Despite the fact that the Tigers have been without an everyday third baseman for a few seasons now and lost Alex Bregman to the Red Sox in free agency, they never seemed totally sold on Jace Jung, their No. 7 prospect this season who made his major league debut last year as part of Detroit’s wave of late call-ups.
Jung played in 34 games in 2024, batting .241 with a .666 OPS, but his place on the roster was never as assured as Trey Sweeney’s, who was called up alongside him last year and has gotten the majority of the starts at shortstop so far in 2025.
Jung was demoted to Triple-A during spring training after batting a paltry .121 with a .489 OPS in Lakeland. In the meantime, the Tigers have used a rotating carousel made up of Andy Ibáñez, Zach McKinstry, and Javy Báez at the hot corner.
However, the Tigers must feel like Jung has served his time and showed enough improvement in Toledo; on Monday, they recalled Jung to the majors and sent flailing Quad-A utilityman Ryan Kreidler back down.
Tigers option Ryan Kreidler, recall Jace Jung after stint in the minors to start the season
In 19 Triple-A games, Jung has batted .239 with a .872 OPS, five extra-base hits, three homers, and six RBI, and he’s walked almost as many times as he’s struck out. He’s notably regained some of the power that went missing when he was promoted to the majors last year. It’s anyone’s guess if that’ll stick around as he’s making the jump again, but the Tigers clearly feel better about it now than they did a month ago.
Kreidler was never going to be long for the major league roster, even though he ended up in the Opening Day starting lineup because of the multiple injuries suffered by better outfield options. Even though they’re still short on outfielders and Kerry Carpenter’s future is still up in the air after being removed from Sunday’s game with hamstring issues, the Tigers finally decided that they couldn’t deal with Kreidler’s .105 average and .295 OPS any longer.
With Jung up and Kreidler down, we’ll see McKinstry and Báez in the outfield for the start of the Tigers’ series against the Padres on Monday evening while Jung takes third base. While the former two aren’t ideal replacements to occupy the grass, it’s nice to see that Jung’s getting a shot again and even nicer that Kreidler is finally out of the lineup.
