes them longest to swing. Then that’s they sacrifice power to do that. Trey Sweeney has a pretty fast swing. So, in theory, if you can get him to hit the ball relatively consistently, you might be able to unlock some power. We’ve seen that in Trey Sweeny’s minor league career. He has pretty solid power numbers. Unfortunately, that does no good when you don’t put the ball in play enough. You are not reaping those those rewards or those benefits. And that’s kind of the category that Trey Sweeney finds himself in at 25 years old now, will turn 26 next year. So, let’s talk about the decision that is looming. Uh, and it’s not I’m not trying to make it sound like it’s a big like Trey Sweeney is the only big it’s it’s one player. I think there’s actually a decent chance he makes it through the week. um would not be my first choice, but I we’ll talk about what is going to go into that decision with a player like Trey Sweeney right after this. All right, everybody. Welcome back here. Third and final segment of Lockdown Tigers. Appreciate you all for tuning in as always. So, um, talking about Trey Sweeney today, we we honestly like there’s not even too much else to break down in terms of, uh, his 2025 season. Like, didn’t really hit any pitch well. Just it it was a struggle. And I I I really do feel for him. Um, the reason why I don’t think it’s a slam dunk necessarily to non-tender him is because he still has multiple minor league options left. And again, this is not what I would do. This is what I think is going to happen. Okay, I want to clarify that. Um, I am not going to be extremely upset even despite the year he had if he’s a part of the Tigers organization next year. If he’s on the 40man roster, even if the Tigers still believe that they can tweak some things in his swing and that he can be something, the minor league options exist for that reason. And again, when looking at the rest of the 40man roster, there are plenty of players to choose from to remove from the 40man. If you still think that Trey Sweeney could be a solid Major League Baseball player, what is clear to me is that he is not a Major League Baseball player today. And that’s fine. Some people take longer to develop. Again, you have minor league options for a reason. So, if you want to keep him, I it it isn’t necessarily required to boot him from the 40 or to move him this winter. And for that reason, I actually think he’s going to stick around. What I do need is for the roster to get to a point where Trey Sweeney is not in a Detroit Tigers uniform on opening day. I’m fine if he’s on the 40. I do have an issue if he’s in Detroit. He should not be playing at the major league level to start off the 2026 season or else we have done nothing this winter. He played in 118 games in 2025 with those numbers I just relayed to you. That cannot happen again. It can’t unless his production turns around obviously. Barring barring a a a magnificent turnaround, which obviously we would all welcome, or a ton of injuries ahead of him, he cannot be playing over half the season or or over 110 games, 115 games at the major league level in 2026. It was an automatic out in the lineup and it was not good defense to be a pair with it. He he carved out a role just by being the only other guy besides Javi that could start at shortstop. That is just simply not enough to garner everyday playing time like he did in 2025 and 2026. So that’s kind of my piece. If it were up to me, I I mean again, there’s a lot more nuance to it. I think you probably have to I don’t know. I I I would not be against if he is non-endered. I’m not going to be upset either. Obviously, I I would welcome that. That probably is what I would do. I’m just laying it out there that if it doesn’t happen, don’t feel like it’s the end of the world. It’s it’s okay. And and there’s a little bit of logic and reasoning to that. Other news from around the league on Thursday. Really, the only other thing I want to bring up is just uh the players to coaches pipeline is is scorching hot at the present moment. Max Stassy is now the catching coach in LA for the Angels and Travis Janowski is now the first base coach for the Rangers. Both of those gentlemen 34 years old and played pro baseball in 2025, like just played games a few weeks ago. And so I ask you similar to when the Giants hired the manager of the Tennessee University of Tennessee and whether when I asked you then if that was going to be a trend. I ask you the same thing now. Is is players immediately retiring to become coaches going to be more popular in this new era of baseball? Because these guys played with all of the measurements and metrics and whatnot. And so it’s like, oh well, this guy clearly knows what we’re trying to do here, so let’s just hire him as a coach immediately. Jen Jenowski literally played over a hundred games in 2024 and played for three different major league teams in 2025. You have a front office that knows your skill set. They know what you’re good at and they know that you know what they are trying to do. Wow. a lot of they know you know what we know what they’re trying to you know you’re hiring someone that is bought in to the the culture and and to the the strategy the x’s and o’s that you are trying to implement. Now maybe this is an outlier. Maybe I’m just overthinking this and it’s like these two guys were just they did it at the same time and they’re because they were coach material and always have been and it’s just a complete coincidence and that that’s it’s just a thought I had so I thought I’d throw it back out there. Some great responses to the end of yesterday’s show when asking about Scoo’s perceived ranking among all-time starting pitchers. Got of course a handful of people that just said yes, he is. Got plenty of people that still say the cream of the crop is Verlander. Um, got a couple of people that said Jack Morris just because of the longevity factor along with being the ace of the team for so long and and he was such a big game pitcher right in the playoffs and in the World Series. some guys that I I didn’t bring up by name that were brought up a lot on the show. Uh Denny Mlan and Mickey Lich and certainly deserve to be in that conversation. I I think now is when you start to get into the conversation of peak versus longevity, right? And that’s kind of similar with with Verlander and Scooble, although Verlander’s Peak was still literally an MVP. So like maybe not a great example, but maybe it’s more like like Scooble verse Morris than it is Verlander. Verlander is kind of I don’t know in a league of his own. He had both and that’s what makes him a first ballot hall of famer. Um but like for instance I it’s hard to argue there has been a better two-year peak than Mlan. That’s a an MVP back-to-back Sai Young’s also is still to this day and may forever be the most recent 30game winner in baseball. And the fascinating thing about that is you know we always hear like oh like the game isn’t the same as it was back then or like you know like oh it’s hard to compare eras because of that. We need to remember that before Mlan did it it had not happened in 30 years. It wasn’t like Mlan was like he did that and it was like oh like you know that just happens sometimes whatever. It hadn’t happened since the early 30s before he did it. So like it it truly is just him kind of in a league of his own in that regard. That that is a plus a World Series ring in that two-year stretch and pitching three times in the World Series in ‘ 68. Pitched started three separate games. like that is that it’s hard to argue that there is a a better two-year peak from that. Um, you also have then Lich who didn’t have the peak like didn’t didn’t win a Sai Young certainly got plenty of Sai Young votes but didn’t you know win one wasn’t an MVP or anything like that but was an incredible number two that pitched so many innings for the Tigers over his what almost 15year Tigers tenure. And I mean, when you talk about biggest starts in Tigers history, there’s there there’s going to be some Morris ones thrown out there. There’s certainly going to be some Verlander ones thrown out there. Um, it’s really hard to argue that Lich, the third time he’s pitched in the World Series, pitches game seven of the 68 World Series against Bob Gibson, who’s also pitching for the third time. in Bob Gibson. What is widely considered to be one of the greatest individual pitching performances over the course of an entire World Series ever is Bob Gibson’s three starts in the 68 World Series. And Lich go Mlan pitched game six and won and got them to a game seven. Lich gets seven and outdles. Both of them pitch complete games because it was the 60s. But he outdles them. Only gives up one run in nine innings and the Tigers win the World Series. Verlander has everybody beat in terms of longevity. Also as the SA Youngs, also as the MVP. Very, very tough to argue anybody has a better resume than him. We already talked about Morris um doesn’t have the the Sai Youngs or the MVPs necessarily in terms of peak. Um never had like that incredible unreal low ERA season, but was a solid three erra guy that pitched in some really big games through a no hitter is in the Hall of Fame. And then I mean even going back further, Hal Newhauser, go look at Hal Newhauser’s 1945 stats, okay? It’s one of the greatest single seasons anyone has ever pitched in the history of Major League Baseball. Ultimately, there was plenty of people, and I agree with this, that just said, “Dude, it’s really hard to compare eras. I’m not even sure it’s possible.” You’re probably right. You’re probably right because Newer threw like 315 innings in 45 sub two erra though. Had like a 12 win season. It’s awesome. Go look it up. It’s your homework, if you will. And then obviously, again, you you argue peak versus longevity. Everybody has a different take on that. How blessed are we, man? I retweeted this the other day, but uh it was making the rounds. The Tigers have had seven Sai Young winners in franchise history, and that is in the top three. It’s tied, but in the top three or four most in the history of Major League Baseball. How lucky are we? Thanks for making lockdown. Tigers, your first listen every single day. Shout out to the every day that do tune in every day and we of course will be back on Monday. Peace and love going to Theres dope. I’ll catch you all then, baby. Go Tigers.

Detroit Tigers prioritize pitching as GM Jeff Greenberg outlines the club’s winter strategy. With Tarik Skubal coming off back-to-back Cy Young seasons, will Detroit secure their ace with a long-term extension or make bold roster moves? Intrigue builds around Scott Boras’s cryptic comments and Skubal’s future, while the front office eyes significant upgrades both on the mound and in the bullpen as free agency heats up.

Scott Bentley dissects the pivotal Rule 5 protection and non-tender deadlines, spotlighting Trey Sweeney’s uncertain role after a disappointing year. Key topics include the Tigers’ need for offensive reinforcements, upcoming qualifying offer decisions for Gleyber Torres, and historical comparisons for Detroit’s all-time greatest pitchers—Verlander, Morris, Lolich, McLain, and Newhouser. Can the Tigers’ front office balance long-term planning with immediate competitiveness before Winter Meetings begin?

00:00 Cy Young, Tigers Trade Speculation
06:24 Bullpen and Offense Needs
08:39 Tigers Deadline & FanDuel Promo
12:38 Tigers Offseason Roster Decisions
15:02 Roster Moves and Waiver Decisions
21:34 Trey Sweeney’s Future with Tigers
24:39 Retired Players Transitioning to Coaches
27:58 “Verlander vs. McLain: Unique Eras”
29:52 “1968 World Series Pitching Duel”

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