Is Signing Alex Cobb Enough for the Detroit Tigers This Winter?
The Detroit Tigers made the 2024 postseason against all odds. They lived through a sell-off at the trade deadline, with one of the pieces heading out the door being Jack Flaherty, one of the two starters who spent time in their rotation and qualified for the ERA title. The other, Tarik Skubal, won the American League Cy Young.
It was a shallow pitching staff down the stretch and into the postseason, with manager AJ Hinch even calling it "pitching chaos." Skubal would make his starts, and the rest would be held together with openers and bullpen games.
The Tigers have reached a one-year agreement with veteran Alex Cobb to try and alleviate some of those issues.
Cobb has been a serviceable pitcher throughout his career, pitching to a 3.84 across 1,327 2/3 innings with a 106 ERA+. Hip surgery and nagging injuries held him to only three starts in 2024, allowing only five earned runs across those outings.
Fangraphs projects Cobb to be the fourth starter for Detroit behind Skubal, Reese Olson, and Casey Mize, and ahead of Jackson Jobe. Olson and Mize both pitched less than 120 innings in 2024, with Olson missing almost two months with a right shoulder strain, and the oft-injured Mize missing two months of his own with a left hamstring strain. Jobe made his Major League debut in September and pitched out of the bullpen to give him MLB experience while limiting his workload in the process.
Will adding Cobb to the rotation be enough to keep this team in playoff contention in 2025? With the extensive injury histories of three-fifths of their projected rotation, the answer is easily: no.
Skubal has proven that he is a surefire ace in MLB, and the rest of the rotation has been serviceable when healthy. When you have to add the qualifier, "when healthy," however, it is not a good sign.
There were better options available for the franchise, including Walker Buehler who would have been a magnificent fit in the middle of the rotation, and while he has had Tommy John surgery, he has not been as oft-injured as others currently in the rotation.
Buehler could have been acquired at a bargain, too, after a down year in 2024 in his return from Tommy John. The veteran pitched to a 5.38 ERA this year with a 72 OPS+. In his six other Major League seasons, he carried a 3.02 ERA with a 136 ERA+.
With the agreement with Cobb in place, there is not much more they can do without moving guys to the bullpen, and the only real option there would be Mize. That is not something you do with a veteran of his ilk, and would not serve them well in the long run.
The offense now becomes the priority, where improvements at first base and catcher are needed. As things currently stand, Spencer Torkelson and Jake Rogers are slated to start at those positions, respectively, but neither has been a viable offensive option consistently.
Torkelson showed flashes of the player that he could be in 2023, slugging 31 home runs and posting a 107 OPS+. He has not been able to replicate that success and could do for a change of scenery.
Rogers, like most, is a glove-first catcher. With the free agent catching market this year, there is not much that can be done to improve the offensive production from this position, so Rogers seems to be the guy for 2025.
Adding Cobb to the mix could prove to be a solid move if everything falls where the club hopes and their rotation can stay healthy. However, adding Cobb to the mix is not enough to keep this team in contention, and they will need to make another move now to improve the offense.
