Starting Pitcher Reese Olson was acquired on July 30th, 2021, via a trade with the Milwaukee Brewers in exchange for pitcher Daniel Norris. Olson ranked as high as No. 17 on the Detroit Tigers Top-30 Prospect list in 2022. Olson earned his callup on June 2nd, 2023, to replace injured Eduardo Rodriguez in the starting rotation.
Olson put together a solid rookie campaign, appearing in 21 games (18 starts) over the course of the season. He posted a 5-7 record, which some might say is not an accurate representation of his season due to a lack of offense by the Detroit Tigers. Over 103.2 innings pitched, Olson collected 103 strikeouts while posting a 3.99 ERA and 1.119 WHIP and ended the season with a 1.5 WAR and 111 ERA+, according to Baseball Reference.
Per Baseball Savant, Olson was above average in several key categories as a pitcher:
Fastball Velocity (64th Percentile)
Chase% (63rd Percentile)
Whiff% (61st Percentile)
K% (57th Percentile)
BB% (60th Percentile)
His 24.4 K% was slightly better than the Major League average of 22.1%. A 7.8 BB% was better than the 8.4% MLB average, as well. These two numbers combined equated to just better than a 3-to-1 strikeout to walk ration on the season.
Over his 18 starts, Olson surrendered 3 earned runs or less 12 times keeping the Detroit Tigers competitive in most of his starts. Olson won 3 of his final 5 starts of the season and likely should have won 4 after surrendering just 1 earned run over 5.2 innings with 7 strikeouts in his final appearance of the season. Over his final 6 starts, Olson’s ERA dropped 1.3 runs from 5.29 to 3.99.
A decent amount of his success on the season can be attributed to solid Whiff% on his breaking and offspeed pitches:
Slider – 41.6%
Changeup – 35.9%
Curveball – 31.1%
However, his sinker needs a little bit of work during the offseason. In 89 at-bats, Olson surrendered 24 hits, good for a .270 batting average against his sinker. Each of his other 4 pitches had a sub .220 batting average against on the season.
As mentioned earlier, Olson posted a Whiff% in the 61st Percentile in 2023. His Whiff% was 27.4 on the year, which is about 3% higher than the MLB average. This statistic helped Olson to post a decently solid CSW% of 28.6 in 2023.
With a strong 5-pitch arsenal and solid percentile rankings in some key categories mixed with a strong final month of the season, has Reese Olson earned a spot in the 2024 starting rotation?