Two former players are joining the Detroit Tigers’ television broadcast team; another ex-player is getting an expanded role; and a Hall-of-Famer is departing the booth.
Bally Sports Detroit announced Wednesday that former Tigers Cameron Maybin and Todd Jones will join the broadcast team in 2023.
Meanwhile, Craig Monroe will become a primary analyst alongside play-by-play man Matt Shepard.
Kirk Gibson will continue to broadcast some of the games, while Jack Morris won’t be part of the broadcast team in 2023.
Maybin, 35, spent last season as a part of the New York Yankees broadcast team. He joined the YES Network team last February, just a month after announcing his retirement from baseball. He earned high marks from fans and colleagues for his work as an analyst, but was not retained for 2023.
Maybin was drafted by the Tigers in the first round in 2005 and made his big-league debut in 2007. At the end of that season, he was one of six players traded to the Miami Marlins for Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis.
Maybin returned to the Tigers in a trade in 2016 and spent most of the year as the team’s regular center fielder.
Maybin signed with the Tigers as a free agent at the start of spring training in 2020. He became the only player in franchise history to play in three separate stints with the club. (Omar Infante was acquired a third time but didn’t play in the big leagues).
Jones, 54, was Tigers’ closer from 1997-2001 and again from 2006-2008. He’s done TV work for the Tigers in the past and was known during his playing days for writing a regular column about life in baseball.
Monroe, 45, played for the Tigers from 2002-2007 during his nine-year Major League career. He began contributing to the Tigers’ broadcasts as a studio analyst in 2012.
Morris, 67, spent 18 years in the big leagues, pitching for the Tigers from 1977-1990. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2018 and was given a large celebration at Comerica Park to honor his accomplishments and retire his jersey later that summer.
He began calling Tigers games on a part-time basis with what was then known as Fox Sports Detroit in 2015. After stepping back from Tigers broadcasts in 2017 and 2018, he took on a larger role prior to the 2019 season when FSD, now known as Bally Sports Detroit, replaced former broadcasters Mario Impemba and Rod Allen.
A Minnesota native, Morris has also been a broadcaster for the Minnesota Twins, Toronto Blue Jays and national outlets.