On the first day of Spring Training 2025, the Detroit Tigers front office was particularly busy. First they worked out a trade with the Tampa Bay Rays for pitcher Mason Englert, who was designated for assignment to open a roster spot for the Jack Flaherty signing. Late on Wednesday evening, as Alex Bregman chose the Boston Red Sox, the Tigers moved on to sign free agent right-handed reliever John Brebbia.
The deal pays Brebbia $2.75 million for 2025, with a club option for $4 million in 2026 and a buyout of $500,000 if the Tigers decline the second year of the contract. There are escalators to the base contract amount depending on his number of appearances and games finished each year of the deal. Those could add up to several more million per year in Brebbia’s best case scenario, but having a set closer is not really in either A.J. Hinch nor Scott Harris’ playbook, so the total appearance escalators are the only ones with a good chance to vest if the 34-year-old performs well. They do give him some security of a nice raise in 2026 if he has a good year and the Tigers decide to pick up the option.
In a corresponding move, reliever Alex Lange was moved to the 60-day injured list. Lange suffered a right lat strain in June and had surgery to repair the tear. He’s thrown bullpens this spring already, but the Tigers plan to take it slow with him and make sure he’s right before sending him out on a rehab assignment. He isn’t really expected back until June at the earliest.
Brebbia broke into the league in 20217 with the St. Louis Cardinals and pitched three seasons for them. He was originally drafted back in 2011 by the New York Yankees as a 30th round lotto ticket. Scott Harris is very familiar with Brebbia. The right-hander had Tommy John surgery in 2020 and was released before signing with the San Francisco Giants for the 2021 season. Harris was the GM of the Giants, and Brebbia went on to pitch three seasons for them.
Last year, he pitched for the Chicago White Sox, and they apparently couldn’t find a buyer for him at the trade deadline. Instead, they held onto him and released him a month later at the end of August in hopes that he could land with a contender. The Atlanta Braves picked him up on August 31 as a free agent and Brebbia finished the season with them.
Brebbia is essentially a two-pitch reliever who leads with a fourseam fastball that averaged 93.8 mph in 2024. Despite the modest velocity for a reliever, the heater generates a lot of whiffs. He posted a 25.5 whiff rate in 2024, and a 25.7 percent whiff rate on his 83.1 mph slider. Brebbia actually throws the slider a little more than the fastball. He consistently racks up good, though not great, strikeout numbers and limits walks.
The fourseamer has excellent movement with good induced vertical break and above average arm side run as well. The slider is a pretty prototypical model but Brebbia gets good tilt on the pitch to go with average depth.
The main issue for him is a tendency to give up home runs to left-handed hitters, mainly off the slider. Brebbia has been used fairly equally against both handed hitters the past two seasons, and left-handed hitters have done a lot of damage. Presumably the Tigers will use him as a right-handed hitter specialist who can handle lefties decently well when required. Adjusting to throwing more fastballs to lefties would probably be wise, but perhaps the Tigers have an idea on how to avoid leaving sliders in left-handers’ sweet spot down and in when he’s trying to throw it to their back foot. That’s been his clear and distinct weakness in recent years.
At this point, it’s pretty easy to trust that pitching coach Chris Fetter and his staff have a plan.
This is a pretty interesting, or odd if you prefer, signing from the Tigers at this point. In the wake of Alex Bregman signing with the Boston Red Sox, they clearly had the payroll to add more pitching depth, and adding Kahnle and now Brebbia makes a deep bullpen group even tougher.
Still, another free agent does limit the roster flexibility somewhat, as opposed to using some of their young starter and relief prospects who have options remaining. The bullpen currently has Tyler Holton, Jason Foley, Tommy Kahnle, Will Vest, Beau Brieske, and Kenta Maeda all expected to start the season in the bullpen. Left-hander Sean Guenther is probably the second lefty in the pen, though the Tigers have both Kahnle and Brieske who are right-handed but control left-handed hitters well. That really only leaves one spot in play this spring, at least until spring injuries come into play.
Some of the proposed bullpen depth this season includes pitchers like Wilmer Flores and Tyler Mattison, who are already bound to start the season on the injured list. Mattison is nearly a year removed from Tommy John surgery and wasn’t expected to be ready until a few months into the season. Flores has been dealing with shoulder trouble for almost a full year, and as was announced in the club’s first injury report on Wednesday, received a platelet-rich plasma injection in his affected right shoulder back in January. He dealt with an AC joint sprain in his throwing shoulder throughout the 2024 season and the offseason rehabilitation work clearly hasn’t resolved the issue.
One can’t have too much pitching, and with the proper usage, Brebbia should be very effective. If they can come up with a way to limit mistakes against left-handed hitters with the slider, he’ll be an even more versatile part of the Tigers’ bullpen in 2025.