2025 Team Previews - Detroit Tigers
As part of my 2025 team previews series, I go through all fantasy-relevant players on the Detroit Tigers ahead of the 2025 season.
Check out the intro and team links page here.
Intro
Things are improving in Detroit. The 2024 season gave them a Cy Young Award and a postseason series win. It’s not looking like they will definitely be better in 2025, as they have been pretty quiet this offseason, but with some growth from young hitters, they could compete for this division crown.
Roster
Their big move this off-season was signing Gleyber Torres, and that tells you about the aggressiveness of this front office. It’s a pretty ugly roster after you get past the couple of stud players they have.
I don’t hate the top four there, but there isn’t a true game-changing player here, and there are at least a few below-average sticks there.
The rotation has one of the best in the league at the top and then two guys with upside (Olson & Jobe), but it’s a shaky unit.
Hitters
Riley Greene
Age: 24
Pos: OF
We have seen constant improvement from Greene, and he reached a career-best .827 OPS last year with 24 homers in less than a full season’s worth of playing time.
583 PA, .262/.348/.479, 24 HR, 82 R, 74 RBI, 4 SB, 27% K%, 11% BB%
He has dropped his K% and GB% every year since his debut.
Riley Greene K%, BB% and GB% by Year
2022: 28.7% K%, 8.6% BB%, 57% GB%
2023: 27.4% K%, 8.4% BB%, 49% GB%
2024: 26.8% K%, 11.0% BB%, 44% GB%
Greene has always swung the bat very hard, so a falling GB% was always going to lead to an increasing Brl% - and that’s what we saw last year as he reached a huge mark of 13.4%.
The strikeouts are a bit higher than what we like, but we can deal with that from a guy with the raw power that Greene has.
He’s now posted two straight years with an xwOBA above .350. It was such a good sign to see the GB% get under 45%, and I really do view Greene as a guy who will be a perennial 30-homer guy before long.
The batting average will likely be middling at best with the higher K%. The ballpark and lineup context still isn’t the best, so we probably can’t get top-30 performance out of the guy or anything like that. But I do fully believe in 25+ homers and 80+ RBI out of the guy, and he gets on base a ton - so he’s close to a stud in those OBP or points leagues.
Rank
Projection
646 PA, 83 R, 25 HR, 87 RBI, 8 SB, .261/.343/.463, $12.01 roto value
Kerry Carpenter
Age: 27
Pos: OF
Carpenter has not been able to play a full season yet, and he made just 293 trips to the plate in the regular season last year. But he’s been a very good hitter when in the box. Here are the career numbers:
865 PA, .276/.338/.512, 44 HR, 6 SB, 25.7% K%, 6.9% BB%
Last year, he posted a very impressive 17.7% Brl% with that decent K%. Only six hitters managed a barrel rate above 15% and a strikeout rate under 27%.
Carpenter is a good hitter; there’s not much doubt about it. It’s a tougher case for fantasy, however. He has just six career steals (none last year), and he could be a platoon bat.
Kerry Carpenter Career Splits
vs. RHP: .290/.347/.550, 148 wRC+
vs. LHP: .202/.286/.303, 69 wRC+
He’s played just 236 career games, so there’s time for him to improve against left-handed pitching, but more than likely, you’ll see him hit the bench most of the time against lefties.
I think his performance against righties makes up for it, and he’s still a fine pick at cost (ADP = 176). There’s real 30+ homer potential here with a good batting average. That leads to a good supply of RBI.
The lack of playing time keeps his projection down a bit, but he’s a guy I’m willing to take.
Rank
Projection
511 PA, 70 R, 24 HR, 67 RBI, 4 SB, .264/.326/.489, $8.84 roto value
Parker Meadows
Age: 25
Pos: OF
It’s been a bumpy ride for Meadows, but he’s currently at the peak of his fantasy value. He began the year at the top of the Tigers’ lineup but struggled so much early on that he got sent back down to AAA for a spell. So, we have two samples to look at. First, from Opening Day to May 6th:
85 PA, .096/.224/.219, 38% K%, 13% BB%
So yeah, hitting below one hundred will get you sent down. He came back up for good on August 3rd and did this to finish the season:
201 PA, .296/.340/.500, 6 HR, 21% K%, 6.5% BB%
That’s quite a change. From August on, he had a .324 xwOBA, a .266 xBA, a 6.2% Brl%, and a 76% Contact%.
There’s not a ton of raw power with the guy, but he’s done enough to have two 20+ homer seasons (all levels) on his resume already. And he’s a guy with 30+ steal potential. He’s swiped 17, 27, and 28 in the last three years across all levels.
I don’t think there’s a ton of ceiling on the guy because I think the home run ceiling is around 22. But if he maintains the contact rate gains we saw last year, he could be a useful source of steals, batting average, and runs.
Rank
Projection
592 PA, 79 R, 18 HR, 56 RBI, 22 SB, .232/.311/.400, $9.38 roto value
Gleyber Torres
Age: 28
Pos: 2B
Torres has been all over the map. He’s been one of the toughest hitters to project, just bouncing all over the place with his production. And now he lands in Detroit on a one-year deal.
His best season was 2023, with 25 homers, 13 steals, and an .800 OPS. But he fell pretty flat last year:
The barrels dissipated (6.3% Brl%), and his 90th-percentile EV was poor at just 102.6. The guy has never had a ton of raw power, but he’s mostly been a lot better than that.
I’m not going to forget about the nice season he had in 2023, and there’s a good chance his 2024 down year sends his price falling lower than it should. You would have to think that he’s a bounce-back candidate, especially since he’ll be playing for a new contract once again.
The risk is that the new ballpark zaps what power he does have and he comes in with an even worse season in homers. A homer total under 15 would make him really tough to start in fantasy, so we have to prepare for that possibility.
I won’t go out of my way to draft Torres, but he’s another one of these veterans that I’m fine with if they fall a lot. His current ADP is 207, and he’s fallen to the mid-200s.
Rank
Projection
651 PA, 75 R, 17 HR, 72 RBI, 9 SB, .253/.328/.396, $9.09 roto value
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