The Tigers selected the contract of right-hander Tanner Rainey on August 11, 2026, and sent Enmanuel De Jesus to the paternity list, a move that immediately changed the club’s bullpen mix. The roster shift came at 2:20pm CDT, and because the Tigers already had a vacancy on the 40-man roster, no other transaction was needed.
That is why Rainey is being searched now: he is back in the majors after spending the entire season at Triple-A Toledo, and he arrives as a direct replacement while De Jesus is away. The Tigers are getting another arm for the stretch of the schedule that falls during a paternity leave, even if the arrangement may only last a short time.
Rainey, 33, spent all of 2026 at Toledo before the call-up, throwing 42 2/3 innings in 39 appearances and allowing 2.32 earned runs per nine innings. He missed enough bats to post a 33.5% strikeout rate and paired it with a 41.1% ground ball rate, the kind of profile that can draw attention for a bullpen opening. The club also knows him well: he signed a minor league deal with the Tigers last summer, got added to the roster in September, made two late-season appearances, was non-tendered after the campaign and then returned on another minor league deal.
But the numbers are not a clean sell. Rainey’s 14.5% walk rate at Toledo was extremely high, and that kind of command issue can erase the value of missed bats in a hurry. His big league track record cuts both ways too: 199 innings, mostly with the Nationals, a 5.52 ERA, a 27.6% strikeout rate and a 15% walk rate. The strikeouts are real, but so is the traffic.
The next decision may come as soon as De Jesus returns. Rainey has at least five years of big league service time, which means he cannot be optioned to the minors without his consent. If the Tigers want to take him off the active roster later, they would have to remove him from the 40-man roster as well, so this could turn from a short-term fill-in into a tougher roster call once the paternity leave ends.
