Detroit Tigers’ reliever Kyle Finnegan is officially done for the season, hitting the injured list with a groin strain. It’s a brutal end for a guy the Tigers signed to a two-year, $19 million deal last offseason, and honestly, for a team that desperately needed him to be a high-leverage arm. This whole thing feels like a punch to the gut for Detroit fans watching their bullpen just collapse.
How Detroit’s Bullpen Became a Total Disaster
Let’s be real, the Tigers’ brass, Scott Harris and Jeff Greenberg, knew they had a problem. Their relief corps was thin, relying way too much on Will Vest delivering a fourth straight excellent season. That’s a massive ask for anyone not named Mariano Rivera, right? They tried to reinforce the bullpen, but it went sideways in the worst way. The big issue? They haven’t developed much pitching internally, and their pro scouting side just bombed identifying free agent pitchers who were on an uptrend or who the coaching staff could actually fix up into reliable high-leverage help. Finnegan and Kenley Jansen were supposed to be the answer, the central part of their mitigation plan, and both of them just completely blew up in their faces. This Finnegan injury, coming on a Monday in late September, feels like a merciful conclusion to a season that was trending nowhere good for him anyway.
Finnegan’s Numbers Tell a Rough Story
When you zoom in on Finnegan, you start to see why he struggled so much this year. My gut tells me his work on a new slider messed with his splitter, which basically abandoned him for long stretches this season. That put all the pressure on his fastball, which is usually average at best, but this year it was even worse. The spike in walks clearly points to his command just being gone, but for most of the season, it felt like his actual stuff wasn’t nearly as good as it needed to be. Here’s the kicker, though: even coming into this year, his metrics never really screamed “elite high-leverage guy” for a team with a good bullpen. He saved a bunch of games for the Washington Nationals from 2023-2025, sure, but over 190 innings in those three years, he posted a 3.65 ERA and a 4.03 FIP. That’s, frankly, pedestrian middle relief work. The Nationals just didn’t have much of a bullpen to begin with, so he looked better by comparison.
The Tigers are going to need Finnegan to not just get healthy, but to turn it around big time in the second year of his deal. If he doesn’t look ‘markedly better’ next spring, they’ll need that quick hook ready, because if they can’t protect leads, 2027 is just going to be a rerun of this year’s nightmare.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Bless You Boys.
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