Tigers interested in former Rays closer Pete Fairbanks per report

The reliever market is starting to move after a very slow month of November. The New York Mets got on the ball quickly, adding long-time Brewers closer Devin Williams on Monday, while the Baltimore Orioles signed Ryan Helsley last week after the Tigers had been linked as one of many teams interested in the hard-throwing right-hander. Jon Morosi of Fox Sports reported on Monday night that the Detroit Tigers are one of the clubs interested in signing free agent reliever Pete Fairbanks.

The right-hander, who will turn 32 on December 16, has spent the last six years with the Tampa Bays Rays and has worked as a part-time closer, amassing 75 saves over the last three seasons. In Rays fashion, the club signed a three-year deal with Fairbanks to cover what would have been his three seasons of arbitration to cover those seasons, along with a team option for 2026 at $11 million. They then declined that option last month, making Fairbanks a free agent.

The lanky, six-foot-six reliever relies on a good fastball-slider combination. The heater has declined a bit from his peak average velocity of 99 mph in 2022-2023, but he still averaged 97.3 mph in 2025. Combined with a high arm angle and solid extension, velocity isn’t really an issue. It’s an extremely straight fourseamer that has generally relied on getting really good induced vertical break (IVB), or ride to keep it simple, to the top of the strike zone.

In 2022, Fairbanks peaked at an average of 20.7 inches of IVB, which is elite territory. Few pitchers approach those marks. The combination of high overhand arm slot, high active spin rate, and near triple digit average velocity made the heater one of the best fastballs in the game from 2022-2023. Command was not always his strong suit, but he’s generally kept the walks under control for a hard-throwing, high leverage reliever.

Since that point, the velocity on the heater has declined a little and he hasn’t consistently gotten maximum ride on the pitch, probably due to a little more inconsistency in his release. His strikeout rates have declined drastically as a result, as Fairbanks struck out 24 percent of hitters faced across the 2024-2025 seasons, which is only a touch above league average. Of course, decline is a different thing for Fairbanks considering he averaged a 40 percent strikeout rate from 2022-2023.

Fairbanks backs up the heater with quality mid-80’s slider. It’s not a dominant breaking ball. It’s just a modestly above average one, but it plays well off the fastball and when the fastball is really good, the slider plays even better. He has started tinkering with a 90 mph cutter and a mid 90’s changeup that is essentially just a sinker. The latter two pitches popped up a bit more in 2025 as an experiment, but essentially this is a guy who is going to attack with fourseamers and sliders and occasionally mix something else in as a change of pace.

Fairbanks put up absolutely elite numbers, a 1.13 ERA/0.86 FIP in 2022, and a was still very good in 2023, but the past two seasons have seen his numbers become more pedestrian. As the velocity and amount of ride on his fastball declined somewhat, his strikeout rates have become just a little above average, while his walks rates have trended to be a little worse than average. And as you’d expect, the decline in stuff has led to more home runs as well, though he still keeps the long ball pretty well in check, particularly for a guy who gets a lot of fly balls.

So, we’re essentially looking at a once elite closer type who is now just a good right-handed reliever who generally posts pretty balanced splits despite being better against right-handed hitters as you’d expect. In 2025, he posted a 2.83 ERA/3.63 FIP, while pitching half of his games in the Yankees minor league stadium at their Florida complex that has the same dimensions as Yankee Stadium. You’ll recall the Rays played there after Tropicana Field was devastated by Hurricane Milton in October of 2024.

Fairbanks is the type of pitcher who would be happier in Comerica Park for half his games. While the difference isn’t so great, the short distances down the lines at George Steinbrenner Field do not favor a fly ball pitcher. Fairbanks doesn’t give up many line drives, and he gets a lot of fly balls and pop-ups, so if he can keep hitters in the middle of the field he is still pretty tough to do a lot of damage against.

There’s a lot to recommend him as a reliever for the Tigers. He’s not the monster he was a few years ago, but he’s still a good reliever with plenty of late game experience. He can be a little hot-headed and certainly has some dog in him. He also tends to be hilariously blunt when he does have a bad outing.

If there’s a fly in the ointment it’s Fairbanks injury history. He had his first Tommy John surgery in high school, and another one in 2017, two years after the Texas Rangers selected him out of the University of Missouri in the ninth round of the 2015 MLB draft.

He hasn’t had a major injury since that point, but he tends to miss a little time every season. He has had some nervous and circulatory issues in his throwing arm, including Raynaud’s syndrome, that have occasionally given him trouble with numbness in his fingers. That may not be ideal pitching in Detroit early in the season in cold weather. On the plus side is the fact that all these issues have rarely impacted his performance too much, and in 2025 he threw the most innings of his career and avoided an injured list stint for the first time.

So, we’re not exactly talking about Edwin Diaz here, but Fairbanks is still a very capable reliever. While his fastball is still good, he could clearly use a new wrinkle in his game. Experimenting with the cutter and sinker make sense to give him something he can use to throw off hitters and mix a few more pitches down in the zone rather than just living at the top with the fourseamer.

The Rays are quite good at developing pitchers, so we can’t forecast that Chris Fetter and Robin Lund are going to magically find a way to turn his fastball back from merely pretty good to elite. However, considering everything that’s happened with the Rays the past two seasons, it’s fair to suggest that circumstances for their pitchers were less than ideal. At times, both the cutter and changeup have looked good, and it’s possible that developing one of them as a third wrinkle to his game would really help him to get back closer to his previously elite levels of performance. And even if the Tigers can’t squeeze a little more out of him, Fairbanks would still be a quality addition to the bullpen as he is.

The Rays didn’t think bringing Fairbanks back this year for $11 million, even just to turn around and trade him, was worth the trouble, so presumably he’s going to get less than that. Morosi reports that the Blue Jays and Marlins may also be interested. Overall this looks like a pretty good target for the Tigers, and if they could get a team option attached to either a one or two-year deal, all the better. Something like two years, $18-20 million seems like the range we’re looking at in Fairbanks’ case.