The Detroit Tigers option and qualifying offer decisions were due on Thursday, and there were a few interesting notes along the way. The most consequential was, as Jeff Passan of ESPN reports, the extension of a qualifying offer worth $22 million in 2026 to second baseman Gleyber Torres.
The former Yankees infielder didn’t get a qualifying offer from them last offseason, so the Tigers were able to use it here. The reasoning by the Yankees was presumably that Torres would accept the qualfiying offer.
As it turned out, he got less than the QO from the Tigers on a one-year pillow contract, so it stands to reason that he would’ve accepted it had the Yankees offered.
The question now is whether he’ll accept or decline the Tigers offer.
Torres hit .256/.358/.387 for the Tigers in 2025 and was worth 2.6 fWAR. His control of the strike zone remained elite as he walked 13.5 percent of the time while putting up a pretty low strikeout rate of 16.1 percent. His defensive numbers at second base remained a little below average, and his speed and baserunning declined overall. Some of that is undoubtedly due to the hernia he developed in the second half, which he played through but required offseason surgery to repair. Early reports were that the surgery was a success and that Torres should be good to go in 2026.
The Tigers might prefer to move on, and Torres can perhaps expect better offers this offseason than he got last year. However, attached the loss of a pick to signing him is probably going to ding Torres’ value to teams shopping for a free agent infielder this offseason. Should he sign elsewhere, the Tigers will receive an extra pick after the first round.
From the Tigers perspective, getting Torres back on another one-year deal wouldn’t be a bad outcome, so it was probably worth making the qualifying offer, but I would bet there’s a pretty good chance Torres ends up accepting it. Despite his quality at-bats, he’s not providing much other than a strong on-base percentage. The power, defense, and baserunning are all declining from his peak years. Perhaps he can still get a multi-year deal in free agency, but the loss of a pick could really hurt his value overall.
Urquidy not getting his $4 million team option picked up is a little bit surprising. The Tigers did have a lot of work to do in trimming down the 40-man roster and re-adding their 60-day injured list players, so they did need to open up plenty of roster spots. Declining options on relievers Paul Sewald and Randy Dobnak were the more obvious moves, particularly as Sewald’s option for 2026 was $10 million. The Tigers paid a million dollars to buy him out of that option instead.
The Tigers activated RHP Beau Brieske, RHP Jason Foley, RHP Jackson Jobe, LHP Sean Guenther, RHP Reese Olson, and RHP Ty Madden off the 60-day injured list. They all had to be added back to the 40-man roster as a result.
The Tigers also claimed RHP Jack Little off of waivers from the Pittsburgh Pirates. Originally the Los Angeles Dodgers fifth round pick in 2019, the Stanford graduate was claimed from the Dodgers by the Pirates off waivers back in August. Now 27 years old, Little has struggled to break through and just made his first two major league appearances with the Dodgers earlier this year. He has a mid-90’s fastball and a splitter-slider combo that is a quality pairing, but hasn’t put things together enough yet to break out. He does get a lot of fly balls and pop-ups and makes sense as a fit in Comerica Park if the Tigers can get more out of him.
At the time they signed Jose Urquidy last offseason, the point of the deal seemed to be to have a cheap, solid veteran starter in their back pocket for 2026. Instead, it looks more like they picked him up just as an injury stash for the 2025 season, in hopes that he would’ve been able to help out down the stretch as attrition took its toll on the rest of the pitching staff. It’s also possible that Urquidy’s recovery from Tommy John surgery just hit some snags and the Tigers decided to keep some flexibility going into the offseason instead.
