Tigers sign LHP Nick Raquet to two-year minor league deal with 2028 return in mind

Detroit reportedly signed left-hander Nick Raquet to a two-year minor league contract, with the length of the deal shaped entirely by a recent Tommy John surgery that is expected to keep him off the mound for all of 2027. The signing was reported by 7 News' Ari Alexander and written up by Mark Polishuk at MLB Trade Rumors.

What happened

Per the report, Raquet became a free agent after the Orioles released him in early September. The two-year structure of the minor league deal is directly tied to his health situation, Alexander reports: the southpaw recently underwent Tommy John surgery, meaning the Tigers are not acquiring a pitcher for next season so much as reserving one for the season after. The arrangement gives Raquet a team umbrella under which to rehabilitate, with Detroit reportedly keeping an eye toward using him when he is healthy in 2028.

A minor league contract does not place a player on the 40-man roster, so the Tigers carry no roster cost here — just the organizational investment of housing a left-handed arm through a long recovery.

Why it matters

The story behind the contract is, in some ways, more interesting than the contract itself. Raquet was a third-round pick for the Nationals in the 2017 draft, a pedigree that suggested a conventional path through affiliated ball. What followed was anything but. When the minor league season was canceled by the pandemic in 2020, Raquet stepped away from baseball entirely — not to train, not to throw on the side, but to return to William & Mary and finish a business degree. He then went to work in enterprise risk consulting at Ernst & Young.

That is not a sentence that appears often in a pitcher's scouting report.

He returned to independent ball in 2023, signed a minor league deal with the Cardinals ahead of the 2024 season, and spent two years working his way back through the St. Louis organization. That path eventually led to an MLB debut in September 2025, when he tossed two scoreless innings over two appearances for the Cardinals — a quiet entrance, but an entrance nonetheless.

St. Louis later put Raquet on waivers in April and shipped him to Baltimore in a deal. His time with the Orioles was brief and difficult: a 7.36 ERA over four games and 3 2/3 innings. He spent most of his time at Triple-A Norfolk before an elbow problem ended his season in August and set in motion the surgery that now defines his immediate future.

The numbers

The big league numbers from 2025 and 2026 are thin by design — Raquet was used sparingly at that level. The more instructive line comes from Triple-A, where a move to full-time relief pitching, per the report, unlocked additional strikeout ability. Across 44 innings at the Triple-A level this season with the Cardinals' and Orioles' top affiliates, Raquet posted a 3.68 ERA, a 26.9% strikeout rate, and a 7.0% walk rate. Those are the numbers of a pitcher who found something in the bullpen that he had not quite located as a starter.

His profile is unusual for a left-handed reliever. Per the report, Raquet rarely cracks the 90 mph threshold and rarely throws a traditional fastball at all, leaning heavily on his slider with a sinker mixed in. That kind of arsenal — soft, movement-dependent, built around deception rather than velocity — can age differently than a power arm, which may be part of why the Tigers are willing to wait two years to find out what they have.

Where the club stands

Detroit finished 76-86 (.469), fourth in the AL Central and 9 games back in the division. The Tigers were eliminated from both the division race and the Wild Card race, ending the year ranked 8th in the Wild Card standings, 8.0 games relative to the cut line, with a one-game losing streak to close things out.

The offseason is already moving quickly in Detroit. Troy Melton, who was placed on the 15-day IL on September 21 with right forearm tightness, has been cleared of structural damage and is expected to have a normal offseason, with reports indicating he is expected to lead Detroit's rotation in 2027. Separately, former catcher Martín Maldonado is reportedly joining the coaching staff as quality control coach, reuniting him with manager A.J. Hinch and pitcher Framber Valdez, per reports.

And looming over all of it: two-time Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal is entering free agency this offseason after the Dodgers eliminated the Tigers, introducing a significant variable into what Detroit's 2027 rotation ultimately looks like.

Into that context, the Raquet signing lands as a low-cost, long-horizon move — the kind of transaction that barely registers on the offseason ledger but occasionally pays off when a pitcher rediscovers himself on the back end of a recovery.

What we don't know yet

The report does not specify whether the two-year minor league deal includes a spring-training invitation or an opt-out clause, both of which are common features of such contracts. The timeline for Raquet's rehabilitation has not been detailed beyond the expectation that he will miss all of 2027. Whether the Tigers envision him as a bullpen piece or something else in 2028 is also unaddressed — the report notes only that Detroit has an eye toward using Raquet when he is healthy.

What to watch

The practical question for Tigers fans is a straightforward one: what does Raquet look like on the other side of Tommy John surgery, and does the slider-sinker mix that produced a 26.9% strikeout rate at Triple-A translate when he returns? That answer is roughly two years away.

In the nearer term, the more pressing organizational question is what happens with Skubal in free agency and how Detroit constructs a rotation around Melton's expected return. Raquet is a footnote to that conversation for now — a left-handed arm filed away for later, signed by a team that has learned, perhaps from Raquet himself, that baseball has a way of circling back to people who were willing to wait.