The Tigers agreed to a minor league contract with reliever Dugan Darnell, as first reflected on the MLB.com transaction tracker. Evan Petzold of The Detroit Free-Press reports that Darnell will receive a non-roster invite to MLB camp. He’d make a little more than the $780K league minimum if he cracks the big league roster.
Although Darnell will be with the club in camp, he’s not going to see any game action. The 28-year-old underwent surgery to repair a labrum tear in his left hip at the end of September. That came with an eight-month recovery timetable that’ll sideline him into May. He’ll presumably head to Triple-A Toledo at that point and look to pitch his way onto the MLB roster.
Darnell is a native of Northville, Michigan, who played collegiately in the state at Division III Adrian College. He went undrafted and pitched in the independent ranks before getting a professional look with the Rockies. Darnell pitched to a 3.74 earned run average across 200 minor league appearances in the Colorado organization. That included 53 2/3 frames of 3.19 ERA ball in a very difficult environment at Triple-A Albuquerque last season. Darnell earned his first MLB call as a result, allowing five runs over 11 2/3 innings until suffering the injury.
The righty has a three-pitch mix led by a 93-94 MPH fastball. He uses a splitter as his top secondary offering against left-handed hitters while relying more evenly on the split and a slider against righties. Darnell didn’t show enough in his limited MLB look to hold an offseason 40-man spot with Colorado. He bounced to Pittsburgh and Detroit on waiver claims. The Tigers non-tendered him shortly after but succeeded in bringing him back in a non-roster capacity. They did the same with non-tendered receivers Jack Little, Tyler Mattison, Tanner Rainey and Sean Guenther.
Meanwhile, Petzold reported yesterday that Detroit reached minor league deals with each of Dylan File, Woo-suk Go and Wandisson Charles. None of that trio received an invite to Spring Training, however. That indicates they’re viewed purely as organizational depth arms. All three of those pitchers have had stints on a team’s 40-man roster in the past, but none has gotten to the MLB level.
File is coming off a 4.70 ERA between the top two minor league levels in the Seattle farm system. He’s a starter who owns a 4.33 ERA over seven seasons in the minors. Go was a closer in his native South Korea. He signed a two-year, $4.5MM contract with the Padres over the 2023-24 offseason. Go failed to break camp and was quickly traded to the Marlins as a salary offset in the Luis Arraez deal. He has kicked around the upper minors over the past two years, including 20 appearances in the Detroit system a year ago. Charles is a 29-year-old reliever with a 98 MPH fastball who has never been able to find the strike zone. He has pitched in the A’s and Baltimore systems and spent the 2025 campaign in Mexico.
