{"id":514179,"date":"2026-01-11T00:17:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T00:17:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/514179\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T00:17:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T00:17:15","slug":"tigers-talking-to-former-blue-jays-red-sox-free-agent-righty-starters-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/514179\/","title":{"rendered":"Tigers talking to former Blue Jays, Red Sox free agent righty starters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tigers talking to former Blue Jays, Red Sox free agent righty starters<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Detroit Tigers<\/a> are not the most active team in free agency this winter, but they’ve added a few quality pitchers and are looking to continue such a trend.<\/p>\n

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But, after adding Kyle Finnegan and Kenley Jansen from free agency to the bullpen, the Tigers are now scouring the starting pitching market for rotation upgrades.<\/p>\n

According to Ken Rosenthal and Will Sammon of The Athletic<\/a>, the Tigers are reportedly talking to two veteran pitchers formerly with the Boston Red Sox<\/a> and the Toronto Blue Jays<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tigers linked to former Blue Jays, Red Sox starters<\/p>\n

“The Detroit Tigers continue to explore the starting-pitching market,” Rosenthal and Sammon write, “talking to free-agent right-handers Lucas Giolito and Chris Bassitt, among others, according to a person briefed on their conversations.”<\/p>\n

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Neither Chris Bassitt nor Lucas Giolito is at the top of the market, but compared to Framber Valdez and Ranger Suarez, they will be significantly cheaper.<\/p>\n

Bassitt is a 36-year-old starter who is coming off a solid season with the Blue Jays. he had a 3.96 ERA in 31 starts, posting 2.1 bWAR for a World Series Blue Jays roster.<\/p>\n

And in the postseason, Bassitt pitched in seven games as a reliever, finishing with a 1.04 ERA across 8.2 innings pitched.<\/p>\n

More:\u00a0Tigers urged to sign 1 or 2 future Hall of Famers for Detroit reunion<\/a><\/p>\n

Giolito is a bit younger, only 31 years old, but after some late-season elbow soreness, there’s some concern about his ability this upcoming season.<\/p>\n

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But if the right-hander can reach the heights he pitched at for the Red Sox last season, he’d be a nice pickup. Across 26 starts for the Red Sox, Giolito had a 3.41 ERA.<\/p>\n

He went 10-4 with a 2.1 bWAR on the year, posting his best season with one team since 2021. After missing all of 2024 due to injury, his 2025 season was a showcase that he still has the potential to be a quality starting pitcher in the Majors.<\/p>\n

Detroit is showing interest in both Bassitt and Giolito this winter, reportedly talking to both as they explore more starting rotation upgrades this offseason.<\/p>\n

More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tigers talking to former Blue Jays, Red Sox free agent righty starters originally appeared on The Sporting News.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2378],"tags":[5,377,2554,48,82,53,79,4748,132,102,585,4,90,9441,282,70,2553],"class_list":{"0":"post-514179","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto-blue-jays","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-blue-jays","10":"tag-bluejays","11":"tag-boston-red-sox","12":"tag-chris-bassitt","13":"tag-detroit-tigers","14":"tag-framber-valdez","15":"tag-ken-rosenthal","16":"tag-kenley-jansen","17":"tag-kyle-finnegan","18":"tag-lucas-giolito","19":"tag-mlb","20":"tag-ranger-suarez","21":"tag-starting-pitching","22":"tag-toronto","23":"tag-toronto-blue-jays","24":"tag-torontobluejays"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115873594957572587","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}