The Tigers are going to select the contract of right-hander Burch Smith. Left-hander Enmanuel De Jesus has been optioned to Triple-A Toledo in a corresponding active roster move. The Tigers will need to open a 40-man spot to make it official. Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic was among those to relay that Smith had a locker in the clubhouse and that De Jesus has been optioned.
Smith, 36, signed a minor league deal with the Tigers in the winter. He has been with Triple-A Toledo to begin the season and has been off to a hot start. Through eight appearances and ten innings, he has allowed just two earned runs via four hits, no walks and one hit batter while striking out 16. He has been throwing his changeup 12.6% of the time in that small sample, after only using that pitch about 1-3% of the time in recent years.
The Tigers will give Smith a chance to face major league hitters for the first time since 2024. Though he is in his mid-3os and debuted in the majors over a decade ago, his big league track record is still pretty limited. At the end of 2021, he had 191 major league innings with a 6.03 earned run average. He spent 2022 in NPB in Japan and 2023 in the KBO in South Korea.
He was back in the majors with the Marlins and Orioles in 2024 and posted a 4.95 ERA in 56 1/3 innings. Last year, he was stuck in the minors with the Pirates after signing a minor league deal. He bounced on and off the injured list in the minors and put up a 7.08 ERA in Triple-A before being released in July.
Though Smith didn’t sign anywhere else in the latter months of 2025, the Tigers may have been intrigued by a stint in winter ball in the Dominican Republic. Pitching for Águilas Cibaeñas, Smith logged 15 1/3 innings with a 1.76 ERA. He struck out 20 of the 63 batters he faced, a 31.7% clip. He has carried over that form so far this year, with a 29% strikeout rate in spring training and a huge 44.4% clip in Triple-A.
If he provide something close to that in the majors, it would be a nice under-the-radar find for the Tigers. If not, Smith has at least five years of service time, meaning he can’t be optioned back to the minors without his consent.
Photo courtesy of Junfu Han, Imagn Images
