Is Emilio Pagan the Right One-Year, $11 Million Bet for Detroit?
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A few days after the Detroit Tigers declined a club option on 39-year-old closer Kenley Jansen, they got an early start on their first move of this winter by reaching an agreement with right-handed reliever Emilio Pagan for one year and approximately $11 million, according to Jon Heyman of MLB Network and the New York Post.
Pagan, 35, finished the 2026 season with 25 saves in 45 appearances and a 3.38 ERA, and missed almost two months of playing time due to a Grade 2 left hamstring strain. Over the last two seasons, he has saved 57 games with a 3.07 ERA, a 3.89 FIP and 3.2 bWAR, in what has been the best stretch of his 10-season career with six different teams.
The acquisition responds to the attempt to reinforce a bullpen that finished with the most blown saves (31) in team history and will need much more than a reinforcement arm. President of baseball operations Scott Harris made it clear on Tuesday that they would look for an experienced right-handed reliever with the ability to throw strikes, make bats miss and work in pressure situations.
“We want to add right-handed relievers, preferably ones that can throw strikes, miss bats and eliminate lefties and righties,” Harris told Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic during MLB’s general managers' meetings on Tuesday. “If we can find a few of those this winter, I think it will be a successful winter.”
Will Pagan be able to overcome his regressions and deliver dominance?
In the free-agent reliever rankings, Pagan ranks 20th in fWAR, with just 0.5, and I think that says a lot about the type of options the Tigers have just explored. My first thought about the agreement was to wonder what Harris based this risky bet on, assuming that he met the team’s needs standards as a right-handed reliever capable of dominating left-handed hitters and making bats miss.
Pagan will pitch at 36 in 2027 and isn't the typical pitcher who can make bats miss with some consistency. Although he is above the league average over the last two seasons, he finished 2023 in the 37th percentile in Whiff%. In 2026, left-handed hitters punished his pitches, producing a Barrel% rate of 12.5 and a 51.8% Hard Hit rate, while right-handed hitters stayed below those marks, at 8.6% and 39.7%, respectively.
That said, it is clear that Pagan was far from appearing among the best options if the priority was to get arms capable of generating swings-and-misses and dominating left-handed and right-handed hitters, so at least I hope this is not the only attempt to do what is possible to improve the bullpen.
Before arriving in Cincinnati in 2024, Pagan had taken on the closer role in only one season, when he saved 20 games for the Tampa Bay Rays in 2019 and finished with a 2.31 ERA in 66 appearances. He then went through three difficult seasons in which his FIP rose from 3.30 in 2019 to an average of 4.71. However, after two years with the San Diego Padres, he improved upon arriving in the Minnesota Twins’ bullpen.
He then found an opportunity in Cincinnati and managed to establish himself as a closer in 2025, during his age-34 season, when he recorded 32 saves in 70 appearances, the personal record of his career. However, after suffering some regressions and health problems this year, it was difficult for interested teams to see Pagan as a high-profile reliever to close out games again.
Although Pagan has continued to demonstrate his ability to get chases with his mix of fastball, cutter and splitter, capable of provoking swings and misses and strikeouts, hitters recorded the highest in-zone contact rate of his career (83.2%). In addition, his four-seam fastball had a slight drop in velocity, from 95.8 mph last year to 94.9 mph this year.
At the same time, two of Pagan’s main weapons, the splitter and four-seam fastball, lost effectiveness in 2026, as their Run Value declined. The most concerning regression is that of the splitter, which went from a +6 Run Value to -4, as hitters made harder contact against it by raising their Hard Hit% from 17.6 to 35.7.
Pagan relied on the four-seam fastball on 62.8% of his pitches in 2026 and also generated his highest PutAway rate with it, 24.8%. Meanwhile, the cutter improved its Whiff rate from 31.6% to 36.5%, but, in the same way, he will need to adjust his splitter to sustain it.
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Yirsandy is a baseball writer specializing in MLB coverage with experience across multiple teams and storylines. He currently writes for Diamond Centric, where he covers the New York Mets, San Diego Padres, Chicago Cubs, Milwaukee Brewers, and Kansas City Royals. My work focuses on game coverage, player analysis, and storytelling that connects performance with context. My Substack has also been an important part of my writing development, where I’ve built much of my baseball coverage and storytelling voice over time. I’m passionate about combining reporting, research, and thoughtful analysis to produce engaging baseball content for readers.
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