After midnight on Tuesday, Jon Heyman reported that the Detroit Tigers have agreed to a one-year contract worth $11 million with veteran closer Emilio Pagán. The 35-year-old has been with the Cincinnati Reds for the last three seasons, but declined a $10 million player option to come to Detroit instead for an extra million. That assumes there are no potential bonuses available. We’ll wait for the full details to emerge and the physical to be completed before we’re sure on all the details.
The theory
here is reasonably sound. Pagán consistently posts good strikeout and walk numbers, and he has a good reputation as a bullpen leader. His one fatal weakness is his vulnerability to home runs. Obviously the Tigers are banking on getting him out of Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati to drive down the home run rates. That’s a sound theory, but after watching the Tigers high leverage relievers perform well in the overall stats columns in 2026, but blow a ton of games by giving up a homer at the worst possible time, it’s hard to love trying another older veteran reliever with home run issues next year.
Pagán racked up 25 saves in 45 appearances last year for the Reds. He posted a 3.38 ERA and a 4.18 FIP. His 25.9 percent strikeout rate is pretty good, and we like his low 6.3 percent walk rate. The fly in the ointment is a home run rate of 1.48 per nine innings.
The profile here is extremely fly ball heavy. If he can keep the ball in the park a little more the Tigers outfield will collect a ton of routine outs. But it’s certainly a very volatile profile. His HR/9 for each of the last three seasons is 1.42, 1.31, and 1.48 in 2026. Pagán has always had home run problems everywhere he’s been, including San Diego, Tampa Bay, Minnesota, Oakland, and Seattle earlier in his career. Here’s hoping the Tigers are right about Comerica suppressing home runs much more than the Reds fairly notorious ballpark.
Pagán relies heavily on his fourseam fastball, throwing it 62.8 percent of the time in 2026. He has a cutter and a splitter and uses them equally, deploying the splitter mainly to deal with lefties. He generally keeps balanced splits with those two secondary offerings, and that flexibility appeals to the Tigers and was one of the features Scott Harris mentioned looking for at the GM Meetings on Tuesday.
Pagán has plus extension, which helps as the fastball averaged 94.9 mph last year, down a tick from 2025. It does have some hop to it however, averaging 18 inches of induced vertical break. His whiff rates are generally average across the three pitches, but he does manage to minimize hard contact. It’s just that when the hard contact arrives, it tends to leave the park. He helps himself there by posting better than average walk rates, at least.
This is a perfectly fine acquisition for the Tigers, but it feels very Kenley Jansen 2.0 to be honest. Pagán is a little younger at 35, so we’ll hope the little downtick in velocity last season was just a blip. He also is much better than Jansen at locating the zone even when not at his best, so at least walks shouldn’t be an issue. If the Tigers go add a better reliever elsewhere, we’ll be thrilled. If not, we’ll cross our fingers again and hope for the best.
