Predicting Tigers’ 2025 lineup with a pivotal offseason addition

The Detroit Tigers have added a sense of urgency to the 2024 offseason after they made an underdog run to Major League Baseball’s postseason this year, and that means next year's roster will almost certainly be better for it.

Detroit could simply rest on its laurels of this past season’s success and hope that its young players continue to improve.

But that’s unlikely to be the case.

Though the starting rotation seemingly needs help after having just one reliable starting pitcher in Tarik Skubal, there are several options within the organization to fill it out — including Reese Olson, Casey Mize, Jackson Jobe, Keider Montero, Matt Manning, and Ty Madden.

The same cannot be said about the lineup.

The Tigers are looking to add a right-handed bat per a report from MLB Trade Rumors after president of baseball operations Scott Harris admitted the lineup became too left-handed heavy, and that means some sort of acquisition is likely coming.

With that being said, let’s try to figure out how Detroit’s ideal lineup will look as next season begins.

The top of the order is pretty much set in stone, pending a free agent acquisition. It’s impossible to guess who that will be, but there’s good reason to believe that could be Houston Astros’ third baseman Alex Bregman.

The dots connecting Bregman to Detroit are obvious — from Detroit needing a right-handed power hitter, to a wide-open hole at third base, bountiful payroll space, and also having Bregman’s former manager, A.J. Hinch, at the helm.

Here’s how that lineup could look (against right-handed pitching):

Of course, this lineup will change against lefties, with Wenceel Perez or Justin Henry-Malloy likely taking over DH duties from Carpenter and Meadows shifting down in the order as he did this past season.

And while the bottom half of that order isn’t exactly ideal, this lineup is undoubtedly better than this past season. There's a chance Sweeney winds up stealing the full-time job for Baez, but the Tigers will certainly try to squeeze every bit of value of Baez's $25 million salary for next season.

With Perez, Henry-Malloy, Andy Ibanez, and Jace Jung available as potential depth options, Detroit could find itself with one of the deepest lineups in the American League Central and a chance to win its first division title since 2014.

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