These 5 Tigers are no longer worth defending

Entering Monday with the worst record in baseball at 22-38, it already feels like it’s time to stick a fork in the 2026 Detroit Tigers. Which means, of course, it’s already time to start cranking up the Tarik Skubal trade rumor mill.

But there will be plenty of time for all that before the Aug. 3 trade deadline. Detroit held on to Skubal this winter because it had reason to believe it could make a run at a World Series. That obviously turned out to be untrue, and the extent of the failure should have Scott Harris and the Tigers front office asking some very difficult questions about the future that go well beyond where Skubal will wind up in a few weeks’ time. These five homegrown players specifically have fallen way short of expectations in ways that could jeopardize roles for good.

1B Spencer Torkelson

Tigers fans have been through it all with Torkelson since he was drafted No. 1 overall in the 2020 MLB Draft, and a 31-homer, 118 OPS+ campaign last year gave reason for hope that he might finally make good on all that hype. At this point, though, it feels well past time to admit that this is simply who Torkelson is: a powerful hitter whose struggles to make enough contact or contribute in other facets of the game will always prevent him from making a significant impact.

Tork has been a league-average bat this year, and a contending team simply cannot afford to have a league-average bat as its every-day first baseman — especially when he has a hard time handling righty pitching. He still has two more years of arbitration remaining before he hits free agency, but that should be academic; Detroit has seen enough to know that he can’t be part of the long-term plan moving forward, nor should he be penciled in as the team’s starter at the cold corner in 2027.

OF/DH Kerry Carpenter

If you had to identify the high-water mark for this Tigers era, you could do a lot worse than Carpenter’s game-winning homer off of Emmanuel Clase in Game 2 of the 2024 ALDS. When that ball left the yard, it felt like anything was possible — both for a Detroit team that kept on defying the odds and for Carpenter himself, who was coming off a breakout regular season in which he posted a .932 OPS with 18 homers in just 87 games. He felt like an offensive cornerstone for years to come.

But the growth that Tigers fans anticipated never came. Flash forward a couple of years, and Carpenter is still can’t hit lefties, still can’t stay healthy for an extended period, still can’t be trusted defensively in the outfield. The result is a player who’s awfully hard to build a roster around unless he’s really, really hitting; and even then, he’s played in just 404 games across five big-league seasons (and missed a large chunk of 2026 on the IL). Carpenter needs to be absolutely mashing to carve out a role for himself, and that no longer appears to be in the cards.

INF Colt Keith

It seemed like 2026 might be the season Keith finally put it all together, thanks to a hot start in which he started pulling the ball in the air with a lot more authority. Alas, it’s been the same old story since: Sure, he’s hitting .280, but he’s yet to hit a single homer and is slugging just .342.

Keith is still just 24 years old, and the long-term extension the Tigers gave him prior to the 2024 season ensures that the team will give him plenty of runway to prove himself. It feels less and less likely that the breakout is coming, though, and when you combine that with his uncertain defensive future — how long will it be until Detroit has to slide him to first base full time? — it’s unclear just what his role will or should be moving forward.

OF Parker Meadows

I don’t want to pile on here. Few players have had worse health luck than Meadows over his short MLB career, first with an arm issue that cost him most of last season and then a nasty outfield collision back in April that landed him on the 60-day IL. It’s hard to settle into life in the Majors when you can’t stay on the field.

But the hard truth is that the best ability is availability — and that, even when he has been healthy, Meadows hasn’t hit nearly enough to justify being Detroit’s center fielder of the future. He’s shown flashes here and there, and his athleticism as a defender is a real weapon. But that athleticism doesn’t do anyone any good on the Injured List, and eventually you do need to hit at least a little bit. Meadows will get another chance in 2027, but the Tigers can’t afford to expect anything.

UTIL Zach McKinstry

The Central Michigan alum has grown into a fan favorite thanks to his grit and his ability to play all over the diamond. But while he was an All-Star just last year, his 2025 production at the plate is beginning to look more and more like a fluke. Is he better than his current .457 OPS suggests? Sure. But he has one more year of arbitration remaining, and he has only one season in which he’s even sniffed league average as a hitter. Versatility is all well and good, and McKinstry brings legit defensive value to the table. That’s just not doing this Tigers team all that much good at the moment.

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