Second baseman Gleyber Torres has accepted the Tigers qualifying offer and will return for the 2026 season at $22 million for the year. This was always the likely outcome, so hopefully the Tigers anticipated
this and really wanted him back for 2026.
The soon-to-be 29-year-old infielder is coming off a season that held a lot of potential for him in free agency, only for a hernia to spoil much of the second half as his power and defensive numbers declined. Probably he would have had plenty of interest as a free agent, but he’s also too limited a player for teams to be willing to give up a draft pick to sign him, which would have limited his market signficantly.
So for Torres this is a pretty smart decision. He would clearly like to land a long-term contract somewhere, but he wasn’t going to get one that paid him $22 million a year. So, he’ll accept a raise, and hope to finally earn a more signficant overall deal heading into his age 30 season next year. In the meantime, he gets to play again with a contender and a team and coaching staff that really seemed to like everything he brought to the table in terms of his bat and his leadership and experience.
The problem of course is that Torres only has value in his bat. His defense rebounded some prior to the injury, but at his best he’s still a bit below average defender who doesn’t run well. He also doesn’t hit for that much power. What he does do, is put up really good, professional at-bats and get on base a lot while rarely striking out. Those are certainly elements the Tigers would have missed in their offense in 2026, although they could have pursued another hitter in his place.
Unfortunately this really squashes any hope of an improved infield defensively. That’s not as important as it used to be, as emphasis has shifted more to the outfield and the corner infielders to prevent extra base hits, but the Tigers outfield isn’t winning any awards defensively and their best defender, Parker Meadows, has shown only a few brief flashes of ability to handle major league pitching.
In terms of payroll, the Tigers now have Jack Flaherty back for $20 million after he exercised his player option to return. Torres will make $22.05 million, a raise of seven million over his 2025 salary. As a result, the Tigers starting payroll for 2026 is already at $143 million per FanGraphs. They finished 2025 with a final payroll of $155 million. So unless there’s a willingness to go well beyond those marks in Tarik Skubal’s final year, the club is probably not going to do a whole lot more other than pursue a good reliever or two and otherwise try to build up some pitching roster depth this offseason. We’d love to be surprised by more, either a signing or a signficant trade, but don’t hold your breath.
Torres slashed .256/.358/.387 on the year, with 16 home runs and 22 doubles, putting up a .132 isolated power mark (ISO). The Tigers will hope he could produce something more like his .281/.387/.425 slashline prior to the All-Star break. By all accounts, surgery to repair the hernia went well, so he should be good to go with plenty of time to get in his usual offseason work and build himself back up by the time spring camp starts in mid-February.
The Tigers offense is better with Gleyber Torres in the lineup than without, but any hope of upgrades over the 2025 squad will probably have to come from the farm system and efforts to improve the bullpen.
