Rosternomics
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Tigers DET

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GM: Al Avila (since 2016)

2021 roster — every player, value & surplus

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-0.1
WAB — wins above budget
-8.9
TAB — roster Talent above budget
77–85 (0.475)
record
-20M
surplus $M (value/$)
20.7
roster fWAR
$86.7M
payroll
PlayerAgeServiceGfWARSalary $MSurplus $M
Jeimer Candelario 27 arb 149 3.9 2.9 +9.7
Robbie Grossman 31 FA-elig 156 2.6 5.0 +3.3
Jonathan Schoop 29 FA-elig 156 2.2 4.5 +2.5
Akil Baddoo 22 – 124 1.7 0.6 +5.0
Michael Fulmer 28 arb 52 1.5 3.1 +1.8
Spencer Turnbull 28 pre-arb 9 1.5 0.6 +4.3
Matthew Boyd 30 FA-elig 15 1.5 6.5 -1.7
Casey Mize 24 pre-arb 30 1.3 0.6 +3.6
Eric Haase 28 pre-arb 98 1.0 0.4 +2.9
Niko Goodrum 29 arb 90 1.0 2.1 +1.2
Tyler Alexander 26 pre-arb 41 1.0 0.6 +2.5
Jake Rogers 26 pre-arb 38 0.9 0.5 +2.6
Matt Manning 23 – 18 0.8 0.3 +2.3
Derek Hill 25 pre-arb 49 0.7 0.3 +2.0
Wily Peralta 32 FA-elig 19 0.7 1.5 +0.7
Tarik Skubal 24 pre-arb 31 0.6 0.6 +1.4
José Cisnero 32 FA-elig 67 0.5 1.0 +0.8
Dustin Garneau 33 FA-elig 20 0.5 0.1 +1.5
Gregory Soto 26 pre-arb 62 0.4 0.6 +0.7
Daniel Norris↔ MIL 28 FA-elig 38 0.3 2.4 -1.2
Derek Holland 34 FA-elig 39 0.3 0.9 +0.1
José Ureña 29 FA-elig 26 0.3 3.2 -2.2
Kyle Funkhouser 27 pre-arb 57 0.3 0.5 +0.5
Victor Reyes 26 pre-arb 76 0.3 0.5 +0.4
Drew Hutchison 30 FA-elig 9 0.1 0.1 +0.3
Willi Castro 24 pre-arb 125 0.1 0.6 -0.2
Grayson Greiner 28 pre-arb 31 0.1 0.4 -0.0
Miguel Del Pozo 28 – 5 0.1 – –
Ian Krol 30 arb 18 0.1 0.2 +0.0
Alex Lange 25 – 36 0.1 0.3 -0.1
Erasmo Ramírez 31 FA-elig 17 0.0 0.8 -0.7
Beau Burrows↔ MIN 24 – 1 0.0 0.0 +0.0
Julio Teheran 30 FA-elig 1 -0.0 3.0 -3.1
Daz Cameron 24 pre-arb 35 -0.0 0.3 -0.4
Isaac Paredes 22 pre-arb 23 -0.0 0.2 -0.3
Jason Foley 25 – 11 -0.1 0.1 -0.4
Drew Carlton 25 – 4 -0.1 0.0 -0.5
Rony García 23 pre-arb 2 -0.1 0.4 -0.9
Jacob Robson 26 – 4 -0.2 0.0 -0.6
Joe Jiménez 26 arb 52 -0.2 1.5 -2.1
Nomar Mazara 26 arb 50 -0.2 1.8 -2.5
Renato Núñez 27 arb 14 -0.2 0.6 -1.3
Miguel Cabrera 38 FA-elig 130 -0.5 30.0 -31.5
Wilson Ramos↔ CLE 33 FA-elig 35 -0.5 1.6 -3.3
Harold Castro 27 pre-arb 106 -0.5 0.6 -2.3
Buck Farmer 30 FA-elig 36 -0.5 1.9 -3.6
JaCoby Jones 29 arb 36 -0.7 2.6 -5.0
Zack Short 26 – 61 -0.8 0.3 -2.9
Bryan Garcia 26 pre-arb 39 -0.9 0.4 -3.3

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.