{"id":643961,"date":"2026-03-26T05:36:03","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T05:36:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/643961\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T05:36:03","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T05:36:03","slug":"tigers-surprisingly-dfa-intriguing-young-reliever-in-final-roster-cutdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/643961\/","title":{"rendered":"Tigers Surprisingly DFA Intriguing Young Reliever in Final Roster Cutdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Detroit Tigers are going to be kicking off their season on Thursday afternoon<\/a> against the San Diego Padres, and fans are extremely excited for things to get going.<\/p>\n

Detroit made massive headlines on Tuesday when they announced that top prospect<\/a> Kevin McGonigle had made the Opening Day roster coming<\/a> off a very impressive spring. Despite hit lack of experience in the minor leagues, the team decided he gives them the best chance to win.<\/p>\n

As is always the case in bringing up a new name though, someone had to be removed from the 40-man roster, and the Tigers decided 25-year-old right-hander Dylan Smith was the <\/a>one on the chopping block.<\/p>\n

He is going to either be traded or placed on waivers sometime this week by Detroit<\/p>\n

Smith Has Done Some Impressive Things for Tigers\"Detroit<\/p>\n

Detroit Tigers pitcher Dylan Smith | Junfu Han \/ USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images<\/p>\n

While making his big league debut<\/a>, Smith made seven appearances for Detroit after being called up in May of 2025, pitching to a 1.38 ERA after allowing six hits and two runs in 13 innings pitched. He missed a significant chunk of the season on the minor league injured list, but the numbers were solid.<\/p>\n

Across 30 appearances mostly in Double-A and Triple-A, he had a 2.27 ERA and 0.983 WHIP with 57 strikeouts and 17 walks in 39.2 innings. Overall in the minor leagues, Smith has posted a 3.92 ERA and fanned more than a quarter of his opponents over 222.2 innings pitched.<\/p>\n

He has struggled a bit with command, but it’s more likely than not that someone will try to trade for the youngster.<\/p>\n

Tigers Will Likely Trade Smith Away This Week\"Detroit<\/p>\n

Detroit Tigers pitcher Dylan Smith | Junfu Han \/ USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Seeing Detroit not be able to find a spot for a guy with solid numbers over 13 minor league innings is a little bit of a disappointment, but ultimately these 40-man roster spots are tough to come by. The former third round selection likely could have a place in a Major League bullpen, but while he has been solid in the minor leagues, his production has not screamed must keep.<\/p>\n

Smith will likely wind up in a deal to a bullpen desperate team for cash considerations as has been the case so many times before. The Tigers should be able to find a suitor, and perhaps they could get a minor leaguer back in return if multiple teams go after the right-hander.<\/p>\n

Regardless, the roster is complete and Detroit is ready to get the season underway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Detroit Tigers are going to be kicking off their season on Thursday afternoon against the San Diego…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2386],"tags":[5,147,53,2583,4,594],"class_list":{"0":"post-643961","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-tigers","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-detroit","10":"tag-detroit-tigers","11":"tag-detroittigers","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-tigers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116293861075213519","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643961","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=643961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}