Fansided

Detroit Tigers re-sign Joba Chamberlain

By Stanford Crissey

Sep 15, 2014; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Detroit Tigers relief pitcher Joba Chamberlain (44) delivers a pitch in the eighth inning against the Minnesota Twins at Target Field. The Tigers won 8-6. Mandatory Credit: Jesse Johnson-USA TODAY Sports
Sep 15, 2014; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Detroit Tigers relief pitcher Joba Chamberlain (44) delivers a pitch in the eighth inning against the Minnesota Twins at Target Field. The Tigers won 8-6. Mandatory Credit: Jesse Johnson-USA TODAY Sports /
facebooktwitterreddit

Tigers get reliever Joba Chamberlain for one year and $ 1 million

The long wait is over for reliever Joba Chamberlain: he is going back to Detroit.

Chamberlain had to wait until spring training had already started to finally sign with a team this year, and after all that time it’s the same team he pitched for last year.

The Tigers reportedly signed Chamberlain to a one-year, $1 million deal with incentives, according to Fox’s Ken Rosenthal:

Chamberlain, 29, posted a 3.57 ERA, 8.4 K/9, 3.4 BB/9, 0.43 HR/9, and 53.2% groundball rate in 63 innings for the Tigers last year.

He was one of the main relievers in the Tigers’ bullpen last year, a dismal group that ranked 27th in MLB with a 4.29 ERA. Many were surprised this winter that the Tigers did not make many moves to upgrade the ‘pen.

More from Detroit Tigers

The incentives are based on game appearances. The Dodgers and Marlins were among the other teams who recently showed interest in the 29-year-old reliever, and it was reported that Chamberlain turned down several offers from teams he was not interested in playing for. Waiting this long to sign, though, may have cost him a lot of money, as it’s doubtful he would have had to settle for $1 million back in November.

He is not, however, the last big-name reliever to come off the market, as former closers Rafael Soriano and Francisco Rodriguez are still looking for teams for 2015.

Despite being a member of last year’s disastrous cast of characters in the bullpen, Chamberlain was among the better members of that pen, and for a one-year deal for so little money, the Tigers got a great bargain no matter what Chamberlain does this year.

Still, it is strange for the team to be addressing their biggest weakness last year, possibly the one thing that kept an otherwise exceedingly talented team from reaching the world series, by simply bringing back the same cast of characters as last season and hoping for the best. There are some decent arms in their pen, but pinning their hopes on a washed up Joe Nathan and an unknown Bruce Rondon seems like a mistake.

In a division that contains the defensing pennant winners (the Royals) as well as the upstart Indians and White Sox (oh, and the Twins are also a team), a weakness like last year’s bullpen could spell doom for Detroit.

More from FanSided

Home/Detroit Tigers