Drew Sommers may be a solution to the Tigers lefty reliever woes

On Thursday, Evan Petzold of the Freep reported sources telling him that Sommers would be promoted from Triple-A Toledo on Friday prior to the beginning of the Tigers home series against the Kansas City Royals. We can only speculate at the corresponding move, but the real question is whether Sommers is going to be an answer for their main remaining weakness out of the bullpen.

The Detroit Tigers found a lot of creative solutions for their pitching staff at the trade deadline. Adding Charlie Morton and Chris Paddack at low cost in prospects has solidified a starting rotation that was crumbling after the loss of Reese Olson. The trade for Kyle Finnegan and some re-tooling to his pitch mix, along with Troy Melton’s promotion, has really bolstered the backend of the bullpen so far. It remains to be seen how this will all work out over the long haul and particularly into October, but the results speak for themselves to date.

Only one particular issue went unaddressed by Scott Harris and GM Jeff Greenberg. The Tigers did not land a left-handed starter or reliever in trade, and that leaves them searching for solutions they can take into the postseason. Drew Sommers is one of their better hopes to answer that need.

The Tigers entered the season feeling like they were in pretty good position with Tyler Holton and Brant Hurter in the bullpen. They added lefty reliever Bailey Horn on a minor league deal over the offseason, and they picked up Andrew Chafin on a minor league deal with opt-outs during spring camp. They also made a small trade in February. After designating RHP Mason Englert to make room for the Jack Flaherty signing, they flipped Englert to the Tampa Bay Rays in exchange for left-handed relief prospect Drew Sommers. That may turn out to be a more consequential move than was thought at the time.

To date, nothing has really worked out in the southpaw department. Hurter has alternated some solid months with some poor ones, but after a few rough stretches in July and August where he really struggled with his command, he was optioned back to Toledo last week to work on getting his timing and release point back. No doubt the Tigers still view him as one of their better options, but he needs to get right. Holton remains their primary left-handed reliever, but his command just hasn’t been quite as sharp as it was the past two seasons after handling some really heavy workloads out of the pen, leading to a major uptick in home runs allowed.

Right now, this isn’t such a big problem. The Tigers have a big lead in their division, and their main high leverage right-handers are pretty adept at handling left-handed hitters. However, things get a lot more uncomfortable under the bright lights in October. The idea of a starter getting into trouble in the middle innings and having to match up the Tigers current left-handed relief options against left-handed hitting duos like Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman, or Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber, with the season on the line would fill a Tigers fan’s heart with dread.

Sommers wasn’t a particularly notable draft pick. The Rays selected him in the 11th round back in 2022 out of Central Arizona College. The six-foot-three, 250 pound JUCO standout received the minimum signing bonus, but from the start was punching out hitters and racking up ground balls at good clips in the A-ball ranks in 2023 and 2024.

The Tigers promoted Sommers to Double-A Erie this spring and the results were excellent as part of a killer SeaWolves’ bullpen. Sommers saw his strikeouts dip for a while, but he issued just two walks in 24 1/3 innings of work, and continued to do an excellent job keeping the ball on the ground and giving up very few home runs, even in a hitter’s park like UPMC Park in Erie, PA.

That success led to a rapid promotion to Triple-A Toledo in late May and Sommers has continued to thrive. His overall walk rate did spike for a while, but he also made some adjustments that brought the strikeouts back and seems to have just needed time to dial everything back in. That’s perfectly normal with that transition as pitchers have to adapt to the ABS challenge system as well as the switch from the minor league baseball to the major league one. Many minor leaguers have reported some initial difficulty adapting, but once Sommers got comfortable with his new surroundings, the walks finally dried up over the past few weeks, leading to his promotion.

Sommers mainly uses his sinker and slider to left-handers. He will go upstairs with his fourseamer, but mainly reserves the fourseam and the changeup for right-handed hitters.

The sinker averages 94.3 mph, and the velocity, movement, and Sommers angle to the plate all help him collect a ton of ground balls. Triple-A hitters hold a .340 wOBA against the sinker, and that’s with a quite mediocre infield behind him in Toledo. Left-handers have been at the sinker’s mercy all year, and account for a meager .293 wOBA against it. He doesn’t really get many whiffs, but the sinker is just extremely hard to drive in the air. Right and left-handed hitters combined posted a downright pathetic .063 ISO against the sinker, despite putting it in play regularly.

Sommers slider checks in with an 82.1 mph average. Surprisingly, hitters of either hand have posted an even worse .061 ISO against the slider. Meanwhile he drew a strong whiff rate of 39.1 percent against all hitters faced. It’s not the best slider around, but his low, almost sidearm release, quick arm, and crossfire delivery all make it really hard to lay off of, particularly for left-handed hitters. And when they do make contact, that can’t drive it in the air unless he really hangs one, and that just doesn’t happen too often. Good command of all his pitches makes the whole package work well together.

Sommers has precision and keeps the walks low. He posted a ground ball rate of 63.8 percent across both levels this year. And he holds a HR/9 rate of just 0.32. At the major league level the strikeouts will drop, but the profile suggests he can do what Hurter does at his best, but with more consistency. Pounding the bottom of the zone from a tough angle, racking up quick outs, collecting his share of strikeouts, and issuing few walks, all while smothering hitters’ attempts to get the ball in the air.

The only flaw with this idea is that it’s pretty late in the game. The Tigers love Bailey Horn’s power fourseamer, and so he got the first look as the Tigers decided to give Hurter a factory reset in Toledo. Predictably, Horn’s command is still far from major league quality, and in the process they wasted a few outings where they couldn’t worked with Sommers, who was always the more likely candidate to succeed.

Alex Cobb has to be reinstated on August 28th. The cutoff for Jose Urquidy to be reinstated to the 40-man roster comes on August 31. Time to experiment before the need to finalize the 40-man roster for eligibility in the postseason is down to 10 days.

So there isn’t much time to evaluate Sommers prior to having to add players back to the 40-man and DFA others in their place. However, in this case it probably doesn’t matter too much. Sommers has a lot to recommend him and could be a longstanding piece of the Tigers’ bullpen matrix for years to come.

With the Tigers, he’ll be working with Dillon Dingler and Jake Rogers, whose framing and game calling abilities are far advanced from the Tigers catchers in Toledo. Those two will be a real boon to Sommers exploiting his good command, and working with Chris Fetter, Robin Lund, and Juan Nieves could help unlock a few more whiffs and keep his strikeout rate high. Paired with his low walk and home run rates, there is a strong recipe for success. Hopefully Sommers can settle in quickly and show the Tigers what he can do.