Free agency looks like a tough market to shop in for hitters once again. So let’s look at alternate paths, starting with the A’s slugger.
It doesn’t take a long look at this offseason’s MLB free agent list to realize that making major upgrades in the Detroit Tigers ’ offense via free agents won’t be too easy. But they certainly need upgrades. Despite the flaws in the Tigers current positional group, they are young and it’s not unreasonable to hope for some gains as they move into their prime years, but they can’t depend on that alone in 2025.
With a starting payroll of around $83M entering the offseason, the Tigers have plenty of money available. That’s not so much the issue for them as the fact that the free agent class holds only a few impact bats that would really fit in Detroit, and more than likely they’d have to overpay quite a bit to land any of them. The Tigers should have plenty of spending power, but they understandably don’t want to get into really long-term deals, at least unless the fit on the roster and their long-term belief in the player are at a high level.
That leaves players like 3B Alex Bregman, SS Willy Adames, 1B Pete Alonso, OF Anthony Santander, OF Teoscar Hernandez, 1B Christian Walker, with a few other possibilities, as the best hitters that would suit the Tigers’ needs. They need right-handed power, and plenty of it. Ideally, upgrades would come in the infield where they’re weakest, but they may not have the luxury of finding the perfect positional fit while still boosting the offense significantly. The problem is that it’s not an inexhaustible supply of free agent hitters this offseason, and the competition for all of them could be pretty fierce.
At the same time, Tigers fans have every right to expect a serious effort to upgrade the offense. They’re a talented young team that just made the playoffs, they have a stacked farm system, and they start the offseason with one of the lowest starting payrolls in the game. Tigers fans have been pretty supportive considering they just spent a decade as one of, if not the worst, franchises in baseball. Failing to build up the offense, among other upgrades, would be a failure of an offseason for Scott Harris and Jeff Greenberg.
The path for the Tigers might have to be trading for position players, and using their spending power on pitching. They’re at a point in which quality is way more important than quantity of additions, so perhaps going big on someone like Blake Snell or even Corbin Burnes is the way to deploy capital. If they land the oft-mentioned Walker Buehler on a smaller scale deal, that could work too. It’s hard to argue with the Tigers pitching assessments too much, but if they’re not going to spend on free agent hitters, overpaying on short term deals to get the pitchers they want, rather than getting pushed aside by bigger market teams there too, makes a lot of sense.
Whatever they decide, it feels like finding a trade for a hitter is mandatory. They just don’t seem likely to compete for top free agent hitters. Maybe they’ll surprise us, but let’s kick off a series of Tigers trade target articles with perhaps the biggest bat available in trade; outfielder Brent Rooker of the A’s, formerly of Oakland.
Brent Rooker
The 30-year-old Athletics outfielder has a lot to recommend him as a Tigers trade target, but admittedly it’s not a perfect fit positionally. He’s into his first arbitration year as a member of the Athletics and won’t reach free agent until 2027.
The A’s don’t hold top players until free agency even under normal circumstances. Now they’re into an odd state of limbo in terms of a major league stadium, and will be moving to a minor league park in Sacramento for the next few season until finalizing a move and a new stadium in Las Vegas. Stocking up the farm system toward the point when they’re a full-fledged major league franchise again makes plenty of sense for President of Ops David Forst and minority owner Billy Beane.
Rooker is still relatively inexpensive for 2025. He’ll make $3.5M in 2025, but he’s certainly tracking toward a major increase in 2026. The A’s aren’t obligated to rush into a trade this offseason, and maybe they’re trying to put their best forward on the field next year, at least until the trade deadline, to help offset the bizarre circumstances. They may be content to hold an outrageously high price for Rooker right now, giving them a chance to play half the season before dealing him at the deadline for a similar haul. He may not be a realistic target, but the Tigers should certainly find out the current price.
The Tigers most glaring need is a right-handed power hitter who can balance out the lefty heavy regular lineup. Plug Rooker between Riley Greene and Kerry Carpenter, and you’re in a great place as an offense for the next two seasons. Rooker has emerged as one of the best right-handed hitters in the game over the past two years. After a late-stage breakout in 2023 as a 28-year-old, he launched 39 home runs and posted a monster 164 wRC+ for the A’s in 2024. It’s a familiar story for the A’s, who’ve longed specialized in unlocking the power potential in former prospects who never quite made it at the big league level until they landed in Oakland.
Throughout the postseason, Rooker shared his thoughts on hitting and different pitching matchups and made a pretty strong impression as a student of the game. He was also pretty high on the Tigers and paying them a good bit of attention during their seven game October run. I think Rooker would fit the clubhouse and the lineup really well.
He strikes out quite a bit, posting a 28.8 rate in 2024, but his walk rates have typically been above average, and his chase rate is slightly better than league average. He’s got pretty good discipline, it’s just that his approach is to take hacks and hit the ball really hard really often. Rooker does a lot of damage. He’s putting up 50 percent hard hit rates and smashing fastballs, breaking balls, and changeups all into the seats and to the walls with regularity.
Rooker also has the ability to crush good fastballs, which is a specialty the Tigers continue to lack. He posted a .434 wOBA on fastballs faster than 95 mph in 2024. That’s particularly valuable late in games when opponents start running out their top relievers and the fastballs are regularly coming in at 96 mph up to triple digits. The Tigers could use a hitter like that, and while Rooker isn’t a big base-stealing threat, he does fit A.J. Hinch’s program as a solid baserunner who takes the extra base and goes first to third fairly well.
Rooker’s fit with the current Tigers roster isn’t a simple one the way simply signing Alex Bregman or Christian Walker would plug a hole in an infield with several weak points. Rooker plugs a hole in the offense alone, and figuring out the playing time between he and Kerry Carpenter would be a little tricky. Ideally they’d both be in the designated hitter slot most nights, and that’s still against the rules.
Unfortunately, Rooker is a fairly poor defender in the outfield. And while Carpenter improved to close to average grades in right field, neither is a guy that the Tigers want out there full-time. Rooker was the designated hitter about a third of the time last year and that would probably double with the Tigers. Instead, Carpenter would play a lot of right field. While that’s optimal for the offense, and Carpenter is perfectly fine in right field, there is a need to keep him healthy and in the lineup for a full season. Whether playing in the field less is really going to do that is anyone’s guess.
The powerful counter-argument is that your RF/DH combo is now Kerry Carpenter and Brent Rooker and the offense should be rocking. If they each get 550 plate appearances next year and have off days where they get to be AJ Hinch’s weapon of choice off the bench, great. The Tigers offense would add a significant weapon and balance to their left-right splits, adding around 15-20 home runs per season over their current options. The outfield defense shouldn’t suffer much in the process.
How much would the Tigers have to give up?
Brent Rooker was worth 5.1 fWAR/5.6 rWAR for the 2024 season, 2.1 fWAR/2.2 rWAR in 2023. The Tigers would be expecting about 8 WAR from him over the 2025-2026 seasons, but would have to pay as though he’s likely to be worth more. The A’s can always hold out until July, so the Tigers will have to give up something that hurts a little.
The Tigers aren’t going to trade Jackson Jobe, Max Clark, or Kevin McGonigle. As Scott Harris’ second consecutive prep pick in the first round, probably he’d be unwilling to part with Bryce Rainer. Obviously, the Tigers would hate to give up Liranzo or Briceño either, particularly with their stock skyrocketing after dominating the Arizona Fall League. Putting together a deal without giving up one of those players might be tricky, but the farm system is good enough that they may be able to put together a strong package for the A’s without them.
The A’s do have a long history of going deeper into team’s farm systems and pulling players before they break out. Some, particularly A’s fans, will say that’s not enough. However, the A’s history says it wouldn’t be out of character if they found a deal that leveraged multiple good non-top 100 prospects and perhaps a major league player like Spencer Torkelson or Casey Mize to work with right now, rather than holding out for one of the Tigers top five or six prospects. For a 30-year-old DH with one really good year to his name, you can’t expect to land a huge prospect package, but at a minimum a prospect like Hao-Yu Lee, Jace Jung, or possibly Jaden Hamm would have to be offered.
Every one of these ideas pains me a bit to consider. As a long-time Tigers prospect writer, I really do believe that they’re in a great place in terms of the farm system. You can make a quality argument that they have eight top 100 prospects right now. Jobe, McGonigle, Clark, Liranzo, Briceño, Hamm, Rainer, and Lee. The last three are fairly debatable, but if they aren’t top 100, they’re very close to it. The point is that this is a heck of a strong crop of prospects coming the next two years. That also means they could comfortably part with one of these players to build a deal around and not miss a step.
It would hurt to trade away the wrong one, giving up a future star for two years of a good designated hitter. Scott Harris would have to show a little confidence in making a challenging higher level trade like these, but the farm system absolutely has the depth to make this level of trade and not miss a step. And if they’re going to steadfastly refuse to overpay for good free agents, a trade like this is probably a necessity if they want to do more than be in the conversation again in 2025.
You can certainly argue that the Tigers could land a comparable player to Rooker in free agency. Both Teoscar Hernandez and Anthony Santander would fill a similar niche. Santander in particular would be a nice get, adding a switch-hitter with power to the lineup. Neither is a very good outfielder, and Hernandez doesn’t have the arm to play right field, but offensively both would be good additions while avoiding trading prospects. They would probably be in the designated hitter slot a lot of the time anyway. In theory, spending on one of the two, and keeping your prospects then exempts the Tigers from needing to spend in free agency once the next wave of young talent starts to arrive in 2026-2027.
So, if the Tigers are willing to go out and pay market prices for Teoscar Hernandez or Anthony Santander, that would work just fine. Go do it.
The 30-year-old Santander is projected to get six years, $142M by the Athletic. Hernandez is estimated to earn three years, $75M at age 32. But if that’s too rich for their blood and they don’t want to compete for either of them, then they’re going to have to dip into their farm system. That’s the only other way to land the big bat this lineup needs to help carry them back to the postseason in 2025. Brent Rooker would certainly fit the bill as trade target that would really complete the Tigers 2025 lineup. And maybe, just maybe, the cost wouldn’t be prohibitive from the perspective of the front office.