Lakeland, Fla. — If you call up the Toledo Mud Hens roster off its team page, you’ll see Niko Goodrum listed among the infielders.
“No, I’m free,” Goodrum said in phone interview Tuesday.
Yes he is. After four seasons with the Tigers, Goodrum, who turns 30 on Feb. 28, was not tendered a contract and is indeed a free agent. And he has reason to feel pretty good about his future.
“Just waiting for this lockout to end,” he said. “Before the lockout, we had been in contact with 10 teams. That was early in November. Seven of them were looking to offer big-league deals.”
Goodrum came to the Tigers as a minor-league free agent in 2018, discarded by the club that drafted and groomed him for seven seasons — the Minnesota Twins. And for four seasons he played every position except pitcher and catcher and when he was healthy was the Tigers’ most athletic player.
In 387 games in Detroit, the switch-hitter slashed .230/.303/.396 with a .700 OPS, accumulating a 2.3 WAR. A groin injury limited him to 90 games last season.
“Time wasn’t on my side as far as trying to put a season together,” Goodrum said. “I was just hurt so much. We had a new staff there (manager AJ Hinch) and they were trying to put their pieces together on what they want for the future.
“I guess I just didn’t line up with what they wanted.”
When the Tigers made acquiring an elite shortstop their top priority this offseason (Javier Baez, as it turned out), Goodrum’s time in Detroit was over.
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“You just never know what a team wants to do,” he said. “It wasn’t my decision. I had no idea what the cause of it was, but I dealt with it with the Twins. It’s not the first team that didn’t want me. It’s all good. Just keep moving and see what happens.”
He expressed no bitterness toward the organization, just a regret that he couldn’t have stayed healthy longer.
“I had those four years in Detroit, you know, and we were rebuilding,” he said. “It’s part of it and I was there getting the mess beat out of us. But for me it was just playing for pride, you know? I’m out there putting all my heart into playing for that.
“That’s just the situation we were in, just laying it all out there and playing for pride.”
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Baseball aside, Goodrum left a big mark on the city and communities across the state, both with his doGOODthings foundation and his efforts to help out the Flint community during its water crisis.
“You can only play this game for so long,” Goodrum said. “What are you going to do besides being entertainment? Because that’s all we are is entertainment for the people. While you’re doing that, you might as well figure out how to help.
“You touch more people doing that than with that home run that you hit the other night. They don’t remember that, but they remember that you brought them water when they didn’t have any.”
Goodrum has moved into a new, 7,000 square-foot home about 40 miles southwest of Atlanta, plenty of space for his home gym and baseball training facility. When the lockout ends, he plans to be healthy and ready to hit the ground running — wherever that may be.
It was suggested it might be fitting if he stayed in the American League and had a chance to come back to Comerica Park and wreak a little havoc.
“Oh, you already know what I did to the Twins,” he said, laughing. “Don’t worry about that.”
Goodrum’s eight home runs and 22 RBIs against the Twins are the most he’s produced against any other team. He slashed .264/.365/.528 with a .893 OPS against his former team.
“It ain’t no coincidence,” he said.
cmccosky@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @cmccosky