Well, the day was bound to come. Pinch-hit specialist Jahmai Jones has struggled mightily all season long, and while the Detroit Tigers were more patient than most liked, he just hasn\u2019t been able to turn things around. Dillon Dingler\u2019s hand contusion isn\u2019t going to put him on the injured list, but it did precipitate a move to make sure the Tigers have the catching depth and another right-handed power bat on hand. As a result, catcher and first baseman Eduardo Valencia has been promoted from Triple-A Toledo to make his major league debut.<\/p>\n
Manager A.J Hinch told reporters on Thursday that his All-Star catcher was day-to-day, with hopes that he\u2019d be able to play in the Philadelphia Phillies series at Comerica Park this weekend. Dingler was clipped by a foul tip that struck his hand between the base of his right thumb and forefinger on Wednesday against the Athletics. The area swelled up on him, but x-rays revealed that there was no underlying damage. That will coax a sigh of relief out of Tigers fans as Dingler is currently playing like one of the top handful of players in baseball. Hopefully he can get right and pick up where he left off.<\/p>\n
As for Jones, well you can\u2019t say the Tigers weren\u2019t patient. For a veteran with a long track record, three months to try and get jump-started would be a fairly long leash but not unusual. For a limited player with one specific role and only a partial season\u2019s worth of success in the major leagues in his late 20\u2019s, the Tigers weren pretty generous here, but the issue has mainly been a lack of an obvious replacement. The club already promoted right-handed hitting outfielder Ben Malgeri to help carry some of the load in the outfield, and Dingler and Spencer Torkelson have been the designated destroyers of left-handed pitching instead over the past five weeks.<\/p>\n
Maybe Jones will catch on somewhere else for a brief look, but probably the best move for him is to just accept a Triple-A assignment with the Tigers and give himself some time to try and get it going at the plate again.<\/p>\n
The 26-year-old Valencia was added to the 40-man roster last fall to protect him from the Rule 5 draft. The right-handed hitter broke out in a big way last year, hitting 24 home runs between the Double-A Erie SeaWolves and the Triple-A Toledo Mud Hens in 2025. After years of injuries and stagnant development in the farm system, it all finally started to come together for him. He got out to a slow start this season, but heated up into May and June. He now holds a 122 wRC+ with 16 home runs, a 10 percent walk rate, and a solid 20.8 percent strikeout rate. Much of that production came in June where he posted a 1.078 OPS with five home runs, six doubles, and a declining strikeout rate on the month.<\/p>\n
The Venezuelan born Valencia has a balanced enough approach that he\u2019s pretty good against right-handed pitching, but he does thrive against lefties. He holds an .892 OPS against southpaws this season, with a strikeout rate below 20 percent. He\u2019s hit six home runs in 89 plate appearances, whereas he has 10 homers against right-handed pitching in 242 plate appearances.<\/p>\n
The slow playing of Valencia was likely as much about his defensive role as his bat. The Tigers continue to work hard with him on his defensive progression, while mixing him in at first base more and more to open up another possibility for him positionally. He\u2019s caught 47 games and played first base 23 times this season to date. That work was required before the Tigers were going to be comfortable with him in the field at the major league level. Valencia is decently capable behind the plate, but just doesn\u2019t have the advanced framing, blocking, and throwing the Tigers demand from their catchers at the major league level. Learning first base has been a challenge for him too, and right now he\u2019s mostly, like Jones, a bat without a home. However, he\u2019s a much better bet than Jones to actually do some damage and give the Tigers some consistent at-bats. At the same time he\u2019ll get to work with the major league staff on his defense and he has been improving at the first base position this spring.<\/p>\n
With Jones DFA\u2019d, however, it does mean that there\u2019s at least a temporary role available for Valencia here if he\u2019s productive at the plate. It\u2019s not necessarily a quick stay until the Tigers are sure Dingler is good to go. Congratulations to Eduardo Valencia on his major league debut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Well, the day was bound to come. Pinch-hit specialist Jahmai Jones has struggled mightily all season long, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":747544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,3536],"class_list":["post-747543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baseball","tag-baseball","tag-detroit-tigers-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116892248553038720","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747543","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=747543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/747544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=747543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=747543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=747543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}