Rosternomics
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Tigers DET

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GM: Al Avila (since 2016)

2018 roster — every player, value & surplus

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-16.1
WAB — wins above budget
-18.5
TAB — roster Talent above budget
64–98 (0.395)
record
-65M
surplus $M (value/$)
14.0
roster fWAR
$113.3M
payroll
PlayerAgeServiceGfWARSalary $MSurplus $M
Matthew Boyd 27 arb 31 2.2 0.6 +6.8
Jeimer Candelario 24 pre-arb 144 2.0 0.5 +6.4
Nick Castellanos 26 arb 157 2.0 6.0 +0.7
Niko Goodrum 26 pre-arb 131 1.8 0.5 +5.7
Jose Iglesias 28 FA-elig 125 1.6 6.3 -1.0
Joe Jiménez 23 pre-arb 68 1.4 0.5 +4.3
Michael Fulmer 25 pre-arb 24 1.4 0.6 +4.1
Mike Fiers↔ OAK 33 FA-elig 21 1.3 4.1 +0.5
Blaine Hardy 31 arb 30 1.3 0.8 +3.7
Leonys Martin↔ CLE 30 FA-elig 78 1.3 1.6 +2.7
Jordan Zimmermann 32 FA-elig 25 1.0 24.0 -20.7
Miguel Cabrera 35 FA-elig 38 0.8 30.0 -27.4
Drew VerHagen 27 arb 41 0.6 0.6 +1.6
JaCoby Jones 26 pre-arb 129 0.5 0.5 +1.0
Spencer Turnbull 25 – 4 0.5 0.1 +1.5
Francisco Liriano 34 FA-elig 27 0.4 4.0 -2.5
Artie Lewicki 26 pre-arb 13 0.4 0.3 +0.9
Daniel Norris 25 arb 11 0.3 0.6 +0.6
Daniel Stumpf 27 pre-arb 56 0.3 0.6 +0.4
Alex Wilson 31 arb 59 0.2 1.9 -1.1
Pete Kozma 30 arb 27 0.2 0.1 +0.6
Louis Coleman 32 arb 51 0.1 0.4 -0.0
Christin Stewart 24 – 17 0.1 0.1 +0.3
Buck Farmer 27 arb 66 0.1 0.6 -0.3
John Hicks 28 arb 81 0.1 0.6 -0.3
Victor Alcántara 25 pre-arb 27 0.1 0.2 -0.0
Harold Castro 24 – 6 0.1 0.0 +0.1
Chad Bell 29 – 3 0.0 0.0 +0.1
Josh Smoker↔ PIT 29 pre-arb 1 0.0 0.1 -0.0
Zach McAllister↔ CLE 30 FA-elig 3 0.0 0.2 -0.1
Grayson Greiner 25 – 30 -0.0 0.3 -0.4
Shane Greene 29 arb 66 -0.0 1.9 -2.1
Matt Hall 24 – 5 -0.0 0.1 -0.2
Mikie Mahtook 28 arb 67 -0.1 0.6 -0.8
Jacob Turner↔ MIA 27 FA-elig 1 -0.1 0.4 -0.8
James Adduci 33 – 59 -0.1 – –
Jarrod Saltalamacchia 33 FA-elig 5 -0.1 0.1 -0.6
Sandy Báez 24 pre-arb 9 -0.1 0.1 -0.6
Zac Reininger 25 pre-arb 18 -0.2 0.1 -0.8
Ronny Rodríguez 26 – 62 -0.3 0.3 -1.4
Johnny Barbato 25 pre-arb 7 -0.3 0.5 -1.7
Ryan Carpenter 27 – 6 -0.4 0.2 -1.7
Dawel Lugo 23 – 27 -0.5 0.1 -1.8
Warwick Saupold 28 pre-arb 31 -0.5 0.6 -2.4
James McCann 28 arb 118 -0.6 2.4 -4.3
Mike Gerber 25 pre-arb 18 -0.7 0.1 -2.4
Dixon Machado 26 arb 67 -0.8 0.6 -3.1
Victor Reyes 23 pre-arb 100 -1.3 0.5 -5.1
Victor Martinez 39 FA-elig 133 -1.6 18.0 -23.6

49 players appeared (WAR is complete); salary & surplus are on record for 48 of them (98%). 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.