Jeimer Candelario #42 of the Detroit Tigers celebrates after hitting a two-run home run against the Minnesota Twins during the third inning of game two of a doubleheader at Comerica Park on August 29, 2020, in Detroit, Michigan. All players are wearing #42 in honor of Jackie Robinson Day. The day honoring Jackie Robinson, traditionally held on April 15, was rescheduled for August 28 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to Friday’s postponed game, Robinson will be honored during todays game. (Photo by Duane Burleson/Getty Images)
The Detroit Tigers’ 2022 roster is going to have some holes.
Today we’re going to take a far-too-early look at the Detroit Tigers‘ 2022 roster.
Looking to the future might seem a bit like a fool’s errand — and it is. You can plug in names and you’re going to be wrong. That’s expected.
But it’s also a bit useful, because trying to build your team’s roster one year at a time is not necessarily the most efficient or ideal way of tackling things either.
A player available this year might be perfect for your team two years down the line, while the players available a year later might be completely ill-fitted for the job.
That’s why I think it’s a bit silly when people think it’s too early to spend money without thinking about the big picture and how the pieces fit together over the years.
With all that in mind, I thought I’d try to put together a glance at the Tigers’ roster two seasons from now so we can start to think about what players available now might go a long way to making the team a contender in the future.
I’m going to use two of my favorite sources for this: Cot’s Contracts (via Baseball Prospectus) and Roster Resource (via Fangraphs). Spotrac is also valuable to look at for this exercise.
I am going to put together the roster based on players already in the organization. We will assume the Tigers do the bare minimum this offseason, generally signing rebuilding projects to one-year deals to fill out their 2021 roster.
We will also try to make reasonable assumptions about which prospects will rise and perform at the major league level, and which ones are just keeping the position warm because somebody has to.