The Tigers announced that right-hander Chase Lee has been recalled to the major league roster. He was already on the 40-man but is still looking for his major league debut. Righty Keider Montero was optioned as the corresponding move.
Lee, 26, was a sixth-round pick of the Rangers in 2021. He was flipped to the Tigers as part of the deal sending lefty Andrew Chafin to Texas in July of last year. The Tigers added him to their 40-man roster in November to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft.
He isn’t a power arm but throws hitters off with his sidewinding delivery, which allows him to succeed even though his fastball tops out around 90 miles per hour. Overall, he has 182 minor league innings on his track record thus far with a 3.86 earned run average. He has struck out 31.4% of opponents while issuing walks at a reasonable 8.1% clip and getting grounders on roughly half the balls in play he’s allowed.
The Tigers had recently recalled Montero to make a couple of spot starts, thus giving the other members of their rotation a breather. Brenan Hanifee had been optioned out, leaving the club with a slightly shorter bullpen for a few days. (Hanifee was later recalled when Beau Brieske landed on the IL.) Lee’s recall will get things back to the standard five/eight ratio of starters to relievers.
Photo courtesy of Junfu Han, Imagn Images
