Rosternomics
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Tigers DET

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GM: Jerry Walker (since 1992)

1993 roster — every player, value & surplus

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+0.6
WAB — wins above budget
-2.0
TAB — roster Talent above budget
85–77 (0.525)
record
-9M
surplus $M (value/$)
34.6
roster fWAR
$38.4M
payroll
PlayerAgeServiceGfWARSalary $MSurplus $M
Tony Phillips 34 FA-elig 151 5.2 3.9 +0.4
Travis Fryman 24 arb 151 4.5 0.7 +3.0
Chad Kreuter 28 arb 119 3.7 0.2 +2.8
Alan Trammell 35 FA-elig 112 3.6 1.8 +1.1
Lou Whitaker 36 FA-elig 119 3.5 3.4 -0.6
David Wells 30 FA-elig 32 3.0 1.4 +1.0
Mickey Tettleton 32 FA-elig 152 2.5 3.3 -1.3
John Doherty 26 pre-arb 32 2.2 0.2 +1.6
Bill Krueger 35 FA-elig 32 1.4 1.2 -0.1
Tom Bolton 31 FA-elig 43 1.4 0.5 +0.6
Cecil Fielder 29 FA-elig 154 1.3 4.3 -3.2
Mike Henneman 31 FA-elig 63 1.2 4.3 -3.4
Rob Deer↔ BOS 32 FA-elig 90 0.8 1.5 -0.8
Eric Davis↔ LAD 31 FA-elig 23 0.7 0.4 +0.3
Dan Gladden 35 FA-elig 91 0.7 1.1 -0.6
Bill Gullickson 34 FA-elig 28 0.7 2.3 -1.8
Kirk Gibson 36 FA-elig 116 0.5 1.1 -0.7
Storm Davis↔ OAK 31 FA-elig 24 0.4 0.5 -0.2
Milt Cuyler 24 arb 82 0.4 0.3 +0.1
Mark Leiter 30 arb 27 0.3 0.5 -0.2
Joe Boever↔ OAK 32 FA-elig 19 0.3 0.2 +0.0
Mike Moore 33 FA-elig 36 0.3 3.3 -3.1
Greg Gohr 25 pre-arb 16 0.2 0.1 +0.0
Buddy Groom 27 pre-arb 19 0.1 0.1 -0.0
Mike Gardiner↔ WSN 27 arb 10 0.1 0.0 +0.0
Mark Grater 29 – 6 0.1 – –
Danny Bautista 21 – 17 0.0 – –
John DeSilva↔ LAD 25 – 1 0.0 – –
Sean Bergman 23 pre-arb 9 -0.1 0.1 -0.2
Skeeter Barnes 36 FA-elig 84 -0.1 0.3 -0.4
Rich Rowland 29 – 21 -0.2 – –
Bob MacDonald 28 arb 68 -0.2 0.2 -0.4
Scott Livingstone 27 pre-arb 98 -0.2 0.2 -0.4
Mike Munoz↔ COL 27 arb 8 -0.3 0.0 -0.3
Dave Johnson 33 – 6 -0.3 – –
John Kiely 28 pre-arb 8 -0.4 0.1 -0.5
Gary Thurman 28 FA-elig 75 -0.5 0.4 -0.8
Chris Gomez 22 pre-arb 46 -0.6 0.1 -0.6
Dave Haas 27 pre-arb 20 -0.7 0.1 -0.7
Kurt Knudsen 26 – 30 -0.7 – –

40 players appeared (WAR is complete); salary & surplus are on record for 34 of them (85%). Players without a salary show "–" — no single historical salary source is fully complete (especially 2020–2022).

WAR = FanGraphs (fWAR). Green = produced more value than paid (bargain); red = paid more than produced. Service: pre-arb (<3 yr) / arb (3–6) / FA-eligible (6+). Click headers to sort.

History: front-office performance & develop-vs-buy (1985–2024)

Trade ledger (realized WAR, all-time)

Best acquisitions
PlayerYearWAR for DET
Max Scherzer200922.2
Carlos Guillén200418.3
Ian Kinsler201316.3
Jeremy Bonderman200215.8
Damion Easley199615.4
Austin Jackson200914.8
Mickey Tettleton199114.4
Chet Lemon198114.2
Ones that got away
PlayerYear tradedWAR elsewhere
John Smoltz198781.6
Luis Gonzalez199833.8
Chris Hoiles198824.8
Howard Johnson198422.8
Justin Verlander201719.7
Rick Porcello201413.1
Robbie Ray201411.8
Matt Joyce200810.7
Rosternomics — quantifying front-office skill, attribution-clean. Follow @rosternomics on X. Decision-makers on record back to 1933; resource-controlled metrics (WAR & payroll) cover 1985–2026.
Data: FanGraphs (WAR), Baseball-Reference & the Chadwick Bureau register (rosters, IDs), the Lahman Database, Baseball America prospect rankings (via The Baseball Cube), and public payroll records. Transaction and trade data was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by Retrosheet. Executive birth/death data via Wikidata (CC0); bios are original. Emoji graphics by OpenMoji (CC BY-SA 4.0).
All figures are franchise-level outcomes credited to the decision-maker in the acquisition year — not solely attributable to one executive.