Mize has never been more than a serviceable back-end starter so far in his career, while Maeda has a pretty long track record of being much more than that. Before last season, Maeda had 866.1 career innings with a 3.92 ERA, 1.14 WHIP, and 9.9 strikeouts per nine.

One name that may have not been high on anyone’s radar heading into Tigers camp was veteran Kenta Maeda, who posted a 7.32 ERA in 16 starts to open 2024. Maeda was demoted to the bullpen, where his work in long relief was an improvement from the first half of his season.

Kenta Maeda was flying from Los Angeles to Tampa for the start of spring training a couple of weeks ago when he heard someone attempting to speak heavily accented Japanese in the seat behind him. It turned out to be his former Minnesota Twins teammate,

Three right-handed pitchers from the Detroit Tigers seem to be emerging as frontrunners for one spot: Kenta Maeda, Casey Mize and Keider Montero.

The first pitch from Kenta Maeda on Saturday came in at 92.7 mph, according to Statcast. He reached back an inning later for 93.7.

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