Welcome to “Five Things We Liked From Last Week”, a weekly list of… five things we liked from last week:
1. Wenceel Pérez
The 2012 Detroit Tigers were an interesting team.
Despite finishing with the seventh best record in the American League, the Tigers not only won their division, but also won the American League pennant, defeating the then Oakland Athletics in the ALDS and sweeping the New York Yankees in the ALCS.
We won’t talk about what happened once they reached the World Series.
That team was particularly top heavy, with a pitching staff led by Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Doug Fister and Rick Porcello, and an offense / defense led by Miguel Cabrera, Prince Fielder, Austin Jackson and Alex Avila. All eight of those players accumulated at least 3 fWAR, and the only other player on the team to accumulate even 2 fWAR was Jhonny Peralta.
But that doesn’t mean other players weren’t instrumental to the team’s success.
Aníbal Sánchez, Drew Smyly, Octavio Dotel and Brayan Villarreal were all worth at least one win above replacement (per FanGraphs) on the mound, and José Valverde, Joaquín Benoit and Phil Coke were important bullpen pieces as well. We mentioned the team being top heavy, and that was more pronounced on the position player side. Delmon Young, Brennan Boesch, Ramón Santiago, Omar Infante and Ryan Raburn all got over 200 plate appearances and certainly helped, but Quintin Berry was the only hitter we haven’t mentioned to get to one win above replacement, again per FanGraphs.
That is, except for one Andy Dirks.
Dirks was an unsung hero of the 2012 Detroit Tigers, hitting .322/.370/.487 (132 wRC+) in 344 plate appearances, and providing 1.8 fWAR in the process.
When fans think back on that 2012 team, Verlander, Scherzer, Cabrera and Fielder immediately come to mind, and rightfully so; but without the contributions of players like Andy Dirks and others, there is no World Series run.
That brings us to 2025. This year’s Tigers may lack the true superstars that the 2012 team had (outside of Tarik Skubal and Riley Greene), but they are a more balanced team, with nine hitters that have produced 1.3 fWAR or more for example.
This season, there have been several unsung heroes on the Tigers, and Wenceel Pérez is the perfect example.
Due to a spring training back injury, Wenceel didn’t make his 2025 debut until May 27th. But since then, he’s been one of Detroit’s best players.
On the season, Pérez is hitting .260/.322/.476 in 273 plate appearances, good for a 119 wRC+ that ranks 33rd among the 105 outfielders who have accumulated at least 250 plate appearances this year. He’s also been productive in the field and on the bases (he’s been worth 1.5 fWAR in just 74 games), and has been in the middle of several big Tigers rallies.
Players like Andy Dirks and Wenceel Pérez may not get as much recognition as some of their counterparts, but they are critical to the success of their team. Wenceel began the year as more of a depth piece for Detroit, but through his performance, is now a solidified starter.
Pérez has been invaluable to the Tigers since his return from the injured list, and the hope is that just like Andy Dirks back in 2012, he’ll help catapult Detroit to a World Series run.
2. Parker Meadows
After missing the past month of the season with a right quad strain, Parker Meadows started a rehab assignment Wednesday night with the Toledo Mud Hens, which is welcome news for the Tigers.
Meadows looked good in his return to game action, going 2 for 3 with a triple; a good sign that his quad is feeling back to normal.
Getting a healthy Parker Meadows back into the Tigers lineup could be a game changer.
Last year, Meadows was a major catalyst in Detroit’s second half surge to the postseason, batting .296/.340/.500 from August 3rd through the end of the season, and producing 2.1 fWAR during that timeframe, by far the most of any Tigers position player. And once they got to the postseason, he was their best everyday hitter. Parker hit .269/.345/.462 in 29 playoff plate appearances, good for a 130 wRC+ that led the team among all hitters with at least 12 plate appearances.
In the postseason, every base and every out matters, and Meadows’ impact at the plate, on the bases and in the field is even more crucial in October.
Injuries have hampered Parker throughout the 2025 season. He began the year on the injured list with an arm injury, finally returning on June 2nd; only to head back to the injured list on July 28th with a right quad strain, from which he’s just now coming back from.
Meadows’ numbers have been a little down this year, which is understandable due to the choppy nature of his season. But there’s some evidence to suggest that he’s dealt with some bad batted ball luck.
His xwOBA is currently .303, which is not only close to 50 points higher than his actual wOBA, but also 5 points better than last year’s xwOBA. His BABIP is also just .277, close to 30 points less than last year.
There’s of course some nuance to those numbers. While Parker’s line drive rate is up by 7% from last year, his groundball rate is also up by 9%, while his fly ball rate is down by 16%. More groundballs naturally lead to a lower BABIP, but if he can get the ball in the air a little more, he should be in business if / when he returns to the lineup.
Quad strains are tricky, so the Tigers and Meadows himself will hope that the injury is in the past, and he can just focus on getting his timing down at the plate during his rehab assignment. If he does, Detroit will be a better team for it.
3. Kyle Finnegan
Don’t look now, but after a few down months, the Tigers bullpen has quietly been pretty good lately.
Since Detroit emerged from their ugly stretch of baseball on July 27th, the Tigers bullpen ranks 5th in baseball with a 3.17 ERA. While the peripherals aren’t quite as strong, it’s hard to argue with the results over the past month.
A major factor in the bullpen resurgence was the arrival of Kyle Finnegan at the trade deadline.
Prior to his trade to Detroit, Finnegan was having a solid, yet unspectacular season. In 39 innings with the Washington Nationals, Kyle posted a 4.38 ERA / 4.24 xFIP, with a 19.6% strikeout rate, 8.6% walk rate, .243 batting average against and 48.2% groundball rate. With the Tigers, it’s fair to say Finnegan has turned things up a notch, across the board: 11.2 IP, 0.00 ERA / 1.72 xFIP, 37.5% strikeout rate, 5% walk rate, .079 BAA and 57.1% groundball rate.
Finnegan is throwing more splitters and less fastballs with Detroit, to great success. Many fans were (rightfully) clamoring for a high leverage, swing and miss reliever at the deadline, and it appears the Tigers may have got a good one.
4. Trei Cruz
The 2020 MLB Draft was a strange one, to say the least.
The MLB Draft is already a bit of a crapshoot, but with Covid wiping out a good chunk of the 2020 high school and college baseball schedules, teams were working with an unusually large information deficit when it came time to draft players in 2020. And along with that, due to the pandemic, the draft was shortened to just five rounds.
But that didn’t stop the Tigers from having what is shaping up to be an excellent draft.
Despite having just six total selections (Detroit had a Competitive Balance Round pick), the Tigers have three players from the 2020 draft who have been major contributors to the team this year: Spencer Torkelson (first round), Dillon Dingler (second round) and Colt Keith (fifth round).
Those three players have accumulated 7.4 fWAR this season, the most of any team’s draft class from 2020.
While those three have been instrumental to the Tigers success this season, they weren’t the only players drafted by Detroit in 2020. With their third round pick in the 2020 draft, the Tigers selected Trei Cruz out of Rice University.
There was no minor league season in 2020, so Trei’s first professional action occurred in 2021, when he split the season between Low and High A, posting a combined 85 wRC+ in 265 plate appearances.
In 2022, Cruz spent the majority of the year in High A, where he showed massive improvement by producing a 113 wRC+ in 467 PAs; eventually earning a promotion to Double A to finish the year.
Without knowing it at the time, Trei was about to get very familiar with Erie.
Not only did Cruz spend the entire 2023 season in AA, he also spent the entire 2024 season in AA as well, despite improving from a 101 wRC+ in 2023 to a 115 wRC+ in 2024.
And his time in Erie didn’t stop there.
In what had to be tough news for the now 27 year old, the Tigers kept Cruz in Double A to begin the 2025 season, even after showing improvement from 2023 to 2024. While that decision would be hard on any player, he took the assignment in stride, and did all he could do in that situation: perform. In 323 PAs at AA this season, Cruz posted a .275/.402/.454 line, good for a 153 wRC+. He also bumped his walk rate and dropped his strikeout rate by 5% each from 2024 to 2025, and on July 7th of this year, Detroit finally decided that it was time to see what Cruz could do at AAA.
And it turns out that what he can do at AAA is pretty good.
Since his promotion to Toledo, Trei is slashing .286/.423/.516 in 156 plate appearances. That equates to a 155 wRC+, which ranks 9th among all players who’ve accumulated at least 150 plate appearances at the AAA level in 2025. Despite the jump in competition, Cruz is hitting for a higher average, walking more and hitting for more power.
The Tigers have taken things very slowly with Cruz throughout his career, but it’s getting harder to ignore his production. It wouldn’t be a surprise for the versatile switch hitter to be in consideration for a spot with the big league club as soon as Opening Day 2026.
5. Cale Wetwiska
We’ve been covering the Tigers 2025 MLB Draft class debuts in this corner over the past few weeks, and Tuesday night, another member of the class made his professional debut.
Cale Wetwiska was Detroit’s seventh round pick in the ’25 draft, out of Northern Oklahoma College-Enid. Despite a slot value of $261,000, Wetwiska commanded a bonus of nearly $650,000; a sign that the Tigers love his talent. And in his debut on Tuesday with Low A Lakeland, it was easy to see why.
Wetwiska pitched two innings in his first professional appearance, allowing two runs on three hits and a walk with one strikeout. Per the excellent TMLR X account, he got up to 95.8 MPH with the heater and averaged 93.8. His fastball also featured a lot of spin and averaged nearly 20 inches of induced vertical break, which the Tigers organization seems to enjoy.
Overall it was an impressive debut for the right hander, who gets a chance to get some innings under his belt the rest of this season in preparation for a full season next year.
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Chris Brown 
Rogelio Castillo 
Jerry McKennan