Former Detroit Tigers Infielder Gio Urshela Lands With American League Team
The Detroit Tigers will be seeing a familiar face in at least a few series next season.
Former Tigers third baseman and free agent Gio Urshela agreed to terms on a deal this week with the soon-to-be Las Vegas Athletics as first reported by Martín Gallegos of MLB.com. Gallegos says the contract will be a one-year agreement, meaning likely that it is not a minor league deal. Urshela will have a chance to be the team's starting third baseman entering a clubhouse that is not exactly ripe with talent at the position.
Urshela played in 92 games for Detroit in 2024 before the team decided to release him in August, and he wound up with the Atlanta Braves where he ended the regular season nicely and his offensive numbers began to rise up a bit.
In the games with the Tigers, the veteran third baseman hit .243 with an OPS of .619 along with five home runs and 37 RBIs in 325 plate appearances. After leaving Detroit and arriving to the Braves, his average climbed to .265 with an OPS of .711 in the 36 games he played for Atlanta. Urshela also hit four home runs and 15 RBIs in 136 plate appearances, demonstrating ahead of hitting the open market again that he's still capable of helping a Major League roster at the age of 33.
While his numbers are not completely terrible, Urshela continued an unfortunate trend that saw him keep trending down in the power department with his home run numbers dropping for the third consecutive full season he's played and slugging numbers dropping for the second straight season.
At the peak of his offensive abilities with the New York Yankees in 2019, Urshela was a 21 home run, .534 slugging percentage and .889 OPS player. In the five years since, he has become a shell of the offensive force he was then, a large part of the reason why the Tigers elected to part ways. A 3.8 WAR player in 2019, Urshela posted a -0.3 during his time in Detroit before salvaging a nice 1.0 WAR finish to the year with the Braves, getting to display that he is still at the very least capable.
In addition, he is still respectable defensively with an above average defensive runs saved metric and will bring a veteran presence to a young Athletics team.
Ultimately, Urshela lands in a good place where he can be useful as he undoubtedly enters the twilight of his MLB career.
