As good as Tigers pitching has been across the board to start the season, there’s one very, very distant outlier in the bullpen. Veteran Kenta Maeda has the worst ERA of any active Tigers pitcher by far at 7.88, while the rest of the relievers are sitting sub-3.00.
Maeda was bumped from the rotation to the bullpen last season in a desperately needed move, and he failed to regain his spot during spring training this year (to no one’s surprise). The Tigers have used him the most sparingly of any of their relievers so far this year; everyone who was on the Opening Day roster and isn’t currently on the IL has pitched over 10 innings, except Maeda, who has eight.
Calls for the Tigers to DFA him and absorb the cost aren’t new at this point, but the Tigers hate eating money, so it seemed like we were in for a full year of watching Maeda potentially blow games.
However, on Thursday, Jon Morosi reported that Maeda is expected to be DFA’d shortly. Pop the champagne, Tigers fans.
Morosi: Kenta Maeda expected to be designated for assignment by the Tigers.
— Underdog MLB (@UnderdogMLB) May 1, 2025
MLB insider reports Tigers are expected to DFA Kenta Maeda despite still owing him $10 million
The Tigers, of course, have a track record of being unwilling to shed big contracts, the other prime example being Javy Báez. The difference is that Báez, miraculously, has been able to start contributing to the team in a big way this year. He made a team-first move to center field and actually looks pretty good out there, and somehow he’s batting .296 through Detroit’s series against the Astros. He even hit a grand slam, his first homer of the season, in the series finale to help the Tigers avoid a sweep.
Maeda hasn’t gotten any better. In his first three innings this season, he gave up five runs to the Dodgers and White Sox and has issued at least one walk in six of his seven appearances. He’s also hit three batters, which has kept him from turning a clean outing so far.
He also had the audacity to claim that his struggles in the bullpen this year could be attributed to being unaccustomed to the spontaneity of coming out of the bullpen versus the repetition of being the rotation, which AJ Hinch responded to by opening his notebook and listing all of the ways he’s been tracking Maeda being bad.
Poor performance or unwillingness to take accountability for said bad performance (whatever it was), if Morosi is correct here and the move comes down soon, the Tigers are going to have a massive weight off their shoulders.
