The Tigers have designated catcher Jake Rogers for assignment, per a team announcement. His spot on the roster will go to veteran infielder/outfielder Javier Báez, who is returning from the injured list and will start tonight’s game in center field (via Jason Beck of MLB.com). With Rogers jettisoned from the roster, the Tigers will turn backup catching duties over to young Eduardo Valencia.
Rogers is one of the longest-tenured members of the Tigers’ roster. The 31-year-old made his big league debut back in 2019 and handled the lion’s share of catching duties in 2023-24 before giving way to breakout backstop Dillon Dingler, who’s now in the midst of an MVP-caliber season.
Rogers has long been a glove-first catcher, although he did belt a career-high 21 homers back in 2023 while slashing .221/.286/.444. He’s batted under .200 in each subsequent season, however, resulting in a cumulative .188/.262/.338 slash in 589 trips to the plate from 2024-26.
In 2024-25, Rogers paired that meager offense with top-of-the-scale defensive grades, helping to offset his lack of value in the batter’s box. This season, both Defensive Runs Saved and Statcast feel he’s been below average. Rogers’ 26.7% caught-stealing rate is strong, but Statcast dings him with sub-par framing and blocking abilities in 2026. He hasn’t been great when it comes to ABS challenges either, succeeding 10 of 19 times (53%).
While he hasn’t had a good season overall, Rogers could still be traded or at least claimed off waivers. There are several clubs on the lookout for catching help — the Yankees, Rays, Red Sox, Rangers and White Sox among them. His $3.05MM salary is manageable, and his ability to control the run game is sound. As noted, Rogers graded as a plus defender prior to this season, and even in a down year at the plate, he’s performed well in a tiny sample of 21 plate appearances against lefties. The righty-swinging Rogers has never hit for average or gotten on base at a high clip, but he has plenty of pop against southpaws. In 332 career plate appearances versus lefties, he’s clubbed 17 round-trippers while batting .216/.298/.454.
As of this writing, there’s about $984K of his salary yet to be paid out. A club looking for a short-term option with some pop against lefties could consider him a cheap option to bolster its catching corps. If the Tigers can find a taker in a trade (and don’t need to include cash in the swap), they could trim around $700K from their luxury tax bill. For a club that’s only around $1-2MM over and has multiple qualifying offer candidates (if they’re also not traded), that’s significant. As I explored last week, ducking under the tax threshold would mean the difference between a compensatory pick after the fourth round (if they’re tax payors) and after the first round (if they’re under the line).
Valencia, 26, made his big league debut earlier this month. He’s out to a 5-for-12 start in his big league career, including a pair of homers. There’s not much to be gleaned from such a tiny sample, but he was slashing .262/.347/.479 with 17 homers in 81 Triple-A games prior to being promoted. Valencia has drawn decent reviews for his framing and receiving. His throwing struggles have been a red flag in recent seasons, but he upped his caught-stealing rate from 14% in Triple-A last year to 23% (15-for-64) in Toledo this year before being called up.
