Detroit Tigers: A possible return of Robbie Ray to the rotation?

The hot stove was on full blast last night as the Detroit Tigers were named as one of the possible destinations for AL Cy Young award winner Robbie Ray.

For the first time in a long time, the Detroit Tigers are mentioned in hot stove talks. When Danielle wrote her piece on left-hander Robbie Ray, it was a part of our “Contender November” series but in the back of our minds, the MCB staff didn’t think the Tigers were interested. Until now.

Normally the role of “internet detective” is always one that myself, torn up with in terms of solving crimes because people are innocently blamed, or sometimes, crimes can be solved. In this case for Robbie Ray, we are looking at an interesting picture from August. Shoutout to Bless You Boys for highlighting this tweet earlier today.

If you think about it from a pure, logical way, it is just that, a proud father taking a family picture on a road game and nothing more than that. Of course, as Danielle pointed out in her piece about Ray, he was a Tiger at one point here in 2014.

Since then, he has become a completely different pitcher.  His 2021 season was just an impressive display of his abilities and worthy of the Cy Young. He was 13-7 with an ERA of 2.84 with 248 strikeouts in 193.1 innings pitched and a K per 9 of 11.9.

The Tigers have already signed another lefty starter in Eduardo Rodríguez. With him, Tarik Skubal, and Robbie Ray in a possible 2022 rotation, it would mark the first time the Detroit Tigers would have featured three left-handed starters in the rotation that could make 20 or more starts since 1970 when Mickey Lolich, Les Cain, and Mike Kilkenny did it and most recently, in 2019 with Matthew Boyd and Daniel Norris. 

If you want to get really geeky, Tyler Alexander, Matthew Boyd, and Tarik Skubal did it with 15 or more starts but you get the point.

This is why this time of the year is great. Let the rumors continue and hopefully, a signing soon.