If you were looking to define the 2026 Detroit Tigers in a single game, you could do a lot worse than Wednesday's come-from-ahead loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates. Young righty Jackson Jobe gave Detroit 5.1 solid innings, and a balanced lineup was able to grind out enough against Paul Skenes to build a 3-1 lead into the bottom of the seventh.
And then, as it so often has this season, everything fell apart. Kenley Jansen was two outs away from nailing down a much-needed victory, only to give up a game-tying homer to Rafael Flores Jr. Two batters later, he gave up a walk-off bomb to Brandon Lowe.
BRANDON LOWE WALK-OFF HOMER! pic.twitter.com/tErGEYPMMZ
— MLB (@MLB) August 19, 2026
Like they have for much of this year, Detroit played well enough to win. And like they have for all of this year, their bullpen gave it all away: Jansen's meltdown on Wednesday was the 28th blown save of the season, and they've now lost 19 games in which they led in the seventh inning or later.
That's how a team with one of the best run differentials in the AL finds itself five games below .500. And while the Tigers are still just one game back of the Minnesota Twins in the loss column for the final Wild Card spot, even a playoff run shouldn't stop Scott Harris from clearing out some serious dead weight this winter.
RHP Kenley Jansen
That should start with Jansen. Which feels a bit harsh, given how remarkable it is to still be a reasonably effective MLB reliever as you near your 40th birthday. But Jansen very much wants to be treated like a closer, and as his stuff diminishes with age, his blowups are just too costly to trust him with the ninth inning.
The big righty has always been a fly-ball pitcher. Now, though, with diminished velocity on his trademark cutter, those fly balls are getting hit harder than ever — which leads to homers, which is how a late lead can become a loss in the blink of an eye. That's an untenable situation, and Detroit can do better with the $11 million it would take to pick up his team option for 2027.
RHP Justin Verlander
This one's pretty simple, so we'll get it out of the way quickly: Verlander is set to retire at the end of the 2026 season, and it hasn't exactly been the swan song he and Tigers fans were hoping for. The 43-year-old righty has barely been healthy all year, making exactly one start at the big-league level before landing on the IL. He's been adamant about doing everything he can to make it back to the mount at some point before the season ends, but given how little progress he's made in his rehab, that seems increasingly unlikely.
1B Spencer Torkelson
Torkelson perked back up as the Tigers climbed back into the Wild Card race post-trade deadline, but fans have seen this movie before. The former No. 1 overall pick simply has not found the consistency at the plate he needs to become the middle-of-the-order force Detroit has desperately hoped he'd become.
He technically has one more year of arbitration remaining before hitting free agency, but at this point, he feels like a legitimate non-tender candidate in the offseason. A righty hitter who ranks among the worst defensive first basemen in the game, Tork needs to mash in order to justify his place on any MLB roster. Maybe a change of scenery — and a more hitter-friendly park — could help unlock whatever upside is left, but the Tigers would be better off using those savings elsewhere rather than relying on a player who will never be much more than mediocre with the bat.
RHP Jack Flaherty
Flaherty was seemingly turning a corner as the summer began, with a 2.67 ERA since June 1. But he's been on the IL since late July, and the fact is that he just doesn't profile as even a league-average starting pitcher at this point in his career. He still misses his fair share of bats, but walks have become an issue, and when hitters do make contact, that contact is increasingly loud and in the air to the pull side.
You need to rack up a ton of strikeouts to survive with that sort of batted-ball profile, and Flaherty doesn't have that kind of juice as he enters his 30s. Given how much young pitching the Tigers figure to have at their disposal next spring — from Jobe to Troy Melton to Keider Montero to River Ryan to Reese Olson, plus Framber Valdez's $36.5 million salary — the money to re-sign him could be much better spent elsewhere.
3B/OF Matt Vierling
You could also consider Zach McKinstry as a non-tender candidate, but at least he still plays all over the diamond as a versatile and more than competent defender. Plus, McKinstry hits left-handed, which makes him a more viable bench option to plug gaps in the lineup.
Vierling, on the other hand, has been a league-average hitter exactly once in his MLB career, and while he technically can play all three outfield positions as well as third base, he doesn't excel anywhere. He also struggles mightily against right-handed pitching, which makes him a tough roster fit. Rather than cough up a few million for his final year of arbitration, Detroit should target a bench piece that's a better fit (and comes with a cleaner health track record).
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