Jason Benetti revealed during Sunday night\u2019s sign-off of Guardians-Mariners that this week\u2019s Sunday Night Baseball broadcast \u2014 Cardinals at Tigers on April 6 \u2014 will feature Brad Thompson and Andy Dirks.<\/p>\n
Benetti confirmed during the sign-off last night that next Sunday\u2019s analysts for St. Louis-Detroit will be Brad Thompson from the Cardinals and Andy Dirks from the Tigers.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Sym (@symmering) March 30, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n Bringing Dirks, who played for the Tigers from 2011-13, and Thompson, who pitched for the Cardinals from 2005-09, into the Sunday Night Baseball booth is a natural extension of NBC\u2019s local analyst model<\/a>, which puts analysts with direct ties to the teams playing that week alongside Benetti rather than a fixed national color commentator.<\/p>\n The format is one Benetti helped develop during Peacock\u2019s Sunday Leadoff package in 2022 and 2023, and when he recently explained<\/a> its appeal, he said the rotating analyst model reflects how many different personality types are drawn to baseball and how much richer the broadcast becomes when those personalities are actually represented.<\/p>\n This Sunday, Benetti will get to work with someone he already has a real relationship with, which the format doesn\u2019t always guarantee<\/a>. Scroll through our archives, and you\u2019ll see headlines about the duo of Benetti and Dirks pretending to be golf announcers<\/a>, or talking \u201cseamin<\/a>\u201d on the hands, hot mics<\/a>, White Lotus<\/a>, Coldplay<\/a>, and a host of other topics that are ancillary to the game, much to the dismay<\/a> of\u00a0Detroit radio host Pat Caputo.<\/p>\n And as you gear up for an NBC presentation that will essentially moonlight as a Tigers regional broadcast \u2014 plus Thompson \u2014 it\u2019s worth noting the game airs on NBCSN and Peacock, as NBC wraps up its regular-season Sunday Night Basketball coverage that week.<\/p>\n \t