SEATTLE — Right-hander Michael Lorenzen has been a trade candidate from the moment he signed with the Detroit Tigers in the offseason. The 31-year-old, who inked a one-year, $8.5 million contract on Dec. 20, 2022, is all but guaranteed to play for a different team following the Aug. 1 trade deadline.
Almost every contending team could use another starting pitcher.
“This is the most in my face that it’s been in my entire career, so I’m just staying off my phone,” the Tigers’ All-Star said Friday, before Saturday’s start against the Seattle Mariners at T-Mobile Park. “I still have to get outs and make pitches, and it’s all out of my control, so I’m staying off my phone and trying to stay off social media.”
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Lorenzen provides additional value because of his history as a relief pitcher. He has started just 60 of his 329 appearances across his nine-year MLB career. He showed it this past week, entering the All-Star Game in Seattle on short notice in the seventh inning Tuesday and recording a hold with two outs, including a strikeout of two-time Home Run Derby champion Pete Alonso.
In 2023, Lorenzen has a 3.75 ERA with 25 walks (6.9% walk rate) and 73 strikeouts (19.5% strikeout rate) across 93⅔ innings in 16 starts. He extended his scoreless innings streak to 14⅔ innings (dating back to June 30) with 6⅔ scoreless innings in Saturday’s 6-0 win over the Mariners.
Lorenzen, from the moment he signed with the Tigers, figured there would be a trade in his future before returning to free agency.
“Yeah, of course,” Lorenzen said Friday. “Guys sign one-year deals and teams generally do that to rebuild — or not rebuild, but get pieces back if you perform well. That’s just the way teams do it.”
The list of playoff contenders needing another starting pitcher — by alphabetical order — includes the Arizona Diamondbacks, Atlanta Braves, Baltimore Orioles, Cincinnati Reds, Houston Astros, Los Angeles Dodgers and Tampa Bay Rays.
Lorenzen pitched for the Reds, primarily as a reliever, from 2015-21.
As for the market, Lorenzen should be coveted by many teams for many reasons: positive vibes in the clubhouse, high-spin fastball, swing-and-miss changeup, newfound pitch mix and versatility.
Opponents are hitting .179 with a 32.3% whiff rate against his changeup.
Lorenzen, a first-time All-Star this season, utilized his best pitch to retire Juan Soto and Alonso in the seventh inning Tuesday in the Midsummer Classic in Seattle, standing runners on first and second base.
“My changeup is my pitch,” Lorenzen said. “I feel like I found it the last couple starts, so when in doubt, I know I can lean on that. Generally, if you’re in an All-Star Game, every guy that was going in, they had one characteristic about them that they do really, really well and lean on when in doubt. For me, that’s my changeup. It gave me a lot of confidence going into the game.”
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Lorenzen wants to pitch for a winning team.
Could the Tigers become a winning team? Entering Sunday, the Tigers have a 41-50 record and sit five games behind the Minnesota Twins for first place in the American League Central.
“The Central is open for the taking,” Lorenzen said. “We’re getting guys back. We have Riley (Greene) back, we have Eddie (Eduardo Rodriguez) back, we have (Tarik) Skubal back. No one know anything. No one truly knows anything. Both sides make sense, so I need to stay off my phone, stay off the internet, do my scouting and play baseball.”
Other pitchers from the Tigers could be traded, too.
Rodriguez, who has a 2.70 ERA in 13 starts, is expected to opt out of his five-year, $77 million contract after two seasons this November and return to free agency (thus leaving $49 million on the table), so the Tigers would be wise to get as much as they can for him.
Two members of the bullpen — right-hander José Cisnero and left-hander Chasen Shreve — will become free agents after this season, as well. (Cisnero, 34, owns a 3.34 ERA with 14 walks and 37 strikeouts in 35 innings.)
“With the players, it’s just reality that there’s going to be rumors,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said Friday. “You just can’t avoid it. I’ll handle it directly with the players. If they want to talk about it, they can come to me or I can come to them. But it’s out of our control, so to speak, in terms of the names that get out there. I would expect players to be talked about because we have some pretty good players.”
Tigers president of baseball operations Scott Harris could seek to acquire young players — perhaps some on the verge of their MLB debuts, blocked in their current organizations — as he did with offseason trades to add Matt Vierling, Nick Maton, Donny Sands and Justyn-Henry Malloy.
The Philadelphia Phillies’ trade for Noah Syndergaard at the 2022 deadline could be a decent in-season comparison to Lorenzen’s situation. Syndergaard’s $21 million salary — more than double Lorenzen’s $8.5 million salary this season — was an issue, despite his 3.83 ERA over 15 starts with the Los Angeles Angels. The Phillies (run by former Tigers general manager Dave Dombrowski) ate all of Syndergaard’s remaining money and sent 2016 No. 1 overall pick Mickey Moniak and Low-A switch-hitting outfielder Jadiel Sanchez to the Angels.
Moniak, 25, entered Sunday with an .892 OPS in two seasons with the Angels, including a .999 OPS in 39 games this season.
Perhaps the Tigers will pull off a similar trade.
But that’s not for Lorenzen to worry about.
“I think we have a really good group of guys in here,” Lorenzen said Friday. “Like I said, the division is up for the taking, and to be able to win the division would be incredible.”
Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @EvanPetzold.