Bally Sports Detroit adds ex-Tiger to analyst rotation

Detroit — Twenty-two years later, the Tigers have acquired Carlos Peña again.

Peña, a former major-league slugger who played first base for Detroit from 2002-05, is rejoining the team as the newest member of the Bally Sports Detroit game broadcast.

Peña is expected to work about 30 games this season, and also do some pregame and postgame work during the 2024 season, splitting the booth's analyst duties with veterans Craig Monroe, Kirk Gibson, Dan Petry and Todd Jones.

The Tigers announced the 2024 booth rosters Tuesday, as spring training gets underway in Lakeland, Florida.

The analysts will work mostly with new play-by-play man Jason Benetti, who the Tigers hired away from the Chicago White Sox to replace Matt Shepard. The Benetti hire, given his profile throughout the broadcasting landscape, was viewed by many fans as Detroit's best move of the offseason, free-agent signings and trades included. Benetti is expected to do at least 127 games, with Dan Dickerson moving over from the radio booth when Benetti is away calling national baseball and college football games for Fox, and college basketball games for Westwood One radio.

On the radio side, Greg Gania, the voice of the Double-A Erie SeaWolves, will handle most of the fill-in work when Dickerson, entering his 25th season as the radio voice, is doing TV, with Dan Hasty, the voice of the Single-A West Michigan Whitecaps, expected to do some games, as well. Bobby Scales, Andy Dirks and Monroe will share analyst duties on the Tigers' radio broadcasts. Scales will do about half the games, and Dirks will do about half of home games. Reporter Daniella Bruce returns for the Tigers' radio broadcasts; she also works on Red Wings' broadcasts.

Cameron Maybin, who did radio and TV work for the Tigers in 2023, is not returning this season.

The Tigers also announced Tuesday they are increasing their number of Spanish radio broadcasts for 2024, up to 45 games, from 22 in 2023. Tigers PR man Carlos Guillen (not the former Tigers player) will handle the play-by-play for those games, and Barbaro Garbey, a member of the 1984 World Series-winning team, returns as an analyst.

Peña, 45, played 14 years in the major leagues, with eight different teams. His best seasons came in Tampa Bay, for whom he had 46 home runs and 121 RBIs in 2007. He made his Tigers debut in 2002, after he was acquired in a midseason trade with the Oakland A's — a trade that played a starring (and sensationalized) role in "Moneyball." Peña's best season with the Tigers was 2004, when he had 27 home runs and 84 RBIs. With the Tigers, he once blasted a 461-foot homer which, at the time, was the longest in Comerica Park history.

Peña retired after the 2014 season, and got into broadcasting, being hired by MLB Network. He also has worked on broadcasts with the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs.

Monroe will get the lion's share of analyst work on Bally Sports Detroit broadcasts, and is expected to do around 80 games, followed by Gibson, who will work around 40. Petry will do about 10 games in the booth, but will work most of the pregame and postgame shows. Jones will also do pregame and postgame work, for about 25 games.

John Keating and Mickey York return as BSD hosts, and Johnny Kane, Trevor Thompson and Natalie Kerwin are back on the broadcasts as reporters.

The Tigers will broadcast six spring-training games on Bally Sports Detroit, with the first from Lakeland being the March 4 game against the Red Sox. Benetti will broadcast four of the games, and Dickerson one. The Tigers will broadcast 18 spring-training games on the radio, on 1270 AM or 97.1 FM, starting Feb. 24 against the New York Yankees.

tpaul@detroitnews.com

@tonypaul1984