The Tigers signed a right-handed hitter Ricky Vanasco to a minor league deal, according to his statement Transaction tracker at MLB.com. The Full Circle Sports Management client has been assigned to Triple-A Toledo for now but is expected to receive an invite to Major League spring training.
Vanasco, 26, finished the 2024 season with the Tigers. They acquired him from the Dodgers in a cash deal in July and kept him largely as an optional assignment in the minors, giving him only two major league appearances. Detroit then non-tendered him last week and sent him to free agency without placing him on waivers, which allowed them to bring him back via this deal.
The right-hander currently has just four major league appearances to his name, two with the Dodgers and two with the Tigers. That's obviously not a big enough deal to draw any conclusions from, but there are other reasons why the Tigers are interested.
Vanasco was drafted by the Rangers in 2017 and put up some good numbers in the lower divisions of the minors. Baseball America ranked him as the club's number 12 prospect for 2020. Unfortunately, he underwent Tommy John surgery in September of that year and missed the entire 2021 season. Still, the Rangers didn't want him to go unnoticed in the Rule 5 draft, so they added him to their 40-man roster in November 2021 squad up.
After recovering from his surgery, he was back on the mound in 2022. He made 23 starts between High-A and Double-A that year, throwing 92 1/3 innings with a 4.68 earned run average. His 28.9% strikeout rate was strong, but he also handed out walks at a rate of 12.7%. He was sidelined for a few months in 2023 due to knee surgery, but he had some encouraging results when transitioning to a backup role. He threw 32 1/3 innings that year with a 2.78 ERA, a 31.9% strikeout rate and a 9.9% walk rate and was acquired by the Dodgers midway through the year.
In 2024, as mentioned, he played four major league games between the Dodgers and the Tigers. He spent most of his time in Triple-A, where he logged 40 1/3 innings with a 2.45 ERA. His 26.4% strikeout rate was good, but his 16.5% walk rate was very high.
The lack of control could make Vanasco a project for the Tigers, but a minor league deal poses no real risk and could provide long-term benefits if it works out. Vanasco is out of options but has less than a year of service time and is still relatively young. This means he could be retained inexpensively for years to come if things work out for him and he gets a squad spot.
