Way back in July 2021, former Detroit Tigers general manager made the best trade of his seven-year tenure running the club. The Milwaukee Brewers were in the hunt and looking for left-handed help in their bullpen. Somehow, Avila was able to convince them to hand over pitching prospect Reese Olson in exchange for a half season of Daniel Norris, despite the veteran lefty’s 6.89 ERA/4.19 FIP combination to that point. This has proven to be an absolute robbery on Avila’s part.
Olson already had a pretty devastating slider-changeup combination and could drop a quality curveball in on you too. His main issue was a low-powered, flat fastball that was 92-94 mph and often deposited in the seats as he moved to the Double-A level in 2022. The Tigers helped him build a little more velocity to combat his below average extension and got him mixing sinkers and fourseamers alike, pairing them more effectively with his high end batch of secondary pitches to handle left and right-handed hitters alike. As the adjustments took hold and Olson’s command improved, the strikeouts started really piling up for him again.
By 2023, the Tigers rotation needs forced Olson into major league action despite only 10 starts at the Triple-A level. The rookie thrived, tossing 103 2⁄3 innings with a 3.99 ERA/4.01 FIP combination and proved himself a hard-nosed competitor whose attitude belied his youthful appearance. He still allowed too many home runs, but he posted average strikeout rates, better than average walk rates, and limited the damage by racking up a lot of routine outs on the ground and in the air. Olson also continued to prove himself durable as he progressed from 104 2⁄3 innings in 2021, to 119 2⁄3 innings in 2022, and then 140 1⁄3 innings across Triple-A and the major leagues in that 2023 debut.
That steady progress picked up right where he left off in 2024, and Olson was on his way to establishing himself as a good starting pitcher when shoulder trouble struck in mid-July. As the Tigers traded Jack Flaherty and pivoted to A.J. Hinch’s chaos theory down the stretch, Olson was on the sidelines.
He returned on September 16th but never really got back in form as the Tigers limited his innings. His Game 2 appearance in the ALDS began in a real pickle, taking over for opener Tyler Holton in the first inning with two runs in, two men on, and no outs after an uncharacteristically rough Holton showing.
The first pitch Olson threw was a hanging slider right down the middle which Lane Thomas, a name which would become infamous among Tigers fans over the course of the series, crushed for a three-run shot to left. The Tigers were down 5-0, and while Olson settled right in to blank the Guardians for five strong innings of work, the damage was done. The lineup never got anything going and the Guardians cruised to a 7-0 victory.
Olson would make one more short appearance in the series, but that pitch had to leave a bad taste in the young right-hander’s mouth all offseason long. Now he embarks on his second season as a member of the Opening Day rotation looking to complete the transition from solid mid-rotation guy to frontline starter. He was already most of the way there last season, and if he can build on that at all, the Tigers could have one of the best rotations in all of baseball.
Reese Olson 2022-2024
| Season | IP | ERA | K% | BB% | HR/9 | WHIP | FIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Season | IP | ERA | K% | BB% | HR/9 | WHIP | FIP |
| 2022 (AA) | 119.2 | 4.14 | 33.1 | 7.5 | 1.13 | 1.23 | 3.31 |
| 2023 (MLB) | 103.2 | 3.99 | 24.4 | 7.8 | 1.22 | 1.12 | 4.01 |
| 2024 (MLB) | 112.1 | 3.53 | 21.7 | 7.1 | 0.56 | 1.18 | 3.17 |
The big improvement for Olson in 2024 was in getting his home runs allowed under control. He didn’t really change his pitch mix that much, but overall he trimmed his fourseam usage by five percent and his slider usage by three percent, converting those into changeups in 2024.
As the changeup became an even bigger weapon, Olson also just commanded the ball better. There were fewer hangers, and knowing that hitters were desperately hunting fastballs to avoid his best stuff, Olson showed some ability to expand the zone with his fastball command and rack up weak contact once he had hitters behind. All that combined to get more ground balls, and a lot fewer home runs allowed.
Those adjustments got him to a new level of performance where he’s pretty clearly
Next level Reese Olson
It goes without saying that the foundation for success with Olson is really strong. Still the stats below really bring it into focus. Olson was the only pitcher in the game who drew 40 percent or better whiff rates on two different pitches and also posted a ground ball rate above 50 percent. Only Paul Skenes got more whiffs and still had a 50 percent ground ball rate. Lots of ground ball and lots of whiffs are the dream combination for suppressing extra base hits and punching out a lot of batters.
The 25-year-old right-hander has gone beyond scratching the surface with what he can do. He was a top 30 starter by FIP in 2024, ranking in 14th best among starters with 100+ innings thrown, while he was just outside the top 30 (42nd overall) in terms of ERA. 2025 could be the season he puts it all together and stakes his claim as one of the top starting pitchers in baseball.
The slider and changeup have been great all along, but Olson’s ongoing improvements in command have turned both into pitches he can throw in any count to either handed hitter. He averaged 94.2 mph on his fastball last season, which was down a little bit from his 2023 marks, but that may well have been the shoulder trouble barking before it finally put him on the injured list in July.
Olson mixes fourseam fastballs and sinkers almost equally, with the combination accounting for 44 percent of pitches thrown. He bends the sinker in on right-handers, but favors the fourseam heavily to tie up lefties inside and up to open the bottom of the zone down and away from them with his changeup. The sinker tends to run back over the heart of the plate to left-handers, so he largely shelves against the lefties. His traditional 12-6 curveball is used only occasionally to steal strikes, account for six percent of pitches thrown last year. The rest is divided up between two of the better whiff generating pitches for any starter in the game.
The next step is converting all those whiffs into a few more strikeouts. Olson is plenty good enough as he is, but the ability to put away a few more hitters once he’s ahead would really boost him into that second tier right below the game’s true aces at the moment. The trick is to find a few more called strikes, particularly with the fastball combination. Neither gets whiffs, and both are often hit hard, but rarely is either one hit hard in the air. If he can take a little step with spotting the two fastball types to the edges, he’ll have hitters in bad shape and should be able to lock some of them up for called strike threes.
With two strikes against Olson, hitters generally try to avoid swinging at anything that starts out of his hand up, expecting it to be the slider or changeup disappearing out of the zone. If he can spot a few more pitches for strikes deep in counts he’ll boost those strikeout percentages up over 25 percent. That, combined with the high volume of ground balls, would make him a bona fide number one starter around the league even if the competition on the Tigers is a lot tougher.
There’s no reason a starter with a 45.5 percent whiff rate on his slider and a 42.9 percent whiff rate on his changeup can’t strike out a lot more hitters than the 21.7 percent he punched out in 2024.
In two strike counts, Olson uses his changeup more often and pares back the fastball usage against left-handed hitters. Against right-handed hitters, he leans into the slider and sinker and scraps the fourseamer with two strikes. He’ll even throw more changeups rather than giving them the straighter fourseam fastball when hitters are in protect mode.
This makes perfect sense, but rather than trying to bait them into chasing constantly, freezing them more often with well located sinkers and throwing more changeups for strikes seems like the recipe to force them to defend the strike zone rather than just sitting there hoping Olson misses with the nasty stuff and eventually has to come up into the zone with a fastball. Too often he gets ahead and then lets them back into the count with a bait pitch or two.
Olson’s extension remains well below average at 5.9 feet toward home plate with the two fastball types. So the velocity is always going to play down somewhat, and it’s probably just not reasonable to expect him to generate much more swing and miss with the fourseam and sinker. Continued development of his command is probably the last big step available to him. If he can spot the fastballs a little more effectively around the edges of the zone for called strikes that would help. If he can command the slider and changeup a little more and trust his ability to spot them to either side of the zone without leaving more hangers over the middle in swing counts, that would really take him to the next level. We’ll just have to see if that’s worth the potential trade off, as his misses could get hit a little harder.
Reese Olson enters camp in a really good spot. He’s an established starter now with some bulldog mentality and a deep set of quality pitches. His command has continued to improve at the major league level and using his stuff a little more effectively when he’s ahead in the count will unlock a new level and make him one of the better starting pitchers in baseball.
Now that he’s into his mid-20’s, you’d expect his peak seasons to arrive in the next few years. If he can find his way to building on his 2024, and Tarik Skubal and Jack Flaherty are both healthy and effective, there won’t be many other rotations that can match up with the Detroit Tigers, certainly not in the American League. With Jackson Jobe, Casey Mize, and several other talented young pitchers like Keider Montero and Brant Hurter gunning for the final two spots, the Tigers will be set up to battle the Mariners, Royals and others for best rotation in the American League. Knock on wood, or your superstition of choice, that we get to see the whole unit fully operational this year.