Sunday Notes: Detroit’s Will Vest Developed Into a Quality Closer

He doesn’t garner much press — at least not outside of Tigers territory — but Will Vest has developed into one of baseball’s better relievers. The 30-year-old right-hander has appeared in 181 games for Detroit over the past three seasons and logged a 2.93 ERA and a 2.71 ERA over 187-and-a-third innings. Moreover, he is currently the team’s closer. Vest’s 2025 ledger includes 23 saves to go with a 3.01 ERA and a 2.71 FIP, and he recorded the final out in both of the club’s Wild Card wins over Cleveland. If the Tigers go on to beat the Mariners in the ALDS, Vest will likely have played a key role.

He could easily be pitching for Seattle. As related by Dan Hubbs in a piece that ran here at FanGraphs two weeks ago, the Mariners took Vest in December 2020’s Rule-5 draft, only to return him to the Tigers the following July. Hubbs had departed as Detroit’s director of pitching development by the time Vest was reacquired, but he was, and remains to this day, bullish on the righty’s raw ability.

Vest was one of three pitchers (Casey Mize and Tarik Skubal were the others) whose development process the now-Athletics’ bullpen coach looked back on in the September 23 article. Spin rates that were “off the charts” was an attribute Hubbs saw in the then-under-the-radar prospect, as were “good movement profiles on everything he threw.” For the young hurler, success at baseball’s highest level “was just a matter of him getting comfortable competing in the strike zone.“

What are Vest’s memories of working with Hubbs, and in which ways has he continued to develop in the years that have followed?

“I knew that I had stuff,” Vest told me in the waning days of the regular season. “It was more about homing it in, more about the pitch-ability. There was some raw stuff he saw in me that we’d work on. Velo. Developing a changeup. Refining my slider. I could spin the ball pretty well; I just didn’t have good command. That’s what I refined throughout the minor leagues, and he helped me do that.

“When I got into pro ball, the nuances of analytics had kind of taken over,” added Vest, whom the Tigers took in the 12th round of the 2017 draft out of Stephen F. Austin State University. “We were all learning how to use it to help us as pitchers. [Hubbs] was at the forefront, leading that charge in our organization, bringing analytics to the pitching staff.”

A more recent development has paid huge dividends. Vest used to spike his slider, but he stopped doing so around the midpoint of last season. The numbers that followed stand out like a sore thumb. Whereas the pitch was too often punished in 2024, this year it has elicited a .206 BAA, a .286 slug, and an eyebrow-raising 43.7% whiff rate. Thrown harder (88.7 mph vs 86.9 mph) and with more spin (2,748 rpm vs 2,381), it has lost some shape, but gained in terms of deception.

“The total movement is a little bit less since I stopped spiking it, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Vest explained. “You want it to look as much like your heater as you can, and that had kind of been my problem. Sometimes my slider would get too big. It would pop, and just not look like my fastball. I saw what hitters were telling me. I would throw a pretty decent slider in decent locations, and it seemed like they were on it. Now I’m throwing one that pairs better with my fastball. I’m also commanding it better.”

The command and pitch-ability that Hubbs once helped Vest to refine are integral to his success, and the underrated closer knows that as well as anyone.

“It all comes down to execution,” said Vest. “You can do little things to make individual pitches better, but at the end of the day, if you’re throwing 95 with a good ride heater, and it’s right down the middle, it’s going to get hit in this league. You need to have a mix of good stuff, but there is also knowing where to throw it and when to throw it. You need to be executing your pitches.”

He executed to perfection last night. Vest pitched the ninth and tenth innings, retired all six batters he faced, and was credited with the win as the Tigers edged the Mariners 3-2 to capture ALDS Game One. The effort wasn’t an anomaly. In nine career postseason outings, Vest has allowed one run over 11 innings.

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RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS

Dan Wilson went 10 for 17 against Justin Thompson.

Edgar Martinez went 10 for 16 against Mariano Rivera.

Kevin Seitzer went 12 for 22 against Richard Dotson.

Ichiro Suzuki went 12 for 19 against Aaron Sele.

Alvin Davis went 17 for 30 against Dan Petry.

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Ceddanne Rafaela’s breakout with the bat came to a screeching halt in midseason, and it coincided with a questionable decision. Short in the infield due to injury and nonperformance, the Red Sox began shuttling the game’s best defensive centerfielder between that position and second base. As I pointed out in a mid-August column, Rafaela had a 114 wRC+ before being taken out of his comfort zone — and that number slid to 91 by season’s end. While ten points higher than last year’s 81 wRC+, it wasn’t what it might have been.

Is he happy with his season overall? I asked him that question after game 162.

“You can say I’m happy, but it’s more so I’m happy that I helped the team in any way I could,” the 25-year-old outfielder told me. “My defense. Part of the season with my offense. So yeah, I’m happy.”

Which brings us to the crux of what I wanted his thoughts on. Did having to shuttle back and forth have a negative impact on his performance?

“I don’t know,” Rafaela responded. “Maybe. Maybe yeah, maybe no. I didn’t pay attention to it. I just wanted to help the team. But when you’re playing a position every day, it helps.”

I related to Rafaela how I’d offered that as one of the reasons for my bullish expectations as the season was about to start. Solely playing center would help him perform better with the bat.

“Yeah, of course,” he said to my reasoning. “I think if you only play one position, that can happen. But it is what it is. I can’t look back. I’m in a playoff spot now, so all I can think about is going out there to win. That’s the mindset.”

As a second baseman, Rafaela had one DRS and a minus-21 wRC+ over 79 plate appearances. As a centerfielder, he had 20 DRS and a 109 wRC+ over 508 plate appearances.

Seemingly coming to their senses, Alex Cora & Co. once again began playing the likely Gold Glove winner solely in center at the the end of August. Not long thereafter, he began to rebound with the bat. Over his last dozen games, Rafaela registered a .364 BA and a .927 OPS. Was the surge something that could have been expected?

“Yeah, because it’s baseball,” Rafaela said. “It can happen.”

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A quiz:

The Seattle Mariners were in their 15th season when they first finished with a winning record. Who led that 1991 squad in home runs? (A hint: he has the most strikeouts of any hitter in Mariners history.)

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NEWS NOTES

The average time of a nine-inning MLB game was 2:38 this season, up two minutes from a year ago. In 2022, the last year before a pitch clock was instituted, the average time was 3:04.

The 2026 Ford C. Frick Award finalists were announced this past week. They are Brian Anderson, Joe Buck, Skip Caray, René Cárdenas, Gary Cohen, Jacques Doucet, Duane Kuiper, John Rooney, Dan Shulman, and John Sterling. More information can be found here.

Ray Lane, a legendary Detroit sportscaster whose career included calling Tigers games alongside Ernie Harwell from 1967-1972, died last weekend at age 95. Fans of a certain age will recall that Paul Carey was then Harwell’s broadcaster partner from 1973-1991.

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The answer to the quiz is Jay Buhner, who homered 27 times for the Mariners in 1991. Ken Griffey Jr., who was then in his third MLB season, went deep 22 times.

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Left on the cutting-room floor from my recent conversation with Dillon Dingler was what the Detroit Tigers catcher told me when I asked what’s going through his mind when he walks behind the plate to start a game.

“The first inning is crucial — it’s usually three of their best hitters — so I’m really just trying to settle down, honestly,” Dingler admitted. “There is a lot of emotion that goes along with the game, especially at the start. You’re amped up, so you take that time to calm down a little bit and get in the flow. I would say that I’m pretty even-tempered, but at the same time, there is adrenaline. It’s the rush, and you have to control that.”

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Sticking with the Tigers, a recent piece I put together on Cleveland’s pitching group included the perspective of Detroit reliever Paul Sewald, who was with the Guardians for the first half of the season. I also asked Sewald about his current club’s pitching group.

“Fet [pitching coach Chris Fetter] is amazing at figuring out our game-planning,” he told me. “That is an essential part of the job, and figuring out which pitches you’re going to throw is very difficult before a game ever starts. And then, [assistant pitching coach] Robin Lund is a physicist at heart. He’s the guy who is going to help you with, ‘Hey, you’re not moving the way you were in 2022 and 2023. We need to get you moving the way you used to, so that you can throw with the same velocity you did then.’ We also have [assistant pitching coach] Juan Nieves. There are times you need somebody who knows what it’s like to be on the mound in front of 35,000 people and throw strikes. Juan is that guy. It’s important to have people who have specialties and can help in any situation.”

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FOREIGN AFFAIRS

The LG Twins had the best record in the KBO, finishing atop the standings at 85-56-3. The Hanwha Eagles were close behind at 83-57-4.

The Pacific League’s Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks had NPB’s best record at 86-52-4. The Central League’s Hanshin Tigers had the second-best record at 85-54-4.

Masahiro Tanaka recorded his 200th career win — 122 in NPB and 78 with the New York Yankees in MLB — earlier this week. The Tokyo Yomiuri Giants right-hander joins Yu Darvish, Hiroki Kuroda, and Hideo Nomo as Japanese pitchers who have reached that number between the two leagues.

With CPBL season about to come to a close, the CTBC Brothers have the best record in Taiwan at 70-49. The Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions are next best at 65-53.

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A random obscure former player snapshot:

Charlie Neal recorded the first hit in Los Angeles Dodgers history. A middle infielder who’d broken in with Brooklyn as Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese were closing out their careers, Neal singled off of Ruben Gomez at San Francisco’s Seals Stadium as the newly-located rivals clashed on Opening Day 1958. The speedy Longview, Texas native was then at his best in 1959. Not only did Neal total 60 extra-base hits, win a Gold Glove, and make the All-Star team; he excelled in the Fall Classic. Neal went 10-for-27 with a pair of home runs as the Dodgers beat the Chicago White Sox in six game to capture LA’s first World Series title.

A few years later, he made more history back East. In 1962, Neal recorded the first RBI in New York Mets history, driving home Richie Ashburn in the expansion team’s first-ever game. That same day, he became the first Met to log a three-hit game, with one of those knocks leaving the yard. One inning before Neal went deep, Gil Hodges hammered the first home run in Mets history.

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The Houston Astros missed the postseason this year following eight straight seasons of October baseball, half of of which came with Dusty Baker at the helm. Taking over after the sign-stealing scandal cost A.J. Hinch his job, Baker went on to lead the erstwhile Colt .45s to their second World Series title in six years, in 2022. Houston’s 2024 playoff appearance came under current manager Joe Espada.

Alex Cora was Hinch’s bench coach when the shenanigans took place, resulting in the now-Red Sox skipper’s being suspended for the 2020 season. Cora was asked for his thoughts on the Astros’ postseason streak having come to an end.

“The thing that I really respect out of the group, with Dusty and Joe, is that they turned the page on our mistake,” Cora told reporters at Fenway Park. “They did an amazing job of putting that behind. It will always be, not on them, but on me and the rest of us… It’s hard to do this over and over and over, and they did it very well. [Jose] Altuve comes in there from the beginning, and he led that team. Alex [Bregman] did the same thing.”

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Jane Leavy’s Make Me Commissioner: I Know What’s Wrong With Baseball and How To Fix It includes a number of passages that feature Dusty Baker. One of them, which has nothing to do with the book’s title, addresses the now-76-year-old renaissance man’s days as a minor-league outfielder in the Atlanta Braves system.

“That fall [1969], the Braves sent him to the Arizona Fall League, where he saw Janis Joplin play a gig in their home ballpark in Tempe,” Leavy wrote. “In the raw caw of her voice, he heard the strain of upheaval and rage that filled that American season. He hung out with the hippies. He liked them because even though they had stormed the fence to get in, they were peaceful about it… When the Braves told him he had to give up his student deferment and report to spring training earlier, he joined the Marines rather than the State or National Guard. The way he saw it, Marines were not likely to be called upon to fire on hippies and student protestors. It was 1970. He saw what the Ohio National Guard did at Kent State.”

Baker has long been a baseball treasure.

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LINKS YOU’LL LIKE

Who drew the comics that used to be found on the backs of Topps baseball cards? Tiffany Babb addressed that question at The Fan Files.

Doing a crossword puzzle is a big part of Tarik Skubal’s pregame routine. Jason Beck has the story at MLB.com.

Julian McWilliams wrote about the rejuvenation of Toronto’s George Springer for CBS Sports.

Andscape’s William Weinbaum presented us with an oral history of Satchel Paige’s final MLB game, which came at age 59 in 1965.

How power ages might surprise you. Travis Sawchik shared some of the numbers in a blog article at Driveline Baseball.

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RANDOM FACTS AND STATS

The Seattle Mariners had 31 one-run wins this season, the most of any team. The Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins tied for the fewest one-run wins with 15 apiece.

The Los Angeles Dodgers led all National League teams with 825 runs scored. They also topped the circuit in home runs and hit the ninth-most singles. The Milwaukee Brewers were second in the NL with 806 runs scored. They topped the circuit in singles and hit the ninth-most home runs.

Houston Astros catchers combined for 178 hits and a .286 batting average this season; both were MLB bests. Tampa Bay Rays catchers combined for 95 hits and a .185 batting average; both were MLB worsts.

Toronto Blue Jays catchers were charged with 15 throwing errors, the most of any team. Kansas City Royals catchers had just one throwing error.

Don Newcombe became the first Black pitcher to start a World Series game when he took the mound for the Brooklyn Dodgers against the New York Yankees on today’s date in 1949. The lone run Newcombe allowed that afternoon was a ninth-inning homer by Tommy Henrich, the first ever walk-off blast in Series history.

On today’s date in 1944, the St. Louis Cardinals beat the St. Louis Browns 3-2 in 11 innings to even up the World Series at one game apiece. The Cardinals went on to win that year’s Fall Classic, with all six contests taking place at Sportsman Park.

Players born on today’s date include Randy Bockus, a right-hander who appeared in 37 games for the San Francisco Giants across the 1986-1988 season, and in two games for the Detroit Tigers in 1989. A Canton, Ohio native who attended Kent State University, Bockus went 2-1 with a 4.23 ERA over 61-and-two-thirds career innings. Playing against the Los Angeles Dodgers on September 28th of his rookie season, Bockus struck out as a pinch hitter in the 13th inning, moved to the outfield the following frame and was later pinch-hit for by fellow pitcher Mike Krukow.

Also born on today’s date was Jim Bagby, who helped pitch the Cleveland Indians to a World Series title in 1920. A right-hander from Barnett, Georgia, Bagby bagged 31 wins during the regular season, then bested Brooklyn Robins righty Burleigh Grimes in Game 5 of the Fall Classic. Notable in that contest was Bagby’s becoming the first pitcher to hit a World Series home run, and Cleveland second baseman Bill Wambsganss turning the only triple play in World Series history.