The Tigers have signed veteran right hander Alex Cobb to a one year deal for $15 million with a $1 million signing bonus incentive if he reaches 140 and 150 innings in 2025. Cobb is a 37 year old starting pitcher who will be going into his 13th major league season this upcoming year. Cobb is coming off a season where he only appeared in 3 games. Cobb spent the majority of the year recovering from offseason hip surgery. In the small sample, size Cobb went 2-1, with a 2.76 ERA. Cobb made his first career playoff start against the Tigers in the ALDS this past season.

Advanced Analytics

Cobb is a soft tossing workhorse, that dominates the strike zone rarely walking batters, and pitching to contact. He primarily utilizes his sinker and splitter, that he keeps low in the zone to manufacture ground balls. Cobb routinely ranks in the 90th percentile of ground ball and walk rate. On the other end, he does not make hitters swing and miss very often, or strike them out for that matter. A lot of the contact that is made is hard contact, making their expected battle average and on base percentage very high. The average exit velocity of pitches he’s thrown was 92 MPH last year.

When Scott Harris opened talks with Alex Cobb, he said, "Hey, we got some pitching development stuff for you. We think that there’s another gear."

The plan is to revive "the 2022 or 2023 version of him, or maybe even better."https://t.co/bAJRmnoEZD

— Will Burchfield (@burchie_kid) December 11, 2024

ROLE IN DETROIT

As far as his role in Detroit, he will be looked at as a much needed Veteran depth starter in the rotation. Cobb will be making a $16 million this year, which is pretty steep price, but he’ll be providing several attributes that the Tigers need. Harris also believes that Detroit’s developmental team can get him back to where he was in San Francisco where he performed at his peak. Cobb is only one season removed from being an All-star, where he logged 150 innings pitched. He finished 7-7 on the year with a 3.87 ERA. Last season, the Tigers were forced to ditch the concept of the traditional starter role, in favor of bullpen days due to a lack of healthy arms in the rotation. This method worked fairly well most days, but in the long term they will seek more stability in the pitching staff. Cobb signed a one 1 year deal, so its possible he could be a trade deadline piece for a team seeking a rental down the stretch. Harris has done a masterful job flipping veteran players into young assets. Harris appears to be set with the current rotation but did say he will be preparing a presentation and putting a bid in on International top play Roki Sasaki. Stay tuned to FFSN to see if Tigers are done making moves to the rotation

Projected Starting Rotation

Tarik Skubal

Reese Olsen

Alex Cobb

Jackson Jobe

Casey Mize/Keider Montero/Ty Madden