10 non-tendered MLB free agents the Detroit Tigers could pursue

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, as the saying goes, and that has certainly been a guiding force behind the Detroit Tigers’ moves under president of baseball operations Scott Harris.

The Tigers were active on the waiver wire beginning in last November and continuing through the spring. It didn’t always work out, but there were rewards, such as left-hander Tyler Holton and infielder Andy Ibáñez.

And now the cycle begins anew, as MLB’s annual tender deadline this week dropped another round of potential low-risk, high-upside additions into the market, with teams opting to avoid arbitration offers on players who might still have some gas in the tank. (Y'know, like Spencer Turnbull ... ) Although it’s not as simple as placing a waiver claim — all the players non-tendered on Friday become free agents, able to sign where they want — there’s a few that could attract Harris and the Tigers.

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Here are 10 of the more interesting names on the market (mostly alphabetically listed):

RHP Dakota Hudson

A 2016 first-round pick (No. 32 overall) out of Mississippi State by the St. Louis Cardinals, Hudson rocketed to the majors and finished fifth in NL Rookie of the Year voting in 2019 after going 16-7 with a 3.35 ERA over 174⅔ innings. But Tommy John surgery in late 2020 limited him to just 8⅓ innings in 2021 and he hasn’t been nearly as effective since his return, with a 4.64 ERA, 123 strikeouts and 95 walks over 221 innings during the 2022-23 seasons. Still, he just turned 29 and could benefit from the type of personalized coaching that turned Michael Lorenzen into an All-Star with the Tigers last season.

CF Kyle Lewis

Another 2016 first-rounder (No. 11 overall, by the Seattle Mariners), Lewis recovered from a serious right knee injury that summer to make the majors in 2019 and win AL Rookie of the Year during the COVID-shortened 2020 season with a .801 OPS over 58 games. The knee issue hasn’t entirely gone away, leaving him with just 70 games played (with a .623 OPS) with the M’s and Arizona Diamondbacks from 2021-23. In the minors, though? Lewis posted a .371/.457/.641 slash line in 63 Triple-A games last season.

RHP Penn Murfee

After making his MLB debut just before turning 28, Murfee was a lights-out middle reliever for the Mariners in 2022-23, posting 92 strikeouts over 83⅓ innings. But Tommy John surgery shut him don midway through the 2023 season; the M’s put him on waivers at season’s end and he was picked up by the Mets, and then the Braves (who non-tendered him). He could be ready to return by midway through the 2024 season, so perhaps there’s a value play on a multi-year deal?

C Austin Nola OR C Jacob Stallings

They’ve both 33 — which is about 50 in free-agent-catcher years — and are coming off brutal years with the bat. Nola posted a .146/.260/.192 slash line in 154 plate appearances with the San Diego Padres last season … buuuut he popped 10 homers in 267 PAs as a 29-year-old rookie in 2019. Stallings hasn’t ever really hit — his best OPS came in 2019: a .708 mark in 210 plate appearances — buuuut he won a Gold Glove with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2021; a return to that might make up for his bat, which resulted in a .565 OPS last season with the Miami Marlins. It’s still tough to see either of these guys outperforming Carson Kelly as a backup with the Tigers.

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UTIL Nick Senzel

This list is starting to feel like the bargain bin of the 2016 draft, as Senzel was the No. 2 overall pick out of Tennessee. A top-10 prospect (per MLB Pipeline) ahead of the 2018 and 2019 seasons, Senzel never clicked in Cincinnati, as injuries kept him from steady playing time. He posted a .742 OPS (with 12 homers and 20 doubles) in 104 games as a rookie in 2019; since then, though, he has a .640 OPS in 273 big-league games. There might be a bet to be made on raw talent here, considering his .381 OBP in the minors, but he’ll turn 29 in June and has a 201-point difference between his OPS in the minors (.872) and majors (.671).

1B Rowdy Tellez OR 1B/DH Daniel Vogelbach

Is this a sneaky way to mention both our left-handed, big-beefy-boi faves? Perhaps. (At least they weren’t 2016 draft picks?) Neither the 28-year-old Tellez or the 30-year-old Vogelbach can play anything other than first base or DH, and those aren’t exactly spots the Tigers are looking to fill. But both aren’t that far removed from displaying breakout power. Tellez hit 35 home runs in 599 plate appearances with the Milwaukee Brewers in 2022, albeit with a rocky .306 OBP that perhaps foreshadowed his drop to 13 homers in 351 plate appearances in 2023. Vogelbach’s power is a little further in the past; he crushed 30 homers in 558 plate appearances in 2019 while making the AL All-Star team. Over the past three seasons, he has 40 homers in a little more than 1,000 plate appearances. But Vogelbach has at least shown a good batting eye, with a .351 OBP in that span. Again, their positional fits aren’t great, but a team as occasionally power-starved as the Tigers can’t entirely afford to overlook a source of cheap power.

RHP Brandon Woodruff

A two-time All-Star and top-five NL Cy Young pitcher as recently as 2021, Woodruff was the victim of a Brewers organization not interested in giving an arbitration-mandated raise (from $10.8 million) to a pitcher who won’t likely be healthy until the 2025 season. At least it’s not his elbow; Woodruff missed four months with shoulder inflammation, returning in August to post a 2.28 ERA with 74 strikeouts in 67 innings before he was diagnosed as needing shoulder surgery in early October. A two-year deal, with a discount for 2024 as he rehabs, could make sense and would be in line with Harris’ previous willingness to commit to ailing pitchers (such as when he signed a healing Matthew Boyd to a one-year deal with the San Francisco Giants).

OF/INF/DH Juan Yepez

That’s a lot of positions to list for a guy who’ll only turn 26 in February, though perhaps he’d have settled at one, for better or worse, with the Cardinals if his bat hadn’t fallen apart last season. After posting a .969 OPS in Double- and Triple-A in 2021 and a .921 OPS in Triple-A in 2022, the Venezuelan dropped to .736 in Triple-A last season, and didn’t quite have the big-league numbers — a .705 OPS over 339 plate appearances in 2022-23 — to earn another big-league contract.

Contact Ryan Ford at rford@freepress.com. Follow him on X (which used to be Twitter, y’know?) @theford.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Tigers could get a steal with one of these 10 free agents